A Letter to Carolyn

On the evening of Saturday, November 23, a woman named Carolyn commented on my post called "Storme." Here is my response. 

Dear Carolyn,

Thank you for your comment. It was, I sense, very brave of you to voice your pain so blatantly here and I'm glad you felt safe to do so. You raised some very provocative ideas and questions. 

For example, I'm not sure I understand what you meant by "Kindred Cafe on this website" — marijuana isn't prohibited here. This is an open-minded, freedom-loving blog. However, as a metaphor for survivors with no hope, it's both apt and tragic. Hope is one reason why we're here. I read every comment that arrives here. I take them all to heart. I've been reading and hearing similar sentiments for years. I repeat. That's why we're here. 

Things are changing.

I know many people are insensitive to "mental health concerns." Years ago, people liked to tell me to "Buck up," too. "Why don't you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps," they'd say, perhaps meaning no harm. Oh, how I dreaded that potent phrase. I had no idea what "bootstraps" were, but I keenly felt the derision beneath those imperious words. I grew to cringe inside every time I heard them. I know now that no one knew any better back then in the dark ages of psychiatry. There was no vocabulary. No empathy. No communication. Sometimes I fear we're still there, but that's another story.

Now, looking back, I suspect the people who said those things to me and still say them to you may be terror-stricken, afraid of their own deeply closeted "mental health concerns." So they put us down instead. It makes them feel better, poor souls. Bullying, when you think about it.

I've learned not to hear them anymore, instead of getting upset. I listen, but I don't care how I'm viewed. It's how I view myself that counts. 

As for the "public's cry," why are they crying, I wonder? I prefer letting them see another side of "Crazy" here — if they care to look. Behind their tears. You can't force anyone to see things differently. They have to want to look. Be open to seeing things from another perspective. As I've often said, quoting another one of my sages, Los Angeles psychologist Michael T. Walker — it's not "seeing is believing," but the other way around. "Believing is seeing." 

Education, accurate information, strong sound voices, like many of those in the "Recovery Movement" — psychologist Patricia Deegan who was once diagnosed with schizophrenia, is one — insightful thinkers with lived experience of mental illnesses who have wisdom and meaningful lives, plus the courage to see beyond convention — with vision and hope. These are the voices that will quell the "public's cry" — those who view us diagnosed with mental illnesses as "weak and flawed."

Perhaps it's their tears that distort their vision.

There are millions of us not viewed as "weak" or "flawed." We refuse to be viewed like that. We certainly don't view ourselves like that. I don't.

"Recurrent melancholia" or Depression" ... I ask you, aren't these words just descriptors of deep, dark, deadening feelings? Suffering? Incapacity? There is a difference between the way mental illnesses and physical illnesses are seen. But, where do you draw the line? 

If you are suffering emotionally or physically or psychically, for whatever reason, how can anyone deny your suffering? How can anyone get inside your head or heart or soul or mind and say, "You don't really feel your pain. It's not real." And if they do, they can be wrong, can't they?

Being suddenly sexually, brutally, savagely attacked and violated by a superior with whom you have only a professional relationship is, for some, a more treacherous injury from which to recover than one incurred from falling off a ladder, I suspect. 

Depends on how hard you fall and what breaks. 

If it's your neck, who knows? That's no easy injury to heal. You have to rehabilitate yourself. (In many ways, the same applies to recovery from the diagnosis of a mental illness.) But you are right about one thing. People will happily visit you in a rehabilitation hospital if you have a broken neck. People stay away in droves if you're in a psychiatric hospital for any reason. No one sends you flowers. Or cards. You probably don't even have your own phone! 

Still. Keeping silent and "shutting up" doesn't work either. Everything turns inward. Festers like a boil. Eats away at you. No one is any better for "being silent." You don't have to listen, if someone tells you to "shut up." You can just keep on "talking." It's healing. 

If we don't stand up and speak out, how can we change the way people see and perceive us? How can we change anything? Change doesn't happen randomly, by itself. People make change. People like you and I can be change-makers. That's one reason why "Coming Out Crazy" exists. 

I've stood up to people for years. All my life. As a child, I was so innocent and naive, I never imagined there was anything wrong with going to a psychiatrist. Or having a mental illness. That was a gift from my mother. She still feels the same way. 

