Once again the calendar has rolled around to this unbearably sad, this sad tragic day in our lives. My 26 year old brother, my beautiful, loving, sensitive, intelligent Farooq took his own life today. In fact, I believe that is a bit of a misconception. His depression took his life today. He did not. If someone could have been there to hold his hand and walk him away from certain doom, I firmly believe he would have been here today, and his two beautiful children would not have grown up fatherless. Father’s day for them, so close to when they lost their father every year, must seem like some sort of cosmic joke.

I wish I had been there for him when he was suffering so intensely. I miss him and love him very much. I always will.

Whenever a tragedy happens, some people throw around the word “Bipolar.” As in this latest atrocity in Orlando, the shooter’s wife pronounced that he was “bipolar.” No he was not bipolar! He may have been gay, he may have been abusing substances and steroids, and his wives, and most assuredly he may have had anger issues and Antisocial personality disorder, but he had no symptoms of bipolar disorder whatsoever.

Abusing steroids can cause all kinds of issues including massive anger, irritability, rage, aggression not to mention stroke and heart attack.

Antisocial personality disorder comes with these lovely (not) symptoms straight from the Mayo Clinic website :

Symptoms

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) signs and symptoms may include:

• Disregard for right and wrong
• Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others (?)
• Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others
• Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure (?)
• Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated (?)
• Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior
• Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty
• Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead (?)
• Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence
• Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others
• Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others
• Poor or abusive relationships
• Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them
• Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations (?)

I have made bold the issues that seem to come forth when looking at the Orlando shooter. I have put question marks by the ones that are possible, but upon which I don’t have any information. He abused his first wife, and basically held her hostage. He had anger issues, also probably compounded by steroid abuse, he obviously had no empathy for others. All the symptoms he exhibited are those of antisocial personality disorder. And also, apparently he was struggling with his own homosexual feelings, and that’s why he decided to take out his rage on innocent gay people.

Nothing here says bipolar disorder, the disorder people love to blame when things of this kind happen. Look at this post to see what bipolar disorder is. People who shoot and kill innocent people most likely do not have bipolar disorder, Even if they have bipolar disorder, they are NOT shooting others because of it, there is another comorbid issue such as possibly antisocial personality disorder that might cause them to commit the awful crime. People who have antisocial personality disorder are the sociopaths and psychopaths of the world. People who have bipolar disorder are decidedly not!

And his wife, the ultimate victim, he is slapping her around, and she is thinking of his future! Maybe if she had had him arrested for abusing her, who knows, this could all have been avoided. Who knows. I mean with a felony conviction, surely he could not have bought a gun. Surely. If they did a background check.

So people who have antisocial personality disorder are the sociopaths and the psychopaths of this world. The people who have bipolar disorder are decidedly NOT! SO the next time someone says “The shooter/murderer/heinous person must have been bipolar!” Answer them and say “Most probably not!” And you would be right!

This is bipolar disorder. People who shoot and kill innocent people most likely do not have bipolar disorder, Even if they have bipolar disorder, they are NOT shooting others because of it, there is another comorbid issue such as possibly antisocial personality disorder. People who have antisocial personality disorder are the sociopaths and psychopaths of the world. People who have bipolar disorder are decidedly not! Please look at this post as well: Did the Orlando shooter have bipolar d/o? No!

Bipolar disorder (from the Mayo Clinic website) is: Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic depression, causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). When you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. When your mood shifts in the other direction, you may feel euphoric and full of energy. Mood shifts may occur only a few times a year or as often as several times a week.

For both a manic and a hypomanic episode, during the period of disturbed mood and increased energy, three or more of the following symptoms (four if the mood is only irritable) must be present and represent a noticeable change from your usual behavior:

Criteria for a manic or hypomanic episode

The DSM-5 has specific criteria for the diagnosis of manic and hypomanic episodes:

• A manic episode is a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive or irritable mood that lasts at least one week (or less than a week if hospitalization is necessary). The episode includes persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy.
• A hypomanic episode is a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive or irritable mood that lasts at least four consecutive days.

