From the New York Times:

Activists like writer/blogger Liz Spikol (left) and USC law professor Elyn Saks are speaking candidly and publicly about living lives with mental illness, promoting awareness and acceptance of people with such diagnoses as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

“Until now, the acceptance of mental illness has pretty much stopped at depression,” said Charles Barber, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. “But a newer generation, fueled by the Internet and other sophisticated delivery systems, is saying, ‘We deserve to be heard, too.’ ”

About 5.7 million Americans over 18 have bipolar disorder, which is classified as a mood disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Another 2.4 million have schizophrenia, which is considered a thought disorder. The small slice of this disparate population who have chosen to share their experiences with the public liken their efforts to those of the gay-rights and similar movements of a generation ago.

Just as gay-rights activists reclaimed the word queer as a badge of honor rather than a slur, these advocates proudly call themselves mad; they say their conditions do not preclude them from productive lives.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Nearly half of the youths locked up in the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center [have] mental health problems — far more than the estimated 20 percent with mental disorders in the general youth population — figures released Thursday show. [Harris County includes Houston.]

These youngsters, mostly teenagers, have been diagnosed with maladies including bipolar and attention deficit disorders, according to data compiled by a group of organizations studying the issue. Nearly 20 percent have severe emotional problems, the data show, and a quarter had never been diagnosed previously.

“For the first time ever we’ve collected amazing data that really give us the hard facts about what issues are there and what diagnosis we need to treat,” said Betsy Schwartz, president of Mental Health America of Greater Houston. The nonprofit agency and the county juvenile probation department are coordinating Operation Redirect, a collaboration of local groups trying to prevent mentally ill kids from ending up behind bars.

See related posts:

• Mentally ill strain Georgia prisons
• Editorial: Help — not jail — needed for people with mental illness

From the [Toronto] Globe and Mail:

A growing number of children in Canada, as in the United States, are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Kids as young as 7 are taking powerful cocktails of mood-altering drugs never tested in children, with side effects that include significant weight gain, blood clots and tremors.

Some see the spike as the natural consequence of recognizing a real childhood condition that was previously missed or misdiagnosed. Others say that childhood bipolar disorder is psychiatry’s latest fad — an overdiagnosis driven by fuzzy definitions, new drugs, eager doctors and anxious parents.

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From the Los Angeles Times:

Hollywood provides the physical and emotional backdrop for a new book by Terri Cheney, a former entertainment lawyer … “Manic: A Memoir” chronicles Cheney’s decades-long struggle to come to terms with and manage her bipolar disorder…. the book not only describes Cheney’s individual struggle against this disease — which afflicts 5.7 million adult Americans of every age, gender and social class — it also provides an apt metaphor for the bizarre psychological terrain of Hollywood. (more…)