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Managing schizophrenia

By New York Times News Service

The feeling of danger was so close and overwhelming that there was no time to find its source, no choice but to get out of the apartment, fast.

Keris Myrick headed for her car, checked the time — just past midnight, last March — and texted her therapist.

"You're going to the Langham? The hotel?" the doctor responded. "No — you need to be in the hospital. I need you consulting with a doctor."

"What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"Oh. Right," he said. "Well, OK, then we need to check in regularly."

"And that's what we did," said Myrick, 50, the chief executive of a nonprofit organization, who has a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, a close cousin of schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. "I needed to hide out, to be away for a while. I wanted to pamper myself — room service, great food, fluffy pillows, all that — and I was lucky to have a therapist who understood what was going on and went with it."

Researchers have conducted more than 100,000 studies on schizophrenia since its symptoms were first characterized. They have tested patients' blood. They have analyzed their genes. They have measured perceptual skills, IQ and memory, and have tried perhaps thousands of drug treatments. Now, a group of people with the diagnosis is showing researchers a previously hidden dimension of the story: how the disorder can be managed while people build full, successful lives. The continuing study — a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California; and the Department of Veterans Affairs — follows a group of 20 people with the diagnosis, including two doctors, a lawyer and a chief executive, Myrick.

The study has already forced its authors to discard some of their assumptions about living with schizophrenia. "It's just embarrassing," said Dr. Stephen R. Marder, director of the psychosis section at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, a psychiatrist with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and one of the authors of the study. "For years, we as psychiatrists have been telling people with a diagnosis what to expect; we've been telling them who they are, how to change their lives — and it was bad information" for many people.

No more so, perhaps, than for Myrick, who after years of devastating mental trials learned that she needed a high-profile position, not low-key one, to face down her spells of paranoia and despair. Her treatment regimen, like most others' in the study, is a combination of medication as needed and personal supports, including an intuitive pet dog, the occasional weekend stay at a luxury hotel — and, not least, a strong alliance with a local psychiatrist.

"I feel my brain is damaged; I don't know any other way to say it," Myrick said. "I don't know if it's from the illness, the medications, all those side effects or what. I only know that I do need certain things in my life, and for a long time — well, I had to get to know myself first."

THE JAGGED PIECE

Keris Jan Myrick was an Army brat. She grew up around the world and nowhere in particular, moving from Bremerhaven, West Germany, to Los Angeles to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to Englewood, N.J., to Seoul, South Korea, and back stateside again, as her father advanced in the ranks. The changing locations and temporary friends made the family close, and Col. Howard A. Myrick and his wife, Roberta, were strong advocates for their daughter and her older brother, Kyl, wherever they landed.

"Let's just say that their mother and I had to continually go to school and deal with teachers who had presumptions about their ability based on cultural factors," said Howard Myrick, now a Temple University professor of communications who lives in Philadelphia. Roberta Myrick died in 2009.

Brother and sister thrived, in academics, in music, he in sports, but she was the more sensitive soul and felt increasingly isolated socially, and self-critical. The only black girl among her playmates in West Germany and South Korea, she also became conscious of race early on. "It's important to know that everyone around me was white; I was the epitome of a minority," she wrote about one period living overseas.

Yet if she looked different from her classmates abroad, she spoke and acted very differently from the African-Americans in Englewood. She was taunted, ostracized; the black world seemed no more ready to offer her a place than the white one. When she was 8, her father left to serve a tour in Vietnam, and suddenly her one constant, the family, felt vulnerable, transient.

Soon she gave herself a private name and made it the title of a journal: "The Jagged Piece." "Of course as opportunities permitted I could transform myself to appear round and smooth, but out of my element," reads a later entry, when she was back in the United States. "My whole life, try as I might, I never fit."

Not in college, where in her freshman year at Wellesley she became increasingly isolated and erratic, wearing roller skates everywhere, even in class, and spending odd hours on the roofs of buildings, and sometimes in a bell tower. Nor back at her parents' home in Virginia, where, after being asked by the college to take time away, she began to hear a voice, for a time telling her that most foods were poisonous. She all but stopped eating; doctors told her she had an eating disorder.

Myrick somehow pushed herself to finish an undergraduate degree at Temple and later completed a business management program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, while stalked by severe anxieties and that voice, ringing at the edge of her thoughts, now strict and critical. She was engaged, for a time, to a man she met at Temple; but that did not fit, either.

Something was wrong, she knew that, and even as she landed her first job — in the admissions office at Case Western — she was on the phone with her mother almost every day, trying to work it out. A doctor in Cleveland diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and depression in the late 1990s. But for a young, ambitious woman who had yet to find her purpose, those labels seemed no more than that — labels, one person's opinion.

"I had this belief that if I found the right place, the right work situation, I would be OK," she said.

