Mental Illness and the Newtown School Shooting

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Mental Illness and the Newtown School Shooting
• Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Life with Schizophrenia: A Journey from Torment to Triumph on HealthyPlace TV

Mental Illness and the Newtown School Shooting

After the horrible school shooting in Newtown, CT, and the burial of the child victims of Adam Lanza, it is time this country has a national conversation about mental illness. We do not know, for sure, if Adam Lanza had a diagnosed mental illness. Various news reports indicate that he was a deeply troubled young man and that he had seen mental health professionals at various points in his life.

As a leading provider of trusted mental health information, we, at HealthyPlace, strongly feel it is important for every American to clearly understand:

• what mental illness is and is not
• the various types of mental health disorders
• the signs of mental illness in an adult and child
• how mental illness symptoms can affect a person
• and the importance of professional mental health treatment and how it can help many people with mental illness lead productive lives

For most Americans, their only real understanding of mental illness is watching “a crazy person on the news” after some violent crime has taken place or occasionally running into a mentally ill person who is homeless. As we all know, this is not the typical person living with a mental illness.

Included in the conversation, we should address:

• the lack of funds for mental illness treatment
• the stigma of mental illness which, among other things, prevents people from getting the treatment they need
• whether people with severe mental illnesses should have access to guns

Several of our mental health bloggers express their thoughts on these issues. You'll find their stories listed further down in this newsletter. You can find comprehensive information on mental illness, mental health here.

Your Thoughts

What are your thoughts about how mental illness is being portrayed as a result of CT. school shooting incident? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness

Get Our Mental Health Blog Widget

Over 100 sites and blogs are helping spread awareness of mental illness. How about putting our mental health blogs widget on your website, blog or social page? The latest HealthyPlace blog headlines appear as soon as the articles are posted on our site. Just click "Get Widget" at the bottom of the widget, grab the embed code and paste it into your page. You'll also see embed links for Wordpress, Blogger, Linkedin and other social sites there.

As a bonus, put the blogs widget on your site or blog, email us (info AT healthyplace.com) with a page link where it appears, and we'll give a shoutout to your site, blog, or social site on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Share our Stories

At the top and bottom of all our stories, you'll find social share buttons for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites. If you find a particular story, video, psychological test or other HealthyPlace feature helpful, there's a good chance others in need will too. Please share.

We also get many inquiries about our linking policy. If you have a website or blog, you can link to any page on the HealthyPlace website without asking us beforehand.

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Ten Activities To Get Rid of Anxiety
2. What is Seasonal Affective Disorder, Seasonal Depression?
3. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) Definition

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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Mental Health Experiences

Share your thoughts/experiences with any mental health subject, or respond to other people's audio posts, by calling our toll-free number (1-888-883-8045).

You can listen to what other people are saying by clicking on the gray title bars inside the widgets located on the "Sharing Your Mental Health Experiences" homepage, the HealthyPlace homepage, and the HealthyPlace Support Network homepage.

If you have any questions, write us at: info AT healthyplace.com

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

We want to welcome Jessica Hudgens as the new author of the "Surviving ED" blog. On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Ride The Wave of Panic (Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog)
• Dealing with Bipolar at the Holidays – Expectations (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• Hope, Help and Happiness: A Mental Health Holiday Wish List (The Bipolar Griot Blog)
• Newtown, CT: Trauma Without Words (Trauma! A PTSD Blog)
• Are You A People Pleaser? (Building Self-Esteem Blog)
• Q and A with ‘Electroboy’ Andy Behrman (Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog)
• Finding the Motivation to Recover From Mental Illness!!! (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• Budget Cuts to Mental Health Services: At What Cost? (Mental Illness in the Family Blog)
• Is Mental Illness the Problem? (More Than Borderline Blog)
• Stalkings Of An Insanity Clause By The Chimney With Care (Funny in the Head: A Mental Health Humor Blog)
• Addiction Relapse: It’s the Holiday Season! (Debunking Addiction Blog)
• PTSD and Memories of Abuse (Verbal Abuse and Relationships Blog)
• Importance Of Gun Control For People With Schizophrenia (Creative Schizophrenia Blog)
• Mental Illness – When Your Family Won’t Believe You (Speaking Out About Self-Injury Blog)
• About Jessica Hudgens, Author of the Surviving ED Blog (Surviving ED Blog)
• Don’t Fear Adversity (Coping with Depression Blog)

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

Life with Schizophrenia: A Journey from Torment to Triumph on HealthyPlace TV

Sandra MacKay first experienced paranoid schizophrenia symptoms as a teen. Today she's an artist, author, and advocate. She discusses life with schizophrenia on HealthyPlace TV. Watch.

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• circle HealthyPlace on Google+,
• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• follow HealthyPlace on Pinterest
• or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index