WFDD: Melody Moezzi's "Haldol and Hyacinths" →

Melody Moezzi is an Iranian-American lawyer, activist, and award-winning author.  Her latest book is titled Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life.  The memoir chronicles Melody's road to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  In it she talks about an early battle with pancreatitis, she addresses psychotic breaks and manic episodes, details the project of writing her first book, War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, and comments on the stigma associated with mental illness.  Melody brings out the humor and humanity in it all.  This month, Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, the book was released in paperback.

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The Huffington Post: Why Forcibly Medicating the Mentally Ill Is Dangerous →

In a 9-2 vote on Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved Laura’s Law, which allows judges to order involuntary outpatient treatment, including forced medication, for certain patients with a history of psychiatric illness. While adopted in 2002, Laura’s Law requires authorization by local jurisdictions, so this vote made San Francisco the third jurisdiction and first major city in California to approve it. Los Angeles County is slated to decide on full implementation in the coming week.

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Iranian Alliances Across Borders: Dialogue with Melody Moezzi (By Dina Ajalli)

The energized campers then attended an Emory auditorium for a Skype call with Melody Moezzi, an activist, lawyer, and the author of Haldol and Hyacinths. A thoughtful and eye-opening Q&A followed before campers praised Moezzi with a well-deserved standing ovation. Campers left with a sense of understanding and awareness about mental health in the Iranian community.

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Disability Intersections: A Conversation with Melody Moezzi (Interview by Brendan McHugh) →

Human rights activist, attorney, writer, Iranian American, and Muslim American feminist: Melody Moezzi is all of these. She is the award-winning author of War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims and published her memoir Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life last September. She also blogs for the Huffington Post, Ms., and BP Magazine and has provided commentary for CNN, NPR, and BBC, among others. Her memoir is a frank account of her journey with bipolar disorder, her times in and out of mental health care facilities, as well as her life as an Iranian-American woman in Middle America and the South. Written with grace and often hilarious, Moezzi’s book fills a gap in mental illness memoirs, in that is told from her perspective as a Muslim American feminist activist and attorney.

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The Huffington Post: How News Can Make You Happy →

I hear it all the time, from doctors, teachers, lawyers, hairdressers, accountants, you name it: “I don’t follow the news. It’s too depressing.” While I understand the sentiment, I find its consequences far more depressing than even the gloomiest of newscasts.

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The Huffington Post: Girls’ Night Out? Count Me Out →

While I’ve enjoyed plenty of evenings out with female friends, I’ve never especially appreciated any outing billed specifically as a “girls’ night out” (GNO). The whole concept — including its male counterpart, the “guys’ night out” — just seems strange to me. Perhaps it’s because self-segregation has always struck me as silly, or perhaps it’s because being an Iranian-American Muslim bipolar feminist rarely affords me the luxury of fully self-segregating anywhere. Whatever the reason, I’ve grown to hate these gatherings and avoid them whenever possible.

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Chai: Haldol and Hyacinths - An Inspirational and Powerful Memoir (Review by Mehwish Qureshi) →

“Courageous” is the word that came to my mind when I read Melody Moezzi’s novel. On January 26, 2014, CHAI, co-sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI),  held its quarterly book club meeting at the East Columbia Branch Library, to discuss “Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life” by Melody Moezzi. For this specific book club meeting, we had the luxury of having the author Skyping in to meet us and talk about the book.

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The Huffington Post: Mental Health Ought to Matter More Than Uniforms →

As part of its bid to become the least productive United States legislature ever, the current 113th Congress is managing to hold up yet another worthy piece of bipartisan legislation. Senate Bill 162, introduced by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) as the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act, would authorize grants to “improve the treatment of mentally ill individuals in the criminal justice system” within state, local and tribal governments.

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The Huffington Post: What Really Matters to the Iranians? →

Even before the details of the temporary deal between Iran and the P5+1 group were released on Saturday, many Iranians were already celebrating. Just the idea of an agreement — any agreement — between Iran and the United States was enough to bring tears to the eyes of this Iranian-American, and I wasn’t alone. Iranians all over the world took to social media to express their elation at the first formal agreement between the U.S. and Iran in over 30 years. I received Facebook and Twitter messages from across the globe, all striking the same tone as this tweet from @PrrrsianKitten, who lists her location as “Wonderland”: “I’m so happy, I keep crying and laughing. This is such a great day/middle of the night/evening!”

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The Huffington Post: America’s Mental Hospitals: Where Smoking Buys You Sunshine →

Imagine a place in the United States where most everyone smokes, where smoking is in fact encouraged, where cigarettes are used as rewards, and where at times, you may even be denied outdoors unless it’s for a smoke. I know it sounds crazy in this day and age of “no tampering with smoke detectors” in lavatories and smoke-free bars that such a place could exist, but it does. Crazier still, this smokers’ paradise exists — in fact thrives — within establishments charged with the very task of combating insanity, namely, our mental hospitals. And while we’re on the topic of insanity, it’s worth noting here that this includes correctional facilities, as prisons are now this country’s largest mental health facilities.

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WHYY's Radio Times: Interview with Melody Moezzi (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane) →

Author MELODY MOEZZI writes there aren’t high profile advocates for her medical condition, “Silence and humiliation rule our playing fields. While others down performance-enhancing drugs and play on grass or Astroturf, we down antipsychotics and play on quicksand.” Moezzi was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder after years of struggling with delusions, melancholia and hallucinations. She attempted suicide. Having a supportive community with this unpredictable condition was bad enough, but Moezzi is an Iranian-American born in 1979, the year of the revolution, and the social stigma and stereotypes made her life especially difficult. The activist and attorney’s new memoir is “Haldol and Hyacinths: a Bipolar Life.”

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