When the planning for St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s new West 5th campus began more than a decade ago, words like ‘stigma’ and ‘integration’ were on the minds of many, but not yet widely used or understood – especially when speaking publicly about mental illness and addiction.Read More →
More than 40 landmarks across Canada will be lit up with purple lights across on Oct. 10, World Mental Health Day, including a few in the Tri-Cities. And Carol Todd would like to see many more. The Port Coquitlam teacher, whose daughter committed suicide in 2012, is hoping everyone wears purple or puts up purple lights as part of the Light Up Purple 2014 campaign to spark a conversation on mental health and the need for awareness, support and resources.Read More →
Antidepressants are commonly used to treat social phobia, but a new report argues that “talk therapy” is the better first option. In a review of 101 clinical trials, researchers found that “cognitive behavioral therapy” often helped people with social phobia — a type of anxiety disorder where people have a deep fear of being judged by others or embarrassed in public. The more common approach to tackling social anxiety — antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — also helped, the review found.Read More →
Four days before Orlando da Silva became president of the Ontario Bar Association this month he heard the news that comedic genius Robin Williams had taken his own life. “I imagined Robin Williams alone in his room, what went through his mind,” da Silva told TorStar News Service this week. “I can understand the thinking, I can understand the emotions.” The new OBA president has also lived with the torment of depression, the sense of bone-deep worthlessness and lacerating self-disgust. He came close, in fact, to taking his own life.Read More →
BELLEVILLE – Michael Teasdale never thought about killing himself. But he did feel like curling up in a corner and letting life roll over him until it flattened him out of existence. The Stirling man and Loyalist College student was just one of the walkers in Wednesday’s Defeat Depression at the school, aimed at raising awareness of mental illness.Read More →
When Elizabeth Manley opened the door and saw her mother for the first time in weeks, her mother collapsed on her knees and began to cry. Since moving to the United States to pursue her dreams of figure skating and Olympic gold, Manley had become a pale ghost of the robust athlete she had once been — she’d lost all her hair, gained 40 pounds and had almost completely stopped talking. “I wanted to wear the pretty dresses and the pretty makeup, but unfortunately sports don’t always come with the pretty stuff,” she told a packed crowd at the University of Ottawa on Monday, 30Read More →
Kendra Fisher, mental health advocate and former member of Team Canada’s Hockey program, speaks about the frustration in getting help.Read More →
Aug 28 2014 http://www.thestar.com/ Blair has been asked to report to police board chair Alok Mukherjee about recent officer suicides, but the information gleaned may never be made public. The chair of the Toronto Police Services Board is demanding answers from Police Chief Bill Blair, after the suicides of two Toronto cops in less than four months. Early last week, board chair Alok Mukherjee wrote to the chief asking for a full report into the hanging deaths of Const. Clinton Cibulis, 34, and Sgt. Richard “Buck” Rogers, 45, by Friday.Read More →
SAULT STE. MARIE – Melissa Cutler looks forward to rising these days — that’s perhaps because her future shines a bit more brightly. She does take medication for the mental disorder that’s dogged her since her early teens, and she still receives — albeit, less lately — medical assistance. But things appear to be coming together for the Sault Ste. Marie woman, 21, for whom mental illness has been a constant companion for far too long. “I haven’t been in the hospital for about four months,” Cutler told The Sault Star this week. “I’ve been doing very well.Read More →
MEDIA RELEASE: APRIL 29, 2014 Canadian singer-songwriter and internationally recognized humanitarian Bruce Cockburn, is lending his voice to suicide prevention by partnering with the Collateral Damage Project. The Order of Canada recipient is releasing a video calling for a dialogue on suicide. To view the video, go to www.leftbehindbysuicide.org “I’m very pleased to be able to offer my support to the vital work of the Collateral Damage Project. I urge everyone who cares about their fellow human beings to do the same” says Bruce Cockburn. “Not talking about it isn’t working.”Read More →