Lives Restored
“Lives Restored: Executive with Schizoaffective Disorder Uses Job to Cope”
The New York Times – October 22, 2011
Summary: The New York Times recently published the third installment in its “Lives Restored” series by Benedict Carey, profiles about people living with severe mental illness. This most recent profile tells the story of Keris Myrick, a fifty-year-old chief executive of a nonprofit organization. Ms. Myrick has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder and has worked out her own way of managing her condition while building a full successful life. After years of dealing with the pain of mental illness, Ms. Myrick “learned that she needed a high-profile position, not a low-key one, to face down her spells of paranoia and despair.” In 2008, she took over Project Return Peer Support Network and oversees 94 trained advisers who provide symptom-management advice and other services to people struggling with mental illness. With the help of a therapist, Ms. Myrick has developed a strategy “combining a heavy work schedule, regular reality checks with colleagues, sympathy from her dog and the option to bail out for a few days if needed – in luxury.”
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The New York Times – June 23, 2011 and August 6, 2011
Summary: Benedict Carey, journalist and reporter on medical and science topics for The New York Times, has recently published the first two profiles in a series for the Times about “people who are functioning normally despite severe mental illness and have chosen to speak out about their struggles.” The first Lives Restored profile, “Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight, A Therapist’s Demons”recounts the story of Dr. Marsha Linehan, a therapist who created a treatment used worldwide for severely suicidal people. Dr. Linehan has suffered most of her life from borderline personality disorder and recently went public for the first time. “So many people have begged me to come forward”, said Dr. Linehan, “and I just thought – well, I have to do this. I owe it to them. I cannot die a coward.” The second article in the series, “Learning to Cope with a Mind’s Taunting Voices, Managing Mental Illness” profiles Joe Holt, who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Mr. Holt is a computer consultant and entrepreneur, married with three foster children. For many years, he attributed the negative voices in his head and thoughts of suicide to a cruel and difficult childhood. In 1996 he began to realize that he suffered from mental illness and started taking steps to manage and learn to live with his condition. “The hardest part is that just to stay in the game, I have to scrutinize my every thought, every attitude, every emotion, everything, and ask, ‘Is this real?’ And when it’s bad, I have to adjust my life somewhat to get through it. I had to have some kind of system.”