Mental Health

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THE PAIN IN MY BRAIN

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 [...]

13May2012 | | 0 comments | Continued
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“OF TWO MINDS” premiered at the Cleveland Film Festival

Can I who am featured in the film“OF TWO MINDS” write a review of the film?  I can’t write a typical review because my viewpoint is colored by my closeness with the film. My plan is not to so much to rate the film –although I believe it to be extraordinary-, but to speak of [...]

24Apr2012 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Laura’s Law & Kendra’s Law Bandages and Bondage

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 [...]

24Jan2012 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Chinky the Chinaman

Wop, Dago, Nip, Jap, Frog, Kraut, Mick, Limey, Polack, Kike, Raghead, Wetback,  Gook, Chink, and the “N” word Nigger; we have all heard these words. They are derogatory, and laced with hateful meaning, but to pretend they don’t exist is the way to give them power. I recently watched a program on 60 Minutes, about [...]

1Jul2011 | | 1 comment | Continued
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Mad Sisyphus – New Thoughts on an Old Book

“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 [...]

20Apr2011 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Magic Mental Meds Make Me Mad

Psycho-medication is so confusing; it is enough to drive you crazy. Some of these meds can actually cause you to become nuts.  For example, Effexor (venlafaxine) by Pfizer can bring on mania in a bipolar person and Abilify (aripiprazole) by Bristol-Myers-Squibb can give you suicidal thoughts. These are just a few of the possible side [...]

23Dec2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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On Tom Wootton and Bipolar in Order

09/26/10  Tom Wootton is an engaging and provocative author and public speaker on the issue of Bipolar Disorder. I listened to him speak in Pasadena, California on September 15, 2010. I found myself totally engaged by the theory he puts forward that Bipolar Disorder can be converted into “Bipolar –In- Order.”  This is a state, [...]

28Sep2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Seesawing on the Bipolar Coaster

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 [...]

17Sep2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Power to the Crazy People

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 [...]

16Jul2010 | | 4 comments | Continued
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The Attacks of the Black Brain

 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, [...]

25May2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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I think I am better than I am

 Grandiosity is a symptom of Bipolar Disorder. When manic I get very grandiose. I think I am better than I am. I liken myself to the great Leonardo Da Vinci. He like me was a writer, artist, and architect; and some say he was bipolar also. Maybe that is why he was so slow in [...]

1Apr2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Carlton Davis on Carlton Davis

I decided to google Carlton Davis to see who the name brought up. I was the fifth entry. The first entry is a photographer in New York City, who creates images of the most precise and detailed kind. He is a commercial photographer educated at the Rhode Island School of Design whose portfolio includes exquisite [...]

29Mar2010 | | 2 comments | Continued
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Interview with David Oliver of Bipolar Central

Carl Bipolar Success Story 3-11-10  On February 26th, Carlton Davis was interviewed by David Oliver. The interview is attached. Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postRecommend on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itSubscribe to the comments on this post

11Mar2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Author on Blogtalkradio/Chris Teece Show

Carl Davis appeared again on Blogtalkradio. This time on the Chris Teece Show.  The link to the show is: http://blogtalkradio/chris-teece/2010/02/03/Authors-spotlight-bipolarbare-author-carltondavis Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postRecommend on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itSubscribe to the comments on this post

4Feb2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
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Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde

                                              The Strange Case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson , who supposedly wrote this novella under the influence of cocaine, strikes me as a perfect metaphor for the states I became under the influence of my magic potion, crack cocaine; except that  my Hyde was not male, but female. [...]

2Feb2010 | | 5 comments | Continued
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The Two-minded Self

The Two-Minded Self                                                   This is an old article I wrote, which I have been thinking about lately.   “For that person must not suppose that a double minded man   unstable in all his ways will receive anything from the lord.” I came upon this passage in the Letter of James in the Bible [...]

6Jan2010 | | 6 comments | Continued
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Disappearing on Seroquel

 There are many drugs today advertised on TV for mental health issues: Cymbalta for depression, Abilify for Bipolar Disorder, and now Seroquel for Bipolar Depression. Have you seen the advertisement from AstraZeneca? People who are bipolar depressed are shown semi-dissolved into their backgrounds. A woman standing in front of a theatre marquee is half transparent [...]

24Dec2009 | | 26 comments | Continued
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Bipolar Disorder ain’t a joke

Sometimes I forget how serious an illness Bipolar Disorder is.  My life has been going well the past five years. No major attacks of mania. No racing thoughts. No grandiosity. No horrible depressions. No trips to the hospital for “tune-ups.” When I was first in recovery those “tune-up” visits were a regular occurrence when the [...]

5Dec2009 | | 0 comments | Continued
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The Question I get asked a lot

The question I get asked a lot is: Does medication affect your creativity? The answer I give is: It did before I became an advocate for myself.  Many people with mental conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia don’t want to take medications because the drugs dampen their creativity. They tell me medication makes them feel [...]

4Sep2009 | | 6 comments | Continued
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Sour grapes on a bad day

I shall not go gently into that good night or sour grapes on a bad day                                              I shall not go gently into that good night, but like Dylan Thomas, I shall shriek against the dying of the light. It has been five months since I published the book I worked on for five [...]

4Sep2009 | | 4 comments | Continued
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Art on Capitol Hill

    I can’t always write on mental health, so here is a little something different.   When I went to Washington to Mental Health America’s 100th Anniversary Conference, I was part of a team of MHA members from Los Angeles who visited two California Congressmembers from the LA region: Congressmember Dreier, representing the 26th [...]

5Aug2009 | | 12 comments | Continued
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Double Tragedies at NAMI Convention in San Francisco

    Bill Babbitt stood at the podium and said the police told him he did the right thing when he turned in his brother Manny for the possible crime against a 78-year-old woman who died of a heart attack during an invasion of her home. The police officer said to Manny, a paranoid schizophrenic, [...]

27Jul2009 | | 7 comments | Continued
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Kirkus Discoveries review

We received this review of bipolar bare from Kirkus Discoveries.  A harrowing look at mental illness and drug addiction. Bipolar disorder has earned significant media attention. The glamour from movie stars and musicians who suffer from the mental illness has rubbed off on the disease, giving some the idea that it’s a benign condition falling [...]

30Apr2009 | | 28 comments | Continued
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My First Mad Man

  My first contact with mental illness occurred in college. My roommate John, who was always one intense fellow, began to act very strangely. He stayed up for nights on end smoking cigarettes and writing. The cigarette butts would pile up in ashtrays into little mountains that flowed out around the retainers like the felled, [...]

9Apr2009 | | 12 comments | Continued
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Ex-patient of Controversial Mental Hospital Speaks Out

Press Release     Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California, target of government investigations for numerous failures in patient care, is prominently featured in the memoir of an ex-patient who was treated twice at the facility. Once, walking away, the patient returned, only to have the hospital’s famed program for drug addiction led by Dr. [...]

18Mar2009 | | 5 comments | Continued
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