EPIPHANY AFTER A SETBACK

She made a crucial first step toward that goal one summer night when she was too wired to sleep.

It was 2006, and she was not at all OK: she had just lost a good position in the admissions office at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. She had been working frantically, putting in long hours, paranoid that her co-workers were out to undermine her — and she finally blew up at someone in the personnel office. The voice in her head was not letting her forget it, telling her that she was a failure, finished. You're 45; good luck starting over.

She could barely sleep and was often unsure whether she was awake or dreaming.

"But one night about 2 a.m., I had this epiphany, that's how I think about it," she said. "I called my mom and said: 'I see it now. I wasn't meant to be in admissions, or higher education — it's suffocating me, my creativity. I need to be in charge of my own life.'"

She was crying, and her mother asked why. "I told her it was because I had figured it out, and that's exactly the way it felt at the time. I finally figured it out."

It was a start, but only a step on a long road. From 2000 to 2006 the police had taken Myrick to the hospital at least six times after she called one of her therapists with thoughts of suicide and hallucinations and the therapist made an emergency call.

The diagnosis changed, to schizoaffective disorder with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was never violent, she said, but she was stubborn enough in demanding to know what was happening to her that security officers held her down more than once — memories that make her shake with fury.

"I was thrown into a holding room once, right next to a young man who'd just stolen a gun from his father, and I could see the gun in the gun box through the thick glass," she said. "And I'm thinking, 'What, now I'm a criminal?'"

On another occasion she crawled into the closet of her hospital room and curled into a fetal position. She was "catatonic and completely mute," according to a discharge summary dated Jan. 2, 2005.

Her therapist, Dr. Timothy Pylko, a psychiatrist in San Marino, Calif., visited her in the hospital.

"I just sat down on the floor with her, to get to the same level, and eventually we started having a conversation." said Pylko, who became her regular therapist and later texted with her on her way to the hotel. "That may be when she first started to trust me."

It wasn't always that way, when she first began seeing him in regular sessions. Myrick insisted that there were large holes in her brain, probably from the side effects of drugs she took to control her symptoms. Pylko ordered a brain scan, handed her the images and said, "OK, show me where." She couldn't; there were none.

He wanted her to try certain antipsychosis medications, and she was skeptical. "He basically fired me, at one point," she said. "He was telling me that if I didn't accept his help, there was nothing he could do." She went along only after he presented her with the evidence of the drugs' benefits and risks.

Pylko also thought she should feel her way back into the work force slowly, starting with less demanding work. She had other ideas; she would not answer phones or bag groceries, not with an advanced degree in management.

She began attending mental health conferences that were open to the public and saw that some of her skills — in administration, in computer technology — were crucial in mental health care, where people with psychiatric diagnoses often struggle to make sense of the patchwork of services and clinics. At one conference she met Paul Cumming, a well-connected advocate who works for a mental health care website.

The two became friends, and soon Cumming enlisted her as a speaker at one of his mental health technology conferences. "She was very nervous, and it was last-minute," he said, "but she was a big hit, very smart and funny."

In the audience was David Pilon, an executive at Mental Health America of Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization, who was looking for someone to run a unit of the organization in Commerce, Calif. "I was very impressed with her, and I just kind of filed it away," Pilon recalled. "Then, later, we both served on a panel, and I said, 'Listen, if you're ever looking for a job. ... '"

She was. In February 2008, Myrick took over Project Return Peer Support Network, overseeing 94 trained advisers who provide symptom-management advice and other services to people struggling with mental illness.

As chief executives go, she is not from Central Casting: An intense, soft-spoken woman with nine earrings and an eyebrow post, she has decorated her office with action figures, including one she calls "Advocacy Barbie," and a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots toy ("That's how we settle serious disputes," she said). Steinbeck, her terrier, occasionally comes in for the day.

Yet for the staff of three dozen people, most of whom have had a diagnosis themselves, it has been a good match.

So it has, too, for their boss. Her search for belonging was stalled for so long in part because she was facing the wrong direction. She was looking outward for someplace to fit in, without turning to ask herself what it was that she needed — who fit with her.

"When I'm well," she said, "I have to continually ask, 'What does it take to be well?' I need some very specific things around me. And if get spinny — that's what I call it, when my brain moves too fast — well, I need to have a plan."

PROTECTIVE WITHDRAWAL

Her overall strategy combines a heavy work schedule, regular reality checks with colleagues, sympathy from her dog and the option to bail out for a few days if needed — in luxury.

Broadly speaking, her approach has a lot in common with the strategies that other people in the study use. The principal investigators — Elyn R. Saks of U.S.C., Alison B. Hamilton of UCLA and Amy N. Cohen of Veterans Affairs, along with Marder and others — have found that the participants typically adhere to a medication regimen, often check their thoughts and perceptions with those around them, and actively control their environment, sometimes with the help of a therapist. Some avoid travel, or crowded, noisy places; others prefer not to be alone. Most stay away from illicit drugs and alcohol.