She stood up for me and helped teach me to stand up for myself. Dr. Bob helps immensely. Now, my husband of more than nine years, Marty, is my best help-mate. Everyone needs "a little help from their friends," to quote John Lennon.

I speak out to people who want and need want to better about their "issues." They're frightened, too. They have every right to be. Sometimes, they start to find their own voices. I hope they do, here, in this open forum. Maybe, then, they'll speak out in in other places, too. Join the crusade for change.

Carolyn, I'm so grateful that you opened up here and spoke out so passionately the other night. I hope you'll speak out more. You have a good, strong, resonant voice. Music to my eyes.

Take care.

Sandy

Storme

Storme. That's the name she uses online. It's perfect for her.

Because her case may go before the courts, I cannot use any other. Nor can I give you any factual details that would identify her.

But you don't need them. You will see why.

I have never met Storme face-to-face, though we've spoken on the phone many times and I feel I know her intimately. 

She is one of my heroes.

Here's why.

Several years ago, Storme was sexually assaulted by one of her superiors on the job. She is a highly skilled professional, but she has not been able to work since and she will never be able to work again in her chosen profession because of what happened to her.

The attack came out of nowhere. No provocation on her part. Nothing. Utterly unexpected.

She was so shocked, "I've only been able to talk about it three times," she confided.

That's how traumatizing the attacker and his attack were.

She was so stunned and petrified, she couldn't fight him off.

And he knew it.

He sexually harassed her by raping her because he knew he could get away with it. 

Storme kept it a secret and kept working for two years. "It was the shame, the embarrassment, the intimidation," she told me. 

Silently, inside, she was slowly shattering.  

Finally, she found the courage to disclose to her employers because she was couldn't keep working anymore.

They did nothing. There was no follow up. She took sick leave. She received no wages.

Even the Workers Safety and Insurance Board refused to recognize her claim because "it was not an acute reaction to a life threatening event."

With the exception of $300 per year, she has footed the bill for her own psychotherapy with a psychologist for three years. 

She's receiving therapy for Post Traumatic Stress. Anxiety. Depression. Sleep Disorders. 

For the first two years, she went twice a week for hour long sessions that cost $110 per hour. You do the arithmetic. No wonder she's had to cut back to once a week now. She's re-mortgaged her house to be able to finance her lifeline of therapy. She can't afford more.

But all this is not why Storme is my hero.

She's a fighter. 

Storme will always be a victim of her attacker because rape is still an old boy's club. Rape is pornographic. People don't talk enough about rape because it's one of the last bastions of male sexism. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge. Feminism hasn't really changed the nature of this crime for the women who experience its degradation, humiliation and victimization. 

It's just changed the language. So too many women who have been raped simply swallow their pain and soldier on. It's an old story and no one's interested any more.

Not Storme. She won't let this go. Not just for her, but for all the women and girls who will be raped tomorrow and next week and next year.

She's like a dog with a bone. A small dog. She's tiny but with a terrier's nature.

Timing is everything. In Storme's case, her inner strength worked against her. Because she was able to work for two years while suffering emotionally before disclosing, the law is punishing her and diminishing the horror of what this man did to her.

The law's an ass. 

There's one more thing. The key to this whole story.

Storme doesn't use the word rape. It's a generational thing, she says. She's in her 30s and she's uncomfortable with the word, so she's never used it in all her dealings with her former employers, the police, the WSIB, the City of Toronto.

When she called to report her "sexual assault" to the police three years after the fact, they said, "You're reporting it now?"

Most people don't use the word "rape" anymore because it's become politically incorrect, and that incorrectness is hurting the women who are being raped because rape isn't rape anymore, so they aren't victims anymore. They think, even though they're hurting.

Rape is assault. Attack. The act has changed in the eyes of the law and the media and the world because it's been castrated. Desexed.

But not for the women who experience the crime of rape. 

According to the definition of rape, it is a crime committed by a man, who is forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without her or his consent and against their will, especially when there is an implicit threat of violence or harm.

The definition is wrong. It doesn't matter if you're penetrated or not. That's not the point. It's the act of force without consent. And if women wrote dictionaries, they might change the definition.

What the dictionary also doesn't acknowledge is that rape is a crime that is emotionally soul-destroying. It doesn't matter if a woman is penetrated or not, her mind is being savaged.

