Dealing with holiday stress

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. Christmas Day is two weeks from today.

For the last three or four weeks, I've been deluged with press-releases from public relations firms all over the continent offering to set up interviews for me with psychologists and other "experts" who will enlighten me – and you – about "new ways" to cope with an old story – the stress of the holidays. 

Holiday stress has become an industry, I think. As viable and real as any retail venture offering "seasonal specials" at wildly discounted rates.

I suspect the "stress of the holidays" is a media event, to some degree. 

Charles Dickens may have had a hand it, too. 

Before I go one step further, let me be straight with you. I'm Jewish. My tradition is very different. But, I confess that I have been stressed about holidays in the Jewish calendar, like Passover and the High Holidays. 

However, I do not believe I have ever had a publicist approach me and propose I interview a psychologist about Passover stress or Rosh Hashanah stress or Yom Kippur stress or Hanukkah stress. Somehow, these holidays don't seem to generate the same calibre of stress. Maybe they did and I was too young to be aware of it. Maybe stories about how to weather Hanukkah stress run in Jerusalem Post. I don't know. 

More likely, it's simply a question of demographics. And business.

In the Western world, Christmas is everywhere. Big Business. No matter what your religion, it's Christmas and it's contagious. So, it seems, is its stress.

As I think back, way back to my childhood, I don't recall any sense of stress or anything like it. Anywhere. It was a beautiful time. 

Christmas had no religious meaning for us though we knew its origins. We went to public schools and Christmas concerts were regular annual events – and great fun. I loved singing all the Christmas carols. Still do. Especially the way Diana Krall sings them.

We were taken to see Santa Claus at Eaton's downtown Toronto flagship store (below is a picture of me at age 5, in 1953), to sit on his knee and answer the question he always asked, "And what would you like for Christmas this year?"

I was precocious. A mite like the little girl Natalie Wood played in the classic 1947 Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street. I probably lectured him on why I didn't want anything for Christmas since we don't celebrate Christmas because we're Jewish. Then, I'd tell him that my parents would probably buy me some little things for Hanukkah.

Still, Christmas was utterly magical for me. We always went to see the elaborate Christmas windows at the big downtown Simpson's and Eaton's stores. Those stores are gone and I think those delightful moveable displays are long gone, too.

They're still a tradition in New York and other major U.S. cities. Selling stuff is reserved for inside some major store, to a degree during the holidays, like Lord & Taylor in New York. But not here. 

It was a tradition for us to be driven around the twinkling, glowing residential streets of my grandparents mid-town neighhourhood or ours in North Toronto after dark. Now we don't have to drive far. We've dubbed our street "'Las Vegas North." 

And, of course, there was The Santa Claus Parade. 

We had holidays from school. All this often coincided, depending on the lunar Jewish calendar, with Hanukkah, which had its own lovely traditions and delicious foods – like potato latkes smothered in apple sauce or sour cream. Lighting the Menorah every night for eight nights and singing the Hebrew blessings. Playing the game of Driedel, which I have never understood and still don't, with gold-foil wrapped chocolate coins, that you could eat whether you won or lost.

I remember the early days of television. My grandparents had one. I was born in October 1948. Mass marketing and advertising were in their infancy. We weren't commercialized at the age of two and three like the phenomenon of Consuming Kids today. We also weren't as sophisticated and knowledgeable either. 

I don't want to sound like an old fogey bemoaning "the good old days," but I feel sad that these holidays, which should be happy, are somehow so stress-laden.

My friend, Tufts University clinical psychiatrist Ron Pies calls them the Holiday Blues, With Some Shades of Grey in an excellent post on PsychCentral about the myths and realities of suicide and depression at this time of year, too.

So, I plan to muse about The Holidays over the next little while. Not in every post. Not all the time. It may be a cathartic activity for us. Therapeutic, perhaps. Mentally healthy.

I want to open a forum for you. Come and share some of your warmest memories of this season, no matter how you celebrate – even if you escape to the south, where Christmas is snowless and sunny, but still Christmas! 

Let us turn "Coming Out Crazy" into a place of respite from the stress of the season. Come and vent if you wish, if that will make you feel better. It's open season during the holiday season here this year.

