I stopped avoiding.

And I feel great.

Now it’s time for some Saturday Sanity, and I hope by this time next week, I still feel just as great.

At Mental Health Notes, I shared survey findings about saving money on prescription medications, passed along advocacy alerts about Mental Health Parity and Medicaid regulations, showed you where to find information about headaches and brain tumors, highlighted Web sites about two interesting -ologies (color psychology and graphology), and, very simply, told you that water is good for your brain. And, this week at Mental Health Notes was extra special because we were visited by triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author Doreen Orion!

Mental health was prevalent in the news this week. Mental Health America salutes the service of veterans and families as well as offers tips on how to boost workplace wellness, and researchers from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) presented information about new depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia treatments. In other research news, Dr. Rosalind Wright of Harvard Medical School and colleagues found that women who experience stress during their pregnancies may have babies who are predisposed to allergies and asthma, and a new study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders suggests that anorexic women who had childhood anxiety may experience more severe symptoms of the eating disorder.

And finally, what’s going on with the rest of the b5media Health & Wellness Channel? Grace at Kids Health Notes points to a UCLA study that suggests that pregnant women who use cell phones may have children with behavior problems. Kendra at A Hearty Life gives a glimpse into her struggles with stress and how it affects diabetes. Mary Emma at Alzheimer’s Notes offers 13 tips for caregivers to alleviate depression. Ruth at Eating Fabulous tells us about how celery and green pepper compound can prevent neuroinflammation.

That’s it for this week! If you have any Saturday Sanity-worthy news, send it my way for next Saturday!

All images courtesy of morgueFile.

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Saturday Sanity: Keeping Up With Yesterday

I get asked a lot how I, as a psychiatrist, became an author. Here’s the answer:

Podcast: How A Psychiatrist Became An Author

© Doreen Orion

Doreen Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author. Her memoir, QUEEN OF THE ROAD: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own will be published in June by Broadway Books. For more information, go to www.QueenoftheRoadtheBook.com.

The above image of Doreen, Tim, and the bus with a will of its own belongs to Doreen Orion and is being used according to her specifications.

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Doreen Orion Blog Tour: How A Psychiatrist Became An Author

Another important lesson we learned is that all that really matters is spending time with the people you love. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? And, while it’s true that in traveling around the country through 47 states (including Alaska), we met incredibly diverse and unique people, we also found that we all had one thing in common: Wanting to love and be loved. Yet, that’s not what most spend their time doing. We had been guilty of that, as well.

On the bus, we learned how crucial it is to downsize and simplify our lives so that we don’t end up supporting a lifestyle filled with things instead of people and experiences. Tim and I are polar opposites. Maybe that’s why we have so much fun together – even if it’s doing something that might not turn out as planned.

By now, you know that the out-of-doors is not exactly my thing. Well, after meeting a remarkable man of the bush in tiny Wrangell, Alaska, I decided that if he could live for days in a tree in the rain along the river hunting moose, the least I could do was try hiking, again. Tim was thrilled . . . until we hiked. For it was on Sitka’s Harbor Mountain that we took what I would come to term The Alaskan Death March. Although even I had to admit the scenery was spectacular (ocean, islands, distant peaks, yada yada) the lack of an escalator on the steep climb nearly did me in. And why should I suffer alone?

So I devised the Five Stages of Getting Grief from Hiking with Doreen: Denial (“We’re not going all the way up there, are we?”); Anger (“I can’t believe I let you take me on this stupid hike!”); Bargaining (“If we stop now, I’ll have the energy to do another hike tomorrow. Really, I promise!”); Despair (“Oh, why did I ever let you talk me into anything over three miles?”); Acceptance (“Fine. But this is absolutely, positively, the last hike I will ever go on for the rest of my life!”) Recalling a disappointing hike through a rainforest we had taken two weeks before, I felt compelled to add a sixth stage, one which only occurs in extreme circumstances, at a perfect storm of elevation gain, accumulated mileage, mud and bugs: Confabulation (“Look at the dog! You’re killing him!”). Finally, when I nagged enough to make even Tim agree to quit, I clutched the poodle to celebrate, beaming as I attempted to reinforce the wisdom of my husband’s capitulation.

“I’m so glad you didn’t make me continue to the top. This way, I could actually enjoy how beautiful it was. I’d even do it again.”

“Really?” Tim retorted. “I wouldn’t.”

I hope you’re enjoying reading about our extraordinary journey. It you want to learn more (or just have some laughs) please visit www.QueenOfTheRoadTheBook.com for pictures of our trip, my blog, more videos and podcasts, book tour appearances and events, as well as more excerpts. If you do stop by my website, please be sure to click on the “Share a Thought” link. I’d love to hear from you.

© Doreen Orion

Doreen Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author. Her memoir, QUEEN OF THE ROAD: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own will be published in June by Broadway Books. For more information, go to www.QueenoftheRoadtheBook.com.

The above image of Doreen, Tim, and the adorable Miles belongs to Doreen Orion and is being used according to her specifications.

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Doreen Orion Blog Tour: Spend Time With The People You Love

Although I protested as long as I could, my husband and I did eventually hit the road in our bus with our two querulous cats, sixty-pound dog – and no agenda. Another important thing we learned was: Don’t let the spark die. It’s crucial to keep challenging and stretching yourself. I hadn’t realized how my life had become more than comfortable – it had become rote and routine. So along with the many adventures we had, we also had to survive many disasters (fire, flood, armed robbery, my developing a guest phobia and finding ourselves in a nudist RV park, to name just a few) that actually helped in rekindling that spark. In fact, on our very first day out, I nearly died a horrible death (not that I would have thought there was any other kind) several times.