For both a manic and a hypomanic episode, during the period of disturbed mood and increased energy, three or more of the following symptoms (four if the mood is only irritable) must be present and represent a noticeable change from your usual behavior:

• Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
• Decreased need for sleep (for example, you feel rested after only three hours of sleep)
• Unusual talkativeness
• Racing thoughts
• Distractibility
• Increased goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or agitation
• Doing things that are unusual and that have a high potential for painful consequences — for example, unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions or foolish business investments

To be considered a manic episode:

• The mood disturbance must be severe enough to cause noticeable difficulty at work, at school or in social activities or relationships; or to require hospitalization to prevent harm to yourself or others; or to trigger a break from reality (psychosis).
• Symptoms are not due to the direct effects of something else, such as alcohol or drug use; a medication; or a medical condition.

To be considered a hypomanic episode:

• The episode is a distinct change in mood and functioning that is not characteristic of you when the symptoms are not present, and enough of a change that other people notice.
• The episode isn’t severe enough to cause significant difficulty at work, at school or in social activities or relationships, and it doesn’t require hospitalization or trigger a break from reality.
• Symptoms are not due to the direct effects of something else, such as alcohol or drug use; a medication; or a medical condition.

Criteria for a major depressive episode

The DSM-5 also lists criteria for diagnosis of a major depressive episode:

• Five or more of the symptoms below over a two-week period that represent a change from previous mood and functioning. At least one of the symptoms is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure.
• Symptoms can be based on your own feelings or on the observations of someone else.

Signs and symptoms include:

• Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, such as feeling sad, empty, hopeless or tearful (in children and teens, depressed mood can appear as irritability)
• Markedly reduced interest or feeling no pleasure in all — or almost all — activities most of the day, nearly every day
• Significant weight loss when not dieting, weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day (in children, failure to gain weight as expected can be a sign of depression)
• Either insomnia or sleeping excessively nearly every day
• Either restlessness or slowed behavior that can be observed by others
• Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt, such as believing things that are not true, nearly every day
• Decreased ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide planning or attempt

To be considered a major depressive episode:

• Symptoms must be severe enough to cause noticeable difficulty in day-to-day activities, such as work, school, social activities or relationships
• Symptoms are not due to the direct effects of something else, such as alcohol or drug use, a medication or a medical condition
• Symptoms are not caused by grieving, such as after the loss of a loved one

B.D.N.F. baby! That’s the key. It’s called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, and it stimulates the growth of neurons, as well as protects the baby neurons from dying and even strengthens synapses in the brain. And exercise increases the levels of BDNF in mice and indications are in our brains as well. Scientists often refer to BDNF as “Miracle Gro” for the brain.

Time to get off our duffs and start exercising, and believe me I am saying to myself first of all!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/how-exercise-may-help-the-brain-grow-stronger/?_r=0

Physical activity is good for our brains. A wealth of science supports that idea. But precisely how exercise alters and improves the brain remains somewhat mysterious.

A new study with mice fills in one piece of that puzzle. It shows that, in rodents at least, strenuous exercise seems to beneficially change how certain genes work inside the brain. Though the study was in mice, and not people, there are encouraging hints that similar things may be going on inside our own skulls.

For years, scientists have known that the brains of animals and people who regularly exercise are different than the brains of those who are sedentary. Experiments in animals show that, for instance, exercise induces the creation of many new cells in the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain essential for memory and learning, and also improves the survival of those fragile, newborn neurons.

Researchers believe that exercise performs these feats at least in part by goosing the body’s production of a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or B.D.N.F., which is a protein that scientists sometimes refer to as “Miracle-Gro” for the brain. B.D.N.F. helps neurons to grow and remain vigorous and also strengthens the synapses that connect neurons, allowing the brain to function better. Low levels of B.D.N.F. have been associated with cognitive decline in both people and animals. Exercise increases levels of B.D.N.F. in brain tissue.

But scientists have not understood just what it is about exercise that prompts the brain to start pumping out additional B.D.N.F.

So for the new study, which was published this month in the journal eLIFE, researchers with New York University’s Langone Medical Center and other institutions decided to microscopically examine and reverse engineer the steps that lead to a surge in B.D.N.F. after exercise.

They began by gathering healthy mice. Half of the animals were put into cages that contained running wheels. The others were housed without wheels. For a month, all of the animals were allowed to get on with their lives. Those living with wheels ran often, generally covering several miles a day, since mice like to run. The others remained sedentary.

After four weeks, the scientists looked at brain tissue from the hippocampus of both groups of animals, checking for B.D.N.F. levels. As expected, the levels were much higher in the brains of the runners.

But then, to better understand why the runners had more B.D.N.F., the researchers turned to the particular gene in the animals’ DNA that is known to create B.D.N.F. For some reason, the scientists realized, this gene was more active among the animals that exercised than those that did not.

Using sophisticated testing methods, the scientists soon learned why. In both groups of animals, the B.D.N.F. gene was partially covered with clusters of a particular type of molecule that binds to the gene, though in different amounts.

In the sedentary mice, these molecules swarmed so densely over the gene that they blocked signals that tell the gene to turn on. As a result, the B.D.N.F. genes of the sedentary animals were relatively muted, pumping out little B.D.N.F.

But among the runners, the molecular blockade was much less effective. The molecules couldn’t seem to cover and bind to the entire B.D.N.F. gene. So messages from the body continued to reach the gene and tell it to turn on and produce more B.D.N.F.

Perhaps most remarkably, the researchers also found a particular substance in the runners’ brains that fended off the action of these obstructionist molecules. The runners’ brains contained high levels of ketones, which are a byproduct of the breakdown of fat. During strenuous exercise, the body relies in part on fat for fuel and winds up creating ketones, some of which migrate to the brain. (They are tiny enough to cross the blood-brain barrier.) The brain uses these ketones for fuel when blood sugar levels grow low.

But it appears that ketones also cause the molecules that hinder the B.D.N.F. gene to loosen their grip, as the scientists realized when they experimentally added ketones to brain tissue from some of the mice. Afterward, their B.D.N.F. genes were not blocked by nearly as many of the bothersome molecules, and those genes could get on with the job of making B.D.N.F.

None of this occurred in the brains of the sedentary mice.

“It’s incredible just how pervasive and complex the effects of exercise are on the brain,” said Moses Chao, a professor at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at N.Y.U. who oversaw the study.

Whether the same mechanisms that occur in mice occur in our own brains when we exercise is still unknown. But, Dr. Chao pointed out, like the mice, we have more B.D.N.F. in our bodies after exercise. We also create ketones when we exercise, and those ketones are known to migrate to our brains..

Generally, however, this process requires exerting yourself vigorously for an hour or more, after which time your body, having exhausted its stores of sugar, starts burning stored fat and making ketones.

If an hour or more of intense exercise seems daunting — and it does to me — don’t despair. “We are only starting to understand” the many ways in which exercise of any kind and amount is likely to alter our brains, Dr. Chao said. For now, he says, “it’s a very good idea to just keep moving.”

Related:

• Yoga May Be Good for the Brain
• Running for the Wrong Reasons
• Ask Well: Do We Need to Stretch?

Wow! Probiotics may relieve symptoms of Autism in mice and then their effect can also be looked at in people.

http://www.neuroscientistnews.com/research-news/single-species-gut-bacteria-can-reverse-autism-related-social-behavior-mice

A single species of gut bacteria can reverse autism-related social behavior in mice

June 16, 2016 | by Editor

While the number of oxytocinergic cells (green) are reduced in the brains of maternal high-fat diet offspring, treatment with Lactobacillus reuteri increases their number. Credit: Baylor College of Medicine

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http://www.neuroscientistnews.com/research-news/first-direct-evidence-ultra-fast-responses-human-amygdala-fear

First direct evidence for ultra-fast responses in human amygdala to fear

June 15, 2016 | by Editor

Brain image with amygdala (blue) and hippocampus (yellow). Credit: Stephan Moratti

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/technology/facebook-offers-tools-for-those-who-fear-a-friend-may-be-suicidal.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

MENLO PARK, Calif. When Carrie Simmons opened her Facebook app one day in late 2014, she saw a status update from a high school friend she had not seen in years that alarmed her. It read like a suicide note.