That's the power of language. Even Storme agreed, when we spoke about this two minutes ago.

She was raped! She will never recover. You never do. I know.

It's time to bring this word back. Rape. It's time to change the way it's seen in the eyes of the law. In everyone's eyes. The power of language.

Gloria Steinem said it best in her essay, Erotica versus Pornography, published in her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions in 1983. 

"Sex and violence are so dangerously intertwined and confused...as different as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain."

Because no one else would listen to her, Storme sought out someone to champion her cause. To help change the law and protect women who might, in the future, find themselves brutalized as she was. 

This week, Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo called for amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act to address the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder for front-line paramedics, firefighters and police officers.

DiNovo discussed her Private Members Bill on Global TV News earlier this week.

Stay tuned. It's high time Rape came back out of the closet. For good.

See why Storme is my hero?

Being loopy in the first snow!

Why is it that every one goes loopy in their cars with the first snow of the season?

Here's what happened yesterday after the virgin snowflakes of 2008 began falling at 3:30 p.m.

I was in my office Seneca's Newnham Campus at the northeast end of Toronto. I had arrived at 6:30 a.m. My husband Marty dropped me off on his way to Humber College, at the opposite end of town about 50 miles away.

Wednesday is the only day we both teach. We have only one car, so this our deal. Marty's class ends at 1:00 p.m. and mine at 2:30 p.m., so he picks me up at about 3 p.m. and all's well.

Except yesterday was different. He had a meeting at 2:30 p.m.

And the first snowflakes of 2008 fell down from the sky.

Everyone in a car on a road in Toronto went loopy.

Me, too. And I wasn't even driving.

I was bone, blood and brain-tired. To get to Seneca by 6:30 p.m. we awaken at 4:30 a.m. I had prepared my classes until 1:30 a.m., so I was "going" on three hours of sleep.

Yesterday, because it was snowing, by 4:30 p.m. Marty wasn't even heading north. He was caught downtown because a truck had overturned on the Don Valley Parkway.

Maybe the truck driver was a little loopy, too.

I decided to take a cab – not happy about the $20 fare.

It took forever for the taxi to arrive because, after all, it was snowing and no one could remember how to drive.

Why does this happen every year? From March, sometimes April, to November — just six months — everyone forgets how to drive in a little snow. It's just frozen, not freezing, rain. What's the big deal?

It's not as if it doesn't snow EVERY year here it Toronto.

I would say, with absolute certainty, there has NEVER, EVER, been a year since the beginning of time when it didn't snow in Toronto in the winter.

So, call me a liar. It's still autumn. Late November. But last November it snowed here big time. Even earlier, I think.

Yesterday, November 19, we were long overdue for snow. We were living on borrowed time in the snow department.

I went outside to wait for the taxi. I wasn't covered in snow when it finally arrived. It looked pretty outside. The roads were fine. It wasn't that slippery. No one was sliding off the road. But it was slow. About 25 minutes later, after a drive that routinely takes 10 minutes, we arrived my house.

Except I couldn't find my keys. Anywhere. The dogs were barking. They hadn't been outside to pee or poop since 6:25 a.m. It was now 5:15 p.m.

I couldn't get in. I started to cry. I said I'd wait for my husband outside. This taxi driver was very kind. And very smart.

"I won't let you wait outside in the dark in the cold. It's dangerous," he said.

He lent me his cell phone and told me he would take me to a coffee shop so my husband could pick me up.

I called Marty. We only have one cell phone, too. He had it. He said he was driving north on Bayview. At Sheppard. Usually about 15 minutes away. He said it would take an hour. We couldn't decide where he would pick me up. I started screaming at him. He got a little upset.

Then I hung up and started sobbing because he wasn't closer.

We were both loopy.

The only person who wasn't loopy was the sweet, kind, wise taxi driver. He suggested I wait at the Thornhill Public Library around the corner.

I called Marty back. He agreed. On the typical two minute drive to the library – which took 10 minutes because everyone EVERYWHERE had forgotten how to drive and was loopy – I was hysterical.

"Try to stay calm when your husband picks you up. Being calm helps," the brilliant and angelic driver suggested, gently.

He was about 22 years old with the wisdom of Job.

How could he possibly know he had a deranged woman with 49-year history of mania in the back seat of his cab?

