Jayson Blair

Met on Thursday with Mark Brownell, a Loudoun County, Va. Sheriff's deputy, assigned to the Juvenile Court Services Unit . Mark talked with me and colleagues about a wide array of services they offer juveniles who end up in trouble. Among the services are interventions, where Mark and his colleagues attempt to get juveniles resources they need before they need up on probation or in jail. We met Mark through one of my client's mothers who was able to use his help to explain some of the potential consequences of substance abuse and other issues to my client.

Running off to the celebrity silent auction for Homestretch -- a great cause -- at the Gannett Building in McLean, Va. Homestretch provides housing, educational and psychological assistance to the homeless in Fairfax County, Va.

Re-reading Kay Redfield Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind" and was struck by how this description of mania was absolutely accurate and pitch-perfect, as if Dr. Jamison had conjured up the ghost of manic episode past as she wrote this passage: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces...

Many scientists, notably Kay Redfield Jamison in her book Touched with Fire , see a link between creativity and bipolar disorder, but I just came across a study where researchers at Stanford University's School of Medicine have found that having bipolar parents can pay dividends in creativity . It suggests what anyone whose hung out with many children of people with bipolar disorder already seem to believe: they tend to be super creative, like their bipolar parents. The small study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, said offspring of parents with bipolar -- even those who did not suffer the condition themselves -- scored higher on creativity tests than those with mentally sound parents. Dr. Kiki Chang, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, told the United Press International, that "there is a reason that many people who have bipolar disorder become very successful, and these findings address the positive aspects of having ...

I am a huge fan of Alison Malmon . She is the 26-year-old executive director of Active Minds on Campus , a support network of more than 100 college campus chapters that help individuals with mental illnesses, support their family and friends and work to generally improve mental health on college campuses. I originally met Alison when a friend was applying for a position at the growing Active Minds headquarters in Washington. Since then, we arranged to have the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance-Northern Virginia and George Mason University's Office of Disability Services , to have Alison speak on campus in February. Alison started Active Minds after her 22-year-old brother, Brian, who had schizoaffective disorder, committed suicide in March 2000 while on leave from Columbia University. Alison was a student at the University of Pennsylvania at the time. We just wrapped up lunch at Georgia Brown's in DC, and it looks like Alison has plans to create similar chapters in high scho...

Several months ago, Pete Earley, the former Washington Post reporter and author, came to speak at a Depression Bipolar Support Alliance-Northern Virginia event at the Sully District Government Center in Chantilly, Va. Pete spoke about his book "Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness." Pete's book is about his son, who had to be hospitalized several times and eventually had a run-in with the law. Pete also examined areas where the mental health and criminal justice systems collide across America. In a tragic twist, one of the Fairfax County, Va. police detectives, Vicky Armel , who helped his son when he ran into trouble was killed by a mentally ill gunman several months before the talk in the parking lot of the same building. Pete and I had a chance to speak after the meeting, and one of the topics was about the support groups. I'm happy to say that his son has joined and become an active member in of one of the groups. His insight...

Army soldiers committed suicide in 2006 at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to military reports. An increasing number of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen are also returning with traumatic brain injuries, which often result in psychiatric and psychological problems. Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, the report shows. The Army has come up with materials to help friends, family members, commanders, colleagues and others to see the signs that a serviceman or servicewoman is at risk .