You know me. Ever the cockeyed optimist, even as I face mountains of essay marking. I'll find some hummable seasonal music to keep me company. 

And tomorrow night, we have our annual family Hanukkah party. Mmmmmmm. I can taste those latkes!

Hidden Homelessness: One woman's story...

I often say to my students that "teaching is learning" and the same is true of journalism and perhaps even more, of blogging. There is a visceral connection between you and me in the blogosphere, often it grows beyond a virtual connection, too. It's very affecting and inspiring. 

This is the story of one of those times.

On Saturday night, I had a tough time falling asleep. My mind was whizzing. 

The day before, on Friday, while achy, feverish and sleeping most of time, felled by some sort of bug, I received an email from a member of our community here at Coming Out Crazy named Sandra Dawson.

She was clearly upset and for good reason. Through a series of emails and then a five-hour telephone conversation on Saturday evening, I discovered that Sandra's recovery journey is nothing short of miraculous. 

"When I was eight, my depression started. For no reason. I became glum, sad, moody cranky, often during the fall and spring. It was biological. I wasn't diagnosed at all until years later," she said. 

Sandra grew up in a comfortable and "privileged" military family, and as she was moving all over the country growing up, her behaviour began changing along with her moods.

"When I was about 10, I wrote a Christmas play and my teacher decided that I could direct it, but she fired me as the director because I was too bossy," she said, laughing at the recollection, perhaps a harbinger of the more exuberant moods she would experience later.

Initially, her mood swings were characterized by short episodes of increasingly severe depression, and occasional suicidality – her first attempt was when she was 11 years old, in school, with a pair of blunt, round-edge scissors. "I just knew I wanted to die," she said. A schoolmate spotted her and called her "Freak!" Nothing else happened. 

"We didn't talk about it in my family," she said. "We were repressed and didn't discuss our feelings or our emotions."

By the time she was in her early 20s, she was beginning to experience wildly euphoric manic moments as well as depression. Sometimes the two extreme moods occurred coincidentally, with "mixed episodes of mania/depression and hypomanic/euphoria. Depression with spikes of mania," she said. 

Eventually, Sandra started seeing a counselor, to no avail, then a psychiatrist who prescribed medication. "I was misdiagnosed as being depressed," but because of her own ignorance and fears about mental illnesses, her prejudice and discrimination, her negative stereotypes, she wouldn't take those drugs, even though she was suicidal.

She never went back to that doctor.

Sandra is now 42. She has been hospitalized approximately 35 times, calling herself a classic 'revolving door.' Most of those hospital stays, she stresses, were for relatively short periods of time – from a few days to two months.

"There were many times when my doctors didn't know what to do with me," she said from her home in Vancouver. Sometimes, they still don't, she added. 

Between these episodes, she typically has much longer periods of independence, emotional stability and productivity. 

At 27, a GP misdiagnosed her again and prescribed Prozac. This time, Sandra decided to take the medication, but it was disastrous for her. "It made me more manic."

Coupled with the death of her father, insecure living arrangements, travel, and another serious manic episode, her life started spiraling out of control. Suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, unable to work, for the first time in her life, she experienced hidden homelessness.

Four out of five (80%) homeless people in Canada don't live on the street. Most are improperly housed or on the verge of eviction, far too many are children. Women who earn less than men are more vulnerable to homelessness. The hidden homeless live in cars, couch surf or find temporary shelter in church basements or abandoned factories. 

Over the decade between 1994 and 2004, Sandra became homeless – but only four times. Years apart. Those episodes were short. She stayed in shelters for abused women, hospitals, or on friend's couches. She also lived in marginal housing like rooming houses and Single Room Occupancy hotels.

"I've been lucky," she said. "I've never lived 'on the streets' as in the stereotypical sleeping bag on a sidewalk. I am considered high functioning by my psychiatrists. Although my disorder is severe, I can look after my basic needs. Low functioning people need more help, but high functioning people can and do fall through the cracks and become homeless or at risk." 

These experiences were so searing, they turned her into a crusader, a passionate advocate, working professionally and within the community as a volunteer to help to understand, enlighten and fight hidden homelessness, and to ensure that more supportive housing is available especially for people with mental health issues.

