Archive for carlton
MENTAL ILLNESS DOES NOT DEFINE ME
I refuse to be defined as mentally ill. It is not my vocation. I am someone who has a mental illness, but that doesn’t define who I am. It is a condition of who I am. I am an artist, an architect, and an author, and I have dealt with my bipolar disorder for most […]
23Dec2022 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
Forgotten F * * kers
I am a sexual assault survivor. When I was a little over five years old, I was attacked in […]
2Oct2018 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
Vraylar Vagaries & Verities
A great pile of aluminum foil-wrapped sandwiches surrounds the manic mother who stands at her kitchen counter atop a pyramid of playing cards in beautiful suburbia. Bipolar I Disorder could topple her reality, perhaps smothering her in ham sandwiches, but there is a solution in Vraylar, a drug from Forest Laboratories Holdings Ltd, an Allergan […]
24Aug2018 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
The “S” Word Documentary Review
Suicide: The Short Term Solution; Survival: The Long Term Problem Silence shrouds suicide. The tenth greatest cause of death in the United States goes unspoken unless a celebrity takes his/her life. Remember Robin Williams. Almost 43,000 persons kill themselves each year. That translates in 113 self murders every day. Of that […]
8Feb2018 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
D.A.A.D. Dilemma
Depression, Anger, AND Destruction Depression beginning in anger plagues my life and leads to thoughts of self-destruction. I battle with these three issues everyday. Being bi-polar, depression is a common feeling. Over the past months, as I struggle with physical ailments, the sense of loss and meaningless often overwhelmed me. On August 9, 2017, I […]
23Aug2017 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
Closure Blooms
Closure Blooms I have added a link to my article written in the spring of 2016 that is published in a specially edited version for inclusion on the website for the new documentary “The S Word,” soon to be released by filmmaker Lisa Klein with her husband, producer, Doug Blush. The documentary is about suicide and the […]
30Nov2016 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
Closure Blooms
I tried to kill myself at Yale University when I was a student there 51 years ago. Returning to the 50th Reunion of the class of 1966, the class I didn’t graduate with, I sought closure to what has always been a painful experience. A friend from those undergraduate years invited me to come. I […]
16Jun2016 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
I am a Suicide Survivor
Livethroughthis.org is the website project and future mobile exhibition created by Dese’Rae Stage, her self a suicide survivor. Carlton Davis edited Dese’Rae’s interview. To see the unedited story and stories and portraits of other suicide survivors see: http.//www.livethroughtthis.org. Suicide is the 10th highest cause of death in the United States. The mental illness that leads […]
12Sep2014 | carlton | 2 comments | Continued
IBBBSS
Irritable Bariatric Bipolar Bowel Suicide Syndrome Think of Ibis, the sacred bird that wades the life-sustaining waters of the Nile. Its long beak penetrates the surface for sustenance. Think of the Egyptian god, Thoth, whose human body carried the head of the Ibis. Thoth was the author of all knowledge. Say “ai”, elongate the […]
11Sep2014 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
BYE, BYE, BLACKBIRD
No one gets through life without being hurt. To be human is to be hurt. All men and women have people or places that have negative associations. An offhand remark by a stranger or an acquaintance can resonate in our mind long after, years even, the unpleasant comment. A deed by a friend, a relative, […]
2Jul2014 | carlton | 1 comment | Continued
Depression Day, June 6, 2014
Frustration Followed By Anger Becomes Depression I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. The indicators were all there. It begins with the clumsiness, and lack of coordination. I began to drop things: pens, books, and the plastic container of Pellegrino mixed with pomegranate and grape juice. The bottle top wasn’t screwed on properly […]
6Jun2014 | carlton | 1 comment | Continued
Love and Isolation
“8 Habits of Love” is a book by the Reverend Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Church, Pasadena, California, where I am a member. I don’t consider myself a total Christian, since I have not accepted the divinity of Christ. I like what he preached, and I am a committed Vipassana Buddhist, but I find […]
18Nov2013 | carlton | 13 comments | Continued
The Final Breathe
Breathing is fundamental. No breath, no life! For the past year I have been afflicted with a respiratory ailment, which has grown worse as the year has progressed. At first I was just huffing and puffing a little, then by May 2013 I couldn’t cross a room or climb stars and not be totally winded. […]
19Aug2013 | carlton | 7 comments | Continued
