Whether you call it Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act, there's no denying that the legislation has sparked controversy. But it's a much-needed debate: are insurance companies a business or a service? If they're businesses, as is the current role, they function by denying as many sick people as possible. But if they're a service, as is suggested by the ACA, they need to man up and do the right thing by covering those who need it most. So here are my three hopes of the ACA's effect on insurance companies.

Dr. Harry A. Croft, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, is board certified in Adult Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine and Sex Therapy, and has been in private practice in San Antonio, Texas, for more than 30 years. Dr. Croft's interest in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) began in 1973 when, as an Army physician, he served as the medical director of drug and alcohol treatment at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, at the height of the Vietnam War. This experience paved the way for his medical evaluation of more than 7000 veterans with PTSD. (Dr. Croft's full bio)

It’s time to dispel another myth that ticks me right off. This particular myth is that mental illness is but a symptom of childhood abuse. People who think this claim that simply by getting therapy and dealing with this abuse, the mental illness symptoms will go away. Bipolar – cured! Yay! This, of course, is absolute nonsense.

Regardless of whether or not you’re experiencing a state of depression or in a crisis or feeling pretty positive, it can be hard to love yourself and practice self-compassion. A lot of times, I hear other people who live with bipolar disorder and other mental health problems say that they hate themselves or feel ashamed of the things they feel (My Irrational Bipolar Brain Makes Me Hate Myself). For me, personally, I can tell myself, cognitively, that my feelings aren’t my fault, but it’s very hard to believe that emotionally.

Kindness is one of the sweetest ways to show love to your special needs child. Last week, I wrote about being the kind of parent you'd like for yourself. Sometimes because of my own stress and issues, I'm not very kind to Bob. Instead of responding in a loving manner, I have responded rudely and end up shutting down what could be a great conversation. I know this isn't something that only happens with me.

I’ll admit it – I’m obsessed with ‘The Voice’ on NBC. I don’t know if it is my music-geek background or my love for talented singers, but I’m obsessed. I’ve been a devoted fan since the first season and now, I vote weekly and download songs like a maniac. This past week, unique coach, CeeLo Green, said something that really connected to mental illness and self-harm. Yes, CeeLo can be a little out there, but if you really listen to the advice he gives to the singers, it is quite intriguing. The statement he said this week that caught my attention was this: “Pain is the common denominator that connects most people.” Any self-harmer will agree that that statement is true.

On Oct. 28, 2013, Justin Eldridge took his life. He left behind a wife and four children, and the never-ending question of "Why?" He had served more than eight years serving in the United States Marines, including an eight-month stint in Afghanistan. He was 31-years-old.

Since slightly before the dawn of time man has set his gaze on the immensity of space and wondered this - given the billions and billions of tiny dots out there, which are probably quite similar to the thing upon which I reside, circling the sun, or other large objects - and knowing what I do of statistical relationships and relationships of probability, which is to say, the likelihood of events - how could I possibly be alone in this universe? When you really stop and think, isn't it far more likely that somewhere, somehow, on one of these lonesome magma clumps there is a form of life - however humble - striving ever upwards along its agonizingly slow evolutionary rise which, ultimately, will lead, over endless millennia of failed experiments, to something resembling me, and when I say me I do so because we must take as our starting point the assumption that humanity is what they refer to as The Crown of Creation and as such is the standard by which all others are measured, assuming there are others to measure, which we are, because frankly that is the point of this exercise. So let us argue that, given an infinite amount of time to do so, and an infinite amount of government funding to squander, not to mention a rugged little spaceship able to withstand asteroid collisions, exploration would inevitably discover life of one sort or another. According to the legions of marginally employed scientists who have time to untangle these hypothetical quandaries, this is a given. Given, perhaps, but their belief sheds no light whatsoever on the presence, or lack, of mental illness among intelligent aliens.

Hello all, I'm writing this post on a Sunday evening after I caught myself several times being super-duper ADHD - I could not stayed focused! It was a studying and cleaning day for me and I was having trouble studying and cleaning today. The studying was freaking me out because one lecture was taking me over an hour (which just about never happens for me) and the cleaning ... yikes, the cleaning ...

When a depression trigger sneaks up on you, there is no time at all to prepare yourself. I suffered such a depression trigger this past week that sent me down a very dark rabbit hole, very fast.