Showing posts with label mental health issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health issues. Show all posts
Monday, May 22, 2017
Mental health warriors: a different kind of sane
Why did it take me this long to post something about the death of Carrie Fisher? Actually, it took me half a bloody century, and I'm still not sure about it. But I have come to the conclusion after blogging for a while that people either read your stuff, or they don't. They watch your videos, or they don't. It's a capricious thing, so you might as well follow your heart and do what you feel like doing, what your conscience tells you to do at any given moment. And it is here that I find my satisfaction. Is there a "message" in all this? There probably is. It's something that each person will hear in a different way, according to their own prejudices.
Friday, December 30, 2016
"I'm mentally ill, guys!" Why Carrie Fisher kicked ass
Neither of the videos I did on this subject were wholly satisfying to me, as I kept leaving out important stuff. I have no capacity to edit, and it's unscripted, so it goes down the way it goes down.
A lot of the stuff Carrie Fisher talked about was my stuff, too. I found aspects of her life history alarming, but she got through it all and would have kept on going, if she could. And she would have done a lot more good with her honesty and no-holds-barred approach. The thing is - and I have even said this to a psychiatrist - as far as mental health issues are concerned, we have not even had our Stonewall yet. We're in about 1970 now and have a lot of catching up to do. There are signs of it just starting, but I still get irritated at the way it is unfolding. No one has any imagination about this at all. Everyone still thinks in straight lines and stereotypes.
I try to hope. I saw a PBS documentary on Stonewall. An archival interview with the head of the Mattachine Society was most revealing. He defended gay rights, but insisted he wasn't gay himself: "no, I tried it once, but it's not my cup of tea." He also said, "society shouldn't feel threatened. Homosexuals will never want to marry or attempt to adopt children." He said it as if the very idea was preposterous. Which, I guess, it was.
I've written of all this before, and now I am tired of it because of the energy it takes to write, and the way it has to be "good", damn it, I mean not a mess. So now I make videos, and those aren't perfect either, but I know they come closer to expressing how I really feel. It's important that I do that, because Carrie Fisher proved to us all that life is a lot shorter than we think.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Let's Talk: today and every day
Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself.
It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.
It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they?
So the name itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. "Mentally ill" is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). But it's still inadequate.
There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."
Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.
I hate stigma. I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve the ugly term, detach it and throw it away.
"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.
So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"? Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the 'poor soul" attitude that prevails?
But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.
From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior".
.tif)
One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.
Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark. I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its finest and most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?
Friday, November 20, 2015
You gotta walk that lonesome valley
Woman riding horse across Saskatchewan to raise mental health awareness
Dana Nordin hopes to increase awareness of mental health
CBC News Posted: Nov 19, 2015 1:15 PM CT Last Updated: Nov 19, 2015 1:15 PM CT
Dana Nordin plans to ride a horse almost 300 kilometres to raise awareness about mental health issues. (Dana Nordin)
Dana Nordin knows all about mental health issues.
As a child, Nordin had to deal with her mother's bi-polar disorder. Her mother would fly into rages for days at a time, then swing into an unpredictable manic state.
Several years ago, Nordin was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder herself.
Now, she's riding her horse almost 300 kilometres, between the villages of Clavet and Buchanan, to honour her mother--and raise awareness.
Speaking to Saskatoon Morning's Leisha Grebinski, Nordin said bi-polar disorder still isn't talked about often.
"I still struggle with the stigma," said Nordin. "Stigma is the number one problem for any kind of mental illness or addiction to get help, because there's so much pressure, internally and externally to deny what you have."
She hopes that the ride will change that.
"Now, I've gotten to the point where I've come out of that closet," she said. "If I can take the brunt for somebody and be the spokesperson that it's not so bad, once you come out, you might find that you have more support than you thought."
Rough ride
Nordin first started noticing there was something different with her mother when she was seven-years-old.
"I just remember mom not being super safe or super stable," she said. "She was sleeping a lot when she was in a depressed stages, and when she was manic, she was just fast and unpredictable."
Then -- she was diagnosed in 2009 with bi-polar disorder.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
"I had certainly had episodes before then that I didn't really realize or want to see," she said. "Accepting my diagnosis meant, to me, in the back of my mind, that I had to be like my mom."
Nordin said she has a strong support team surrounding her. Still, she admits that her disorder is a struggle. Just a few days ago, she was admitted to Saskatoon's Dube Centre, to stave off an episode.
