Recovery Michigan

I won’t name the city or the group—it isn’t necessary. Similar situations have occurred in every anarchist community. A middle-aged man with obvious mental health difficulties had attached himself to an anarchist activist project in a major city. He had time and energy to spare. He also had difficulties managing his behavior sometimes. A group of young women thought his occasionally aggressive words and actions were threatening, and they were lobbying for his expulsion from the collective. Others grumbled that his personal hygiene was lacking, and that his presence drove away potential members.

Thanks and a hat tip to Kris Copeland

Recovery That Rocks is about getting into a strong, overpowering recovery; one that you won't be knocked out of when the stresses of life try to knock you out of the recovery you worked so hard to get.

Words to live by from Marty.

The consumption of a food typically leads to a decrease in its subsequent intake through habituation—a decrease in one’s responsiveness to the food and motivation to obtain it. We demonstrated that habituation to a food item can occur even when its consumption is merely imagined. Five experiments showed that people who repeatedly imagined eating a food (such as cheese) many times subsequently consumed less of the imagined food than did people who repeatedly imagined eating that food fewer times, imagined eating a different food (such as candy), or did not imagine eating a food. They did so because they desired to eat it less, not because they considered it less palatable. These results suggest that mental representation alone can engender habituation to a stimulus.

Who'd a thought?

According to the authors, the modern world has become so clean, we are deprived of the bacteria our immune systems came to rely on over long ages to keep inflammation at bay.

"We have known for a long time that people with depression, even those who are not sick, have higher levels of inflammation," explains Raison.

"Since ancient times benign microorganisms, some times referred to as 'old friends,' have taught the immune system how to tolerate other harmless microorganisms, and in the process, reduce inflammatory responses that have been linked to the development of most modern illnesses, from cancer to depression."

Crohn's disease may cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study contends.

Depressed and suicidal individuals have low levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood and saliva. They also have substances in their spinal fluid that suggest there is increased inflammation in the brain. These findings could help to develop new methods for diagnosing and treating suicidal patients.

More on inflammation and stress.

A study that appears in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics addresses the association between use of aspirin and statins and the risk of major depression.

A beautiful and harrowing short film by documentary photographer Jenn Ackerman, examing conditions inside the Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit of the Kentucky State Reformatory.

Although previous research suggests that depressive ruminators tend to become stuck in a particular mind-set, this mental inflexibility may not always be disadvantageous; in some cases, it may facilitate active maintenance of a single task goal in the face of distraction.

Using a cross-sectional study, they used Department of Veterans Affairs administrative data on 329,049 veterans who received Veterans Affairs health care from April 1, 2002, through March 31, 2008. They found that female veterans were younger and more likely to be black and to receive depression diagnoses than were male veterans, who were more frequently diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder.