Blog 2

On Wednesday we had a book didactic on the "Backpack" by Tony Earley. It was a fictional story about a man named John and his depression. A point that was made really stood out to me, how his backpack could represent how everything was weighing him down. He had suicidal ideation, at least 4 traits of major depressive disorder from the DSM-5, feelings of guilt and shame, changes in appetite and sleep, etc. I can picture all of this stuffed in his bag that he carries. 

The movie assigned to us was Dark Water (2002 or 2005). What many interns found interesting about this movie was its relation to Elisa Lam’s Cecil Hotel case. What is most fascinating is that Elisa Lam’s case happened after the movie was released where in her case was most likely due to her bipolar disorder and not taking her medication causing a manic episode, whereas in the Dark Water many different factors were involved. One of which stood out to me was the mold in the apartment that could easily have caused psychosis. 

These were just the highlights of the week for me, but I’m excited to get next week started and keep learning more!