At home, Myrick relies partly on Steinbeck to manage her moods. The dog is trained to jump in her lap when it senses distress or to rub against her leg if the lap is not available. She takes Steinbeck to work if she's feeling fragile, and it will occasionally jump in the lap of someone else who is feeling down.

In the office, she can ask for a reality check anytime, given that most of the staff members have had their own struggles. "I'll just say, 'Excuse me, but is anyone hearing what I'm hearing?'" she said. "And if the answer is no — OK, it's no. Here it's possible to do that and not worry about it."

She travels a lot to conferences, and when she is back in California she keeps her schedule as full as possible. Her mind runs on high, and without fuel — without work — it seems to want to feed on itself. Her elbows usually tingle when that is about to happen, she said, and she will often play number games in her head. If she needs to, she will make a quick phone call.

Pylko said: "We might just talk for a few minutes. Maybe once is enough, maybe several times during the day. It's an ongoing conversation at this point. It's more like a friendship than anything else."

Or she will call her father, who is always on her side and will make the trip west if needed.

She can no longer call her mother. When Roberta Myrick died, her daughter expected to land in the hospital yet again. She thought about surrendering to the grief. But she had a plan. She focused on controlling her symptoms and on the life she has now, what it means and how much of a difference she has made — in her life and in others' lives. One of her earrings marks the anniversary of her hiring and more than a year without being hospitalized; it has now been five years.

"And then I just treated the funeral as what it was, a celebration of my mom," Myrick said. "It wasn't about me this time."

She was back at work within days.

Men struggle with eating disorders, too

By Dayton (Ohio) Daily News

Traditionally thought of as affecting mostly women, eating disorders among men are on the rise.

Harvard research results from the first national study of eating disorders in a population of nearly 3,000 adults found 25 percent of those with anorexia or bulimia and 40 percent of binge eaters were men. It was previously thought that men accounted for only about 10 percent of anorexia and bulimia cases.

Bulimia is an eating disorder characterized by gorging of food followed by purging or other methods to control weight, while anorexia is self-starvation marked by the refusal or inability to maintain normal weight combined with intense fear of gaining weight. Binge eating is the uncontrolled consumption of large amounts of food, and here, too, the number of men suffering from the condition is increasing.

Of the three eating disorders, binge eating is the only one considered nonlife-threatening, and not officially recognized as a psychiatric disorder.

Many active, thin males with extremely low body fat levels are looked upon as fit and healthy, when if fact, they may be struggling with an eating disorder. Due to the stigma attached, along with a reluctance to admit lack of control, men are less likely than women to seek treatment. Evidence suggests that among some clinicians, making a diagnosis of an eating disorder in a male patient is less likely to occur than with female patients, despite identical behavior. Men are more likely to be diagnosed with having depression when significant appetite changes occur than receive a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder.

The lack of discussion on this subject among men is in part cultural. Socially, women are much more likely than men to talk about personal problems or display their emotions, while men tend not to share such information.

Compulsive exercise and eating disorders often go hand in hand. Anorexics are usually high achievers and perfectionists who need to feel in control. Overexercising and undereating not only help the individual feel in control but also assist in helping them to avoid having to deal with feelings and emotions.

If you or someone you know is suffering with anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, it is important to know that help is available by contacting your family doctor, a psychologist, mental health center or specialist in eating disorders.

Experts Design 'Toolkit' to Help Spot Teens With Mental Health Issues

By HealthDay 

Because many adolescents with mental health problems are never diagnosed and treated, an expert team has come up with a "toolkit" aimed at identifying those kids and getting them the right help.

"One in 10 youths have a mental health condition that is severe enough to impair functioning, either at home, school or in the community," said Gary Blau, chief of the child, adolescent and family branch of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Blau spoke at a Friday news conference to unveil the toolkit, which appeared online simultaneously in Pediatrics. Although the journal is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that organization has not endorsed the toolkit. SAMHSA provided partial funding for the project.

"This toolkit will allow pediatricians, teachers and others that could help get the word out to families we can close the gap so the three out of four children with mental health disorders who aren't identified do get identified," said Dr. Peter Jensen, who was the lead investigator on the project.

About half of mental health disorders manifest themselves by the time a child has turned 14, and 75 percent manifest by age 24, Blau said.

Yet treatment is often years away for that child, added Lisa Hunter Romanelli, an assistant professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City.

"That is too long in the life of a child," said Romanelli, who is also executive director of the nonprofit REACH Institute, whose mission is to shorten the length of time it takes for effective interventions to reach teens. Jensen is president and CEO of the institute.

Researchers convened over a period of several years to analyze data collected from more than 6,000 children and parents to identify the most common symptoms of mental health disorders and to see if children with these troubling signs were receiving appropriate care.

