Boys need help with body image too

I grew up looking at images of ‘heroin chic’ supermodels, for whom nothing tasted better than how thin felt. 1990s beauty standards were defined by Kate Moss’s protruding ribs, while teen girls’ magazines warned of an epidemic of anorexia and bulimia. https://www.flickr.com/photos/9355127@N07/35710732331/in/photostream/ The term body-shaming hadn’t been coined yet, but the rise of magazines outlining [...]

The best mental health story I've covered

Earlier in January I got a message on Twitter from somebody I'd met once or twice in a work capacity. He wanted to speak on the show about his experience of mental health. We get a lot of people wanting to talk about their mental health. Many of them are wellness bloggers and celebrities and mental [...]

Hope for Lauree

Remember Lauree, whose story I wrote about recently after we featured her Mom Sharon on the show? There has been a lot of media follow-up of her story including in the Evening Echo and in the Irish Examiner  RTE Drivetime followed up and interviewed Sharon last week. Hopefully this will bring her plight to the national stage. Listen back: [...]

2018-12-01T09:54:18+00:00 April 25th, 2016|Categories: Opinion|Tags: , , , |

Our health service is utterly failing seriously ill people

In all the recent election debates, there was just one mention of mental health. Only one party (Fianna Fáil) gave much more than a paragraph to the subject in its manifesto. Nobody won or lost a seat based on it, although it’s been acknowledged now for quite some time that both the health service and the [...]

Dual diagnosis: When the system fails

I took a call this morning from a woman on the brink. Her sister is 29. She has a history of anorexia, borderline personality disorder, and, crucially... addiction issues. Her sister called us because they have exhausted every single option available to them, and because, after the Caoilte O Broin case, they know the likely outcome [...]

2018-12-01T09:54:20+00:00 March 11th, 2016|Categories: Opinion|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Women in homelessness face unique challenges – how we can help

https://www.facebook.com/619175434780049/photos/pb.619175434780049.-2207520000.1451932805./1011948528836069/?type=3&theater   I write this from the comfort of my couch, warmed by the fire, and utterly aware that this is a privilege. Last Wednesday on the Opinion Line, we spoke to Stephanie McCarthy, a mother of five from Gurranebraher who faces eviction on Christmas Eve. If or when the McCarthy family are forced to [...]

Self-soothing, grown-up style

We'd an interesting discussion on the show today about stress and how different people manage it (you can listen back at www.96fm.ie). Aisling, a childcare worker, contacted us to ask could we make people aware that stress can have physical manifestations like fatigue and memory loss. We had other people contacting us about their own symptoms, [...]

2018-12-01T09:55:49+00:00 July 28th, 2015|Categories: Opinion|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I don't normally do this, but… 2015… what's the plan?

I don't normally do very personal blog posts here, but quite a bit of my op/ed stuff over the past year related to personal experiences, so I feel I should bring it all together a bit here.  It's late January, and I am only now getting into 'January mode', the mode of healthy eating and exercise, [...]

Anyone, any time, any circumstances: Depression doesn't discriminate

The most shocking thing about the tragic death of fashion designer and former model L'Wren Scott at the weekend seems, for most people, to be that she 'had it all'. Regularly photographed on the red carpet at glitzy events; an international jet-setter with a fabulous lifestyle and a celebrity boyfriend; and working in probably the most [...]

2018-12-01T09:57:00+00:00 March 20th, 2014|Categories: Opinion|Tags: , , , , |