[Image-1] “Who else is helping them?” Stephen Ayer asks. He pauses briefly before answering his own question with a quiet intensity. “No one. We are. That’s why we have value.” Ayer is executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia, one of many groups to have their grant budgets slashed this year. He’s referring […]
Mental Health
Posted inNews + Opinion
The haircut: my story of living with depression
[Image-1] I just got a haircut. I know this sounds frivolous, but it’s not. It’s me caring about how I look. It’s me having the energy to style my hair in something other than a ponytail. It’s me being mentally healthy. Looking back, I see that I’ve lived with depression since high school. All those […]
Posted inLifestyle
Alien forces and inner demons: One man’s struggle with mental illness
[Image-1] Aliens have been known to communicate with John Roswell. In the throes of severe psychosis, Roswell often thinks of himself as an alien here on earth. He chuckles when he says he was born on New World Island, off the Newfoundland coast in 1952. He even changed his name from Rowsell to Roswell several […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
What are Columbiners?
[Image-1] Since Friday the media and public have been grasping for the motivations behind a planned mass murder spree that thankfully never came to fruition. The accused shared “dark” imagery online. They were white supremacist neo-Nazies. Depending on who you ask, they were bloodthirsty terrorists or “murderous misfits.” At the very least, they were Columbiners. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Get informed for Eating Disorder Awareness Week
[Image-1] February 1 to 7 is Eating Disorders Awareness Week, an international event that encourages understanding of eating disorders. As psychologists and as scientists who study and treat eating disorders, we recognize eating disorders are often greatly misunderstood, and we want to raise awareness about these common, costly, and impairing disorders. Eating disorders involve serious, […]
Posted inLifestyle
The depressing world of call centre employment
[Image-1] Over the past seven years, 25-year-old Samantha Devine has worked at four call centres, starting at the first immediately after graduating high school. She is now unemployed, taking anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants and has been through several rounds of therapy. “They didn’t really care what happened to you,” says Devine. The mother of two […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trauma services needed in hospitals
[Image-1] Capital Health is in the hot seat again following a recent Coast investigation. In question period at Province House yesterday, former health minister David Wilson asked current health minister Leo Glavine about concerns raised in The Coast’s “The always-on stalker” investigation, which Wilson said, “highlighted the need for trauma-informed services in our emergency rooms.” […]
Posted inArts + Music
Outsider Insight chance
“I know how much art did for me and my mental health. I thought it would be good. I thought it would be cool for other people with mental illness to experience how therapeutic it can be,” says Gavin Quinn through a smile. Quinn is the project coordinator and impetus behind Outsider Insight, a peer-support […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Welcome to the New Dartmouth
The gleaming, stainless-steel kitchen at Dartmouth cafe Two If By Sea is a blur of activity, with a half-dozen young, black-clad employees milling about behind a panelled counter. Tattooed arms dole out espressos, dive into glass jars to retrieve gooey cookies and dig through baskets for croissants the size of footballs. Customers wait patiently in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tim Krahn’s inside stories
Tim Krahn pads down the stairs in slippers. The footwear contradicts the austere name of his workplace, Novel Tech Ethics, as does the untucked shirt, stylishly cut hair and a welcoming, friendly manner. (The only visible concession to formality is a few empty earring holes in one ear.) Novel Tech Ethics is an international and […]