She has a steady part-time job on the Mental Health Commission of Canada as a consultant, a person with lived experience of hidden homelessness, working on its newly launched, national multi-city study called At Home/Chez Soi.

Sandra is also on the board of Vancouver's Marine View Housing Society, a licensed and supportive housing project that began in 1975 and owns residential buildings in Vancouver for people with mental health difficulties. For years, she has also volunteered with her local arts community in several capacities. 

"It's so important to me. It makes me feel useful," she said.

Her work with the Mental Health Commission of Canada is one of her passions. 

On Sunday, Sandra was a presenter at a major national Vancouver conference on homelessness called Into The Light, which winds up today. She participated on a National Consumer Panel of peers with lived experience of homelessness and/or mental health issues involved in the At Home/Chez Soi project. These panelists represented cities of all sizes and discussion focused on pressing local issues in their respective areas. 

So why was she so upset when she wrote to me last Friday? 

When this four-year Housing First study was launched at a media event last week, Sandra bravely spoke out, telling her story about her own experiences with homelessness. She gave an interview to the press. Somehow, she was misrepresented and her story was badly distorted, so much so that she feared her credibility would be damaged and her reputation besmirched.

So she reached out to me and I'm so glad she did. I knew virtually nothing about hidden homelessness. It wasn't on my radar screen. Indeed, it was hidden. Invisible. Buried under the stereotype of the homelessness we see. I have started to scratch the surface. I will keep digging. 

Best of all, I've become acquainted with Sandra Dawson, one of the most courageous, generous-hearted people I have ever had the honour to engage with... and I sense we are more than acquainted. We have made a connection. I hope it will continue. There is so much more to share about the nature of homelessness – visible and hidden – especially among children and youth.

I have so much to learn. 

Thank you, Sandra.

Fort Hood: Psychiatrists & Stress...

No one will ever know exactly what snapped in the psyche of U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, but something surely did. 

How else can you begin to fathom why this highly-trained medical doctor and psychiatrist started blindly shooting innocent young soldiers at close range on yesterday afternoon at Fort Hood, Texas – the largest military base on U.S. soil.

I'm not making excuses for his unspeakable behaviour. But what happened? Was he sleep-deprived? Why? This is bewildering so many of us.

Stress has been uppermost in my mind this week and if anything illustrates the staggering power of stress on the human mind, body, spirit and soul, surely this horrifying catastrophe does. Thirteen people died. Twenty-eight others are seriously wounded. Hundreds of families and friends are in shock and grieving, desperately in need of counsel and support. A whole country is mourning.

Perhaps Major Nidal Hasan desperately needed but didn't have any support because of the nature of the harrowing emotional demands of his profession. 

Surely, what happened to him to cause him to act out as he did had to be related, in part, to the mounting stress, anxiety and fear he must have been feeling at the prospect of his imminent deployment to Afghanistan on November 28.

But I have another thought.

Remember, he's a psychiatrist specializing in "disaster and preventive psychiatry." Post Traumatic Stress in a specific demographic – veterans of war.

He has been treating soldiers returning from intense, active combat in Iraq and Afghanistan – shattered emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically – after fighting in these two endlessly gruesome, fruitless wars. When his patients unburdened themselves on him, confided in him, vented on him, where did this single, 39-year-old man go to get help for himself. How did he manage to shoulder all that pain?

How do psychiatrists deal with stress?

"Doctors, who ought to be in the best position to help the public, are not distinguished by their own ability to help one another or themselves," psychologist and prolific writer Kay Redfield Jamison wrote in her groundbreaking book Night Falls Fast – Understanding Suicide, published in 2000.

"They are, to start with, twice as likely to kill themselves as other people are," writes Jamison, who has lived with bipolar disorder since her teens and has seriously attempt suicide. "Doctors, more often than not are left alone to struggle with their suffering. Many find it hard to ask for help, or, indeed, to acknowledge needing it: they are trained to be independent, to be accountable for decisions that cost or save lives, and to assume an undue portion of the miseries of others. They function within a closed system that too often discourages seeking treatment ..."

I'm sure the military would be especially tough here.

