Doesn't Everybody Want the Good Life?

kingruffalo: You go to a costume party as a superhero, not...

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:00:58 -0400

kingruffalo:

You go to a costume party as a superhero, not your own, who would it be? [x]

Aww bitch tits that’s trippy

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:01:02 -0400

Aww bitch tits that’s trippy

deduction-to-seduction: thatlowvice: This is going in the...

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:01:06 -0400

deduction-to-seduction:

thatlowvice:

This is going in the folder of things that will make me feel good even when I’m sad.

Jawn come back and play

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:00:48 -0400

rachelisaflameprincess: bendydicks: considerthishippie: Instead of just looking up into the sky,...

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:00:45 -0400

rachelisaflameprincess:

bendydicks:

considerthishippie:

Instead of just looking up into the sky, you’re actually gazing down into the infinite cosmic abyss, with only gravity holding you onto the surface of the earth.

oh

i was not prepared for that

This may be my favourite video vlogbrothers has ever made....

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:14:49 -0400

This may be my favourite video vlogbrothers has ever made. Especially useless trivia Hank and his Dougie-ing.

supermassiveasshole: i was teaching my grandma to use computer so we can talk on skype and such but...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:00:45 -0400

supermassiveasshole:

i was teaching my grandma to use computer so we can talk on skype and such but today she went kinda mad at me because “i didnt show her the knitting programme” and i was like what

and it comes out she accidentally opened ms excel and found out its a great way to create knitting patterns

my grandma is 82

I can’t. I spend all day using excel for my internship and I have never thought of this

neurosciencestuff: Suicidal behaviour is a disease,...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:10:50 -0400

neurosciencestuff:

Suicidal behaviour is a disease, psychiatrists argue

As suicide rates climb steeply in the US a growing number of psychiatrists are arguing that suicidal behaviour should be considered as a disease in its own right, rather than as a behaviour resulting from a mood disorder.

They base their argument on mounting evidence showing that the brains of people who have committed suicide have striking similarities, quite distinct from what is seen in the brains of people who have similar mood disorders but who died of natural causes.

Suicide also tends to be more common in some families, suggesting there may be genetic and other biological factors in play. What’s more, most people with mood disorders never attempt to kill themselves, and about 10 per cent of suicides have no history of mental disease.

The idea of classifying suicidal tendencies as a disease is being taken seriously. The team behind the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Standards Manual (DSM-5) – the newest version of psychiatry’s “bible”, released at the American Psychiatric Association’s meeting in San Francisco this week – considered a proposal to have “suicide behaviour disorder” listed as a distinct diagnosis. It was ultimately put on probation: put into a list of topics deemed to require further research for possible inclusion in future DSM revisions.

Another argument for linking suicidal people together under a single diagnosis is that it could spur research into the neurological and genetic factors they have in common. This could allow psychiatrists to better predict someone’s suicide risk, and even lead to treatments that stop suicidal feelings.

Signs in the brain

Until the 1980s, the accepted view in psychiatry was that people who committed suicide were, by definition, depressed. But that view began to change when autopsies revealed distinctive features in the brains of people who had committed suicide, including structural changes in the prefrontal cortex – which controls high-level decision-making – and altered levels of the neurochemical serotonin. These characteristics appeared regardless of whether the people had suffered from depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or no disorder at all (Brain Research).

But there is no single neurological cause of suicide, says Gustavo Turecki of McGill University in Montreal. What is more likely, he says, is that environmental factors trigger a series of changes in the brains of people who are already genetically prone to suicide, contributing to a constellation of factors that ultimately increase risk. These factors include a history of abuse as a child, post-traumatic stress disorder, long periods of anxiety, or sleep deprivation.

The search for more of these factors is complicated by the rarity of brain samples from suicide victims and the lack of an animal model – humans are unique in their wilful ability to end their lives. But some studies are yielding insights. For example, when people with bipolar disorder who have previously attempted suicide begin taking lithium, they tend to stop attempting suicide even if the drug has no effect on their other symptoms. This suggests that the drug may be acting on neural pathways that specifically influence suicidal tendencies (Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology).

In the genes?

There is also growing evidence that genetics plays a role. For example, according to one study, identical twins share suicidal tendencies 15 per cent of the time, compared with 1 per cent in non-identical twins (Journal of Affective Disorders). And a study of adopted people who had committed suicide found that their biological relatives were six times more likely to commit suicide than members of the family that adopted them (American Journal of Medical Genetics).

A number of individual genes have been linked to suicide, such as those involved in the brain’s response to mood-lifting serotonin, and a signalling molecule called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which regulates the brain’s response to stress. Both tend to be suppressed in the brains of people who committed suicide, regardless of what mental disorder they had. Other studies of post-mortem brains have found that people who commit suicide after a bout of depression have different brain chemistry from depressed people who die of natural causes.

A study by Turecki, published this month, compared the brains of 46 people who had committed suicide with those of 16 people who died of natural causes. In the first group, 366 genes, mostly related to learning and memory, had a different set of epigenetic markers – chemical switches that turn genes on and off (American Journal of Psychiatry). The results are complicated by the fact that many of the people who committed suicide suffered from mental disorders, but Turecki says that suicide, rather than having a mental disorder, was the only significant predictor for these specific epigenetic changes.

No one yet knows the mechanism through which environmental factors would alter these genes, although stress hormones such as cortisol may be playing a role.

Understanding risk

Ultimately, biological and genetic markers might allow psychiatrists to better predict which patients are most at risk of suicide. But David Brent of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, cautions that even if we can one day use biomarkers to predict if someone will make a suicide attempt, they do not tell us when. “If clinicians are keeping an eye on a patient, they need to know if there’s imminent risk,” he says.