“Thank you for everyone who tried to help me,” Ms. Simmons’s friend, whom she declined to name, wrote.

Ms. Simmons immediately called a mutual friend, a police officer, who reached out to the local authorities in their friend’s town in California. There, the police found the friend in a parked car with a pistol in his lap. He did not pull the trigger and is alive today.

“If I hadn’t already been educated in suicide prevention or hadn’t seen the post on Facebook, I don’t know that I would have picked up the phone and known to call,” said Ms. Simmons, who is a real estate broker in Seattle.

With more than 1.65 billion members worldwide posting regularly about their behavior, Facebook is planning to take a more direct role in stopping suicide. On Tuesday, in the biggest step by a major technology company to incorporate suicide prevention tools into its platform, the social network introduced mechanisms and processes to make it easier for people to help friends who post messages about suicide or self-harm. With the new features, people can flag friends’ posts that they deem suicidal; the posts will be reviewed by a team at the social network that will then provide language to communicate with the person who is at risk, as well as information on suicide prevention.

The timing coincides with a surge in suicide rates in the United States to a 30-year high. The increase has been particularly steep among women and middle-aged Americans, reflecting widespread desperation. Last year, President Obama declared a World Suicide Prevention Day in September, calling on people to recognize mental health issues early and to reach out to support one another.

Facebook has long thrust itself into major societal debates because of its vast reach and the enormous diversity of human behavior it sees. About 72 percent of Americans — and 77 percent of American women — use Facebook, according to a 2015 study by Pew Research.

Yet Facebook is walking a tightrope, trying to explore its role as an arbiter of social change without upsetting the hundreds of millions of people who regularly use its services. Some of the suicide prevention tools may trouble groups that have concerns about digital privacy. Many of those groups have already become wary of what they see as Facebook’s overreach in people’s personal lives.

In October 2014, the company was embroiled in a scandal after it emerged that Facebook researchers used its news feed feature to try to manipulate the emotions of its users. The incident resulted in an overhaul of its user research methodology. Last month, Facebook grappled with accusations of political bias and fears about how much it could influence the views of its members.

“The company really has to walk a fine line here,” said Dr. Jennifer Stuber, an associate professor at the University of Washington and the faculty director of Forefront, a suicide prevention organization. “They don’t want to be perceived as ‘Big Brother-ish,’ because people are not expecting Facebook to be monitoring their posts.”

Facebook said it had a role to play in helping its users to help one another. About a third of the posts shared on the site include some form of negative feelings, according to a study released in February by the company’s researchers. Posts with negative associations tended to receive longer, more empathetic comments from Facebook friends, the company said.

“Given that Facebook is the place you’re connected to friends and family, it seemed like a natural fit,” said Dr. Jennifer Guadagno, a researcher at Facebook who is leading the suicide prevention project. Facebook has a team of more than a dozen engineers and researchers dedicated to the project.

Facebook’s new suicide prevention tools start with a drop-down menu that lets people report posts, a feature that was previously available only to some English-speaking users. People across the world can now flag a message as one that could raise concern about suicide or self-harm; those posts will then come to the attention of Facebook’s global community operations team, a group of hundreds of people around the world who monitor flagged posts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Posts flagged as potential self-harm notes are to be expedited and reviewed more quickly by the team members, who also examine posts that Facebook users have reported as objectionable. Community operations team members who evaluate potentially suicidal content are given special training, Facebook said.

The person reporting a suicide note is given a menu of options, including the ability to send a Facebook message directly to the friend in distress or to a mutual friend to coordinate help. Facebook will provide a suggested text message to send, or users can fill in their own words.

“People really want to help, but often they just don’t know what to say, what to do or how to help their friends,” said Vanessa Callison-Burch, a Facebook product manager working on the project. Users are also provided with a list of resources, including help lines and suicide prevention material, that they can click through to gain access.