This morning, I sent an urgent request for help with this question to my muse, friend, mentor and polymath, Tufts University clinical psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry Dr. Ron Pies. He answered quickly, admitting candidly that he didn't have "any profound or learned comments, except to recognize that mental health professionals and physicians of all stripes are under extraordinary levels of stress, a great deal of the time."

He wrote to me, understandably briefly, because he was "on the road," as he often is, adding that "without prejudging anybody, I think it is fair to say that the horrific shootings at Ft. Hood represent a terrifying illustration of how one's emotional turmoil can be fuelled by a specific set of environmental factors. If not detected early, and followed by timely clinical intervention, the results can often be tragic."

Then Dr. Pies added a more personal perspective.

"I have always found it important to have many interests, supports, and creative outlets, beyond my profession as a psychiatrist. I always worry about colleagues who say, "Psychiatry is my life!" and who spend every waking hour thinking about nothing else. 

"Balance and perspective are great stress-busters, and I have always found these in areas such as literature, philosophy, and creative writing. Others will find relief and solace in sports, music, or spending time with family. 

"The important point is that all of us need to find ways of monitoring our levels of stress, and to provide ourselves with fulfilling activities that help us achieve emotional balance."

So, I leave you with these wise words on stress from my dear friend, Dr. Pies. 

Think balance. Perhaps that's what was lacking in the tragic, tormented life of U.S. Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan. Who will ever know for sure?

This, however, I do know. 

From now on, every weekend, my husband and I plan to take a few hours to do something for ourselves. Nothing major. A movie. A walk in the park with the dogs. Just a little something to divert ourselves from the ongoing pressures of our work – we both teach at community colleges.

Because nothing. No job. No deadline. No pressure. No virus. Nothing is worth sacrificing one's emotional, spiritual, physical and mental health and well-being. One's psyche. One's hope.

Take care and enjoy this brisk, November weather!

Speak soon!

Stresssssssssssssssss!

Until last week, I had no idea how mentally, emotionally and physically debilitating stress could be. Good stress. Bad stress. It doesn't matter. Stress is distressing.

"If you get the H1N1 virus, there is a very good chance you'll die," my kidney transplant coordinator told me on the telephone early last week. "It's so fast."

It wasn't available yet in Toronto. No one was dispensing it. 

"And the rules seem to be changing every day," she added.

Great. 

I couldn't talk my family doctor's receptionist into giving me the seasonal flu shot. At 61, I'm four years too young. 

Then I explained that I really needed to be vaccinated against H1N1 because I'm one of the high risk groups – I take three powerful immunosuppressant medications to ensure my body does not reject my transplanted kidney.

In 1991 I went into "iatrogenic" acute endstage kidney failure and lost the function of my only kidney because the psychiatrist who had treated me for 16 years for my mood disorder had neglected to monitor my Lithium levels properly. I had the kidney transplant in 1994. I have virtually no immunity to H1N1.

I made an appointment for the H1N1 vaccine. I'll have to wait until December to get the seasonal flu vaccine. This past Monday, right after my class at Seneca's Markham Campus, up in the northern end of the GTA, I jumped into my car and drove all the way downtown to Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Arriving at 2:50 p.m., I'd never seen my doctor's waiting room so crowded. All the receptionists were wearing masks. People of all ages were seated or milling around, including pregnant mothers with young children in tow. 

"We're running about 45 minutes late," my doctor's receptionist told me. "There's only one nurse and she's doing the best she can." 

Talk about stress. I couldn't wait to get out of there and within 20 minutes, I had my shot and was back outside, walking towards the underground parking garage. 

I live with a psychiatric diagnosis on the bipolar spectrum called Hypomania. In my case, it's rare and serious, but I handle it pretty well. I never get depressed, but wow, do I get high. To the point of psychosis. Mania. 

It can be frightening sometimes because I can tell when those curious little manic ideas slip into my consciousness. It takes me a minute to realize that I'm fantasizing, a little delusional. 

That's why I'm also in Recovery. I've worked so hard at processing my mind for 49 years in psychotherapy that I have spot-on "insight" that Dr. Bob admits he's rarely seen in anyone he's treated.

That doesn't mean I'm invulnerable to stress. Or that stress cannot trigger my grandiose thinking. Sleeplessness. Quirky judgement. The key is, I am prepared for it and work very hard to keep it in check.

On Friday, October 23, I had lunch with a colleague. It was my birthday lunch and we "dined" at the Flint 'n Feather, the modest dining room at the college's main campus. All during lunch, little delusional thoughts kept flickering in my mind.

"I bet she's planned a surprise birthday celebration for me... I bet the whole staff of the Faculty of English and Liberal Studies are going to burst into the dining room singing "Happy Birthday, dear Sandy... I wonder when... " This thought keep flickering in and out of my thoughts.

I couldn't concentrate on our conversation because of this intoxicating feeling that something wonderful was going to happen. 

It did.

My friend treated me to my salad and fruit!

At Seneca, a melting pot of more than 20,000 students – many from all over the world – you can sense everyone is a little on edge. More than the usual mid-term angst. It's filtering into my classrooms. This week, I've held two de-stressing sessions. Open dialogues. "Show and Tell" sessions. Opportunities for the students to "evaluate the teacher," for a change. 

Anything to help them unwind and, as my late father would say, "hang loose."

Lately, I'm not sleeping consistently. Sleep keeps me sane and stable. I'm bouncing around my mood spectrum from my normal, which is always slightly elevated to exuberant to flying around the rafters to back to my invigorating normal. 

That's why I'm seeing Dr. Bob every Wednesday for the next month. I saw him this morning.

There's so much going on. Stresssssss. I feel tingly. I have to go easy. I'm running up stairs instead of taking the escalator. I'm walking at twice my normal pace. I'm waking up two hours before the alarm goes off in the morning.

This is all stress. Good stress. Bad stress. It doesn't matter. It's debilitating. 

"Why worry when you have no information," Dr. Bob said this morning. "As soon as there's enough vaccine available so everyone can be vaccinated, things will die down. In the next few weeks. You'll feel better."

Right now, the H1N1 flu is great news story. There's an old saying about news.

"Good news is snooze news."

Too bad. We could use some good news right now. It would help ease the emotional and mental effects of this bad news story that feels more contagious than the flu.

Relax. Take a deep breath. Take good care of yourself. Sleep. Stay informed right here at Healthzone.ca.

Speak soon.

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!

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!

From my inbox... about suicide

Many of you regularly write to me personally and I really value the stories you share, so much so that often I wish they were more available to everyone who drops by Coming Out Crazy. 

The other day, Dorothyanne Brown, a nurse from Ottawa sent an extremely poignant and provocative note. Not only did she give me permission to publish it here, she said I could "bounce people to her blog" – which focuses on living with multiple sclerosis.

Here's what Dorothyanne said on Sunday, September 20, in response to my Friday post On Denial...

"I, like you, have been an advocate for those living silently with depression since I was diagnosed some years ago. I've since been diagnosed with MS and am working with the mood swings thought to be caused by the electrical warfare between the shredded neurons in my brain. Of course, as with depression, MS symptoms remain largely unexplained. Would that we could understand the brain just a wee bit better!

"I'm a nurse and former primary health care manager who had to quit work because of my cognitive lapses and moods – despite medication, everything remains uneven.

"But enough about me. What I wanted to mention to you was the denial other health care professionals show with regard to suicide. At several points in my first year with MS, I've felt suicidal. I made a plan, I gathered the necessaries, I plotted the time of day. Then I called in my helpers.

"No one listened to me. No one took me seriously. Even now, since I moved to a new community, when I reach out for help with these mood things, nothing helps.

"My MS doc listened to my plan and said, 'Well, yes, that'd work.'

"Fortunately, I stepped back from the brink, or have until now. But it does make me wonder how others, less articulate, less well-supported, might manage. It seems to me that unless you show up at the office with a gun or rope, people are not likely to take claims of suicidality seriously. No one seems interested in discussing it, even those at the MS society – despite the high rate of suicide in MS patients.

"What's your experience with this? Depression and depression medications and suicide are closely linked... and yet it still seems to be a hidden subject. Discussing it might help those with these feelings step back, reconsider. The feeling of aloneness in depression is such a high risk factor.

