{"id":638,"date":"2007-11-15T10:15:03","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T10:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/beyond-blue-a-top10-psych-cent.html"},"modified":"2007-11-15T10:15:03","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T10:15:03","slug":"beyond-blue-a-top10-psych-cent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/beyond-blue-a-top10-psych-cent.html","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Blue: A Top-10 Psych Central Depression Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bow-blog-200x100w.jpg\"
\nYeah! We’ve made Psych Central’s top-ten list for depression blogs<\/a>. I’ve included the post below. You’ll see that three of my blogging buddies also made the list: James Bishop of Finding Optimism<\/a>, Katherine Stone of Postpartum Progress<\/a>, and Douglas Cootey of The Splintered Mind<\/a> (the guy who thinks I whine … but I’ve forgiven him).<\/a>
\nAs I said yesterday, there are so many quality mental-health blogs, and I try to stay up on them so that I can pass along their tips, advice, and general insight to Beyond Blue readers.
\nHere is what Psych Central’s John M. Grohol, Psy.D., has to say about his top ten picks:<\/a><\/p>\n

\nWe\u2019ve been indexing and reviewing online resources since 1991. In 1995, we began awarding Web awards to recognize those online resources that really stood out. Flash forward 12 years later and a lot has changed. We aim to give you the best of the best, so you know where to go when you need information, opinion, and support.
\nWith the invaluable assistance of regular blog contributor Sandra Kiume, I present to you 2007\u2019s Best of the Web – Blogs for Depression. Depression is a difficult category, because there are innumerable blogs that talk about depression, some even on a fairly regular basis. But there aren\u2019t many that are reliably engaging, post regularly, and keep up for months or years on end. We scoured the web for those rare jewels, some of which you\u2019ll find below:<\/p>\n


\n1. Depression Introspection<\/strong>
\nAn anonymous \u201c25-year-old black female\u201d writing about her struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts and simply life, magnified. It\u2019s quite personal and chatty, you can have dialogues with her. Also, commentary on depression in the news, celebrities and research news. She was first diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) but apparently that may have been a misdiagnosis, as she was recently diagnosed as having bipolar disorder instead. The focus of her blog remains the depressive side.
\nUnfortunately, she hasn\u2019t blogged since September, but we hope to see her take up the keyboard again soon and continue her interesting writing on mental health topics and her own life.
\n2. Finding Optimism<\/strong>
\nIt could have been on our Top Ten Bipolar Blogs list but is here instead since, although author James Bishop is bipolar, his posts are about general mental health, positive psychology and depression treatment topics. A wee bit saccharine in its optimism at times, it\u2019s still interesting and he shares lots of great links. Especially good at writing lists, he\u2019s done a Top Five Blogs on Depression list of his own. Furious Seasons tops his list and we had it ranked highly as a bipolar blog, since Phil identifies as bipolar. The lines can be so blurry\u2026
\nJames\u2019 blog is offline at the moment as he\u2019s having some technical difficulties, but we all look forward to its return soon!
\n3. Beyond Blue<\/strong>
\nHosted at Belief.net, this popular blog by Therese J. Borchard is on spirituality and how it relates to depression, in \u201ca spiritual journey to mental health.\u201d She has a warm, welcoming, mashed-potatoes-and-gravy style and writes with consumers in mind, with a CV full of books and articles in major magazines. In this blog she comments on treatments, Bible scriptures and welcomes discussions like, \u201cThe Depression Debate: Biological? Spiritual? Both?\u201d If you\u2019re looking for a regular spiritual read on depression and mental health topics in general, this is the blog for you.
\n4. Postpartum Progress<\/strong>
\n\u201cMost widely read blog\u201d on perinatal mood disorders and it\u2019s easy to see why. Katherine Stone maintains a comprehensive, well-linked, and archive-heavy blog that seems to catch every news item and research article on the subject, including postpartum depression, postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), postpartum psychosis, and more. This blog is brightly written, reliably updated, easy to read and very informative. Kathleen is a former marketer turned advocate who is applying the blogging skills she developed with her award-winning first blog to this newer venture. Although it\u2019s narrowly focussed on a specialized field of mood disorders, Postpartum Progress definitely deserves to be recognized among all the top blogs.