Calm is never my thing!

At the taxi driver refused to accept any fee for the extra mileage and time I had cost him. He wished me well and off he went after settling me, safely, at the Library.

I waited quietly on a bench outside watching happy little children carrying hockey sticks and skates slither into the arena attached to the Thornhill Library – all part of the Thornhill Community Centre.

"Nice weather, we're having," a lovely Thornhill gentleman said smiling at me as he walked into the Library.

Everyone on foot seemed happy. Snow was falling. There was jolliness in the air. Santa Claus came to town last weekend.

Then I saw our dark green snow-covered 1999 Accord pull up.

Suddenly Marty was there. We slip-slided home and let our loopy dogs burst outside to cavort and do other things in the backyard.

Dandie Dinmont Terriers adore snow.

But then, neither of them knows how to drive.

No answers. Just some soup to stew on. Part Two

I'm afraid I cannot easily answer the questions I posed last week. I promised but I cannot. I'm overwhelmed.

I've dug myself into a deep dark philosophical/medical/epistemological hole out of which I feel unable to tunnel my way out.

I'm just a humble scribe. I find the answers from wise people. I research and read and ask questions and think and try to assimilate. Then I write. Sometimes I like to think I also right, but that's when I'm a little high, exuberant.

This happens, mostly, when I'm exhausted. Often in November. Never a good month for me. And never  sweet for teachers or their students. Buried under mountains of marking, classes are interrupted by the sounds of students snoring — suffering from burnout after pulling too many all-nighters.

So, today, I'm throwing a whole slew of ingredients into my little soup pot here at Coming Out Crazy, so you can inhale their aroma and let your native wisdom draw you to your own conclusions.

First Ingredient: This from Benedict Carey of  The New York Times, courtesy of BipolarConnection.com on a novel new theory about the origins of mental disorders. Competition from the male and female genes. Think of it.

Carey reports on the theories of Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics. Both are outsiders in the field of behaviour genetics yet they've published their findings in several journals.

According to their intriguing research, Carey wrote: "An evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways. A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’. This, according to the theory, increases a child’s risk of developing schizophrenia later on, as well as mood problems like bipolar disorder and depression."

That's just the beginning. There are mind-boggling implications for mental health in Crespi and Badcock's inventive and groundbreaking genetic research. It's firing the imaginations of clinicians, researchers and scientists everywhere.

“I think this work is often brilliant,” said Dr. Stephen Scherer, of the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, by e-mail of Dr. Crespi. Still, Scherer added, “For autism there will not be one unifying theory but perhaps for a proportion of families there are underlying common variants” of genes that together cause the disorder."

Second Ingredient: Thanks to Dr. Ronald Pies and my friend and mentor, professor Harold A. Maio when it comes to talking about "mental" issues, specificity is the key.

"Be Specific," Harold said. "We don't talk about having 'physical illness,' so why do we talk about having  "mental illness?"

Good point. Dr. Pies agrees. "As for how people diagnosed with so-called mental disorders ought to refer to their conditions, I think it's often best to name the specific condition, such as "I have an anxiety disorder" or "I have bouts of depression."

Third Ingredient: a tantalizing item from the multiple award winning Furious Seasons and the ethical, Seattle-based journalist Philip Dawdy, a Herculean Sherlock on mental health matters pertaining to the nefarious shenanigans of Big Pharma and other dubious psychiatric types.

Watch out for some "goofy" new disorders you may be diagnosed with when the new and improved, revised DSM-V is published in 2011, as reported yesterday by Northwestern University English professor Christopher Lane in the L.A. Times, writes Dawdy.

• Apathy Disorder
• Parental Alienation Syndrome
• Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
• Compulsive Buying Disorder
• Internet Addiction
• Relational Disorder (Aren't all human beings relational? I teach a course on the Relational Model of Leadership. I'd love to know what this one means. If we're not Relational, I wonder what we are?)

"They'll all be considered full-fledged psychiatric illnesses," writes Lane in his Op-Ed, Wrangling over psychiatry's bible.

Better start looking for a psychiatrist now because we're ALL going to have "mental health issues" or "mental disorders" or "mental illnesses" or "diseased minds."

