Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada
By leahpeah | October 10, 2008
Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada was this week. I received an email from Sarah who writes:
What Can You Do To Help?
We invite you to visit the website - letsfacethis.ca - and post a photo and message on the “Tree of Support”. With each new photo added, the “tree” will grow, symbolizing growing awareness, education, fundraising and hope for those suffering from mental illness.
Let’s Face This reminds us that mental illnesses, like depression and anxiety, are not the result of personality flaws or character weakness, but, like other illnesses, are biological in nature. And like other
medical conditions, respond to treatment and care.I invite you to join me and countless others confront the stigma of mental illness.
Let’s Face This together and confront the stigma of mental illness.
Also, take a look at the Canadian Mental Heath Association’s website.
Topics: leahpeah, relevant life, self-help | No Comments »
Bipolar Buddha
By saviabella | September 24, 2008
Big Daddy Tazz, a comedian from Saskatchewan (Canada), does a set on mental illness and his bipolar disorder. (You can read his back story here.)
Since I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video, you can watch it here.
Enjoy!
Topics: bipolar, saviabella | 1 Comment »
A Design for Living
By moonflower | September 24, 2008
I’m not exactly sure how this post will transform itself into anything logical or entertaining but I’m going to swing the bat, nonetheless.
As a recovering alcoholic, it is very important that I try to keep my life on the “up and up”. Essentially, this means that I am to be an honest, accountable, responsible, and a relatively kind person each and every day.
You can imagine, as a human this task that sounds simple, really isn’t. I do not accomplish these goals every day of my life.
Many times, I have to go back to a situation and “clean it up”. For example, an altercation with another person in which I raise my voice in anger must be addressed at some point, and hopefully corrected. It isn’t so much for the other person as it is for me on a personal front. I choose to follow this direction because my life literally depends on it.
Not to say if I lie or say something mean I will rush to the nearest bar and gobble down all the alcohol in the place, or rob a pharmacy for all of their narcotics. No, that’s not it at all. The main reason for me to try and “check myself” regularly is that the disease of alcoholism is cunning, baffling, and powerful.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned from my comrades in alcoholics anonymous is that resentments are the number one offender. Essentially, if I form a resentment against another person and do not “clean it up” most likely I will get drunk. If I do not continue to work the steps or respect and manifest the traditions in my life on a current basis, I will get drunk.
For me to get drunk, means that I will die.
Will I die immediately, or will I live another 50 years and die? I have no answer for that. Most likely I would not die immediately. I can guarantee however, that I will begin dying ever so slowly, from the inside. Towards the end of my drinking/addiction I was already dying from the inside. I remember thinking that putting a gun to my head would have been so much easier than the life I was living, dying on the inside.
This is just one aspect of my recovery, there are many other things that I have to address in order to not only stay sober, but “sober minded”. I did not get sober just to quit drinking. At the time, I thought that was all there was to it. Quickly, I learned this would become my design for living. And that would mean I had to change everything in my life that I’d grown accustomed to using as defense mechanisms, basically my defense mechanisms that no longer served me as a sober person.
Resentments are a huge danger, the whole issue of relationships are precarious. I am of the belief that our relationships with other people are the hardest thing that we’ll ever experience as we roam this life. I’ve written before on this topic, you can read that here.
One of THE hardest things I’ve done in recovery is to look at myself, taking an inventory, discovering the patterns that repeat and attempting to clean that stuff up and move beyond it. I cannot speak for other people that are not addicts, but in therapy on some level, how it is that they can do the work that they do. I would guess their reasons are similar to mine, and I often wonder if it feels like a life or death situation for them as it feels for me.
I’ve been guilty of taking this too responsibility thing too far, to make myself as the reason everything is wrong in your life, their life, and my own life. This would mean I was using the methods I’ve learned in recovery the wrong way. In fact, it’s usually referred to as an ego problem. The meaning of ego changed for me in recovery, I learned that my ego comes out in everything I do. Especially if the scales are all on one side of a situation.
If you have known me for any length of time, you’ll notice a ridiculous habit I have of taking the blame or fault for everything. This is not a good habit, it serves me no purpose and it’s taken me a very long time to acknowledge it, then to address it, and finally to change the behavior.
One of the important lessons I’ve learned in sobriety is that if there is something wrong with me, it is up to me to correct it. If I find myself engaged in arguments, disagreements, or believing that the world is “out to get me” it is up to me to try and correct this. The common denominator in the equation is me.
If I argue and fight with every person in my neighborhood, all of my family (including my extended family), that might be a sign that perhaps something in me needs to change. Does it mean that I’m a terrible person? No, it doesn’t. It simply means that I am human and humans are filled with faults. We’ve been led to believe that as humans we are not really “allowed” to make mistakes. And, if I can prove to you how wrong this other person is, and can you believe what they did to me I can continue living a life with blinders on. When I am wearing my blinders, I don’t have to make any changes to myself, I don’t have to face the truth that I have something in me that needs to be corrected.
Despite my recovery, or the therapy I still fall prey to this human behavior. I will plead my case to you, convincing you that this other person is an absolute monster and you must hate them because of what they did to me. It almost seems that this is the human law, an acceptable practice in our society to be a victim for your entire life, blaming everyone else for your problems.