"In the past, I didn't let anyone know until the middle of it, and then I would be hospitalized and drugged," she said. "In the past, it's been about a month that I was hospitalized. But this time it was only a week."
She plans to go on her ride this weekend.
BLOGGER'S COMMENTS. As with Clara Hughes, we have one incredibly brave woman here: brave not just because of what she has endured, but because she is willing to ride that lonesome valley to make others aware of people's suffering.
Cancer awareness is big business now, and no one ever says anything against it or how the funds are raised. But I did hear this about Clara Hughes and her magnificent (lone) cross-country cycling journey for mental health awareness:
"Oh, great. Now the crazies want to get in on it."
"The crazies". People with mental illness still have that dungeon chill about them, that sense they should be "put away", at least symbolically, because they're frightening, dangerous, and a source of shame. How bizarre to even think of having a rally or a run to benefit them! The kinds of jokes that would probably result make me shudder.
There is lip service paid, but not much else. We constantly hear people who haven't suffered from it exhorting others to "reach out for help!", when for the most part the only "help" is hospitals with no beds and therapists with months-long waiting lists (not to mention misdiagnoses, mismedication and general insensitivity in the medical community). Why so many holes in the system, I wonder? The bucks aren't there. No one is motivated to donate or fund-raise because of the (and how I hate this word!) stigma. No rallies for whack jobs, thank you very much.
Look at the multiple millions the breast cancer movement has hauled in - though only a small percentage actually goes to research. The rest is for running that vast juggernaut, the "pink" industry. As for mental health, have you ever pressed a few bucks into a bucket for this particular cause?
Can you imagine the mentally ill being seen not as whack jobs and nut cases, but warriors and heroes?
Why just one woman on a horse? Where are the pink tshirts, the ice buckets, the millions of dollars, the cheers?
Because people don't feel comfortable. Let's not let the crazies in on it. Who knows what Godforsaken group of people might be next.
As a child, Nordin had to deal with her mother's bi-polar disorder. Her mother would fly into rages for days at a time, then swing into an unpredictable manic state.
Several years ago, Nordin was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder herself.
Breast Cancer Run for the Cure, 2015
Now, she's riding her horse almost 300 kilometres, between the villages of Clavet and Buchanan, to honour her mother--and raise awareness.
Speaking to Saskatoon Morning's Leisha Grebinski, Nordin said bi-polar disorder still isn't talked about often.
"I still struggle with the stigma," said Nordin. "Stigma is the number one problem for any kind of mental illness or addiction to get help, because there's so much pressure, internally and externally to deny what you have."
Breast Cancer Awareness and Fundraising, 2014
She hopes that the ride will change that.
"Now, I've gotten to the point where I've come out of that closet," she said. "If I can take the brunt for somebody and be the spokesperson that it's not so bad, once you come out, you might find that you have more support than you thought."
Breast Cancer Merchandising
Rough ride
Nordin first started noticing there was something different with her mother when she was seven-years-old.
"I just remember mom not being super safe or super stable," she said. "She was sleeping a lot when she was in a depressed stages, and when she was manic, she was just fast and unpredictable."
Then -- she was diagnosed in 2009 with bi-polar disorder.
Movember Rally World Record: 2015
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
"I had certainly had episodes before then that I didn't really realize or want to see," she said. "Accepting my diagnosis meant, to me, in the back of my mind, that I had to be like my mom."
Nordin said she has a strong support team surrounding her. Still, she admits that her disorder is a struggle. Just a few days ago, she was admitted to Saskatoon's Dube Centre, to stave off an episode.
"In the past, I didn't let anyone know until the middle of it, and then I would be hospitalized and drugged," she said. "In the past, it's been about a month that I was hospitalized. But this time it was only a week."
She plans to go on her ride this weekend.
BLOGGER'S COMMENTS. As with Clara Hughes, we have one incredibly brave woman here: brave not just because of what she has endured, but because she is willing to ride that lonesome valley to make others aware of people's suffering.
Cancer awareness is big business now, and no one ever says anything against it or how the funds are raised. But I did hear this about Clara Hughes and her magnificent (lone) cross-country cycling journey for mental health awareness:
"Oh, great. Now the crazies want to get in on it."
