Check out all the news related to mental health and psychiatry from last week!

Panic attacks can be a truly terrifying experience as this young poet vividly expresses in her poem "Panic"...

Then it grasps around the neck,
Clings real tight and blocks the breath.
Suffocation builds inside,
While jerking body right to left.

Small quick gulps of air find strength
To make their way inside,
While hands grip tight to someone else,
Where in them I confide.
For the full poem visit: http://allpoetry.com/poem/2419491-Panic-by-KrisAven

"Phobias come in countless forms. Some are commonplace. Aviophobia: fear of flying. Acrophobia: fear of heights. Arachnophobia: fear of spiders. Others elicit less attention. Peladophobia: fear of bald people. Geniophobia: fear of chins. Some, one imagines, are pretty much universal. Pentheraphobia: fear of your mother-in-law.

An estimated 19.2 million American adults have a specific phobia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. No one knows for sure how they originate, but the thinking is that both genes and environment play a role. They tend to run in families, though not necessarily the same phobia. Familiar phobias like fear of heights seem related to an evolutionary survival response."

In the The New York Times article below, readers are introduced to Attis Clopton, a 33 year old professional drummer and Brooklyn, New York resident who suffers from a specific phobia, however it's not a phobia like fear of spiders or heights or enclosed spaces that many commonly think of. Rather, Clopton suffers from aquaphobia, also known as the fear of water.

Clopton's aquaphobia, which seemed to stem from a few traumatic experiences in his childhood, is so severe it took him many years to be able to put his face under the shower head, and though he enjoys going to the beach with his friends, simply putting his feet in the water elicits an anxiety and panic response rather than enjoyment. To read more about aquaphobia and how Clopton learned to overcome his phobia, check out the following link:

"A New Yorker Faces His Phobia, One Stroke at a Time" by N. R. Kleinfeld (NY Times)

From closer to home, an international student from the University of Toronto, shares their struggle in dealing with mental health issues while away at school. This time stigma wasn't the biggest issue, rather the student discusses having to cope with long wait times for treatment, and a lack of long-term care options that are both accessible as well as affordable for students.

"One Student's Struggle With Mental Health Services" by Karen Zhou (The Varsity)