If Facebook evaluators believe a post is a call for help or a distress signal, the person whose message was reported will be presented with a similar list of options the next time that person logs into Facebook and view the news feed, including tips and resources on what to do if the person feels suicidal. Such people are also prompted to reach out to friends who may be able to support them on Facebook.

The company said its work on suicide prevention started about 10 years ago, after a number of suicides in Palo Alto, Calif., the former location of Facebook’s headquarters and the city in which Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, lives. Palo Alto’s two public high schools have suicide rates between four and five times the national average.

Over the past year, Facebook has conducted a small test with suicide prevention tools in some countries, in conjunction with outside entities likeForefront, NowMattersNow.org and Save.org, a group of suicide prevention organizations. The company declined to share data on the early results.

“They’ve been very reluctant to release data on the project, even to partners like us, because of the privacy issues,” said Dr. Stuber of the University of Washington.

Facebook is becoming more forthcoming on other internal practices and how it conducts user research. On Tuesday, in a move separate from the suicide prevention tools, Facebook laid out its research review methods in a study conducted by two of its researchers. The company is hoping that the study, which is being published in Washington and Lee Law Review, will be used by other academics to help with their research methodologies.

Some nonprofit organizations and researchers that have pushed Facebook to be more aggressive in its suicide prevention efforts hope the changes push other tech giants to act similarly.

“We’re losing more people to suicide than breast cancer, car accidents, homicides,” said Dr. Dan Reidenberg, the executive director of Save.org. “We’d be fortunate for other companies to get on the bandwagon.”

My beloved uncle.

My handsome uncle.

A more recent picture of my uncle and aunt ❤ ❤

My cousin, my baby brother and me.

Me in the blue dress and my cousin in pants and brown jacket 🙂

After my mom got divorced in 1965, I was just about 5 years old and my baby brother Farooq was not even 1 years old yet. After her divorce from my father, we went and lived with my aunt (who was my mother’s oldest sister and her husband) my uncle and their two children. My uncle, what can I say about him? He took me and my brother in just as if we were his own children. He singled out my brother, who was very traumatized by all the divorce proceedings and showered him with love. He took him on his daily walks, my brother rode on his shoulders 🙂 He bought him ice cream cones and jokingly told my brother not to say anything to us other children, and the first thing my brother did when they came back was say he’d had ice cream! :-)) He favored my little brother and showered him with love and affection, as well as all of the three of us too. We played Scrabble with him, I, still to this day, love playing Scrabble because of our times with my uncle. He took us on long walks with him, he took us to work (he was a journalist) and as a reward for sitting quietly while he worked, he would take us to Lintott’s, a bakery where we would get our pick of delicious pastries. The first time I realized how handsome he was was when I was 13 years old and my 14 year old best friend saw him and exclaimed “Your uncle is so extremely handsome!” And I looked at him with new eyes and thought, Oh yeah, he is handsome! To me, until that day, he had simply been my extremely loving uncle… 🙂

I think there was no better man than the tall, dashingly handsome, über loving, super intellectual uncle that we were fortunate enough to have. Dearest Amma Begum, thank you for marrying him!

He is 89 years old now and has dementia, and lately his health has been failing, he was in the hospital for a few days. He is home now, but not doing very well at the moment. My heart is hurting to think of my dearest uncle not doing well. I love him very dearly and hope he will recover completely, and soon. Earlier this year when we were in Pakistan, I told everyones that we will be back to celebrate my uncle’s 90th birthday in January of 2017. May my words be heard by the gods and come to pass.

I have a mental illness, but I am so anti-gun that no matter what state I was in, as in geographical or mental, I would not be one to pick up a gun, EVER, to… to what? To take out my anger? To “solve” a problem? No I would not do it. But a lot of people would and have, and the fact that it is so easy to get a gun in the US only contributes to any other problem. Domestic violence, being a homophobe, being in a mentally unstable state, anger issues, suicide, crime. Any and all of the above problems without a gun are still problems, but WITH a gun, they are deadly. Please watch the video below and just have a look at how big the problem is here in the US. A problem that is perplexing, frustrating and deadly.

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america

Come together right now over me! Ameen/Amen.