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Act II: Back in the Habit
Howdy folks.
After another weekend in the back of beyond (aka Newcastle. Not really back of beyond. Girlfriend is living there at the moment and such. Also, too much info in parenthesis.), I am back to resume my slightly-more-updated-than-I-thought-it-would-be stream of whatever this is. This, along with a probably misinformed Sister Act reference isn't really setting the tone for an insightful post, so let's start again.
Ahem.
HELLO THERE!
I trust you had a good weekend. I had a nice one indeed. Some very exciting things going on that I shouldn't really talk about at the moment. More to be revealed when I can.
A few snippets of stuff will do it for today:
- I've decided not to make any particular effort to post at weekends. If it happens, it happens. Otherwise, I'm most likely off doing stuff. As people probably should at the weekends.
- I've started catching up on FlashForward. I'm just finished watching episode 6, and it was a bit shit, really. I'll give it one more episode to get me hooked back in again, else I'll give up on it.
- With BNO News sorting out a deal with MSNBC, more details about BNO came out today. I found out the founder is 20. 20 years old. Granted, this is the same age as my girlfriend, but I was a little taken aback. I'd always assumed he was much older. Anyway, I should get to my point before I bore myself too. This fact brought with it the recurrence of an inferiority complex that invades me every once in a while. Whenever I hear of someone around the same age as me or (especially) someone younger than me doing something remarkable, I have this odd feeling that I'm completely useless in comparison. I get myself into a fleeting bout of depression because of it. It's quite weird. And more than likely a little emo, if I'm being honest.
- I am considering importing my old LiveJournal here, but considering that's full of postly teenage babble, I probably won't bother.
- Determined to get my partner-in-crime on board for a meeting re: the site this week. I have strong ideas about functionality. I think I'd quite like it to resemble Podtropolis in a way, with the 'Register', and 'Login' buttons and the drop down menu on the left for the most popular links in each section. Not sure how that'd work with the category/section format of Joomla, but there ya go. Ooft. I do believe I have shown too much of my hand.
Forgive me for this slightly odd post. It's been a long day with a ton of things to do. Hopefully, things will be a bit more jovial tomorrow.
PS. Not sure about that weird sign off I've used previously. Think I'm gonna ditch it.
mental health insurance claim denied based on facebook photos
I read an article on Mashable that reported that a Canadian woman Nathalie Blanchard loss disability insurance payments as her insurance company no longer believed that she was depressed due to happy photos on Facebook.
I cannot begin to state how unbelievably disgusting and ridiculous this is for several reasons:
1) Although Facebook is a public site, the insurance company should not a have a right to make an insurance determination based on photographs placed in a private photo album online.
2) The insurance company should not be able to deny a mental health claim based on photographs alone instead of an evaluation made by a mental health professional. The insurance company claims that they did so, however the victim and her attorney claim otherwise.
3) However, it does not take a degreed mental health professional to know that most people utilize social media to put their best foot forward. In the same manner that people list skills not weaknesses on a resume is the same manner that most people post positive appearing photographs on Facebook.
4) Photographs do not always reveal what a person feels. Depression has to persist for a period of time and impair functioning, along with other criteria for a diagnosis. A photograph is a beautiful thing…it freezes a moment in time, often special or fun. That moment, however, cannot fully catalogue a mental illness.
5) Furthermore, who can identify a person’s happiness other than that person and a mental health professional? I’ve watched people at beaches and parties, similar to her photographs, who were dying on the inside although smiling and pretending to enjoy themselves around others. Is a bathing suit or Chippendales party the key to happiness and mental health?
Invasion of privacy, inaccurate mental health analysis, and a greater problem of what some people determine to be happiness are the issues at hand. I hope that IBM and her insurer will consider the disgusting precedent they are setting by trying to save a dollar.
Link: view video
Chronicles of a fractured mind: Sunday
Today is another day when I wake up wishing I could just sleep through the day. Later I am going to get some booze to try to drown out the voices in my head... I struggle with the evidence of my life...I try to drown them out with noise but my lonliness is too deafening.. strangers on youtube are kinder to me.. give more to me than those who know me... it makes it worse cause how come those who know me can't even send an email saying how am I doing.. I am turning inwards.. unable to ever let myself get close to anyone again.. new people try to talk to me but I cannot get close to anyone again.. I am too wrecked inside... See not anyone can cure the lonliness, it is the people who are in your life.. the people.. fuck I don't care anymore.. I need to drink excessivily... until I feel nothing inside...it is the only joy I have...
The Fast Food-Depression Connection | Dangerous Minds
Before you order that 1400-calorie Hardee’s Monster Burger, consider this: a research team at London-based University College has found (surprise?) a link between depression and a diet rich in processed foods. They also (bigger surprise?) found a link between a lack of depression and a diet rich in fish, fruits and vegetables.
The team split the study participants into two groups. After accounting for such factors as age, gender, and education, it was determined that the whole food-eating group would have a 26% lower risk for future depression. The group eating a diet rich in sweets, fried food, processed meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy products had a risk of depression 58% higher than their whole food-eating counterparts.