This is absurd, due to the fact that no other person can actually change us unless we give them that permission. More than not, this is an escape route for a person rather than facing themselves and cleaning up their lives.
My goal is not to appear more mature, or that I have it all worked out. (My ego would like for you to buy that, but my sober mind knows better.) The force that drives me in this direction is the knowledge that if I do not continue to follow my recovery, I will die.
Telling someone that I am sorry for yelling at them, or if I lie to someone and then go back and admit I’ve lied in the attempt to “clean it up” is a small price to pay in order to stay alive and relatively happy. Our steps are not exclusive to addicts and alcoholics, they can be used by anyone who is in need of “the directions”. (Not to be confused with, “our way is the only way” that you find in some religious circles.)
Even after being sober for seventeen years of my life, I still struggle with these things. I can tell you that my struggle is nothing compared to what it used to be. I have a design for living that fits for me, and most days I am grateful.
Topics: addiction, moonflower, relationships, relevant life | No Comments »
Me again, but last week, I hope that is ok
By jen | September 10, 2008
This was me last week. I am really struggling here. As I have said before, I am not sure people know what to say to me anymore. Either the people I see day-to-day or my regular blog readers. So I am re-posting something from last week, with some changes. I hope no one minds.
Love,
JenB
———–>
I can’t answer in one word. Let us try a few: cautious, scared, worried, i can wear a size 14 jeans from the gap. I am actually getting anxious writing this post. I have been avoiding writing this post. I have been avoiding: seeing the doctor, getting my blood work done, checking my sugar levels, eating as prescribed, working out as much as I should be, doing anything right really. I have been: eating sweets, not eating enough protein, sleeping a lot, changing my (going off of Effexor) psychiatric medications, hemming my workout pants so I don’t trip on them.
I have been doing good thing in fits and starts. Protein shake here, no white carbs there, seeing my trainer twice a week, but not doing even remotely enough cardio. We b ought the Wii fit, for fun mostly, I thought it would energize me to do more serious workouts at the gym and some yoga at the very least. I had no idea the Wii fit <strong>WEIGHS</strong> YOU. I have not weighed myself or been weighed since March when I saw the orthopedic surgeon about my knee. Then it became scarier and scarier and one day I would be convinced I had lost a few pounds over the past month and then I would be certain I was almost back to my heaviest (impossible according to what size of clothing I am wearing). It is now become my great white whale, which is funny really, i mean you know FUNNY. Whale = fat, okay, I am over explaining a lame joke.
I am worried this is it, I will either stay where I am, or I will slowly gain it back and be what I was before. Which I cannot even define other than “fatter”.
I was always worried that when the goals of the weight loss surgery started turning into how I looked and buying new clothes and having people say I look good or I have lost weight or GOOD FOR YOU! We were afraid you were going to be the fat one forever. I am plateauing or gaining, or fuck if I know, right? My mom and dad “how is the weight loss thing, you know surgery and diabetes and everything going”. I am defensive. “What do you mean? Do I look fat? Does it look like I have gained weight? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?” Articulating everything in my own head that I wish they wouldn’t ask me about ever. That I wish I could just update people without having to answer to anyone or ever talk about it really. I want to be the person who got to a reasonable weight after 11-12 month, stay at that weight and then be able to advise and muse about how it was to be so heavy and so reasonable and ok with my weight now.
So many obstacles in my way. The hugest one is me, lots of parts of me. The eating disorder, always lurking. Someone, (doctors, books, dietitians, my MIND, the interwebs, the world, THE MAN) is telling me what I should be eating, I almost automatically say FUCK YOU, I will have this donut, bowl of chips, ice cream bar. Bingeing is decidedly smaller amount, but bingeing when you stomach is wee and you know you shouldn’t but you WANT to HAVE to, is still bingeing. It is still a fuck you to the rules. I am 13, 14, 18, 25, all over again. I had a similar reaction when I found out I was diabetic. Rebellion via diet. I am so cool. I wish I could just pierce my nose, or bungee jump. Instead I retreat inside myself and eat in secret, hiding it from everyone, pretty much successfully, all the time. Am I self sabotaging, my therapist asks? I don’t know. I am afraid of finally losing the weight? Maybe, I don’t know. Is it a control issues? Fuck yes, I can control what I eat and I can’t control what I eat or don’t eat all a the same time. I am the mobius strip of food control. Yes, I feel expectations from family and friends. I do not feel understood because I do not understand myself.
I feel like this will be another thing I will not complete, I will fail at. I have trouble starting things and even more trouble completing them. I don’t think I know how to be successful, at anything.
I know the small steps my therapist, husband, friend, tell me I should start at. Get my blood work done, make sure I am not anemic or my blood sugars aren’t totally fucked, or my liver enzymes are elevated or other things that could go wrong. Step two would be to actually make a doctor’s appointment, well, the doctor would call mewith my lab results, I feel sure there would be something to discuss there. Once I go to the doctor, they will weigh me. Weigh me. Weigh me. My worth a 3 digit number. My success, my progress, who I have been since having the surgery will be those numbers on the scale. I want to talk myself out of that melodramatic bullshit, it sounds so juvenile, so junior school, so first true love breakup story.
I am so scared I have already fucked this up to a place where I cannot return. So scared. Terrified. My bed is so less scary. My sleep, my books, my solitude.
Topics: anxiety, depression, eating disorder, jen, meds | 3 Comments »