"The crazies". People with mental illness still have that dungeon chill about them, that sense they should be "put away", at least symbolically, because they're frightening, dangerous, and a source of shame. How bizarre to even think of having a rally or a run to benefit them! The kinds of jokes that would probably result make me shudder.
There is lip service paid, but not much else. We constantly hear people who haven't suffered from it exhorting others to "reach out for help!", when for the most part the only "help" is hospitals with no beds and therapists with months-long waiting lists (not to mention misdiagnoses, mismedication and general insensitivity in the medical community). Why so many holes in the system, I wonder? The bucks aren't there. No one is motivated to donate or fund-raise because of the (and how I hate this word!) stigma. No rallies for whack jobs, thank you very much.
Look at the multiple millions the breast cancer movement has hauled in - though only a small percentage actually goes to research. The rest is for running that vast juggernaut, the "pink" industry. As for mental health, have you ever pressed a few bucks into a bucket for this particular cause?
Can you imagine the mentally ill being seen not as whack jobs and nut cases, but warriors and heroes?
Why just one woman on a horse? Where are the pink tshirts, the ice buckets, the millions of dollars, the cheers?
Because people don't feel comfortable. Let's not let the crazies in on it. Who knows what Godforsaken group of people might be next.
Lonesome Valley
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
You gotta walk that lonesome valley,
You gotta walk it by yourself,
Nobody here can walk it for you,
You gotta walk it by yourself.
Some people say that John was a Baptist,
Some folks say he was a Jew,
But your holy scripture tells you
That he was a preacher too.
Daniel was a Bible hero,
Was a prophet brave and true,
In a den of hungry lions
Proved what faith can do for you.
There's a road that leads to glory
Through a valley far away,
Nobody else can walk it for you,
They can only point the way.
Mamma and daddy loves you dearly,
Sister does and brother, too,
They may beg you to go with them,
But they cannot go for you.
I'm gonna walk that lonesome valley,
I'm gonna walk it by myself,
Don't want to nobody to walk it for me,
I'm gonna walk it by myself.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
"Happy and healthy": Catherine Zeta Jones and bipolar disorder
I read the news today, oh boy (and also heard it on my favorite entertainment program, PLUS the nightly TV news at both 5:00 o'clock and 6:00 o'clock, so it has to be newsworthy, or at least leech-sucking-worthy).
This is an excerpt from one of the less-slobbering internet pieces, followed by some of my thoughts. And about this subject, I do have thoughts. Lots.
- Actress checked into centre on Monday for 30-day programme
- Treatment described as 'maintenance' for bipolar II disorder
- Catherine spent five days in a treatment centre in Connecticut in 2011
Catherine Zeta-Jones has checked in to a centre to get additional treatment for her Bipolar II disorder.
The 43-year-old Academy Award winner checked in to the treatment centre Monday and is expected to complete a 30-day programme.
'Catherine has proactively checked into a health care facility,' her spokesperson Cece Yorke confirmed to America's Peoplemagazine.
'Previously Catherine has said that she is committed to periodic care in order to manage her health in an optimum manner.'
Happy and healthy: Catherine Zeta Jones was last seen at the 40th Chaplin Awards Gala Honoring Barbara Streisand in New York on April 22 with her husband Michael Douglas - she checked into a treatment centre for bipolar on Monday
'There was no big problem,' insisted the insider. 'This was just a good time to do it. She is in between projects. This has always been part of the plan. She would manage her health. She is vigilant about it.'
Another source also told TMZ she has not had a relapse, adding: 'It's maintenance.'
I don't want to make an essay out of this, but I do have something to say. All
this stuff around Catherine Zeta Jones is such bullshit. You don’t “check in to
a 30-day rehab facility” to “manage” your bipolar disorder. She is in the psych
ward, and no matter how rich you are, that only happens if you’ve cracked up
and can no longer cope.
They are impression-managing this all to death and it makes me sick. They even said she planned this in advance, a sort of “routine maintenance” like bringing your car in for a tuneup, because she was “between projects”. You do NOT go to a psychiatric hospital unless you are in a lot of distress and/or aren’t coping.
On the one hand they’re calling her “brave” for “admitting” she has a mental illness, then they present it in this white-gloves way, totally sanitized, as if she is in no distress at all and completely in control. If you are completely in control, you don’t have the illness. Bipolar disorder even in its milder forms can tear a life apart, and, untreated, it usually does.
