This Was Such A Great Message.

Following Trauma

More than 2.6 million servicemen and women have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since September 11, 2001. Many veterans return home from their service with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, chronic pain and traumatic brain injury. These symptoms are also common among civilian trauma survivors.

Now researchers from Harvard Medical School and other institutions will embark on a five-year-long project, the Aurora study, to better understand and treat these disorders.  The research will utilize the efforts of 19 institutions and more than 40 scientists.

Trauma survivors will be enrolled in the study in the immediate aftermath of trauma and followed longitudinally for one year using sophisticated adaptive sampling methods to perform a comprehensive, state-of-the-art assessment of genomic, neuroimaging, physiologic, neurocognitive, psychophysical, behavioral and self-report markers.

In addition to its unparalleled scope, the study differs from previous studies in that it will assess neuropsychiatric effects of trauma broadly rather than focus on only one or a few diseases.

“We want to be patient-centered and not diagnosis-centered,” said Samuel McLean, lead principal investigator of the study and an emergency medical physician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Read more 

Funding: The five-year-long project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Raise your voice in support of expanding federal funding for life-saving medical research by joining the AAMC’s advocacy community. 

This resonates with me. My brother is disabled and under the purview of MHMR, and I'm well on my way since my psychotic break. We're both POC and I'm gay. I also look Muslim, even though I'm not, but most of this country can't tell the difference between brown people making my visage all the more dangerous to have. I've also been sexually assaulted.

My PTSD says to be terrified. My paranoid schizophrenia is already pretty terrified. My depression is shutting me down. My anxiety will not abate, and has been a constant companion since the debates. Being in public is terrifying. As terrifying as it was to be in Kuwait in 2007, and introduced to Iraqis as American, during the war. (The only time I'm considered American is oversees, go figure.)

I consider myself Texan, born and raised, but I'm never considered a fully fledged person because some facet of my personality is constantly being denied rights, equal treatment, or under threat of those rights being revoked. When these benefits will be taken away, I'll not only lose any security left, but I'll also be viewed as less than a fully formed person because my rights will be nonexistent and the rights I still have will be misapplied and overlooked for not fitting in to any group. And don't get me started on being ignored and mistreated by other minority groups for not fitting in with them.

Please stop excluding disabled people in your posts about minorities who are being affected by the election results. Disabled people in the US are being affected too and we matter.

To my Black and Brown fam, please stay safe.

Stay indoors.

The worse has happened and that man was elected. White supremacy will rear the ugliest of heads in the coming days. They will be hunting. Check in with your loved ones. This is not a drill.

We will rally again. But now is not the time.

Stay home. Stay safe.

Anxiety attacks aren’t always hyperventilating and rocking back and forth

Anxiety attacks can take different forms, such as:

Unpredictable bouts of rage or irritability

Nit-pickiness (obsessive behavior, which may be a part of OCD), and even a hypersensitivity to disarray, chaos, or any sort of change

Fast-talking, stuttering, stumbling over words

Not talking at all

Sitting rigid, staring into space, almost seeming “zoned out”

Understanding the way our or other’s anxiety works can help to decrease the stigma and help to calm a person faster and get them out of that state. These are just a few, but it gives an idea of the range in which attacks can come.

Terrified Texan

I'm honestly terrified of being out in public now. I look Arab, even though I'm not. I'm born and raised in Texas. I'm gay. Maybe it's my paranoid schizophrenia, but I truly believe I will have to be careful when I'm out alone. I believe my looks were part of an assault by a police officer when I was travelling through west Texas. White people tell me I'll be fine. They say we'll get through this. But this isn't another Bush administration. This is this the xenophobic, homophobic, "disenfranchised", evangelical, white supremacist majority that incorrectly sees me as the enemy. With both Bush elections I was disappointed, but I wasn't terrified. I didn't joke about moving, I took democracy in stride and kept living my life. I jokingly get called terrorist, when I'm a native Texan. I get weird stares on the train and bus because I'm brown, and I was born in the US. I get searched every plane ride, even though I'm half white. In fact, I'm half Irish descent and half Indian descent. But I'm too brown for whites and too American for browns. I don't fit in, so I tend to stand out. And in doing so, I draw the ire and looks of others. There's too much hate and uncertainty in the world. This has always bred fascism, nationalism, and totalitarianism. And that's why I'm afraid. These ideals just won majority in the most powerful nation state in the world. And here I am, just wondering why people rationalize hate. Why has my country betrayed me? I'm truly worried for my safety in public. This wasn't the America I was promised under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. My first political memory was watching the Berlin Wall fall. And now, my home will be building one. Winter is coming.

me: *wants to live a minimalist life with little to no clutter*

also me: I'm keeping this math assignment from 5th grade I might need it later.

vague post