Which brings me to my Fourth and Final Ingredient in today's soup! From Dr. Pies on the difference between illnesses, disorders, diseases, "You are raising extremely complex questions — we are all in 'over our head'! In brief, I believe that 'disease' [etymologically, dis-ease] is a pre-biological concept that has its roots in suffering and incapacity — not in demonstrating biochemical or anatomical lesions. The distinction with disorder is very confused in medical history. I also believe — along with psychiatrist Robert Kendall (former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists) — that 'disease' ought to be predicated of persons, not 'minds' or 'brains' or 'bodies'."

Hence — specificity and how you feel, your level of suffering and incapacity determine whether you have a disease, a disorder, an illness, a condition. Whatever. This is the bare bones of it. Just a taste of a very complex issue. But perhaps it will be thought provoking. 

Have a gander at Objectivity in Mental Health: Who Has a Real Disease? — this is a most entertaining and informative talk Dr. Pies gave at the Cambridge Saloon Salon on March 2006.

I hope you enjoy my soup. I hope it's soul soothing and stimulating. If you have any other ingredients or seasonings that may improve it, please share them.

Have a good meantime. Keep warm and stay cool!

On a New Reader's fascinating question. Part One.

A New Reader posed a fascinating question, based on yesterday’s post.

“I guess I would like to ask you (and I am highly interested in your answer as someone with so much experience), what other term would you use instead (of 'mental')? Madness doesn't apply to all mental disorders, e.g. anxiety, depression. And yes there are grey areas and people diagnose everything under the sun now as mental disorders, but how about the real, palpable issue of mental health in Canada or world for that matter?

“I just think we can make the word ‘mental’ become a neutral word, like sinusitis, or myocardial infarction, etc., so that when someone says I have a mental disorder, we can understand that they are not to be discriminated against or treated as 'abnormal' just by the virtue of having a disease.

“Or if they are to be treated as ‘abnormal,’ it should be a part of a treatment protocol so this becomes routine and we recognize that we are treating them differently, and not ignoring the elephant in the room.”

Great question. I’m glad you asked it and I hope you don’t mind if I share it here.

I‘ll do my best to live up to your expectations and share some thoughts with you, but I don’t think there is any ONE answer. This is really a book!

It’s going to be in two parts. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to consult two far more experienced people than I, Tufts University psychiatrist and professor Dr. Ronald Pies and Harold A. Maio, another one of my sages.

In the meantime, here goes:

If you believe "mental illnesses" are diseases, you could use the word "psychiatric," instead of "mental."

But that’s not a very good solution because “psychiatry” is not seen in the world of medical science as real “science” since so much of psychiatry, like diagnostics, is very subjective.

No blood tests, X-rays, scans, urinalyses, or other concrete tests can yet definitively confirm a psychiatric diagnosis.

Many psychiatric patients, myself included, have had several different diagnoses, depending on who makes the diagnosis, when it was made and what the so-called “condition” is.

This can be true in physical medicine, too, but not to the same degree.

And that’s the point.

It’s “mental” versus “physical” medicine.

I do not believe that "mental illnesses" are caused only by "malfunctions of the brain structures/molecules."

What about emotional trauma? Childhood sexual, emotional and physical abuse? They can cause what look like “mental illnesses,” too. Can’t they?

What about genetics? What about other environmental issues? And personal experiences?

Cannot they also cause mental distress?

Also, I don't see mental illnesses as "diseases."

Are disorders and illnesses the same as diseases? Are they interchangeable? If so, then why aren't Bipolar Disorders — and there are several types — called Bipolar Disease? Or even Bipolar Disorders?

Cancer is Cancer, but any doctor will tell you that Cancer is 20,000 different diseases.

It's just not that simple.

Our minds are not organs, like hearts or kidneys. If they were, I'd ask for a transplant! Just kidding. I’ve grown accustomed to my mind. I rather like it, despite its “issues.” It’s mine and there’s no other quite like it. And isn’t that the point?

Is a broken leg like a broken mind?

Is a mental illness a brain disease? That’s an ongoing debate.

My psychiatrist, Dr. Bob, says neuropsychiatry may be making a comeback. It existed until 1948, when it was split into two different specialties —neurology and psychiatry. Organic and inorganic or ... ethereal?

Medicine and Psychoanalysis.

And where does Psychology fit into all this?

Some might say we’ve come a long way, but I’m not so sure.