This information was then translated into warning signs that are written in "crisp, easy-to-understand language," said Jensen, who is vice chair of research in the department of psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "They don't sound like mental health jargon. It was deliberate, to make them as parent-friendly as possible."

Because differentiating a true mental health disorder from the inevitable ups and downs of adolescence is difficult, the authors chose to focus on the more severe end of the mental health spectrum.

"We realized there was a potential for harm for parents to worry when they didn't need to be worried," said Jensen. "So we decided to target not the 15 percent or so who have these problems, but the 8 percent who are at the more severe end."

If your child has any of these 11 warning signs, he or she may have a mental health disorder and should be referred to treatment as soon as possible:

• Feeling very sad or withdrawn for two or more weeks
• Seriously trying to harm or kill themselves, or making plans to do so
• Sudden overwhelming fear for no reason, sometimes with a racing heart or fast breathing
• Involved in multiple fights, using a weapon, or wanting badly to hurt others
• Severe out-of-control behavior that can hurt the teenager or others
• Not eating, throwing up, or using laxatives to lose weight
• Intense worries or fears that get in the way of daily activities
• Extreme difficulty in concentrating or staying still that puts a teenager in physical danger or causes school failure
• Repeated use of drugs or alcohol
• Severe mood swings that cause problems in relationships
• Drastic changes in behavior or personality

"This data substantiates what we already knew, that there are warning signs of significant mental illness, but children and adolescents aren't getting help because health care providers don't share the same language," said Dr. Abigail Schlesinger, medical director of outpatient behavioral health services at Children's Hospital Pittsburgh.

"This toolkit will help mental health providers and others on the front lines, such as teachers, people in the juvenile justice system [and] parents speak the same language," added Schlesinger, who was not part of the research team.

Friday/Saturday questions

Frankenstien and Lady Gaga protest the Super Bowl half-time show

1) If a movie was filming in your hometown and needed people to be extras, would you try out for a part? 
If the auditions were on my day off from work, I might consider it, but I wouldn't be really crazy about trying out for one

2) Today (Oct. 28) is Frankenstein Day celebrating author Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley's birthday and all things Frankenstein. Who do you think is the scariest Halloween character?
This creepy "Saw" movie character totally freaks me out

3) "Occupy Together" protests, which began as "Occupy Wall Street" protests in New York City back in September, have spread to over 600 towns in the United States and have even started across the globe. Have you ever participated in a protest of any sort?
Not a real protest. I've silently protested all sorts of things by boycotting certain products or companies

4) Did you ever egg someone's house or vehicle or toilet-paper a home as a prank on Halloween (or any other day of the year, if not on Halloween)?
Surprisingly I've never done anything like that. Most people I know would expect me to have vandalized things when I was younger

5) How old is too old to go trick-or-treating?
I stopped trick-or-treating around the age of 11. I never really cared much for it. I did, however, do it once while I was in college to make my roommate happy. She wanted to, so I went with her. I was dressed as a prostitute cat. Yep, a prostitute cat

6)  The fourth installment of the "Twilight" movie series ("Breaking Dawn Part I") will be released in theaters soon. Movie theaters started selling advance tickets for midnight showings months ago. Have you ever attended a midnight premiere showing of a movie?
I have no desire to fight the crowds at midnight showings. I'd rather go to a movie a few weeks after its opening when the theater is almost empty

7) How soon before Christmas is too soon to put up holiday decorations on your home or business?
I saw a house the other day with Christmas lights on it. I couldn't believe the person put them up before Halloween. My family always waited until after Thanksgiving

8) Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on which agencies across the U.S. will provide a venue for people who want to dispose of unwanted, expired, and/or unused prescription drugs. What do you normally do with left-over medications?
They stay in the bottles in a cabinet for a long long time after their expiration dates and then I just trash them. I know I shouldn't but I do it. I should start disposing of them through one of these events

9) Madonna has been announced as the half-time entertainment for the upcoming Super Bowl game, reportedly beating out Lady Gaga. Would you prefer to see Madonna or Lady Gaga (or would you rather not see either of them)?
I don't care to see either of them. I don't understand why they'd go for Madonna or Lady Gaga. They're not exactly the musicians that I think the Super Bowl's target audience is. Most men I know wouldn't care to see either of them perform, and even the women I know who watch the game just for the commercials also wouldn't care

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Saturday 9: Mr. Roboto

1. Do you enjoy holidays like Halloween or is your approach more robotic?
I hate all holidays. People make too much of an issue out of holidays. They're just random regular days to me

2. Have you ever been to a haunted house?
A long long time ago. I don't like being scared for "fun." I had enough of being scared during my marriage. If you're married to a psycho for a while who tries to kill you multiple times, getting scared on purpose loses its appeal

