Mental health emergencies, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, mobile crisis teams, dual diagnosis, trauma and PTSD — care for the moments when waiting isn’t an option.
The Body Keeps the Score Even When the Mind Forgets You were in a car accident three years ago. You walked away with only bruises. But ever since, you cannot drive on the highway without your heart racing and your palms sweating. You take back roads everywhere. You are always scanning for danger. Your family … Read more
The Body Keeps the Score Even When the Mind Forgets You were in a car accident three years ago. You walked away with only bruises. But ever since, you cannot drive on the highway without your heart racing and your palms sweating. You take back roads everywhere. You are always scanning for danger. Your family … Read more
Recognising the Moment Before a Crisis Becomes One Most family members of people with serious mental health conditions describe the same feeling about the days leading up to a major crisis: they could see something was wrong, but they could not name what it was, and by the time they understood what they were watching, … Read more
Marcus was nineteen, a sophomore at a state university in Columbus, Ohio, when his mother Denise drove four hours to bring him home for the weekend. She had not seen him in two months. The young man who opened the dorm-room door was thinner, paler, and would not meet her eyes. His curtains were taped … Read more
Marcus was nineteen, a sophomore at a state university in Columbus, Ohio, when his mother Denise drove four hours to bring him home for the weekend. She had not seen him in two months. The young man who opened the dorm-room door was thinner, paler, and would not meet her eyes. His curtains were taped … Read more
Linda Hawthorne, sixty-one, a fourth-grade teacher from Nashville, went into the medical ICU at Vanderbilt with a severe pneumonia and septic shock. She spent eleven days on a ventilator, six of them sedated with continuous propofol and fentanyl. She survived, walked out of the hospital nineteen days after she rolled in, and her daughter expected … Read more
Linda Hawthorne, sixty-one, a fourth-grade teacher from Nashville, went into the medical ICU at Vanderbilt with a severe pneumonia and septic shock. She spent eleven days on a ventilator, six of them sedated with continuous propofol and fentanyl. She survived, walked out of the hospital nineteen days after she rolled in, and her daughter expected … Read more
Rosa was 28, a graduate student in Philadelphia who had been hospitalised for a manic episode with psychotic features and started on haloperidol with rapid dose escalation over four days. By the fifth day she had a temperature of 40.1°C, lead-pipe rigidity in all four extremities, blood pressure swinging between 180/110 and 90/60, and a … Read more
Daniel was 34, a software engineer in Austin, Texas, and had been on sertraline for eighteen months for generalised anxiety. On a Tuesday afternoon his orthopaedic surgeon called in tramadol after a knee scope. By Wednesday morning Daniel’s wife found him pacing the kitchen, sweating through his t-shirt, telling her the floor was vibrating. His … Read more
Daniel was 34, a software engineer in Austin, Texas, and had been on sertraline for eighteen months for generalised anxiety. On a Tuesday afternoon his orthopaedic surgeon called in tramadol after a knee scope. By Wednesday morning Daniel’s wife found him pacing the kitchen, sweating through his t-shirt, telling her the floor was vibrating. His … Read more