Coming Out Crazy wins blog award

I was crying and shaking in Dr. Bob's office this morning after an overly long hiatus between psychotherapy sessions when an announcement went out onto the Internet and into my email mailbox.

Had I known at the time, I would have saved my psychiatrist half a box of Kleenex. 

But I didn't. Instead, I made a month's worth of standing appointments because I've been overly stressed out lately and then left his office, as always, feeling 100 lbs. lighter. That's the power of talking therapy with him for me.

My husband picked me up and while we were driving home, on a whim, I pulled my iPhone out of my purse to check my email ... and there it was – the annual Top Ten Bipolar Blogs 2009 from PsychCentral.

For the second consecutive year, Coming Out Crazy made the list. I was stunned. Last week, PsychCentral launched the new Journal of Participatory Medicine on his World of Psychology blog. I figured these awards were discontinued.

Not so.

Under an introduction stressing the growing number of entrants, Sandra Kiume noted the difficulty in narrowing this year's list to 10 plus several Honourable Mentions. As far as I'm concerned, all 18 blogs named are equally worthy of this honour.

Here is what Kiume, a Vancouver-based mental health advocate and editor of Channel N said about Coming Out Crazy. This is daunting. Humbling. Blatant self-promotion isn't really my style, but here goes:

Coming Out Crazy. Sandy Naiman is fierce and fabulous. With a background in print journalism, her blog was new to the net last year and it's been fun to see her adapt to the medium – and vice-versa. Some of the perennial trolls have been buzzing around her blog, smelling fresh blood, but she deftly slaps them down with precise words soaked in reality and wisdom. Sandy is a dynamo who is an offline mental health advocate and speaker. In Coming Out Crazy, she's making gorgeous jewelry from her goldmine of experience as a person living with bipolar.

I feel privileged to be in the company of the following fascinating bloggers who have far more experience in this medium than I do.

Congratulations to The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive – I look forward to becoming acquainted with Irish-born British blogger Seaneen. I'm particularly pleased that veteran blogger Liz Spikol and The Trouble With Spikol are honoured once again. I'm a longtime fan of this well-deserving, candid and incisive Philadelphia-based journalist and blogger.

I'm anxious to get to know Joel Sax and his Pax Nortana, Amy's humourous posts at All About Bipolar, Cristina Fender's Raw Writing for the Real World Bipolar, Crazy Tracy and Time for your Meds, and Crazy Black Woman.

Phil Dawdy's Furious Seasons and John McManamy's Knowledge is Necessity are "must-reads" for anyone who wants to be well-informed about the hijinx of Big Pharma and the complexities of mood disorders. Both are informed investigative writers. 

Huge kudos to Wellness Writer, If You're Going Through Hell Keep Going, Bipolar Happens, Crazy for Life, Gus Greeper, Bipolar: Crazy Mermaid's Blog and Patient Anonymous.

Last year, I telephoned PsychCentral CEO and Founder psychologist John M. Grohol to thank him personally for supporting Coming Out Crazy in his 2008 list. Grohol, who launched PsychCentral, his groundbreaking independent Internet mental health network in 1995, said that this was a great way to spread the word and draw more people to our blogs.

In the spirit of sharing intriguing new ideas and perspectives about Bipolar Disorders, I want to thank him and Sandra Kiume for drawing to my attention many of these new voices and including mine. I look forward to reading them and referring to them in my future posts, linking to them and learning from them.

I am thrilled to be in this remarkable company, as is my editor at The Toronto Star, Brandie Weikle. It was her vision to have a Mental Health and Wellness blog on Healthzone.ca when it launched on April 8, 2008. She invited me to write it. We work as a team. And the rest is history.

Take care and speak soon!

Hope and Recovery...

Tomorrow I have a 9:30 appointment with my psychiatrist Dr. Bob. It's been too long.

The last time I saw him was on Monday, September 1, almost two months ago. Before school started. Everything was going tickety-boo. 

Since then, it's been a rather rocky ride. Up and down. I'm overdue for a 60-minute session with him and I always feel 100 lbs. lighter when I leave his office. I'm counting the hours. He's been out of town and my killing teaching timetable this term at Seneca has taken its toll.

In exactly 24 hours, I'll be sitting in his plant-filled office across his desk, eye-to-eye pouring my heart out. Crying, too. That's how I feel right now. Fragile. 

Did I ever promise you that recovery was going to be a rose garden? Well, it's not. Mental Health Recovery has many meanings, depending on where you live on this planet.

For me, it's lifelong learning. Growing pain. The more I learn, the less I know. Wonderful.

For Elly Litvak "recovery is a self-directed journey, process of healing, growth and self-discovery that has its ups and downs while striving toward balance and enriched quality of life." 

For Priscilla Ridgway and her former University of Kansas team, it's a Strengths Recovery Self-Help Workbook called Pathways to Recovery.

For Mary Ellen Copeland it's a Wellness Recovery Action Plan called WRAP.

For psychiatrist Daniel B. Fisher, in recovery from schizophrenia, it's his National Empowerment Center.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. 

For everyone, anywhere on earth Mental Health Recovery is an individual journey. Unique. Your personal story. We all have our own recovery stories. They're ongoing. All different. So perhaps it's healthy to start talking, because as you talk, you learn as you go.

That's what happens to me in Dr. Bob's office.

Mental health recovery is ever changing and evolving. Everybody defines it differently. For me, it's sleep, psychotherapy and gaining insight. 

What is it for you? Let me know. Let's share our definitions here!

I haven't been sleeping well lately. So my mind isn't clicking along as it usually does. 

I cannot focus. All I did yesterday was walk my dogs. Riley and Lucy and I went for a 90-minute walk to check out the Halloween decorations in the neighbourhood. It felt good until the guilt set in because I knew I should be doing other things. 

Recovery is hard work. It demands one thing. HOPE. Without it, we cannot heal! 

Despite what one of my favourite writers Barbara Ehrenreich asserts in her latest book – Bright-Sided – How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America – which I have not yet read, only read about, I still can't help being a cockeyed optimist – "stuck like a dope with a thing called hope and I can't get it out of my heart."

Does that mean I wander about in a golden haze of mindless bliss? Please. I'm too passionate, too driven, too obsessed to see a better world. To help make it happen. I'm too impatient.

I'm sure my positive outlook would make Ehrenreich cringe. I consider my psychiatric history a gift. It's given me a raison d'etre. A passion. A cause. You. Coming Out Crazy. My craze for change. It hasn't really stopped me.

I'm innately positive. Resilient. I've learned to be. Without optimism or hopefulness, the foundation of mental health recovery – not anger, which I think is too toxic an emotion – there can be no recovery, no healing.

Without anticipation for a better tomorrow, without believing there is a chance for a better life, I wouldn't be here.

Why else get out of bed every morning?

The promise of a little more learning, new experiences, meeting new people – even if all this knowledge is acquired through my genius for making mistakes – I learn from everything and everyone. 

It's exciting. Painful sometimes. With indelible lessons.

Too many mental health professionals deny their patients hope by doling out dire prognoses and prescriptions. Not much opportunity for talking. "You'll have to take this medication for the rest of your life because you have a chronic mental illness, a disease – like diabetes."

Talk about dashing hopes. People report this all the time and it infuriates me. It's not necessarily true.

We deserve the right to choose our own pathways to recovery. It's tough but hope paves the way.

Recovery means hope! Hope leads to mental health recovery.

So here's to hope for a better day. Do a little something for yourself to make it happen.

Speak soon!

A Shared Reflection...

Hi, Hello, Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Day...

Today, I'm doing something I always ask my students to do, but I rarely do myself, anymore.

I'm writing a reflection on October 22, 2009.

Let's just say, for once, I'm taking some time to look inside my crazy mind. Writing a review. Critiquing one day.

It is also a gift to myself. We all need to give ourselves gifts. To take care of ourselves. So let's say that today, I am sharing with you, my team, my support, my inspiration, my "friends" – the community we've become – a gift I'm giving myself.

A moment of reflection. 

Yesterday was a landmark day for me. Not because it was my 61st birthday. Sixty-one isn't one of those typically landmark years ending in zero or five. It is, however, like 21, I think, a turning point because for me, it feels like I've arrived.

Aging is so interesting these days. I'm enjoying it. Another reason why I'm utterly mad. I'm enjoying liking the person I've become. It's taken 49 years of psychotherapy. This is a real milestone. I'm seeing my psychiatrist, Dr. Bob, next week for the first time in months. I think he'll be thrilled to hear this.

I didn't feel this way yesterday. Yesterday, my actual birthday, was a disaster. 

But this morning, when I awoke after six hours of solid sleep, I realize that it was probably one of the most extraordinary days of my life. I just didn't know it until a day later. My timing has always been a little "off."

To begin, I didn't celebrate in any traditional sense. I worked here, until 3 a.m. on the morning of my birthday, which happens to be the day after the anniversary of my father's death. Since he died, in 2000, two months after I was married, his death and my birthday are inextricably linked.

He had perfect timing in life, too. He also managed to die the day before his kid brother's birthday. A brilliant legacy.

I had a class at 11:40 a.m., so I continued my preparation. I wanted this class to be fun, so I was giving my students a Pop Quiz to help them learn to arrive on time and to read the text. I was showing them one of my favourite National Film Board of Canada documentaries – Race is a Four Letter Word – and I was giving them a basketful of Halloween treats to sweeten the experience.

All day long, birthday messages arrived from my Facebook "friends" – an unexpected surprise I found curiously stressful. As a Facebook neophyte, what is one supposed to do? Answer all of them individually? 

I tried. Time was ticking away.

My class didn't not turn out as planned, but I've learned my most difficult, challenging classes are actually my best classes. Teaching is learning. As an untrained teacher, I've learned to teach through experience. I've thrown myself into it headfirst. Learning as I go. No two classes are ever the same even if you teach the same course year in and year out.

This challenging birthday class yesterday, my first, ever, was a gift in disguise. I had to work hard after it ended to figure out how correct my mistakes – that took some complex processing, too. Especially as I break rules and engage with students on the phone if I sense they're struggling. I can't help it, but I do.

Dinner was simple. Celebration was a kiss on the back of my neck from my husband when I least expected it and a marvelous pin my sister Glorianne gave me. It says, "I've survived damn near everything." 

Best of all, she wrote on her card, "You are my hero." 

I thought of the title of one of my husband's plays, a line from the Old Testament, 2 Kings, 9:32. 

"Who is on my side? Who?"

 

On March 7, 1994, the day before International Women's Day, Glorianne, my youngest sister, gave me my life back by giving me one of her kidneys.

None of this really twigged until this morning, after I had six hours of sleep the night after my birthday. 

I desperately need sleep. My mind doesn't function with no sleep. I become manic so quickly, I have astounded my psychiatrists for years. Within hours sometimes. Sleeplessness is killing for me.

Yesterday, I was working on three hours of sleep. I forgot to take care of myself while being barraged with "Happy Birthday" messages. 

Sleep is the greatest tranquilizer in the world.

Last night, I slept. Now, I feel clear. Calm. Less crazy.

Thank you. You gave me the most intriguing birthday of my life.

And I survived it, too.

Take care. Be well. 

Speak soon!

xox

My newest truths about food and mood...

Okay. I know what they say. Diets don't work.

If you take the "t" off the word "diet" – what you have? Die.

Anyone who's struggled with his or her weight all their lives knows all these cutesy cliches. We now know our weight is genetically predetermined, but that doesn't help. We still have to lose weight to be healthy. Genes or no genes.

The bottom line is, if you want to lose weight to be healthy you have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

That means either continuing to eat they way you like and spending 23 out of 24 hours seven days a week working out ... or cutting back on calories. 

And if you want to live long, it helps to eat a healthy diet. As Susan, a friend and one of my regular commenters mused yesterday:

"Why is it that all the good things in life are fattening, and stuff like carrot sticks, eewww."

It's not fair, but as my psychiatrist, Dr. Bob, often reminds me: "Life isn't fair." 

So, I'm now on Day Six of my first week of Weight Watchers. I'm dieting. They call it a lifestyle, but not yet for me. Right now, it's a diet.

I know I'm not going to lose weight on a diet of toasted whole wheat baguettes slathered with sweet butter. Or egg white omelettes loaded with melted cheddar. Or chocolate covered almonds. I'm feeling a craving coming on. 

The point is I'm in the midst of changing my habits. It takes a long time.

A lot longer than they tell you at a Weight Watchers meeting. 

My friend psychologist John M. Grohol found a new source of information about changing habits "across the pond" at University College London – from scientific psychology researcher Jeremy Dean and his PsyBlog. 

In a recent post, How Long to Form a Habit? Dean says it takes on average –  66 days to change a habit – with no guarantee this new habit will stick. He cites a July 2009 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology. 

It's complicated. Depends on the habit. Eating habits are probably among the hardest to change permanently along with quitting smoking and giving up alcohol or breaking a drug addiction. (What's the difference between an addiction and a habit, I wonder?)

If I could abstain from food altogether, it would be easier than moderating what I eat. One chocolate covered almond is harder to eat than none at all. 

At Weight Watchers they tell you it takes 31 days to change a habit. Marty will love this news. According to Dean, we're in for another 60 days of struggling to change our eating habits. If I announce this at my Sunday meeting, I'll be pelted with two-point snacks.

Here's my problem. 

I take one (1) 200 mg tablet of an anti-convulsant called Epival/Tegretol/Carbamazepine twice daily to stabilize my manic tendencies. It works for me. 

I also take eight (8) other different drugs, including three (3) different immunosuppressants, to keep me alive with my transplanted kidney. 

My complex daily cocktails of drugs don't exactly ease the weight loss process. 

Monica, pointed this in a comment to yesterday's post: 

"It could be your med making you hungry. I gained 100 lbs. while on Epival/Depakote, and I met a man in a bipolar support group who had the same experience. He lost it all when they switched him to Topamax. Me, I'd manage to lose 20 or 30 lbs. but then I'd start a new med and gain it all back. 

"Since I started Truehope and got off all my meds my appetite has plummeted. I eat a fraction of what i used to eat. I just am not hungry all the time any more.

What works for Monica would kill me. I need my drugs to survive. 

We're all as chemically different as we are emotionally different.

I'm going to struggle to lose my weight and reach my goal, again. 

For 60 more days – to change my habits – and every day after that.

Life isn't fair. It's life. That's the point.

Speak soon.

I'm in the mood for food...

You wanna hear about a slice of madness?

Last Sunday morning at 9 a.m. on the day before Canadian Thanksgiving, my husband Marty and I joined Weight Watchers – again.

And right now, I'm hungry. I have nine points left for the rest of the day. It's 4:20 p.m. I'm filled with vegetables. Cooked, fresh, in soup, on egg white omelettes. Filling Foods they're called on the new Momentum program of WW – but they don't fill my emotional hunger – the void that's been my nemesis for as long as I can remember.

I'm munching on fat-free popcorn and my fingers are slathering the sleek keyboard of my iMac with the chemicals that go into the stuff to make it pop in the microwave. (I'm afraid to read the label to find out exactly what those chemicals are. They may do me in faster than the extra weight I must lose.)

The popcorn is now gone, except for a few unpopped kernels in the bottom of the bowl and the ones I carelessly dropped whilst stuffing my mouth. So Riley, my Dandie Dinmont Terrier, is happily crunching beneath my feet. Like me, he is always hungry, too. But he's slim. Not me.

Why am I hungry? It's all in my head. I had a huge lunch but I'm in a bad mood. That's been my pattern for years. When I'm upset emotionally for any reason, I eat. Or talk. Or both. At the same time.

Very common, too. Emotional Eating. 

Right now, I'm having a rather turbulent time. Nothing serious. I can handle it, but whenever something goes awry, I seem to fall back on my old favourite. The Fridge.

And hey, I'm a Weight Watcher Lifetime Member who's fallen off the wagon. I think I stayed at my goal of 128 lbs for two minutes.

Then Marty got really sick and I fell back on my old favourites – bread, chocolate, cookies, more bread – to help me emotionally weather the storm. They are addictive.

So, now we're working at this together – Marty and me – as the 2009 party season begins. I know, it's craziness to commit to Sunday morning WW meetings, but they keep us on the straight and narrow since we know we'll have to face that daunting scale after every Saturday night revel.

According to the Mayo Clinic list of tips for How to stop emotional eating, I do almost everything right – except I don't exercise or get enough sleep. That's a big deal. That's why I've gained and lost literally thousands of pounds in my lifetime. In the past, I've run 10K races and done weight training. I go in spurts. Either all or nothing. Feast or Famine.

Now I try to walk fast and avoid elevators. But I just love to eat. I love it. I love the feeling of food in my mouth. All the tastes and textures. I love feeling satisfied, but not stuffed.

I love all the wrong stuff and in the wrong amounts.  

And you know what? I actually even like the way I look. All of me.

But it's not healthy. My doctor isn't happy. Nor is Marty's.

So here we are once more – counting our calories, tracking out points, measuring out portions, drinking gallons of water.

My psychiatrist really tries to discourage me from dieting. Of any kind. Dr. Bob thinks I look great. He can't understand why I won't simply accept that I'm good enough, just the way I am. The psychology here is that in self-acceptance, the weight will just naturally fall away.

That never happens with me. 

Meanwhile, my kidney transplant doctor isn't happy. Or my GP. Her mantra is "Get off your ass."

So now, on top of the Weight Watching, Marty and I and our two dogs have taken to walking most evenings. And curiously, those little walks, I have to admit, do make me feel better. So, I think I'll just slip out for a quick little ramble around the block right now, while Marty barbecues skinless, boneless chicken for dinner. 

My little stroll even might be as fulfilling as all those filling foods.

But who am I kidding? It's all a mind game, in the end. 

Ciao!

Living Out Loud...

In 1998, a film called "Living Out Loud" had its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival.

I guess you would call it a small film. The liner notes of the soundtrack describe it as a "closet musical."  But size doesn't matter because this film features a cast of enormous talents – Danny DeVito, who sings a rather lovely upbeat rendition of George and Ira Gershwin's "They Can't Take That Away From Me," plus Holly Hunter and the sensational Queen Latifah in jazz mode. The soundtrack also includes other legendary jazz greats – I'm listening to it right now as Queen Latifah belts out the classic Billy Stayhorn song Lush Life.

Life can have its lush moments if you recognize them. Life is lots of moments, a series of moments. I try to make the best of each one and forget about the others.  

The music is not why I'm writing about this film. Or even the story, about a woman (Hunter) breaking out of her old self and the woman she thought she was before her husband leaves her. Free and on her own, she discovers who she really is along with a humble guy (DeVito) who falls for her. 

The point is, everyone in this film (even Latifa) learns to "live out loud" a little – move closer to their essential essence, become a tad more self-accepting – and they're each liberated by these experiences in their own unique ways. You walk out not only humming the songs, but the story.

That's what I've discovered as I've learned to live my life out loud. That getting closer to who I really am, knowing myself, also leads to self-acceptance. This come from Living Out Loud and enables me the freedom to Live Out Loud. 

