Severe Depression

Darryl Strawberry is being treated for severe depression, as well as drug addiction and cancer, in St. Petersburg, Fla., and will not learn until next month whether his latest troubles with the law will result in a prison term. Circuit Judge Florence Foster set a May 4 hearing after being told yesterday that it could take the former slugger about three weeks to adjust to new medication. Strawberry has been receiving the new medicine since ending a four-day binge that began after he left a treatment facility where he was under house arrest.

The current fiscal policy of the United States is both dishonest and stupid. It is dishonest because the U.S. government is giving away money to foreign governments that it does not have. Where will the money come from? It will come from our children and grandchildren who will be saddled with this and other debts which are rightfully ours. When someone gives away someone else's money without permission, it is called theft. The policy is stupid and unpatriotic because it subordinates the welfare of the United States to the welfare of foreign governments.

CAUSE OF DEATH Some not so obvious ways that Americans died in 1990: 218 from heart failure after being told they were being transferred to Detroit. 16 from the shock of seeing Marlon Brando without clothes. 18 from the shock of seeing Boy George in clothes. 1,200 killed after object thrown at television ricochets off and hits them in head during TV appearances of Richard Simmons. 37 from physical exhaustion while working as kitchen help for Oprah Winfrey.

ALZHEIMER'S SPOUSES. If you care for a spouse with Alzheimer's disease, you're at greater risk of suffering severe depression and other maladies. Ohio State University researchers told the Federal Advisory Panel on Alzheimer's Disease that 30 percent of family "care-givers" they studied suffered depression - a much higher rate than the norm. A marked inability to fend off infection and vulnerability to severe colds, pneumonia, influenza and other upper-respiratory-tract problems also were observed.

DEAR ABBY: When I was 13, I would cut myself. I stopped around 15 after an attempted overdose that didn't work. I did it because my parents were stressed due to money problems and ignored me or yelled at me a lot. I was also bullied in school. Suddenly, in the last week, I have begun binge eating. I see no hope for my life or my future. I wake up wanting to go back to sleep or overdose. My wrists have throbbed at the thought of wanting to cut again, and last night I had a dream of jumping off a building.

CHICAGO - Election Day is five weeks away, and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D., Ill.) remains out of sight. It's an absence, both from his job in Congress and his campaign, that's starting to test patience in his Chicago hometown. More than three months have passed since Jackson, 47, first elected in 1995, dropped out of public sight. It was later revealed that he was hospitalized for severe depression and gastrointestinal problems. There have been few updates on his condition and no hard answers to questions about his future.

People who have a healthy "explanatory style" - who refuse to blame themselves for unpleasant events in their lives - are less likely to become seriously depressed, a University of Pennsylvania researcher said yesterday at a national science convention. "Explanatory style" is a way people have of explaining to themselves bad things that happen to them, Penn psychologist Martin E. P Seligman told a symposium on depression at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia.

A hobbled, retired NFL football player is addicted to painkillers. A doctor who has worked closely with the NFL Players Association said the union recognizes that the cycle - first the pain, then the addiction - has become all too familiar among retirees. "It's a violent sport ... and you can put a lot of work into muscles, but you can't strengthen bones and tendons," said Sidney Schnoll, a doctor and former University of Pennsylvania professor who has consulted with NFL teams as well as the players' union.

There were pressures at college, of course, but none heavier than those Lisa put on herself: to do well, to look good, to meet the expectations of friends and relatives. By the end of freshman year, she had developed an eating disorder. At times, she was depressed. When a resident adviser worried out loud about her, Lisa went for help. Until her graduation last month, she was a regular visitor at the counseling center at her small Pennsylvania college. "There are things I could talk to friends about, things I could talk to my parents about, but for this, I felt I needed someone who was 100 percent there to help me and 100 percent objective," said Lisa, who asked that her full name not be used.

On a rainy fall night years ago, my date and I accepted a friend's offer to drive her home after a fraternity party. We realized we had made a mistake when he drove too fast over roads made slick with wet leaves, despite our requests to slow down. It almost seemed a relief when the car left the road and slammed into an arbor of huge oaks. I escaped almost unhurt, but Priscilla's arm was broken and her face scarred. The driver's face was disfigured, and he will continue to limp for the rest of his life.