\n5. Save Your Sanity<\/strong>
\nLiveJournal is home to thousands of personal blogs that delve into depression, but this one by early adopter Erika (she began blogging nine years ago, when she was just twelve) is consistently exceptional. Powerfully written, intimate and evocative, we can\u2019t help but be sucked into her life just as she is sucked in by depression. Be forewarned, however, that her language more accurately reflects real life, profanity and all.
\nAn example of her writerly prowess: \u201cBeing severely depressed is having things in your brain randomly light on fire. If you\u2019re severely depressed, these fires happen so frequently that all you have time to do is run around trying to get the fires to go out. Sometimes you have water for the fires, sometimes all you can do is try to light a backfire. Sometimes nothing works, and you want to die. Sometimes nothing works, and you live. You can\u2019t tell what\u2019s going to happen, but you can\u2019t ignore the fires because they\u2019re FIRES. You have to put them out. Trying to get back to normal is like building a house. To build a house, you need blueprints, materials, labor, and know-how\/experience. I have some of these things, but not all at the same time. And all my experience is in putting out fires. Not building.\u201d But, she is managing to build a brick house regardless.
\n6. A Beautiful Revolution<\/strong>
\nThis is an outstanding creative writing blog filled with \u201cdepressed doodles\u201d by Andre Jordan. His blog is not so much about depression as maybe an extension of its emotional effects. Talented and rare jewel in the blogosphere. His doodles have been published in a hardcover book (Amazon UK link, couldn\u2019t find the book on U.S. Amazon.com); they are funny and poignant. It is infrequently updated.
\n7. The Splintered Mind<\/strong>
\nA cheery blog from Douglas Cootey, who has anxiety alongside depression (which is common). Distilled news, funny anecdotes and images, all with an optimistic and practical viewpoint. Plus, he\u2019s created a LOLcats feed converter that lets you view his RSS feed (or anyone\u2019s) with headlines as text over CC Flickr group cat pictures. One of his posts in September sums up his approach: \u201cWhy Be Sad When You Can Be Silly?\u201d
\n8. Walking the Black Dog<\/strong>
\nEasy reading, generally optimistic posts about depression and depression news, with a bit of advice mixed in. Anonymous mental health consumer blog. I like his writing but like one the blog features even more: each post has a footer with details about the post. Example: \u201cRead the full post (812 words, 2 images, estimated 3:15 mins reading time).\u201d Very convenient!
\n9. The Pursuit of Happiness<\/strong>
\nAn anonymous blog by a presumably white hetero male, described as, \u201cMy journey through self help techniques and herbal remedies for depression.\u201d It\u2019s a new blog written by someone fairly new to treating his depression and social anxiety and it\u2019s nice to follow fresh eyes as he tries various treatments. He\u2019s just started on St. John\u2019s Wort, for example. Cheer him on.
\n10. Depression: Art and Expression<\/strong>
\nNot exactly a blog, not quite a vlog (no RSS), but oh so web 2.0. A YouTube group with about 40 members who submit creative projects, music and their personal experiences on video. Cool mix of views and culture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah! We’ve made Psych Central’s top-ten list for depression blogs. I’ve included the post below. You’ll see that three of my blogging buddies also made the list: James Bishop of Finding Optimism, Katherine Stone of Postpartum Progress, and Douglas Cootey of The Splintered Mind (the guy who thinks I whine … but I’ve forgiven him).…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nBeyond Blue: A Top-10 Psych Central Depression Blog - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/beyond-blue-a-top10-psych-cent.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond Blue: A Top-10 Psych Central Depression Blog - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yeah! 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