Here’s a reenactment of one of those episodes:

© Doreen Orion

Doreen Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author. Her memoir, QUEEN OF THE ROAD: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own will be published in June by Broadway Books. For more information, go to www.QueenoftheRoadtheBook.com.

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Doreen Orion Blog Tour: Don’t Let The Spark Die

Hello Everyone,

I’m thrilled to guest blog on Mental Health Notes this week. Since I’m a psychiatrist and read a lot about mental health issues, I always appreciate when some humor is thrown in. I hope you all do, too, although I also hope that as I talk about the life-changing, year-long trip my husband and I took, what won’t get lost in the laughter are some of the important lessons we learned. But first, let me tell you how all this came about.

When my long-dreaded thirtieth birthday arrived, I really wasn’t as upset as I imagined I’d be, for I had achieved a much more important milestone: my sartorial centennial. I owned one hundred pairs of shoes. Then, at age forty-four, I found myself trying to cram a mere half that number into a living space of 340 square feet.

The whole thing was Tim’s fault.

When he announced he wanted to travel around the country in a converted bus for a year, I gave this profound and potentially life-altering notion all the thoughtful consideration it deserved.

“Why can’t you be like a normal husband with a midlife crisis and have an affair or buy a Corvette?” I demanded, adding, “I will never, ever, EVER, not in a million years, live on a bus.”

Something less than a million years later, as we prepared to roll down the road in our fully outfitted, luxury bus, it occurred to me that Tim had already owned a Corvette, long ago when he was far too young for a midlife crisis. While I pondered who he might be seeing on the side (and whether his having an affair might prove less taxing than living in a metallic phallus on wheels), I wedged and stuffed – and, oh my GOD! bent – the cutest little Prada mules you’ve ever seen into my “closet,” which was really not a closet at all, but much more resembled the cubbyhole I’d been assigned many pre-shoe-obsession years ago at Camp Cejwin. How had I let myself go from “never ever” to..this? Both Tim and I are shrinks, but he’s obviously the better one. It took him five years, yet he whittled down my resolve, no doubt with some fancy, newfangled brainwashing technique ripped out of one of our medical journals before I could get to it.

So, here is the first and one of the most important lessons we learned from “the bus thing”: Don’t put off your dreams. Tim finally convinced me by explaining, “This is just something I really want to do – while we’re young and can still enjoy it. I’ve done everything right all my life, the way I was supposed to do it. Now I want something for me. And I want it with you.”

I realized even then that he had a point. Like many people, until we reached our late thirties, Tim and I had gone through life feeling rather invincible. Not only was it inconceivable that something bad could ever happen to us, even our very mortality seemed suspect. When we hit our forties, this changed, as our contemporaries experienced sudden, unexpected tragedies: A friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. A colleague died of a heart attack in his sleep. Both of us, for the first time, could feel creaks and aches in bones we hadn’t thought about since anatomy class. Over the years, we each had treated people in our practices who had looked forward to all they planned to do in retirement, but when the time came, were too ill to travel or too devastated by the death of a spouse to live out their dreams.

Those lessons started hitting home as we officially breached middle age. We knew we were fortunate in that we would always have jobs; neurosis is a growth industry, after all. We could afford to do this now and go back to work later. For most people, it takes some terrible catalyst to change their lives. We’re living proof that it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to wait. We can change our lives NOW. And, it doesn’t have to be something as drastic as taking an entire year off. That happened to work for us, but the bus is a really a metaphor; everyone can find their own “inner bus” whether it’s taking an adult education class in something they’ve always wanted to learn about, volunteering in their communities, or rekindling an old interest that went by the wayside years ago.

What would your inner bus be?

Tomorrow, another important thing we learned: Don’t let the spark die.

© Doreen Orion

Doreen Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author. Her memoir, QUEEN OF THE ROAD: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own will be published in June by Broadway Books. For more information, go to www.QueenoftheRoadtheBook.com.

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Doreen Orion Blog Tour: Don’t Put Off Your Dreams

Today kicks off Doreen Orion’s month-long book tour (May 19-June 16), and she’s going to be here at Mental Health Notes for the next week. I hope you’ll all welcome her!

First, though, you may be wondering, “What? Who is Doreen Orion? And why is she touring blogs? Specifically, Mental Health Notes?”

That’s easy enough to answer. Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist and award-winning author who’s on blog tour to promote her upcoming memoir, Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own, which Broadway Books is publishing in June.

Queen of the Road already has a slew of honors under its bindings: It’s a contender for Elle Magazine’s Readers’ Prize in July, Celestial Seasonings’s June book club pick, and one of Borders’s four book club picks for June.

How exciting!

This particular MHN post will act as a house for all of Orion’s guest posts during her tour at Mental Health Notes. Feel free to bookmark it and check back each day for new posts from Orion.

Doreen Orion’s Mental Health Notes Blog Tour Schedule:

• Monday: Don’t Put Off Your Dreams
• Tuesday: Don’t Let the Spark Die
• Wednesday: Spend Time With the People You Love
• Thursday: How A Psychiatrist Became An Author

Image: Amazon

Remember! You have until May 31, 2008 to enter the Mental Health Notes Birthday Giveaway, and forever to join the This Is Why I ROCK! series!

Post from: Blisstree

Blog Tour Announcement And Schedule: Doreen Orion Is Queen of the Road