Believe me, it's taken years. Hundreds, probably thousands of hours of psychotherapy. Processing. Psychic pain. Insight-gathering. Learning. It's an education – my PhD in me – that's taken practically my whole life. And I know I'll never graduate with any degree.

But it's worth it.

It means that I'm not afraid of myself when I look in the mirror. Nor do I hate myself. Naked, even. I like what I see. And my nakedness is no Vogue magazine moment. Not pretty. Trust me. Just me. All of me. At two-weeks shy of 61. Lumps, bumps, scars, creases, wrinkles – and one perfectly exquisite smile. :)

I will not try to convince you to live your life the way I live mine. How could I? That's the height of pretension. You live your life as comfortably as you can, your way. Not my way.

But that doesn't preclude moving beyond your comfort zone once in a while. I do. And it does mean that you and your life can change. Nothing in life if static. Every day is different.

I trained myself to live out loud on airplanes. Flying solo. I love engaging with people I know I'll never see again. I don't ever lie. Quite the opposite. I'm brutally honest and I've learned that most people are very open to visceral truth telling. They like to tell their stories, too, and often they like listening to yours. Conversations can be fascinating. 

Many years ago, when I used to fly down to Florida to spend time with my parents, I started practicing "coming out" on the two and a half hour flight to Fort Lauderdale. It felt good and always ended with an easy, "Have a great time."

I may have a bit of an advantage, as a journalist. But not really. I'm just curious about other people. Curiosity, I think, may be "contagious" – like yawning.

So, over the years, I've lived out loud – louder and louder. To the point where I have almost no secrets. Except my weight. My doctors don't even know that. Just my husband. 

As for the events of my life, no secrets at all. No lies, either. That's what 49-years of divulging to a professional listener does to you. It's natural to talk, honestly, to listen and to process – the key word. Process.

So you might say I'm extraordinarily aware of life with my mental illness in all its guises and permutations. I'm also aware of my mental health. And my weaknesses and strengths. That's healthy, too. And all the stuff I want to work on.

It's a life-long journey. And on the cusp of 61, I'm no poster girl for "Sixty is the new 40." Nope, I'm proud of every grey hair on my salt and pepper head. Wouldn't dream of a dye job. I'm no slave to the scale and I feel 25. That's what counts to me.

How I feel. How do you feel? 

I hope when this Mental Illness Awareness Week ends – tomorrow on October 10, which happens to be World Mental Health Day – I hope that you can feel good to be you. If you have a diagnosis, you're not alone.

This year, the British Mental Health Foundation is theming their World Mental Health Day as an opportunity for Tea and Talk – Have a natter. Change lives. (It's a fundraiser, but don't worry about that part.)

I like that. Why not give it a try. Have "a cuppa" with a good friend. Or make a friend over "a cuppa." Or throw a little Tea Party.

Give it a shot. Screw the statistics. (They're sure to depress you and what can you do about them, anyway? If you're interested in a serious look at World Mental Health Day, click here.)

The best thing you can consider doing is taking a page out of the British Mental Health Foundation book and connect with someone. Do something to have a good day. 

Try celebrate being you! 

And spend a minute or three "Living Out Loud!" 

Be truly, deeply and madly you!

What "Mental Illness Awareness Week" means

This is Mental Illness Awareness Week.

Here at Coming Out Crazy every week is Mental Illness and Mental Health Awareness Week. 

If you're like me, every day is "mental illness awareness day." I am reminded of my psychiatric diagnosis and my 49 year psychiatric history when I take my 200 mg of Carbamazepine every morning and again every night. 

But, at the same time, I consider myself to be mentally healthy – in Recovery – most of the time. (There are many different perspectives on Recovery and mental health and they vary vastly. Hope must be a constant. Hope is one of the primary foundations of Recovey.)

Then there are those moments of madness. I believe we all have them. After all, and I've said this before, I am convinced we're all Next to Normal. Even if we try not to show it or deny it.