3. What are you doing for Halloween this year?
Hopefully I'll be at work

4. What was your lamest Halloween costume ever?
One of the years that my parents forced me to go trick-or-treating, I was a female superhero. It was just a generic superhero. They were too cheap to even buy a SuperGirl or BatGirl costume. I was an unbranded hero that didn't really exist

5. Is handing out candy fun for you, or more of a nightmare?
Nightmare. I'd rather hide from the kids and eat the candy myself

6. Do you buy trick-or-treat candy and end up eating it yourself?
See #5's answer

7. Did you carve any pumpkins this year?
Nope. I never did. The closest I came to it was trying to give my fiance some ideas for the one he had to carve for his office. He didn't use my ideas. LOL

8. What was your favorite costume as a child?
 "Girl who doesn't give a shit" ... I still wear that costume every day

9. What is your biggest pet peeve about trick-or-treaters?
The doorbell ringing gets pretty damn annoying

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The Friday 56

Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.

I just started reading "The Vampire Diaries: The Hunters Volume I Phantom." Page 56 was a boring page. This is the most interesting sentence on the page:

"I couldn't exactly ask her what she remembered, but she didn't say anything about being dead or vampires or anything."

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Top 5 On Friday

Top 5 songs that are a "treat" to listen to:
Right now I'm really into these five songs:

1) Demi Lovato "Skyscraper"




2) Britney Spears "Criminal"




3) Skylar Grey "Invisible"




4) Bad Versus Evil "Lighters"




5) Kelly Clarkson "Mr. Know It All"

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Friday Fill-ins

1. Beware of dogs who like to hop in the shower and surprise you.

2. I hate snow.

3. And since we are talking about snow, I'm already hating the cold weather. I don't want to have to have my heater on.

4. Do you believe in spirits?

5. Where the spirits chase dogs ...

6. My mom's homemade vegetable soup is one of my favorite meals when it's cold out.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include work and Sunday, I want to not work but I have to

Thursday questions

Covering your cranky co-workers in tattoos and foil

1) Christmas is less than two months away. Have you already started shopping for Christmas gifts? 
Normally I start shopping for Christmas months early. Sometimes I go out in January and buy things on after-Christmas clearance for the next Christmas' gifts. But this year... I've done nothing at all yet 

2) Would you be offended if someone carved a pumpkin for Halloween in such a way so that it would resemble your face?
I'd only be offended if it looked all cutesy. If it looked evil or demented, I'd be all for it

3) How do you feel about people who get "fandom" tattoos (i.e. tattoos of musicians, TV shows, movies, etc)? 
 I saw a guy the other day at a restaurant with a big tattoo down one arm of a band that was popular years ago. I can't imagine ever wanting to permanently put something on my body. Just because I absolutely love something now, it doesn't mean I'll even remotely like it in a year. People seem to forget how permanent tattoos really are

4) It seems like Quick Response codes (a.k.a. QR codes), like the one to the right, are everywhere on products and ads these days. Do you ever actually scan them using your phone?
My phone is pretty awesome, but I don't have a code scanner on it. I did scan a QR code last week using my fiance's phone while we were sitting at a restaurant. There was one on a ketchup bottle, and I was curious so I scanned it. All it did was point me to the Heinz website. I don't see the point in that. If I was really that curious about ketchup, I can go to Heinz's website just as easily as I can scan a damn QR code

5) Connecticut lawmaker Rep. Tim Larson has proposed a national law saying that all Halloween trick-or-treating should be done on the last Saturday of October, regardless of what day Halloween falls on. What do you think of his idea? Should trick-or-treating be done on a specific day of the week each year or on the true holiday? 
I think it would be nice in some ways to know that each year, trick-or-treaters would only come by on a specific day of the week, but frankly, Saturday isn't going to work for me anyway. I almost always work Saturday nights, so I wouldn't be home then. I miss the purity of going out as a trick-or-treater on Halloween even if it was a school night

6) The head pastor of my church recently went out of town and forgot to lock his office, and when he returned, everything in his office had been covered in aluminum foil by his coworkers as a prank (that's really his office to the right). Have you ever been the butt of a prank, or pulled a prank on someone else?
 I surprisingly haven't really been the butt of a prank or really pulled one on someone else. I have sat by and watched other people pulling pranks without stopping them. In high school, male classmates would pull pranks on our math/physics teacher all the time. She'd go to grab a soda and come back to find that they had taken all the desks in the room and turned them over or something similar. I'd just watch. I never participated

7) Speaking of coworkers, today (Oct. 27) is "Cranky Co-workers Day." How would you deal with an extremely cranky co-worker who was causing you stress?
I have a tendency to email other co-workers about the annoying people and bitch and moan about them. Somehow writing bitchy emails calms me down

8) The movie "Anonymous," which is coming out soon in U.S. movie theaters, poses the idea that William Shakespeare did not write his own plays and poetry. If you became a professional writer, would you use your own name or create a fake pen name? 
I really like the idea of staying anonymous. I'd use a fake name

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Thursday's Top Ten

Top Ten favorite things to snack on.

