LawyersWithDepression.com
- Posted by Geoff Gussis on July 9th, 2007
- Filed in Guides, Tips and Practice Pointers
Dan Lukasik has done the blawgosphere a service with his new site, LawyersWithDepression.com - if you suffer from depression or know a lawyer who does, you should check out Dan’s site. Dan speaks from personal experience:
“Depression is often a very isolating experience - - even when the depressed person has a supportive and loving group of people to rely on.
In my own life, I often found relief in reading books about depression, spirituality or health and trying to relate the wisdom in those books to my own life as a lawyer.
When I searched on-line for materials to read that would support me in my attempt to cope with depression and my law practice, what I found was sometimes helpful, but in the end, not sufficient…
It is a web site specifically devoted to lawyers with depression. I hope that such a site will be more relevant and helpful for lawyers looking for support. I also hope that it will make a difference for readers to know that I am a practicing litigator and suffer from depression. I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I am a person who knows intimately what it is to suffer from depression and simultaneously be a practicing lawyer.”
Read more at LawyersWithDepression.com.
Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed?
Research Tools Courtesy of the Department of Justice
The Best End-of-Summer Books for GCs
What RSS Can Do for Lawyers
Legal Wikis Are Bound to Wow You
November 8th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I have been dealing with depression for most of my life. In my younger days, it was being “down in the dumps”. In 1985, it got to the point where I was living full-time in the dumps. I sought psychiatric help, took medication and got to feeling better. Naively, I thought that I was okay. There followed more times down in the dumps. Like a malignancy, it works on you without your realizing it.Your personal and professional lives deteriorate. It is hard to practice law when you are sinking in a quicksand of self-loathing. I am now not only taking my meds (no big deal), I have also been in therapy. This experience has taught me that one of the keys of dealing with depression is the process of becoming educated about it, about its effect on you as an individual, and about yourself. In April of this year I suffered a heart attack. One month later, the best friend I have ever had in the profession had a fatal heart attack. In June, I had surgery which caused me to miss summer. If ever the situation was ripe for an emotional meltdown, it was then. With the help of my therapist, I bottomed out and now feel so much better on both the physical and emotional levels. The point of this is that, if you are depressed, you have two choices: face it down or let it beat you.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:20 am
[…] over at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The post links to Lawyerswithdepression.com, a site we’ve blogged about in the past. * Find an In-House Counsel Job! * Related Posts: 101 Law Hacks for Lawyers […]