I think this is not only a philosophical question but also a political one. The American Psychiatric Association, which is currently revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is a highly political organization.

Disorders and Diseases are not exactly the same. Would you say you have a "diseased mind?" I don’t think so.

Mental isn't really a noun. It just feels that way when someone says, "You're mental." Like you're a "Diabetic."

And that’s the classic comparison. But it doesn’t hold because the mind is a different paradigm than the physical body.

Like Mac computers that are on a different platform than PC's and rarely if ever catch “viruses.”

I believe this. And I don’t know if anyone can prove me wrong.

Mental Illnesses are not the same as Physical Illnesses.

I am not my mental illness. I do not believe that "mental illnesses" will be seen as neutral as long as universities teach doctors that there is a "stigma" around them that we have to get rid of because no one will ever take responsibility for any “stigma.”

The word "stigma" is a problem. It reinforces "stigma" and it's a linguistic problem.

Language is very powerful in creating and perpetuating our beliefs.

If people would erase the word "stigma" from our lexicon and instead talk about ignorance, fear, prejudice and discrimination, then society might take responsibility for its systemic ignorance, fears, prejudices and discrimination.

And do something about it. Using education. But first, people must be aware of their own fear and ignorance, discrimination and prejudice.

The answer is in education.

But the same old problem arises. People don’t know what they don’t know. So they blindly accept what they think is true.

And there are no absolute truths. Except that one!

I’ll stop here and continue next week!

About the words "mad" and "madness"

Recently, an anonymous person disagreed with an earlier post on my use of the words "mad" and "madness" and the fact that I do not like psychiatric diagnoses or labeling. And I don't.

Disorder: what a scary word that has become these days. Anyway, more on that later.

These diagnoses haven't done me any good, especially because they were schizophrenia, which was a misdiagnosis that stuck for 13 years, from the time I was 12 to 25. Then, manic depression — even though I have never been clinically depressed. Then bipolar disorder — though I am no in any way "bi," but "uni."

Diagnoses can and often are wrong. They were with me and they did me a great deal of harm.

Anonymous describes him/herself has having diagnoses of anxiety, social phobia, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and he/she is "currently" on medication and doing very well. I'm glad to hear it.

A few years ago, researching another story, I remember reading in a comprehensive Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health May 2007 report titled Mental Health Literacy in Canada: Phase One Report, Mental Health Literacy Project that according to its findings the words and conditions "anxiety" and "depression" are considered among the general populous to be within the realm of "normal" – a loaded word with many meanings.

This is a question of the history of language and usage. Etymology. Everyone experiences normal levels of "anxiety" and "depression." Those words are part of our lexicon. Some people cannot imagine what "clinical" anxiety or depression look or feel like.

Not true for the words, "schizophrenia" or "mania." These are not "everyday" words. "Maniac is an everyday word, but it's not pretty." It's "mania" as a noun. That's one reason why psychiatrists changed the term "manic depression," to bipolar, thinking it would "de-stigmatize" the implications of the term. It didn't work.

To quote Anonymous: "I have called myself 'mad' and 'mental' on plenty of occasions, to break the tension or make myself feel better, but I would never want to define myself by my mental illness. I've always been anxious, but my anxiety got much worse in my first year of university; I've partially recovered though. I don't consider my 'madness' to be a part of me; I consider that there is a difference between my natural tendencies towards worrying and shyness, and my anxiety disorder. I don't understand why some people are so opposed to diagnoses. I found that getting an official diagnosis of social phobia actually helped me, because then I realized that I wasn't just 'stupid' or 'socially retarded' as people used to call me, I actually did have a problem, one that had been untreated for 15 years."

It's all a question of degree. And your inner vision. How you "see" and "perceive" yourself. We often conceptualize our feelings, verbally. That's why language is so powerful. Words define our feelings outwardly, to others, and inwardly, in our self conscious, to ourselves. That's why I've always said, "It's not seeing is believing, but believing is seeing."

I think, however, that the words "mad" and "madness" are a whole lot better, worlds better, and more accurate, than "mental" – especially when it's used as a noun.

This is delicate stuff and I don't want to force you into a dictionary, especially as dictionaries are not bibles, but social documents that reflect the times in which they were written.

Words also resonate with one's personal experience.

Let me give you an example, and maybe you'll see what I mean.