Study author Dr. Archana Singh-Manoux added, “It is not yet clear why some foods may protect against or increase the risk of depression, but scientists think there may be a link with inflammation as with conditions such as heart disease.”
BBC News: Depression Link To Processed Food
Chronicles of a fractured mind - Saturday Night
Good world.. she still has not written.. I think it is me.. even though I do not know what I could of said.. but when your me you always start and end with you...cause it is always me that is the problem.. I do not have the courage or self trust to be able to call out someone else.. or maybe doing that would mean truths I am not ready to face... maybe I do not trust myself but the cruel truth of all is I have to wake up tomorrow and go through the same self doubt and madness all over again...
Chronicles of a fractured mind - Saturday part 2
If they had drugs you could take to stop all emotion in me I would likely cure cancer.. the hardest part of depression is the time you lose.. and the fact people don't ever understand what depression is... they think it is how you think.. the same people who don't think you can change cancer.. think depression is not real. It is an illness you fools.. emotion makes us all do things.. well what if you had a wterfall of emotion like on a teater totter and what if it went back and forth.. and you were a slave to it.. well that is how depression works for me.. one second I can conquer the world.. usually when I fall asleep.. and in the mornings I think I am the most worthless person in the world.. and you spend the whole day trying to get back to believing your worthwhile... but then it is time to go to bed and your usually locked in the grips of your vices.. I just feel like giving up.. cause I am never going to be normal.. I am never going to be able to have a relationship... my madness has gotten worse with age... because it is harder to trust life.. harder to find a reason to fight... for a man the best years of your life are when you were young and agile.. and being physical meant something but as you get older their is no point... the thrill of life is gone.. there are no more battles to be fought.. the romance of the world is lost..
Chronicles of a fractured mind - Saturday
I know she is really busy and that is why she doesn't write much.. 4th year law and she is always like this during exams. Locks herself away from the world but it hurts still. Why doesn't she just say hey I am busy for the next few weeks.. but I don't know how to express my feelings on this because I don't know what is right or wrong.. I don't really have any self confidence in that matter.. reltionships of any kind stress me out.. I wish I did not feel lonely.. the mornings are the worst.. the way I wake up and one event can shape my day.. how before it starts the day is determined. I want to go back to bed but I have to get up.. my back hurts.. from laying down watching movies but I can't face life.. it is too much..so today will be another day lost to the claws of madness in my fractured mind. they call me igebadia and I suffer from depression
Suffering Hurts. But It Also Creates.
I was reminded today of these words by Rob Bell:
We plot, we plan, we assume things are going to go
A certain way and then they don’t and we find ourselves
In a new place, a place we haven’t been before, a place
We never would have imagined on our own,
And so it was difficult and unexpected and maybe even
Tragic and yet it opened us up and freed us to see
Things in a whole new way
Suffering does that—
It hurts,
But it also creates.
How many of the most significant moments in your
Life came not because it all went right, but because
It all fell apart?
It’s strange how there can be art in the agony…
~Rob Bell
My favorite line is the part about how suffering can also create.
I can relate to it.
I live with a restless desire to make things happen and move things forward every day.
Since my sister's death.
Since my divorce.
Since the failure of a recent startup.
It took the observations of a friend to confirm what I already know about myself.
What I'm doing now.
Where I'm going.
Where I want to be.
Has everything to do with that rear view mirror of where I've been.
...and where I don't want to see anyone else end up if I can help it.
Meditation may lower BP and college stressors
Meditation may lower BP and college stressors
Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:20pm EST
By Joene Hendry
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If the stresses of college have put you at risk for high blood pressure, try transcendental meditation.
Blood pressure fell among college students who spent about 20 minutes at least once a day to reach the "restful alertness" state of transcendental meditation, Dr. Sanford I. Nidich, at Maharishi University of Management Research Institute in Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, and colleagues report.
Their study, in the American Journal of Hypertension, found meditating students also had "reduced psychological distress, anxiety, and depression," Nidich told Reuters Health in an email.
He and colleagues randomly assigned 298 healthy students with and without high blood pressure to transcendental meditation training or to a training wait list. The students, 40 percent men, were just under 26 years old on average and attended universities in and around Washington, D.C.
Among the 207 students still participating in the study 3 months later, those in the meditation group had slight reductions in blood pressure, while the wait-listed students had slight increases in average blood pressure from the start of the study.
The meditating students also showed greater reductions in overall mood disturbances, anxiety, depression, anger, and hostility, and better coping skills compared with baseline measures and wait-listed students.
Nidich's team further assessed a subgroup of 48 meditating and 64 wait-listed students who initially had high blood pressure (above 130 over 85 millimeters of mercury) or were at risk for high blood pressure.
In this high-blood-pressure-risk group, the meditating students had blood pressures that were lower, on average, than at the start of the study, while the wait-listed students had increases in blood pressure.
Nidich and colleagues also found these "significant reductions" in blood pressure correlated with lower measures of psychological distress and greater coping measures.
The researchers suggest their findings warrant further investigations into the potential health benefits of longer-term transcendental meditation in college students.
SOURCE: American Journal of Hypertension, December 2009
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
via reuters.com