The point is, I'm human. Over the last two weeks, since my husband was rushed to hospital and I came down with a wretched fever and flu the day after he came home – which I'm still fighting – things are feeling a little more challenging than usual for me. 

We're fine. My husband's fine. I'm reasonably fine. It's just been one of those rocky stretches. And wouldn't you know... my psychiatrist Dr. Bob is on vacation. In France somewhere. Provence, I think. 

So I'm working without a net. When I'm writing here, I want to give you intriguing ideas to think about. That's why I'm musing about "Mental Illness Awareness Week" and what it really means. What it accomplishes. I'm really confused.

There's so much in life these days that's confusing. Although I don't live with depression, I can understand why our environment can seem really overwhelming and depressing.

On Monday, I received a book in the mail called "Depression is Contagious" by U.S. psychologist and hypnotist Michael D. Yapko.

I laughed when I saw the title. It's a clever marketing ploy. It's may even sell books. But is it furthering knowledge and awareness? Or promoting hypnotism as a treatment for depression? On the other hand, maybe hypnotism works for you. I tried it once and it didn't do a thing for me. But that's just me. 

The title also reminded me of the olden days when mental institutions were built out in what was then "the countryside" in the 1800s, so the "normal" citizenry, it was assumed, wouldn't be victims of the contagion thought to exist within its walls.

So they wouldn't catch whatever madness infected the "inmates" – like the flu. This was rumoured to be true of two of Ontario's Provincial Lunatic Asylums – The Toronto Lunatic Asylum on Queen Street West built in 1850 (now the site of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) and Lakeshore Psychiatric in Mimico, now Etobicoke in southwest Toronto, built in 1871. That latter mental hospital is now the site of Humber College where my husband teaches. 

That was the thinking back then. Mental illnesses or Madness was like the flu. Get too close and you can catch it. 

That was, I suppose, another way to explain the unexplainable. To talk about what was never talked about. The fear people harboured about mental illnesses and madness. Ignorance and Fear. The same fears and ignorance that Mental Illness Awareness Weeks are trying to combat. 

Through education. But what does that mean? Does that mean that the media is doing the educating about people, like me, who live with psychiatric diagnoses and are in recovery?

How much do you read in the mainstream media about mental health recovery?

Think about it. Do you ever read good stories about people overcoming serious mental illnesses and going on to live rich and meaningful lives? They do, you know. Lots of people. But too often, they don't live their lives out loud like I do.

You cannot catch depression like the flu. Depression can be caused by many, many things. It's still a mystery because every person's depression is specific to him or her. It's individual. But to the best of my knowledge, depression isn't a bacteria or a virus. It's not spread like a bacterial infection or a viral infection. Through sneezing. Or coughing. However, you can be affected by your environment, and with the "viral nature" of digital telecommunications, the title of Yapko's book – "Depression is Contagious" – a metaphor at best, I suppose, may have some meaning.

But, I think it's tenuous. We all have good days and bad days. Days that make us feel blue. That's not necessarily "clinical depression." Depression can be a very serious emotional disorder. Life-threatening. 

Yapko's title is more a marketer's ploy than a medical truism. I don't like it. I think it's misleadling. 

Just like I think "Mental Illness Awareness Week" is misleading. I don't know how educational it is and I question its validity when mental health and mental illnesses, like physical health and physical illnesses are a life-long, permanent concern for all of us, all the time.

We cannot be healthy physically if we're not healthy mentally and emotionally. 

What does "Mental Illness Awareness Week" mean? What does it do? Who is it in aid of? Who benefits from it.

Is it a promotion for psychiatrists? Many really care about their patients, but many others have lost their way and succumbed to the pharmacological, biochemical approach to treatment. They don't practice "talking therapies" anymore. And too many people want quick fixes. Demand them. I am highly skeptical about this, as you know. We're all different and we need to be treated as individuals. We need to work at our mental health and fitness, just like we need to work at our physical health and fitness.