The Living Room At Turning Point, Skokie, Illinois
A person with a mental health emergency will tell you that going to an emergency room of a hospital is to be avoided at all costs unless you have already undertaken a violent action like attempting suicide. Being bloody, vomiting, or violently striking out – then most likely you will be in the clutches […]
11Jun2013 | carlton | 3 comments | Continued
Military Serial Killer Is Not The Only One Guilty
Sergeant John Russell was convicted April 22, 2013, for second-degree murder of five military men at the Mental Health Clinic at Camp Liberty in Iraq. He will probably spend the rest of his life in a military jail. Sergeant Russell is seriously mentally ill. He wanted to kill himself, but after the horrible treatment he […]
30Apr2013 | carlton | 5 comments | Continued
The New Lepers Are Out To Gun You Down
Jared Loughner (Phoenix), Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook), James Holmes (Aurora, Colorado), Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech), Dylan Klebold (Columbine), Kipland Kinkel (Springfield, Oregon) These young men are the poster boys for most of American society’s attitude toward the mentally ill: mentally ill people are dangerous; give them a gun and they will kill you. The attitude […]
22Feb2013 | carlton | 3 comments | Continued
Anyone Can Go Psycho
I believe that anyone, given particular circumstances, could “go psycho.” Not everyone agrees with my assertion. My psychiatrist thinks I am wrong, but did not elucidate why. Thus I still think it’s true that anyone can “go psycho.” By this I mean anyone can have a psychotic break no matter if they are already suffering […]
11Jan2013 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
A New Review from Goodreads
Wendy‘s review Oct 14, 12 Read from September 21 to October 09, 2012 When I started reading this autobiography by artist/author, Carlton Davis, I thought it would be a gruelling read. It’s not nice reading about people with severe mental illness and self-destructive tendencies, right? Actually, Davis has such a great grip on life, the […]
15Oct2012 | carlton | 1 comment | Continued
IS SUICIDE A POLITICAL ACT?
“To see suicide simply as an individual mental illness and homicide as a similarly individual moral failing is to ignore the degree to which both are caused in part, by societal, economic forces.” James Gilligan from “Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others” To see suicide- all suicides- as caused in part […]
2Sep2012 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
OF TWO MINDS, The Conversation Starter
I am one of the four featured persons in the film OF TWO MINDS. I feel very honored to be in this film by Doug Blush and Lisa Klein. The honor comes from the fact that as Alice Boyce Ph.D. says in her blog review of the film on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-practice/201208/two-minds-new-documentary-film-explores-life-bipolar-disorder) the film is […]
29Aug2012 | carlton | 3 comments | Continued
THE PAIN IN MY BRAIN
A woman with the bipolar condition asked me if I got migraine headaches. At first I said no. Migraine headaches weren’t something I experienced. Then I thought about pain in my brain and how often I experienced it. I feel a severe and deep ache in my head when a massive depression is coming. I […]
13May2012 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
“OF TWO MINDS” premiered at the Cleveland Film Festival
Can I who am featured in the film“OF TWO MINDS” write a review of the film? I can’t write a typical review because my viewpoint is colored by my closeness with the film. My plan is not to so much to rate the film –although I believe it to be extraordinary-, but to speak of […]
24Apr2012 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
Laura’s Law & Kendra’s Law Bandages and Bondage
Laura’s Law and Kendra’s Law are, for anyone who has, has had, or appears to have a mental illness, scary legislations. These two laws inCalifornia and New York and copied by other states require a person to have psychiatric treatment when ordered by a judge after assessment by a mental health official. This is coercion […]
24Jan2012 | carlton | 1 comment | Continued
Unhinged by the Epidemic of Mental Illness
“The central question of what variables drive the pathophysiology of mood disorders remains unanswered……….It is therefore no surprise that we know almost nothing definitive about the pathophysiology of mental illness — the surprise is that we know anything at all.” From Unhinged, The Trouble with Psychiatry — A Doctor’s Revelations about a Profession in Crisis, […]
2Nov2011 | carlton | 1 comment | Continued
The Emotional Anxiety of Prison Visitation
The California Men’s Colony is not a pleasant place to visit, and the authorities go out of their way to make you know it. A visit has all the charm of a stopover in a dank toilet room, but this toilet is a difficult place to enter. It took me more than five hours to […]
14Aug2011 | carlton | 0 comments | Continued
