James Belarde// “‘What makes the desert beautiful,’ the little prince said, ‘is that it hides a well somewhere…’” -Antoine de Saint Exupéry “Hi, I’m James! I’m three. My dad’s name is James too! This is my mom, but her name is Zena. This is my baby brother. We’re fifteen apart. We live by –” Thus…
Tag: mental health
The Indian Mental Healthcare Act 2017: A Challenging Horizon
Amala Poli // In 2017, India’s Parliament passed a new Mental Healthcare Act that sought to address several gaps and problems in the previous act of 1987. While marking a significant moment in Indian history by attempting to prioritize patients’ rights and consent, the new act raises new concerns. Can the status quo be transformed through…
Monstrous Myths of Disability in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass
Diana Rose Newby // Warning: This piece contains mild spoilers for the film Glass. Difference is the bread and butter of the superhero genre. And to a degree, so is disability. Think X-Men’s paraplegic Professor X; the blindness and depression of Marvel’s Daredevil; the facial scarring that catalyzes Harvey Dent’s murderous mental illness; Iron Man’s super-powered…
“Let’s Play!”: The Use of Play Therapy in Child Healthcare
James Belarde// “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.” -Charlie Chaplin Children are the definition of potential. While having dinner on a first date at a vegetarian restaurant, the conversation turned to my gross undereducation in the field of vegetables and an abhorrent overeducation in the field…
Reconciling Grief and Unfinished Conversations: A Reflection on ‘If I Had to Tell it Again’
Amala Poli // First published in 1990, William Styron’s Darkness Visible lays bare the nature of unipolar depression in his wrenching account of what he calls an “indescribable” illness (16). In the decades since Styron’s pivotal text on depression, memoirists have continued to write about illnesses of the mind, grappling with questions similar to the…
The Insightful in the Personal Narrative: Reading Jerry Pinto’s ‘Em and the Big Hoom’
Amala Poli // Is happiness always conditional to good health? Or does it redefine itself in the presence of chronic illnesses? Author Jerry Pinto’s work of autobiographical fiction, Em and the Big Hoom (2012), set in India in the 90s and narrated from the perspective of a teenage boy, explores the strong ties in a…
Outing Oliver Sipple: The Health Effects of Being Outed as a Gay Hero
John A. Carranza // Last month, Love, Simon the film adaptation of the young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli was released. The movie has garnered recognition for being one of the first major motion pictures that addressed the experience of being a gay teenager struggling with his identity under…
What’s Culture Got To Do With It? Reading Jason Schnittker’s “The Diagnostic System”
Abigail Jane Mack // In the past year, the diagnosis of mental illness has loomed large in US political debates about gun control and healthcare. We’ve seen the continued growth of individuals with mental disorders identified in the US prison and jail system. We’ve seen public commenters diagnose the president and celebrities from afar. At…
Mental Health under the Hungarian People’s Republic
Molly Nebiolo // The fall of Communism in Eastern Europe happened nearly thirty years ago, but historians are still piecing together what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. Many of the narratives about Communist regimes gravitate towards the major countries that pursued reformist policies, like Russia and China, but few texts focus on many…
The Depressing World of Comedy and Medicine
James Belarde “Just like Pagliacci did / I try to keep my sadness hid / Smiling in the public eye / But in my lonely room I cry” –The Miracles, in “Tears of a Clown” “Is depression funny?” This deceptively simple question opens every episode of John Moe’s podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression. Well-connected…
