ABCE

This post is part of a series.  Part 1 is here . Other links will be added to Part 1 as they’re published. Another problem with an information pipeline from your therapist to the police is that people already withhold information from their mental health providers because they don’t want to be committed, or because they have other worries.  Even though the conditions under which a therapist is required to break confidentiality are pretty narrow, there are plenty of people who avoid therapy all together to maintain their privacy. The first time I applied for a background check that included a consent form from my therapist, I was freaking terrified that some bit of information I disclosed would screw up my background check. And I have anxiety disorder—one of most common, least stigmatized, best understood  mental health diagnoses out there. Granted, that level of worry is itself a symptom of the anxiety disorder, but expecting people with mental illnesses to act like they don’t have men

This post is part of a series.  Part 1 is here . Other links will be added to Part 1 as they’re published. Before we go too far down the road of targeting mental health as a means of solving gun violence, perhaps we should investigate whether it’s actually the root cause.  From everything I can tell, it’s not.  It’s a tautology to say that *something* has gone wrong in the head of someone who commits mass murder, but that doesn’t mean they have a mental illness.  It’s equally possible for them to simply be a selfish, or angry, or violent person who is perfectly sane. While there are mental health issues that can mean a person should not have access to a gun, that doesn’t mean that everyone with a mental illness is a danger. In fact, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate it, and when they do, it’s mostly suicide. (I’m all for preventing suicide, but we have to acknowledge that the dangers are different.) Mass shoo ters are pretty much

This past weekend was full of such fun, but such struggle for me, too. After a whirlwind of a week at work office manager-ing, there was a dance night in downtown San Jose: Madonna Vs. Blondie, that a bunch of friends were meeting up for. I was so excited for it! After work I went home to rest and unwind before getting ready to dance the night away. I just kind of spaced out completely for two hours as I was fucking braindead! I did finally get myself together and changed and made it to the club before anyone else. It was more new wave music than just strictly Madonna and Blondie, but it was great music over all. When I first arrived though it was like a bad junior high dance flashback with everyone clinging to the walls and the deserted dance floor looked haunted! Ha-ha! I grabbed a cider at the bar and people watched until my friends arrived. Once they played the first Madonna song folks started to flood the dance floor. Once my friends arrived we spent the next three hours solid on

This post is part of a series.  Part 1 is here . In my previous post, I talked about the privacy concerns raised by the proposal to modify HIPAA to allow therapists to either submit mental health information to the background check database or provide it directly to law enforcement. My next big concern is with providing this information to law enforcement, and what the police will do with this information. The police already have a tendency to shoot people who they view as behaving erratically or who they see as a threat. Telling them in advance that someone they’re going to interact with has a mental illness can prejudice them toward a belief, maybe unfounded, that the person is dangerous. And, like everything else, those prejudices get amplified when dealing with an y minorities, particularly black people. So, my big question is, what information from someone’s private mental health records do you want the police to have? When police have this information, how do you ensure that they

This is a multipart post.  Subsequent posts will go up on a schedule. (Hey, I wrote four posts today, I’m getting at least a week’s worth of mileage out of them.) They’ll also link back to the previous posts. Part 1:  Before we mess with HIPAA, I have some questions I have seen a lot of people arguing that HIPAA laws need to be changed so that if your therapist decides you’re dangerous, they can tell law enforcement. This was also one of the policy points from March for Our Lives yesterday.  (To be clear, I give the Parkland kids *so much credit* for taking the horrible thing that happened to them and working to make sure it doesn’t happen to the next group of kids.  This is criticism and questions of specific policy proposals, not of their motives or them as people.  We also shouldn’t expect teenagers to put out perfect policy proposals, because of course they lack the experience that adults bring to these issues.) I have questions. And concerns. This will be long, so I’m breaking it

Doctors do far too many cesareans in high BMI women , especially planned "elective" cesareans without labor. Many of these cesareans are unnecessary and place women of size and their babies at risk. Research shows that about one-third  or more of all cesareans done on high BMI women are planned, pre-labor cesareans done on moms who were never even given a chance to labor. But sometimes cesareans are truly needed, even a planned, non-labor cesarean. And sometimes an elective repeat cesarean is chosen by women. When a planned cesarean happens, it's important not to do it sooner than absolutely necessary. Labor helps babies prepare for breathing on their own. When a cesarean is done without labor, the baby often has more difficulty establishing breathing on its own. The earlier the cesarean is done, the higher the risk for breathing problems. Therefore, most obstetric guidelines now suggest not doing an elective cesarean before 39 weeks. If a cesarean is medically needed

I haven’t been writing here much lately but I have been writing! I took the cue from my horoscope about three weeks ago when it said I’d meet my next great love on a certain day. I dressed extra special that day (nothing fancy, just very me), and decided that I would go to a local independent bookstore (the last in my area) that I love. I had found a few books of poetry there years ago that really changed how I view the art form, but also how to write it. At the time it actually stifled my ability to write poetry. I began to hate everything I wrote and started to see all of my writing as whiny, teenagery, angst-filled bullshit (my own thoughts). This time, I went with the hope of reconnecting with poetry and maybe even discovering a new writer or compilation book of poems that I could dive into. Alas, like meeting my next great love that day, it wasn’t meant to be. In fact I really struggled to like or connect to anything. I started going through the staff picks to hopefully find some

I haven’t been writing here much lately but I have been writing! I took the cue from my horoscope about three weeks ago when it said I’d meet my next great love on a certain day. I dressed extra special that day (nothing fancy, just very me), and decided that I would go to a local independent bookstore (the last in my area) that I love. I had found a few books of poetry there years ago that really changed how I view the art form, but also how to write it. At the time it actually stifled my ability to write poetry. I began to hate everything I wrote and started to see all of my writing as whiny, teenagery, angst-filled bullshit (my own thoughts). This time, I went with the hope of reconnecting with poetry and maybe even discovering a new writer or compilation book of poems that I could dive into. Alas, like meeting my next great love that day, it wasn’t meant to be. In fact I really struggled to like or connect to anything. I started going through the staff picks to hopefully find some

At the Oscars, Keala Settle performed the song This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. I hadn’t heard the song before and it hit me right in the feels. Size-based oppression is structural, institutional oppression. Sadly, we are often told that the only option is to change ourselves – whatever the cost, whatever the risk, whatever the harm. We are told that we should spend our time, energy, and money trying to force our bodies into someone else’s ideal with diets, dangerous drugs, even surgeries. I recently spoke with someone who was at a seminar on weight loss surgery where one of the “benefits” mentioned was more right swipes on Tinder. Our bullies aren’t even expected to engage in basic human decency, while we are expected to risk our lives so that they find us more pleasing to look at. Size-based oppression is not in our heads and it’s not something that we can just overcome with body love, confidence, and a can-do attitude. We need social and structural changes to put an end to size

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I have been obsessed with the show Miranda (streaming now on Hulu), a British comedy series, since Christmas evening 2017, whilst trying my hardest to snap out of a really terrible pit of despair. It worked fantastically that night. I just finished watching the entire series (4 seasons in all, 6 episodes per season, but the last has only two) last night for the fourth time and it hit me right in the feels, again, but it was for a different reason. It’s funny how every time we watch something over again and again we pick up on new things or don’t know how we missed something on the first or second viewing. Miranda, the character and the comedian playing her, is self effacing and aggrandizing. She bemoans and bemuses the minutia of life’s daily struggles. I adore and envy her relationship with her best friend Stevie in the show. She celebrates her single life, living alone, being a quirky, and often called a weirdo. She struggles with her size, but mostly (and only, IMO) due to the lack