Sergeant John Russell was convicted April 22, 2013, for second-degree murder of five military men at the Mental Health Clinic at Camp Liberty in Iraq. He will probably spend the rest of his life in a military jail. Sergeant Russell is seriously mentally ill. He wanted to kill himself, but after the horrible treatment he [...]

I believe that anyone, given particular circumstances, could “go psycho.”  Not everyone agrees with my assertion.  My psychiatrist thinks I am wrong, but did not elucidate why.  Thus I still think it’s true that anyone can “go psycho.” By this I mean anyone can have a psychotic break no matter if they are already suffering [...]

  “To see suicide simply as an individual mental illness and homicide as a similarly individual moral failing is to ignore the degree to which both are caused in part, by societal, economic forces.” James Gilligan from “Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others”   To see suicide- all suicides- as caused in part [...]

A woman with the bipolar condition asked me if I got migraine headaches. At first I said no.  Migraine headaches weren’t something I experienced. Then I thought about pain in my brain and how often I experienced it.  I feel a severe and deep ache in my head when a massive depression is coming.  I [...]

Laura’s Law and Kendra’s Law are, for anyone who has, has had, or appears to have a mental illness, scary legislations. These two laws inCalifornia and New York and copied by other states require a person to have psychiatric treatment when ordered by a judge after assessment by a mental health official. This is coercion [...]

The California Men’s Colony is not a pleasant place to visit, and the authorities go out of their way to make you know it.  A visit has all the charm of a stopover in a dank toilet room, but this toilet is a difficult place to enter. It took me more than five hours to [...]

“Madness,” by Marya Hornbacher, was published in 2008. It was a New York Times best seller at the time, but now it has faded to 300,000 in book sales on Amazon. It’s only 100,000 higher in sales than my own book, “Bipolar Bare,” which as a self-published work did not have the backing of a [...]

 The Tucson shooter is giving mental illness a bad name. He joins the list of killers who are identified as mentally ill: the shooter at Virginia Tech, the kid gunmen at Columbine, the targeter who nicked President Reagan, and a whole host of others going all the way back to the Texas Tower marksman, and [...]

 After I spoke at the University of Wyoming this year on my experiences with Bipolar Disorder, the college newspaper ran a headline “Ex-professor exposed drag experiences.” The reporter focused on my recounting of my cross-dressing escapades when I was ill. Dan Socall PhD, the director of the University Counseling Center, responded to this article with [...]

Seesawing on the Bipolar Coaster- Riding the Edge of Madness with Two Minds Imagine a Teeter-totter with a person on both ends and combine it with a roller coaster. This is the experience of bipolar people. They ride up the escalator and plunge down the descent seesawing back and forth.  At the summit they rise [...]

Laid ‘Bare’ Carlton Davis finds the way to recovery in ‘Bipolar Bare’ By Carl Kozlowski 08/05/2010 Carl Davis readily admits he’s lucky to be alive. Davis is not only the survivor of abusive parents and California’s notorious foster care system, but he also survived crack addiction that for a decade followed him in and out [...]

INPP Conference, Manchester, UK                                                     July 16, 2010 Ninety year old Thomas Szasz, controversial psychiatrist and author of the Myth of Mental illness, was the keynote speaker at the INPP (International Network of  Philosophy and Psychiatry) Conference in Manchester, UK, June 28-30, 2010. I attended and spoke at this Conference. When the conference ended I found [...]

 The attacks of the black brain start with losing something. Usually it is my keys or my wallet, but it could be anything misplaced or forgotten: a passport, a phone, a book or just a place I can’t find.  I feel stupid and frustrated. I will tear up my household looking for the lost items, [...]