CHICAGO - Election Day is five weeks away, and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D., Ill.) remains out of sight. It's an absence, both from his job in Congress and his campaign, that's starting to test patience in his Chicago hometown. More than three months have passed since Jackson, 47, first elected in 1995, dropped out of public sight. It was later revealed that he was hospitalized for severe depression and gastrointestinal problems. There have been few updates on his condition and no hard answers to questions about his future.

DEAR ABBY: When I was 13, I would cut myself. I stopped around 15 after an attempted overdose that didn't work. I did it because my parents were stressed due to money problems and ignored me or yelled at me a lot. I was also bullied in school. Suddenly, in the last week, I have begun binge eating. I see no hope for my life or my future. I wake up wanting to go back to sleep or overdose. My wrists have throbbed at the thought of wanting to cut again, and last night I had a dream of jumping off a building.

A hobbled, retired NFL football player is addicted to painkillers. A doctor who has worked closely with the NFL Players Association said the union recognizes that the cycle - first the pain, then the addiction - has become all too familiar among retirees. "It's a violent sport ... and you can put a lot of work into muscles, but you can't strengthen bones and tendons," said Sidney Schnoll, a doctor and former University of Pennsylvania professor who has consulted with NFL teams as well as the players' union.

Darryl Strawberry is being treated for severe depression, as well as drug addiction and cancer, in St. Petersburg, Fla., and will not learn until next month whether his latest troubles with the law will result in a prison term. Circuit Judge Florence Foster set a May 4 hearing after being told yesterday that it could take the former slugger about three weeks to adjust to new medication. Strawberry has been receiving the new medicine since ending a four-day binge that began after he left a treatment facility where he was under house arrest.

There were pressures at college, of course, but none heavier than those Lisa put on herself: to do well, to look good, to meet the expectations of friends and relatives. By the end of freshman year, she had developed an eating disorder. At times, she was depressed. When a resident adviser worried out loud about her, Lisa went for help. Until her graduation last month, she was a regular visitor at the counseling center at her small Pennsylvania college. "There are things I could talk to friends about, things I could talk to my parents about, but for this, I felt I needed someone who was 100 percent there to help me and 100 percent objective," said Lisa, who asked that her full name not be used.

The irony was painful. Carol Lowe was in the final stages of planning a conference on mental illness and motherhood when she got an unwelcome insight. She began obsessing about her newborn son - his hair, his coloring, his fingertips. She nursed him incessantly, couldn't bear to be away from him, wouldn't let her husband touch him. When well-wishers called, she refused to talk. "It was depression," she said yesterday at the conference. "That's why I wouldn't answer the phone.

Claiming that he is altruistically aiding the terminally ill to die in a more certain, if not less painful way, Dr. Jack Kevorkian continues on his rampage of "physician-assisted suicide. " He presents suicide as just another life choice, which confronts us in the last stages of life as we try to negotiate a "final exit" from the vicissitudes of our daily turmoil on this imperfect earth. And by justifying suicide, by actively promoting it, he does broad harm to society - leading to needless deaths.

CAUSE OF DEATH Some not so obvious ways that Americans died in 1990: 218 from heart failure after being told they were being transferred to Detroit. 16 from the shock of seeing Marlon Brando without clothes. 18 from the shock of seeing Boy George in clothes. 1,200 killed after object thrown at television ricochets off and hits them in head during TV appearances of Richard Simmons. 37 from physical exhaustion while working as kitchen help for Oprah Winfrey.

On a rainy fall night years ago, my date and I accepted a friend's offer to drive her home after a fraternity party. We realized we had made a mistake when he drove too fast over roads made slick with wet leaves, despite our requests to slow down. It almost seemed a relief when the car left the road and slammed into an arbor of huge oaks. I escaped almost unhurt, but Priscilla's arm was broken and her face scarred. The driver's face was disfigured, and he will continue to limp for the rest of his life.

ALZHEIMER'S SPOUSES. If you care for a spouse with Alzheimer's disease, you're at greater risk of suffering severe depression and other maladies. Ohio State University researchers told the Federal Advisory Panel on Alzheimer's Disease that 30 percent of family "care-givers" they studied suffered depression - a much higher rate than the norm. A marked inability to fend off infection and vulnerability to severe colds, pneumonia, influenza and other upper-respiratory-tract problems also were observed.