1) Cinnamon rolls
2) Rice Krispy treats
3) Cheese cracker/peanut butter sandwiches
4) Three Musketeers
5) Butterscotch pudding
6) Strawberry yogurt
7) Ice cream
8) Cheesecake
9) Chewy chocolate chip cookies
10) Sun Chips

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Thursday 13

I've realized lately just how crazy random I am when it comes to doing statuses on Twitter and Facebook. I seem to speak (or rather type) often without really thinking about what I'm saying first. Here are some of the random things I've said lately

1) Darn you Bed Bath & Beyond for mailing me your monthly ad and making it totally clear how little money I have to spend on your products and for making me realize how likely it is that I'd be too lazy to actually use the products even if I could afford them

2) I know I'm in love when I plan a secret, romantic dinner to celebrate his birthday and dress up so I actually look like a girl for it, even wear pink heeled shoes

3) My official review for Kelly Clarkson's new CD: "She kicks ass"

4) Random advice from Jennifer ... Don't admit to farting in the office unless you're certain everyone really did hear/smell it

5) Best TV quote of the century... "I'm up to my ass in ovaries every day" ~ Private Practice

6) Unpleasant premarital bonding moment... My fiance and I had to fetch two dead mice out from behind my couch using tongs and trash bags. Most disgusting smell EVER. Note to self: Buy new tongs

7) Another unpleasant premarital bonding moment... My fiance and I were on the couch together playing with the dogs when Princess suddenly barfed on his shirt. ... We're 0 for 2 on good nights this week

8) I think I have a fetish for Scrabble.... Yep, I said it

9) Wow. I actually learned something at work today. That doesn't happen often

10) Yes I am listening to some Michael Bolton on Spotify. I'm not ashamed of it

11) Is anyone else creeped out by the Sims 3 Pets commercial with the thing that's a dog's head on a human's body? I feel so creeped out by it

12) Dear Facebook, please quit suggesting past boyfriends as possible friends. Thanks, Jennifer

13) Please, people, do not name your pet "Pocket Rocket" and send in a story about him/her for the paper. It's just asking for trouble

wednesday questions

Once upon a time, the McRib howled at the moon

1) The "Test your vocab" website (click here to test it out and share your results if you want) estimates the number of words in your vocabulary based on how many specific words you know the definition of. Have you ever read a dictionary to increase your vocabulary?
My best friend in high school and I once read dictionaries for fun one summer to increase the amount of sexual related terms. Then we created a story using all of the words, and she wrote it in my school yearbook. I probably could've lived without having that memory written down in my yearbook. That website estimates me at 17,400 words. I don't really think that's quite right, but oh well...

2) Today (Oct. 26) is "Howl at the Moon Day." How often do dogs wake you up in the middle of the night either barking or howling? 
My dogs and the other dogs in the neighborhood wake me up every single night. Sometimes I miss the quiet of not having three dogs to bark and howl when I'm trying to sleep

3) My fiance got roped into carving a pumpkin (mostly against his will) for his office due to his artistic ability. Have you carved (or will you be carving) a pumpkin this week for Halloween? 
 I shouldn't be handling knives, like ever. I accidentally hurt myself every time I try to do something like that

4) If adults went trick-or-treating, what type of candy would you want to receive the most of?
I'm all about the Tootsie Rolls

5) What do you think of the parents of celebrities (like Lindsay Lohan's mother Dina) writing tell-all memoirs about their families? 
Dina Lohan and other parents of celebrities are soul-sucking money whores. People should care more about their families than money

6) ABC premiered its highly promoted show "Once Upon A Time" on Sunday. If you could live in a fairy tale for 24 hours, which one would you pick?
Probably "Sleeping Beauty." The idea of having Prince Charming save me is nice. Plus, I could use a good long sleep

7) Earlier this week, McDonalds announced that its McRib sandwich, a boneless barbecue pork sandwich which has a massive cult following, is back through Nov. 14. (Personally, I'm not sure why people are so crazy for it.) What about you -- are you a McRib fan?
I like the boneless bbq piece of pork, but I'm not for the onions or pickles that come on it. Plus, I wish it came with cheese. People seem to think I'm crazy for wanting cheese on a bbq sandwich, but cheese makes everything better

8) What animal, besides humans, do you think would make the best world leaders?
My first instinct is to say dogs, but they feel too many emotions to be world leaders, so I'd have to say cats because they can remain emotionally detached from most things

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Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 50