The underlying message is more sinister, and, I think, damaging to the cause. It's only OK to have bipolar disorder if you're in control, "healthy and happy", and "managing your health in an optimum manner". In other words, only OK if you show no symptoms at all (meaning, if you don't really have it in the first place!).
The language the media uses burns me. People always "admit" they have these socially uncomfortable conditions, like being crazy or gay. I always think “admitting” is very telling, sort of like saying “I’m confessing this horrendous thing, but don’t worry, it’s OK and I am breaking down the stigma”. I have read that her behaviour in the past has been quite bizarre, and though that is painful for her and her family, it’s a lot more realistic than this stuff, as if she’s just going to a spa or a fat farm for a rest.
I think 30-day rehab programs are a lot more respectable than they used to be – in fact, half of Hollywood seems to be drying out now – and certainly they are a lot more palatable for the public than psych facilities where actual bipolar/schizophrenic patients are hospitalized. Far from breaking down stigma, this kind of "normalizing" just keeps the wall firmly in place while the public is reassured that bipolar disorder is nothing worse than a minor inconvenience, nothing to do with messy mood swings or "breakdown".
Someone with money and power can afford such ploys. A "civilian" ought to try it some time and see how far they get. Even someone who is in crisis and ready to commit suicide has a hard time getting any sort of care at all, let alone slinking into a swank psych spa for a month's R and R. Part of it is money, of course, and fame; but I don't buy for a minute that a happy, healthy Catherine Zeta Jones has checked her schedule and said, "Oh, I guess it's time for my maintenance, see you later".
While "admitting" bipolar disorder is a serious and even dangerous illness, at the same time her spin doctors have presented the public with an image so fundamentally dishonest that it is doing more harm than good. THIS is their way of "reducing the stigma" - by carefully extracting all the messy anguish from the disease and making treatment look about as painful as getting hot cups stuck on your back so you can lose ten pounds.
Give me a break!
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Thistledown Press
They are impression-managing this all to death and it makes me sick. They even said she planned this in advance, a sort of “routine maintenance” like bringing your car in for a tuneup, because she was “between projects”. You do NOT go to a psychiatric hospital unless you are in a lot of distress and/or aren’t coping.
On the one hand they’re calling her “brave” for “admitting” she has a mental illness, then they present it in this white-gloves way, totally sanitized, as if she is in no distress at all and completely in control. If you are completely in control, you don’t have the illness. Bipolar disorder even in its milder forms can tear a life apart, and, untreated, it usually does.
The underlying message is more sinister, and, I think, damaging to the cause. It's only OK to have bipolar disorder if you're in control, "healthy and happy", and "managing your health in an optimum manner". In other words, only OK if you show no symptoms at all (meaning, if you don't really have it in the first place!).
The language the media uses burns me. People always "admit" they have these socially uncomfortable conditions, like being crazy or gay. I always think “admitting” is very telling, sort of like saying “I’m confessing this horrendous thing, but don’t worry, it’s OK and I am breaking down the stigma”. I have read that her behaviour in the past has been quite bizarre, and though that is painful for her and her family, it’s a lot more realistic than this stuff, as if she’s just going to a spa or a fat farm for a rest.
I think 30-day rehab programs are a lot more respectable than they used to be – in fact, half of Hollywood seems to be drying out now – and certainly they are a lot more palatable for the public than psych facilities where actual bipolar/schizophrenic patients are hospitalized. Far from breaking down stigma, this kind of "normalizing" just keeps the wall firmly in place while the public is reassured that bipolar disorder is nothing worse than a minor inconvenience, nothing to do with messy mood swings or "breakdown".
Someone with money and power can afford such ploys. A "civilian" ought to try it some time and see how far they get. Even someone who is in crisis and ready to commit suicide has a hard time getting any sort of care at all, let alone slinking into a swank psych spa for a month's R and R. Part of it is money, of course, and fame; but I don't buy for a minute that a happy, healthy Catherine Zeta Jones has checked her schedule and said, "Oh, I guess it's time for my maintenance, see you later".
While "admitting" bipolar disorder is a serious and even dangerous illness, at the same time her spin doctors have presented the public with an image so fundamentally dishonest that it is doing more harm than good. THIS is their way of "reducing the stigma" - by carefully extracting all the messy anguish from the disease and making treatment look about as painful as getting hot cups stuck on your back so you can lose ten pounds.
Give me a break!
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
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