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My father died last year. My mother is still alive, but dementia has taken much of the person I once knew. Today is my first Father's Day without him. As I thought about that, I realized something I had never considered before. For most of my life, there was always a generation above me. No matter how old I became, there was still someone I could call for advice. Someone who remembered more history. Someone who had already lived through the stage of life I was entering. Someo

Published in 2008, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté has become one of the most influential books in the addiction field. Drawing on his experiences working with people struggling with severe substance use in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Maté argues that addiction is fundamentally rooted in emotional pain and trauma. The book has been widely praised for its compassion. Rather than viewing people with addictions as morally flawed, weak, or lacking willpower, Maté e

Over the last thirty years, I have watched many people spend years, and sometimes decades, inside various systems of care. Mental health programs, addiction treatment programs, homeless programs, group homes, residential facilities, and supportive housing. Over time, I began to notice a pattern. The people who struggled most with independence were not the people with the most severe symptoms. Often, they were the people whose entire social world existed inside the system. The

Part 2 follows Mackenzie Robbins through abuse, psychosis, hospitalization, and the search for answers. It is a deeply personal account of receiving a schizophrenia diagnosis, navigating recovery, and learning to build a life beyond labels and assumptions.

One of the most common misconceptions about emotional abuse is the belief that it should be obvious. People often imagine that if they were being emotionally abused, they would immediately recognize it. They assume there would be a clear moment when the relationship crossed a line. A specific incident. A dramatic realization. An unmistakable warning sign. Unfortunately, reality is rarely that simple. Many people who later identify a relationship as emotionally abusive describ

I post the song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" at least once a year on social media because I believe its message that strongly. If you've never heard it, take four minutes and listen before reading further. Not because relationships are supposed to remain exactly the same forever. Not because butterflies are meant to last for decades. But because I believe some things should remain. The feeling that your partner still adores you. The feeling that they still light up w

If you have never heard Janis Ian’s 1975 song At Seventeen, take a moment to listen before reading. If you already know it, listen again. Its emotional truth is part of what this reflection explores. Few songs capture the feeling of not belonging as honestly as this one. If you have never heard Janis Ian’s 1975 song At Seventeen, it is one of the most painfully truthful songs ever written about what it feels like to believe you are not accepted. What makes the song so beautif

People rarely talk about one of the most quietly degrading parts of entering the mental health system: the way adults are often treated like children. Not openly.Not intentionally, most of the time. But subtly, constantly, and systematically. It happens in the small things. The forced recreational activities. The endless Bingo games. The childish arts and crafts. The exaggerated praise for completing basic tasks. The overly simplified language. The careful, patronizing tone m

People often ask a version of this question: If mental health awareness is better now, why does it feel like there is so much more mental illness than there used to be? Were people in the 1970s somehow mentally healthier? Did modern life break us? Or is something else going on? The answer is more complicated than most people realize. Because the truth is: It is not that mental illness suddenly exploded. It is that our culture dramatically changed how we define distress, how q

There are books that challenge your assumptions. And then there are books that make you question the foundation the entire system was built on. The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz is one of those books. When it was first published in 1961, it was considered radical. More than sixty years later, it remains one of the most uncomfortable and necessary challenges ever directed at modern psychiatry. And the reason it still matters is simple: The questions Szasz raised were

If you want to read a popular book that tells people exactly what they desperately want to believe about depression, read Lost Connections by Johann Hari. It offers an emotionally compelling story. It is easy to read. It feels humane. And for many people, it sounds deeply validating. That is exactly why it became so influential. The problem is that emotional resonance is not the same thing as scientific rigor. And when a book becomes culturally powerful because it feels right

Some books become popular because they tell people what they desperately want to believe. NOT because the evidence behind them is actually that strong. The Body Keeps the Score became one of the most influential mental health books of the modern era because it offered something emotionally irresistible to modern culture: a framework that explained suffering in a way that felt validating, scientific, compassionate, and morally clear all at once. And to be fair, part of the boo

For something prescribed to millions of people, the experience of trying to come off psychiatric medications can feel strangely confusing and isolating. Not because information does not exist. But because the reality of what withdrawal can actually feel like is often far more intense, disorienting, and frightening than many people expect beforehand. I say this as someone who is not anti-medication. I’ve worked in mental health systems for decades. I understand that medication

Over the years, people have asked me where many of my ideas about mental health, addiction, recovery, human services, and institutional systems actually come from. The answer is definitely NOT social media. They came from decades working inside these systems — but also from reading researchers, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, trauma experts, recovery thinkers, anthropologists, cult researchers, and people willing to ask uncomfortable questions about power, identity

After writing my last post about how nursing homes and the mental health system can start to feel emotionally similar, a question hit me: Why didn’t I get stuck there? Because honestly? By all odds, I probably should have. I’ve spent over 30 years inside mental health and addiction systems. I’ve worked in shelters, clinics, housing programs, crisis services, recovery programs, and peer systems. I’ve seen 100s of people slowly disappear into diagnoses. Into routines. Into stab

A realization hit me recently while going through my mother’s nursing home situation. There’s something about the emotional atmosphere there that keeps striking me. Not the people. Not the setting. The atmosphere itself: Maintenance. Stabilization. Managing symptoms. Getting through the day. Reducing risk. And eventually I realized what it reminded me of: The mental health system. Different buildings. Different ages. Different diagnoses. Different language. But underneath it

You think the hard part is getting diagnosed. It’s not. The hard part is what comes next. Because once you’re in the system…you don’t just receive treatment. You begin to build a life inside it. I Came Close—More Than Once There were at least three points in my life where I could have easily ended up in the system. And the reason I didn’t wasn’t luck. It was my parents. When I was very young, I had repeated febrile seizures. So many that the medical community at the time was

Most people have never heard of the DSM. But if you’ve ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition, it has shaped how that diagnosis was made. DSM stands for: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s the book used across the United States—and much of the world—to define what counts as a mental disorder. The first version was published in 1952. The current version—DSM-5-TR (Text Revision)—was released in 2022. And over that time, something important h

People think a mental health diagnosis means something precise happened. That someone really understood you Looked at your life. Took their time. And then landed on something accurate. That’s the story. Here’s the reality: Most diagnoses are decisions made under pressure, using a system that has to fit you into something—whether it really fits or not. The System Doesn’t Start With You By the time you sit down, the system already has a list of labels it can use. That list come