1. What gives you goosebumps?
Cold wind. That's really the only thing

2. Halloween-are you a lover or a hater? Okay, that sounds harsh...Halloween-yay or nay?
I used to love it, but once I married someone who turned out to have many qualities of a serial killer, I stopped wanting to be scared for "fun." I lived my own horror movie while I was married. My ex-husband is evil. I'd rather not celebrate a day when people dress up as evil things for fun

3. Can you respect someone you do not trust, and can you trust someone you do not respect?
Trust and respect go hand-in-hand. You can't have one without the other

4. Apples or oranges? Yes, you have to choose.
Apples. No question about it. I don't like oranges at all

5. What is something you wish was in your town? (shop, restaurant, attraction, etc)
Right now I just wish my family lived here

6. What non-food item is in your refrigerator or freezer?
I have some of those fake ice pack things in my freezer that you can put in an ice chest to keep things cold

7. Are you at all superstitious?
Does thinking that full moons do bring out the crazy in people count as being superstitious?

8. Insert your own random thought here. 
Stop by W.T.F. meme and take today's questions. Click here

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Watery Wednesday

I took this picture on my recent trip to California. It was taken at Laguna Beach. It was a pretty bunch of flowers, but they smelled like poop and left my hands smelling gross all day. No matter how much I washed my hands, the smell wouldn't go away

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We Want to Know Wednesday

1. Do you shop til you drop, or are you in and out as quick as possible?
I hate crowds. I have major social anxiety issues, so if I can, I normally get in and out as quick as possible

2. Are you a price conscious shopper?
I avoid buying brand name products if I can. I buy store brands and save money. I find that the quality of store brands is as good or even better than the brand names

3. What store could you spend HOURS in?
Walmart, sadly

4. What is the most frivolous purchase you have ever made?
 A really pretty silver ring that had a big red garnet heart-shaped gemstone and several small diamonds on either side. I spent several hundred dollars on it. My abusive, asshole of an ex-husband pawned it, I'm sure

5. What was the last thing you bought for yourself?
 Technically speaking, the last thing was a bottle of Mountain Dew

My brother has schizophrenia -- The details

I posted a brief blog entry a week and a half ago saying that my brother had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and I promised to give details. I'm finally doing that... This is mostly taken from my mother's point of view from what she's told me since I don't see my brother often.

My brother is 24 (almost 25) years old, and for most of his life he's battled with depression. A few years ago, we started to suspect that he was suffering from bipolar disorder because he'd have ups and downs. He'd have a few down weeks, then an up week, then a few down weeks, another up week, and so forth.

I had some suspicions that something else was wrong because he said he heard voices sometimes. I thought maybe he had some of the same borderline personality disorder symptoms as me, but he never fit enough of BPD's criteria to be diagnosed as borderline.

Then came the week of his "episode." I'm going to give more details than he'd ever be comfortable knowing that I'm sharing, but I need to get it all out because I can't hold in my emotions/thoughts about it.

Apparently in the early early morning hours of Monday Oct. 10th, he went walking into my mom's bedroom telling her that he couldn't sleep because he had to pee but he couldn't pee. My mom thought he might have a urinary tract infection or something, but he was determined that part of his penis had "disappeared" thus making him not be able to pee. My mom says he was completely hysterical, freaking out. She convinced him to go to the emergency room. After a few hours in the E.R., the doctor said there was nothing wrong physically, so they went home. My brother spent the rest of the night pacing around the house and not sleeping.

Later in the morning, my mom told him that he should call his boss and tell him he was sick if he was going to stay home sick. My brother was pretty much in a catatonic state. She got him to say he'd call in sick. She went to work. When she got home from work, he didn't appear to have moved all day. She checked his cellphone and he had not called his boss.

That evening when my mom was cooking dinner, she heard a loud bang. She went running out of the kitchen and discovered that a big four-feet-wide mirror had fallen in the hall bathroom and it shattered into a million pieces. She couldn't tell what had caused it to fall. She doesn't know if he was in the bathroom or not. She doesn't know if it just fell or if he hit it. But suddenly my brother started yelling that there was something evil in the house and they had to get out of the house right away.

That night, once again my brother just paced around the house all night and didn't sleep. He had a terrified look on his face the entire time. Each time he'd start to walk into a new room, he'd look around the room before stepping in like he was looking for whatever "evil" thing he claimed was in the house.

Tuesday morning as my mom was about to leave for work, she once again told him to call his boss if he wasn't going to go to work, and once again he never called.

All this time, he was still claiming he could not pee. My mom decided to take him back to the emergency room in the middle of that night because she had no idea what to do. That night he saw a different doctor who for some reason decided to test him for strep throat, and it came out positive. My brother claims his throat never hurt. Once again, they could not find any physical reason my brother could not pee.

Wednesday morning around 4:30 a.m., my mom's dogs woke her up so she got up to take them outside. She thought my brother was asleep in his bedroom, but when she got outside my brother was wandering around in nothing but shorts (no shoes even). That's completely uncharacteristic for him. He never ever goes outside without shoes, and never just in shorts. He was mumbling and making no sense. She couldn't figure out how long he was outside or what he was doing or where he had went.

