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Source: Sarah Kilian/Unsplash It should have been a great evening. I was nicely wedged into the couch with a bowl of popcorn and two slavering dogs, and I was working my way through the entire series of The Queen’s Gambit . I was alone, and it was divine. Brian, my husband, had both our boys on a long day-trip involving socially distanced basketball. He was due to arrive soon, and I felt rested and rejuvenated after indulging in some badly needed alone time. An introvert mom’s longing for alone is never done. And then, they came home. The kid part was fine. They are my children and I missed them and I hugged them hard. I’m not a monster. The husband, however, was a different story. I leaned in to kiss him and I sniffed. And sniffed again. My husband had been drinking. To make a few things clear: Brian is not the alcoholic in the room. I am. He is a totally normal drinker with an annoying ability to have a beer every once in a while without subsequently wanting to … [Read more...] about How to Be Sober and Not Hate Your Spouse

The current crisis we’re enduring with Covid-19 is taking a toll on more than our physical well-being. A recent Kaiser poll showed that nearly half of Americans feel the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health. Suicide and crisis call and text hotlines have reported “unprecedented” spikes in the number of calls they receive, and many are concerned this could mean a rise in suicides. The suicide rate in the United States has already been increasing, with the latest available data from 2018 showing it at an 80-year high. With the pandemic creating an increase in certain risk factors for suicide, an April journal article in JAMA Psychiatry questioned whether suicide mortality and the coronavirus pandemic could create a “perfect storm.” Their concerns included increased economic stress and social isolation , decreased access to community and religious support, barriers to mental health treatment, a rise in illness and medical problems, national anxiety outcomes, … [Read more...] about Saving Lives from Suicide During a Pandemic

Six months ago, we could not have imagined that our daily vocabulary would be filled with the p-word. And while perhaps we are getting tired of hearing the word pandemic , I can’t help but ask why we haven’t used it to bring urgency to confronting teen suicide. The race to find a cure to the COVID-19 pandemic certainly is front and center, but that same sense of urgency does not seem to be evident for the unsettling rise in teen suicide. In the United States, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death—with more than 2,000 14- to 18-year-olds dying every year by suicide, and accounting for about one of every three injury-related deaths . That’s the equivalent of losing a large high school’s worth of teenagers to suicide, year after year. These numbers demand our attention . New CDC data reveal that almost one in five teens across the nation have seriously considered attempting suicide. Picture a typical high school classroom of 25 students. About five of those … [Read more...] about America Is Facing a Teen Suicide Pandemic

Source: Photo by Gonzalo Facello from Pexels In my previous post , I highlighted the importance of environmental factors in the development of expertise in sport. Most notably, the importance of where and when (relative to the selection year) you are born, the role of older siblings and family, the importance of street sport and being identified early and recruited into a systematic training program impact significantly on your chances of becoming an elite athlete. If nothing else in life, be born lucky. Another key ingredient in the path to success is the need to have sufficient exposure to the right amount and type of practice in the eventual target sport for expertise. While the debate continues as to the relative benefits of specializing early or late, the latter implying a more diverse sporting background is beneficial, there is no doubt that as humans we adapt to the specific stresses placed upon us during practice and competition . To this end, expertise arises … [Read more...] about How Plasticity and Adaptability Create Great Athletes

The use of PTSD as a foundation for the insanity defense is rare. Yet, there is a high prevalence of debilitating trauma and posttraumatic stress symptoms among criminal offenders, both men and women. In criminal responsibility (CR) evaluations the severity of the symptoms may influence findings. How then is the assessment of trauma histories and posttraumatic reactions evaluated in legal contexts? It is not. Courts have been more concerned with malingering as it relates to this diagnosis. The A.L.I.’s (American Law Institute) formulation for CR provides that a defendant will not be held criminally responsible if at the time of the behavior in question "as a result of a mental disease or defect, s/he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his/her conduct or to conform his/her conduct to the requirements of the law. If the crime occurred during a dissociative flashback (a symptom of PTSD), it seems an argument for impairment in the … [Read more...] about Forensic Examinations and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder