August Shell Exchange
It's a Popular Month for Writing!
Welcome to the August Shell Exchange!
Midway through each month, I drop a list of recommended reads. I try to feature winning hermit crab essays (🦀) when possible. But those charming crabbies aren’t always easy to find. So I also make it a point to share pieces on invisible illness.
If you come across an essay or article I haven’t mentioned that you feel warrants attention, drop the link in the comments, and I’ll add it to the rotation next month.
1. “How in the world did I end up the only man in the eating disorder unit?” by Justin Kolber from Slate
“Identification is a threshold step for healing. Maybe if I had seen another man in the ED center who looked like me, who knew the riddle of steel, the pain of the squat rack, and the shame of the ice cream aisle, I might have found a crack in my armor. Or maybe, quite simply, I just wasn’t ready. I learned years later that recovery is for those who want it, not for those who need it. And that eating disorders can have some of the longest relapse trajectories of all the substance abuse disorders.”
2. “‘A Bottomless Pit’: How Out-of-Pocket TMJ Costs Drive Patients Into Debt” by Brett Kelman and Anna Werner from KFF Health News
“Temporomandibular joint disorders, known as TMJ or TMD, cause pain and stiffness in the face and jaw and are believed to afflict as many as 33 million Americans. Scientific studies have found that women experience TMJ disorders two to nine times as often as men, and while minor symptoms may not require treatment, severe symptoms can include disabling pain that makes it challenging to eat, work, talk, or sleep.”
3. “The 988 hotline is two years old—but people still don’t know about it” from NAMI
“Nearly half of Americans (45%) say they wouldn’t feel safe calling 911 for help if their loved one was having a mental health crisis.”
4. “Vaccination slashes risk of long Covid, says large study tracing cases through Delta and Omicron variants” by Elizabeth Cooney from STAT
“‘Vaccines very clearly work, but also clearly, they don’t totally wipe it out,’ the study’s senior author, Ziyad Al-Aly, said in an interview. Chief of research at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, he is also a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. ‘What we think is really important here is yes, long Covid has declined. But it’s not something that we can completely ignore.’”
5. “‘It comes for your very soul’: how Alzheimer’s undid my dazzling, creative wife in her 40s” by Michael Aylwin from The Guardian
“I remember the chill. We were well used to her mislaying car keys and sunglasses and whatnot. But this seemed different. This was an entire conversation we had just had.”
6. “I Have IBS and Anxiety. It’s Not a Great Mix” by Luxton B from The Doe
“I live with two chronic conditions: irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and generalized anxiety disorder. The two don’t mix well. I have a phobia of using public bathrooms, yet I have a type of IBS characterized by frequent bathroom usage and loose stools. I use the word ‘phobia’ because my fear of using public bathrooms is irrational, persistent, and impairs my daily life.”
7. “RFK Jr. Wants to Send People Addicted to Antidepressants to Government ‘Wellness Farms’” by Kiera Butler from Mother Jones
“The range of people receiving such treatment could potentially include wide swaths of the population, since the wellness farms wouldn’t just be for people addicted to illegal drugs, but also for people who are taking antidepressants and ADHD medications. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 11 percent of Americans ages 12 and older take antidepressants, and about 4 percent of Americans between the ages of five and 64 take medication for ADHD.”
8. “After 30 years of dieting I was exhausted. So I started to ask: what if I stopped?” by Jason Prokowiew from The Guardian
“At home, fat meant nothing: I loved the warmth of my fat mother’s hand in mine, my fat older sister’s cackle of delight at sinking a hole-in-one at mini golf. But by the time I was 15, I was exhausted by the years of harassment and assaults and had become convinced my bullies were right – my body was wrong.”
9. “You May Not Notice My Disability” by Elizabeth Kleinfeld from Open Secrets
“I have low vision, a generic term used to describe vision impairments that cannot be corrected by glasses or surgery. In my case, my low vision is caused by a combination of nine different conditions, most of which probably wouldn’t be too serious on their own, but in combination, are tricky if not impossible to treat.”
10. “Combining Ayahuasca Compound with Drugs like Ozempic Could Help Treat Diabetes, Mouse Model Suggests” by Lauren J. Young from Scientific American
“These drugs, which mimic the gut hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), can help treat those with type 2 diabetes by stimulating the production of insulin and improving the function of beta cells. Early experiments showed that GLP-1 drugs can also increase beta cell replication in young mice.”
11. “Gold Medal Uterus: Getting a Hysterectomy Was My Olympic Event” by Ellen Cliggott from Jenny
“Something I have not been crazy about: my uterus. I never wanted it in the first place. Did not ask for it, did not put it on any wish lists. If I got it for Christmas, I would have taken it back to Macy’s. I never had any use for it. In fact, my uterus did nothing but torture me for years.”