About 11 a.m. while my mom was at work, my brother called her and was once again hysterical demanding that she tell him what had happened. She couldn't figure out what he was talking about. It turns out that he then called my aunt and made the same types of demands, followed by his boss who was totally clueless about it all.

Wednesday evening my mom convinced my brother to call me, but once we were on the phone, he wouldn't say anything to me. I then called my mom's phone to ask her what was going on. She spilled all of this information all at once. She hadn't told me anything until that point.

As soon as she started talking about the whole not-peeing thing, I started thinking schizophrenia, but I didn't say anything yet. Each thing else she told me ... from the mirror falling due to something "evil" in the house to him mumbling and not making any sense to him roaming around outside in shorts ... just added to my feeling it was schizophrenia. She asked me for my advice, and I told her that I thought it was schizophrenia, but I could've been wrong because I'm not formally trained in psychiatry.

We started talking about trying to see about getting him admitted into a hospital, which we knew he wouldn't go into willingly. I called a 24-hour crisis phone line for the counseling center in their town, and I talked to a registered nurse. She said that we needed to get him a mental health evaluation, and if a doctor said he was a danger to himself or others, then we could get him admitted without him signing himself in.

The next morning my mom took him to the emergency room yet again and she told the doctor everything that had happened and said that the nurse told me to have him evaluated. They did a CT scan, blood tests, urine tests, and all sorts of questionnaires to rule out other things. After more than four hours, the doctor came in and said he had consulted with the town's new psychiatrist and they thought it was probably schizophrenia. The doctor prescribed him Thorazine hoping that it would "snap" him out of the episode quickly. After the second dose of the medicine, my mom said she started to see a change, so it did kick in very quickly. Two doses and he was actually making sense and wasn't acting so crazy.

My mom called my brother's boss that day and explained a little of what happened, and luckily his boss was very understanding and said he had been really worried, especially after my brother called and just kept saying things like "What happened? Tell me what happened." His boss said that no matter what, my brother would not lose his job.

The psychiatrist met with my brother and my mom that Friday afternoon. She was a military psychiatrist for many years and worked overseas treating soldiers in the field for post-traumatic stress and other things. My mom says she seems like a great doctor, and my brother really likes her so far.

Since then my brother has been able to work some and has seemed to get a little bit better each day. He can't remember anything from the time of that Sunday night to Friday morning. That's sad. It's like those days are just gone for him. I know what that's like. It sucks.

So that's where we are right now. I'm scared that he won't stick to his treatment plan because he hates medicine and therapy. I'm scared that people will treat him differently if he tells anyone that he's got schizophrenia. I'm scared for my mom having to deal with this when she has her own depression/borderline to deal with. I'm mostly just scared overall. My mom keeps wanting him to be his "old self" but I keep telling her that we need to just hope for little steps and take things one day at a time. We just have to be there to support him...

FDA approves first generic versions of Zyprexa

By the Associated Press

Federal health officials on Monday approved the first generic versions of the blockbuster drug Zyprexa, an expensive treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder.

Zyprexa posted sales of $5.7 billion last year for drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co Inc., according to prescription tracking company IMS Health.

The new low-cost versions of the drug will be marketed by Indian generic drugmaker Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, based in Israel.

Zyprexa is part of a class of medications called atypical antipsychotics that effect levels of dopamine, a brain chemical that controls behavior, mood and movement. Doctors overwhelmingly embraced the drugs in the 1990s over older treatments, because they were thought to be less likely to cause side effects like muscle tremors and spasms. The newer medications have their own side effects; including weight gain, high blood sugar and drowsiness.

Drugs like Zyprexa can cost up to $500 per month. Generic versions can cut the cost by up to 80 percent.

Some style tips.....

1. What should you never wear to a job interview?
Visible lingerie. That goes for women and men

2. Who should never wear a mini-skirt?
Frankly, I don't think anyone should ever wear them ... unless you're staring in a porn

3. What fashion trend for women should be outlawed?
Spray tans

4. What fashion trend for men should be outlawed?
Speedos

5. The worst fashion trend for kids/teens would be what?
Pre-teen and teen girls wearing next-to-nothing and actually having their parents' approval to look like it

6. Is it ever okay to dress a pet in clothes?
Sometimes when your dog has very little hair and it's all cold and snowy outside, then it's ok to put it in a sweater. It's also funny just to do in order to take photos

7. What was the worst fashion disaster of the 80's?
Madonna's "Like A Virgin" look... 'nuff said

8. In 10 years from now, what will people say was the worst fashion trend on the 'teens' (as in 2010-2019)?
 Urgh. There are way too many things I could list. Don't have time to do it

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