(Have a look at the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario pro-active approach to mental and emotional fitness. Check Up from The Neck Up. It's never too late. Contact Kim Umbach at kimu@mooddisorders.on.ca)

I wonder. Is Mental Illness Awareness Week a way to help people overcome their denial and face their own personal issues and seek whatever help they need, be it psychiatric, psychological, peer support, community mental health, hypnotism or an empathetic ear? Someone who knows how to listen actively. Perhaps it's good supportive housing and employers willing to give people with psychiatric histories a chance to work, develop skills, achieve and develop the self-esteem and confidence that comes from real accomplishment.

Maybe it's more humane working environments and more empathy in those who don't live with mental illnesses. Maybe it's a wake-up call that it's time for psychiatrists to re-examine what they're teaching medical students about psychiatry. About those of us deemed to have emotional issues that affect our thinking and our behaviour, our minds.

I keep on writing here because I want to see change. I believe change is possible. I know it's possible. I've seen it in my lifetime. I remember when you never ever read the word "psychiatrist" in any newspaper or  magazine. Psychiatry was like black magic. Maybe it still is, but I believe that a lot of what psychiatrists have learned and are still learning and trying to do can change and improve our collective mental and emotional health. I believe that psychiatrists who listen and practice psychotherapy and see beyond neurosciences to the individuals they attempt to help, are creating important changes.

And there are all kinds of other routes to mental and emotional health, too. Everyone needs to be open-minded and educated.

Physcians need to be educated just as much as the media and all of us. Medical practitioners need to accept that emotional and mental illnesses and health are not a "them" and "us" duality. We're all in this together. And talking is the key. Not only talking therapy, but talking out loud and talking to each other.

Honestly. Candidly. Without arrogance. With humility.

That's education. That's why I call this blog "Coming Out Crazy" and because "coming out' with who we are and how we feel and what we see and perceive is all valid and part of the educational process.

Medications are just tools. Minor tools, if you ask me. Useful at times. But there's more you must do to heal. You need to talk.

You need to have your medications very carefully monitored if you take them. Trust me. I lost my only kidney and ended up on dialysis and with a transplant because a psychiatrist I was actually seeing regularly neglected to monitor my Lithium levels.

It doesn't matter what "diagnostic label" you have. Don't allow anyone to define who you are. Don't internalize a label and believe that it changes who you are. It doesn't. Unless you allow it to.

Over my lifetime - and I'll be 61 in less than two weeks - I've spent months and months and months as a psychiatric in-patient in four different Toronto psychiatric hospital wards. My family, primarily my mother, instilled in me a basic belief that I was "me" first. That I was talented, ambitious and smart, even if I was also histrionic and emotional and even, at time, manic and psychotic.

I was never just my 'illness" or "disorder". I was me.

That's what Mental Illness Awareness Week should be about, I believe. About how special we all are.

You are not your "illness" - you are you! Multifaceted. With so many qualities and characteristics that make you the unique individual you are. You are special. You have potential. And you must believe that. That's recovery, that's hopeful. That's your responsibility. That's self-determination.

No matter what any psychiatrist tells you. I've had so many diagnoses - schizophrenia, catatonic schizophrenia, manic depression, bipolar, hypomania.

They are just one small part of me. I'm also energetic and passionate and excitable and larger than life.

As for labels, I accept only two for myself. 

One is "human" and the other is my name - Sandra Lee Naiman, qualified by my date of birth. Just in case there's another "human" named "Sandra Lee Naiman" kicking around. :)

You're human. Now then, besides any "diagnostic" label you've been given, ask yourself, who am I?

And have some fun considering all the intriguing qualities you have, your skills, your talents, your abilities, your hobbies, your passions, your interests. All those special uniquenesses of yours that have nothing to do with any mental illness.

Everything about you that makes you, you. The only "you" in the whole world. The only "you" who's ever lived. How remarkable you are.

Speak soon!