On November 12, in the print edition of The Globe and Mail, John Doyle, my all time favourite TV writer, was writing about political humour.

Let me quote you the first two paragraphs of his story:

"'Now the real story begins.' That's the slogan Fox News is using to promote its coverage of the Barack Obama presidency. It's going to be "fair and balanced," of course. "No spin," that kind of stuff," Doyle wrote.

"People, fear not. There are four glorious years of U.S. all-news coverage and TV comedy shows coming. It is going to be mental."

I stopped reading and saw red.

He was not writing about mental illnesses. He was writing about something entirely different, completely unrelated. No remote connection to mental health issues. Nothing. Nada.

He could have said, "It's going to be crazy."

He could have said, "It's going to be nuts."

He could have said, "It's going to be madness."

I wouldn't have blinked an eye.

But he said, "It's going to be mental."

I wanted to write him a letter to tell him how offensive his use of the word "mental" was for me, but I got busy and it slipped my mind. I was so upset I didn't finish reading his column, though. And I haven't read him all week.

I am very comfortable with who I am. I like myself with all my idiosyncrasies, my faults and foibles, my quirks and crazinesses. But, when I was a kid, I was called "mental," among other things because I never dreamed that going to a psychiatrist was any big deal, any different than going to an allergist. No one in my family ever gave me any sense whatsoever that going to a psychiatrist was different than going to any other kind of medical specialist.

Wow, what an innocent, was I.

But so much is language.

Once, years ago, I remember interviewing a UCLA English professor who explained a 16th Century condition in women known as "Lovesickness," which sounded a lot like me. Their mania was caused by falling in love with men who were in no way available to them. Men who were married to other women. People sometimes treated these mentally vulnerable, volatile women with compassion. More often, people treated them as witches, stuffing their pockets with stones and tossing them in ponds.

They were considered mad. They were probably delusional. They had lost touch with reality.

Today, they may be considered to have a psychiatric or psychological condition of sorts.

But when the word "mental" is used as a noun, as far as I'm concerned, it's ethically wrong because it colours the whole person or whole situation as having some form of psychiatric condition. No one and no situation are totally "mentally ill." You are not born with a mental illness. Or conceived with a mental illness.

We're all "mental." We all think. No one and no situation is monolithic. I am many things other than my so-called mental illness. A woman, a writer, a teacher, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a stepmother, a dog owner. You want labels? I've got lots of 'em.

But one I will not accept as me, is "mental." You will never hear me say, "I'm mental."

I'm mad! Sure. It's a word that diffuses the whole notion of having a mental illness in our society. A society, I'm might add, that is still ignorant, fearful, prejudiced and discriminates against people diagnosed with mental illnesses or perceived to behave in ways that are a little too different.

It's so subjective.

Like psychiatric diagnoses.

But as a noun, the word "mental" turns my stomach.

I've often said here before, "we all can be crazy, sometimes... we're human, after all." We think. We have minds. We have brains and souls and experiences upon which we base our thinking.

This harkens back to the dark ages of my youth when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and you never saw stories about "psychiatry" and "mental illnesses" in the newspapers, or any of the media. It was a dark age for the medical specialty of psychiatry.

Mental illnesses were completely misunderstood.

When the word "mental" is used as a noun, it is really insidious. It's a dirty word, a slur. "You're mental." It hurts.

We're all mental beings and as an adjective, "mental" is fine.

But not as a noun. It stinks of centuries of abuse, misuse, ignorance, stereotyping, brutality, prejudice, torture and isolation.

We've come a long way.

We have a long way to go.

Thanks, Anonymous, for sharing your story so honestly and openly. Not all psychiatry is bad and I am in no way anti-psychiatry. I go to a wonderful psychiatrist and I take medication for my mania twice a day. It helps me and I'm glad it helps you, too.

But, I am not bipolar. I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, from which I am in recovery.

I am many people. We all are. As for mad? Sure, I'm mad. Also capable of being angry. That's me and anyone who knows me, knows it.

And it's a fine madness!

Hearing your body...

I've had the flu. That's why I haven't been here. I've missed you.

Honestly, I just thought it was a reaction to the flu shot I had last Monday. Along with the pneumovax shot I need every five years. Because of my kidney transplant I'm immune suppressed. This year, I had both shots at the same time.

