Author's Note: This week's column describes a very painful and sensitive subject that could be traumatizing to some readers. It discusses premature death of mentally ill people. This is not intended ...

When I was a young man, an eighteen-year-old, to be exact, I was psychotic, and I was unaware that what you do can have consequences. Some consequences of actions, even actions taken at the tender age ...

Imagine you are walking downtown with the two kids in tow. It’s Saturday afternoon. The streets are bustling with people. Suddenly, The Noise, louder than anything you’ve ever heard, blasts your ...

We with psychiatric disabilities have some of the hardest lots in life. These diseases will attack a person from deep within. When consciousness is compromised from the ground up, you should know life ...

A little-noticed gated driveway branching east off Hillside Avenue north of Dwight Way bears a name most Berkeleyans wouldn’t recognize: Fernwald Road. It leads to a UC apartment complex housing 74 ...

The antithesis of human dignity could be humiliation. Many persons with psychiatric illness experience numerous humiliating situations in our lives. Being physically restrained, being forcibly ...

A historical mystery set in 1944 Berkeley. One of 2023’s best debuts. This multi-layered mystery features Berkeley Detective Al Sullivan struggling to determine who murdered a presidential candidate, ...

Some parallels can be drawn between forcing women to carry pregnancies against their will, and forcing people deemed mentally ill to receive medication and other treatment against their will. There ...

Sometimes when people, systems, or organizations create problems, a little bit of pushback can go a long way toward resolving them. If a person wants to harass, intimidate, or otherwise create ...

Taking an antipsychotic is not easy. People who lack firsthand or secondhand knowledge of this invariably will not understand it. It may seem as though mentally ill people are just sick people, and ...

Most Americans think of Agent Orange as something from the distant and disagreeable past—as dated as hippie vans and tie-dyed T-shirts. But the truth is that Agent Orange is still with us. And will be ...

Mentally ill people in recovery need a lot of help, from family, from society and from the mental health treatment systems. Generally, families are supportive--mine always has been. Yet, society doesn ...