Life with mental illness isn't always fun. Not just because I have a real illness, and that real illness really does affect my life but because some folks have trouble accepting this. I'm not entirely sure why except they don't like the thought that someone with mental illness can "omg, look just like them," and still be quite unwell.

One of the most horrific aspects of major depressive disorder (MDD) is the severe stages of it, when the pain is most unbearable and so intense that a person feels like it would be better if life were over. It is truly one of the most terrifying of experiences to live in that space between fighting to live and fighting to die. But there are also challenging times living with major depressive disorder that are not quite so dramatic, yet still difficult and require an extra sort of energy to manage.

As most people know, when a drug is developed, the drug manufacturer receives a patent on that drug. The patent means no one else may produce that drug for a period of time. Drug patents in the US are 20 years, but these patents begin before clinical testing, so really, the drug manufacturer has about 7-12 years of patent protection once the drug is on the market. After the patent expires, other companies may produce the drug, these are called generics. Do you really need to pay the high price for brand name Prozac or is the generic, fluoxetine, just as good?

This week saw the passing of Schizophrenia Awareness Day and I think it's time to take a moment to learn some facts about this much stigmatized mental illness.

A message comes to me via social media, along with an invitation to connect. It simply says, "My 27 year old child has schizophrenia, but will not get treatment." Oh boy, can I relate to that. Unfortunately, this is a major dilemma facing all of us who deal with mental illness in our families. Parenting is always about the precarious balance between stepping in to help, and letting go to allow learning from experience. From a child's first steps to his or her first relationship, car,  job, apartment...when to give advice? When to help? When to step back and watch them sink or swim?

Nothing about dissociative identity disorder is quite what the most popular phrases used to describe it imply. “Losing time” is no exception. When we talk about losing time we’re talking about severe dissociative amnesia which, in a milder form, is something I believe everyone experiences. But the phrase “losing time” suggests a highly dramatic, easily recognizable aberration. In my experience, however, dissociative amnesia is startlingly surreptitious. It’s easy to be unaware that you’re losing time at all.

Most of us never have the experience of feeling as if we are disconnected from our own body and mind, but if you are suffering from depersonalization disorder then you feel this detachment far too frequently. Our guest, Jeffrey Abugel, has experienced depersonalization disorder personally and has co-authored one of the seminal books on the topic. Recently, he has authored a second book about the experience of living with this disorder and he came on our show to share a deeper look into the world of depersonalization.

As much as I hate to say it, I may be taking the "BMX Mom" bumper sticker off my car this summer. Bob hasn't really expressed much interest in racing so far (I believe he's mentioned it once in the past few months), and frankly, I'm not eager to drop that kind of cash for his activities when his behavior and attitude are as lousy as they have become.

Now that I'm out of my abusive marriage, I never want to enter another abusive relationship again. I think about how I came to believe my ex-husband was my knight in shining armor and how I fell under his spell. Although he alone is responsible for the abuse, the abusive cycle was partly my fault; in effect, I gave him permission to abuse me. I don't want to give anyone permission to do that again! Here are four signs I ignored that warned me of future abuse in the relationship with my ex-husband.

It was inevitable. The first step in recovery from anorexia nervosa is weight restoration. I knew that I had to gain weight and that it eventually would be noticeable.  I often wanted to crawl in a shell like a turtle during the early stages of my weight gain because I felt so different. So much larger. I took up too much space, and I still wanted to hide. I wasn't entirely comfortable in this new body. However, I slowly grew used to my body with its feminine curves, and several times I would look in the mirror and think how much better I looked than when I was emaciated and skeletal. But I knew what was coming... One day I was in the bathroom with a friend. She commented that the new weight looked good on me. Unfortunately, she didn't stop there. She then went on to point out the slight roundness of my stomach, and helpfully suggested I could wear looser clothes if it bothered me. It hadn't bothered me until then. But this seemingly innocent comment reverberated throughout my mind days afterward.