Also, because I teach and could not let my students down, I kept on teaching. Only death or surgery keeps you from teaching when you're on contract.

I love my students.

So, bundled up in a shawl and sweaters, feeling queasy and shivery, I dragged myself to 10 hours of classes last week complaining about how cold Seneca College felt.

My students thought I was crazy when I kept asking if it was uncommonly chilly in class. "No, Miss. It's really hot."

I kept at it. I lost five pounds because I ate almost nothing. Just sipped water all day long. At home, all I did was sleep. I missed history in the making by sleeping through the U.S. election on Tuesday. I slept every evening after that. Right through til morning. Until Friday, the first day I began feeling better.

That day, my husband Martin Lager a.k.a. Marty had his flu shot. His doctor told him my ailment was some "bug" I must have picked up a few weeks ago, probably around the college. Not a reaction to the shot.

"He said it doesn't work that fast," Marty explained, as I felt guilt layering itself onto all my biliousness.

OMG! What if I infected someone, I thought.

Then something else occurred to me. Maybe my "bug" was my body telling me something.

For once, I decided to listen.

"You've been working too hard," it whispered. "Take a break. Do something nice. Be good to yourself."

So, when my flu-ish feelings began lifting, I knew I needed a real tonic. Despite mountains of marking, I decided we were going to a movie, the first movie we've seen since sometime last summer, before classes began in September. I can't even remember what we saw.

Besides my teaching and writing for you, for the last six weeks, I've also been taking a six-week certificate course on teaching through Continuing Education at Seneca. Free to part-time staff, all day Saturday I sat at a classroom at the college, as a student. I was at Seneca five days a week. Exhausting days, when you factor in the lesson planning. An average of about four hours for every hour of teaching, but I was learning the art of andragogy – the art of teaching adults. Hours of marking, on top of that.

Plus, I polished off a short piece for The Walrus that will appear in the January/February 2009 issue.

I was caring for baby Dandie Dinmont Auggie, who was returned to his breeder last week at 13 weeks of age, to go to his permanent home in Cleveland. And when I had time, I was editing my late father's memoirs.

Quite a lot.

Marty picked me up at 2:45 p.m. after my last class of the week and we went to 4:20 p.m. screening of Rachel Getting Married, the one movie I've been salivating to see for weeks. On Friday, it moved north into my neighbourhood.

It was free because I had racked up enough Scene points to get both of us in.

Why am I telling you all this?

For two reasons.

Reason number one: When it comes to your health and your body, including your mind, no one knows how you feel better than you.

Trust yourself. A diagnosis of a mental illness somehow diminishes this ability. Saps your self-confidence. You lose your sense of self. This is one of the worst residuals of a psychiatric diagnosis and most shrinks don't get it. Part of the treatment morphs into part of the disease. It's almost intractable after it's happened. I struggle with this still. And I'm in my 49th year of psychotherapy.

Listen actively to what your body is telling you. With your all your senses plus your soul. Become sentient. Listen to your mind. Listen especially to the non-verbal cues. The feelings. Hear them. Don't be an idiot like me and wait until you get so physically sick you collapse. I desperately needed that "movie" break from my breakneck routine in front of this 24-inch iMac screen to which I'm glued too much of the time.

The movie was bliss. Ever since, I've had more energy. More focus. More joie de vivre. I'm more "me."

For two hours, I sat in the dark holding my exquisite husband's big, warm, safe hand. It was almost like our first date, except this movie was better. (In July 1999, we watched Runaway Bride and we didn't hold hands, but that's another story.)

For more than two hours in Cinema Four at The Sheppard Grand, we sat enthralled with this bittersweet, joyful, tearful, tragic film about a family. Real people with real issues. Humanity. In microcosm. A story about the perverse power of emotional trauma, the complexities of our minds, our primal relationships. The magnitude of family matters.

That's reason number 2.

See Rachel Getting Married. If you don't believe me, read A.O. Scott's superb New York Times review – the best one I've seen.

If you have a family, this Jonathan Demme film written by Jenny Lumet, Sidney's daughter, slices to the bone. It's a clean cut, but it tingles. If mental health issues are touching you and your family, you will be touched more. Truly. Madly. Deeply. This story will resonate. It won't leave you alone. I promise.

So good to be back.