However, knowing someone’s long-term suicide risk may have important implications for how a doctor chooses to treat that person, says Jan Fawcett of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

For instance, a doctor may decide not to prescribe certain antidepressants to a patient with these biomarkers, as many drugs are thought to increase suicide risk. Another question would be whether to commit a person to a mental hospital – a major decision, he says, as people are most likely to commit suicide right after being released from hospital (Archives of General Psychiatry).

David Shaffer of Columbia University in New York, who was a member of the DSM-V working group, says that suicide behaviour disorder is “very much in the spirit” of the new Research Domain Criteria system that the US National Institute of Mental Health proposed as an alternative diagnosis standard to DSM-V. Rather than diagnosing people with depression or bipolar disorder, for example, the NIMH wants mental disorders to be diagnosed and treated more objectively using patients’ behaviour, genetics and neurobiology.

Ultimately, says Nader Perroud of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, if suicidal behaviour is considered as a disease in its own right, it will become possible to conduct more focused, evidence-based research on it and medications that treat it effectively. “We might be able to find a proper treatment for suicidal behaviour.”

(Image: GETTY)

In Rose City (Portland, OR), these are on the street and...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:53:16 -0400

In Rose City (Portland, OR), these are on the street and gorgeous.

feathers-theangel: musicbeatstherapy: jelee-: rockpapertheodore: tinyspacebabe: ok let’s stop...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:49:41 -0400

feathers-theangel:

musicbeatstherapy:

jelee-:

rockpapertheodore:

tinyspacebabe:

ok let’s stop using the term “butthurt” we’re not 12 anymore

you sound fannytroubled

a little bootybothered if you ask me

someone’s having a little tushytantrum

a bit asswounded

Farewells in The Sound of Music

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:00:57 -0400

Farewells in The Sound of Music

Nina Dobrev at “PUNK: Chaos To Couture” Costume Institute...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:01:17 -0400

Nina Dobrev at “PUNK: Chaos To Couture” Costume Institute Gala78

rose coloured glasses: popetwitter: How ‘Slut Shaming’ Has Been Written Into School Dress...

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:00:56 -0400

rose coloured glasses: popetwitter: How ‘Slut Shaming’ Has Been Written Into School Dress...:

popetwitter:

How ‘Slut Shaming’ Has Been Written Into School Dress Codes Across The Country

Last month, a New Jersey middle school banned girls from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were “distracting” — though they refused to specify exactly…

… Fuck everyone. Especially the teachers who are already telling girls that they are sexual objects and they must be covered.

And.these are probably the same ones who rant about American freedom and oppressive Muslim regimes.

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:43 -0400

ahdndjfnfndkjf I love you Nine

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:01:44 -0400

ahdndjfnfndkjf I love you Nine

throbinhood: boredhetaliansin221b: OMFG HE REALLY DID I SHIT U...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:00:55 -0400

throbinhood:

boredhetaliansin221b:

OMFG HE REALLY DID I SHIT U NOT

NOOOOO he was my favourite

nerdbirdistheword: 8r8kh34ds: if i could choose a super power it would be having the power to...

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:01:16 -0400

nerdbirdistheword:

8r8kh34ds:

if i could choose a super power it would be having the power to literally slap sense into people

“HAHAH you’re so fucking pathetic i hope you die”

SLAPS

“wait what im saying could seriously hurt a person and drain their confidence completely and i shouldnt do that to anyone wow”

You are the future I want to see.

aphelia: ot35 - moseley bog and joy’s wood (by...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:00:56 -0400

aphelia:

ot35 - moseley bog and joy’s wood (by johnnytakespictures)

An antagonist is the protagonist in their own world

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:00:39 -0400

An antagonist is the protagonist in their own world

"Of course, when the verdict came down, they cried. They are teenage boys and, like the child who..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:00:23 -0400

“

Of course, when the verdict came down, they cried. They are teenage boys and, like the child who apologizes not for having stolen the cookie but for being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, aren’t particularly happy about seeing the aftermath of their crimes. They were raised in a community which taught them, in no uncertain terms, that they did not abide by the same rules as everyone else. Whether they wanted to do a little underage drinking, or get in a fight, or touch a young girl who was unable to give her consent — it was all supposed to be okay. And even though the sentence was, by many standards, ludicrously light, they were facing the consequences of their actions…

It has been noted that the boys who stood by and either filmed or said nothing were “unaware” that what they were witnessing was rape, even as she was being dragged around, half-naked and unconscious. And that ignorance — that failure to understand that sexual assault is not some mythical crime which only exists when a stranger in a ski mask pops out of bushes — is a direct result of rhetoric along the lines of CNN’s. When we frame rape and sexual assault in such a narrow way, and when we pour our sympathy on those teenage boys who just went a little too far on a fun night of drinking, we tell the vast majority of victims that their pain doesn’t actually count. If you do not fit the narrative, and if you are not the ideal victim who is unequivocally above criticism, your violation counts just slightly less.

CNN should be ashamed of themselves, and we should all be taking to their social media to tell them how we feel about their decision to frame the verdict in such a way. Because as long as we continue to pretend as though sexual assault is some big, scary monster and date rapes or acquaintance rape are its harmless little cousin which shouldn’t be taken too seriously, that is exactly how our men will continue seeing them. They will rape their classmates or friends or date and never feel they were doing anything wrong. And we will tell our daughters not to drink too much at this party, even though we all know it will never really keep her safe.

”

- The Steubenville Rape Verdict And Why You Should Hate CNN (via masturbationdestination)