"Good on you to come out and be counted. I've always felt that is the best way to proceed.

"Best wishes – Dorothyanne."

When I responded, I had to confess that I have no personal experience with major depression or suicidal intent. Mania is my madness and I have lived with its psychotic features since my mid-teens. Since I found the right medication – for me – in 1988 at the age of 40, I've been reasonably fine, thanks to my twice-daily doses of Tegretol and especially the support, psychotherapy and constant emotional processing I've been doing with my psychiatrist Dr. Bob for close to 20 years and still counting.

Dorothyanne, you touched a real chord, however, when you stressed how medical professionals are reluctant and uncomfortable discussing suicide with suicidal people. 

Everyone is uncomfortable talking about suicide. It is a taboo subject for many complex reasons. I don't think this is because it is often thought to be caused by depression and too many people are uncomfortable talking about mental illnesses. It goes much deeper than that and I am no expert. I don't know if there really can be real expertise on suicide.

Last year, a neighbour of mine died by hanging himself in his garage on the Monday morning of the Victoria Day weekend. After a phalanx of police cars, fire trucks and paramedic vans pulled away from our dear little dead-end street in the suburbs, after his sheathed body was removed in a red van (not black or bearing any resemblance to a hearse) my neighbours quietly clustered together, whispering. 

Would they have whispered if this kind, gentle man who was suffering with the terminal side-effects of brain cancer treatments had died of his illness, rather than by his own hand? He was depressed because he couldn't envision life – he was divorced and living alone – in constant pain, a close friend of his told me. 

His funeral was in no way "traditional" and he was buried against a fence in the cemetery, separated, removed from other plots, alone in death as he no doubt felt in life. People still say "commit" suicide, though it is no longer considered a crime. So much mystery and mythology still cloaks suicide.

A month later, the New York Times published a cover story in its Sunday Magazine titled The Urge To End It – Understanding Suicide. Two survivors of highly lethal suicide attempts – one by firearms and another by jumping – were interviewed. They were happy to be alive, despite permanent injury and disfigurement. The article was one of the most compelling I've ever read and it certainly furthers the discourse on the impulsivity of suicide. But what of those who are less impulsive and suffer suicidal intent and thoughts, without this impulsivity to act? 

This story didn't really address that. 

It wouldn't really be helpful for you, Dorothyanne, if you want to talk about your suicidal feelings.

Nor would it empower health professionals in their ability to help you, I suspect.

For some personal perspectives on feeling suicidal, you can go through the short engaging videos on the excellent new and undeniably easy to navigate website Working Through It where several people talk candidly about their suicidal feelings. And how happy they are they got help and don't feel suicidal anymore.

That might help you to seek help, but what if you cannot find the help your really need? The right fit for you? Then what? 

A hug and an ear from one of your helpers perhaps can prove better. You were cogent enough to be able to reach out. Feeling loved and wanted and cared about and valued by other people is decidedly more useful. But what if you don't feel that love, even if it's there. Then, what?

In her extraordinary book, Night Falls Fast – Understanding Suicide, (Vintage Books, 1999) one of the only serious studies of the subject, clinical psychologist and Johns Hopkins Hospital psychiatry professor Kay Jamison writes eloquently, perceptively and passionately about suicide. She knows her subject. She was diagnosed with manic depression/bipolar disorder as a university student and years ago, in graduate school, struggling with an episode of depression, she overdosed on her Lithium and almost did kill herself. 

Yet, she, too, is frustrated. 

In her epilogue, Jamison writes: "Like many of my colleagues who study suicide, I have seen time and again the limitations of our science, been privileged to see how good some doctors are and appalled by the callousness and incompetence of others. Mostly, I have been impressed by how little value our society puts on saving the lives of those who are in such despair as to want to end them. It is a societal illusion that suicide is rare. It is not. Certainly the mental illnesses most closely tied to suicide are not rare. They are common conditions, and, unlike cancer and heart disease, they disproportionately affect and kill the young."

But if you're suicidal, reading that book would be impossible. You probably wouldn't be able to focus. 

Dorothyanne, I don't know why some doctors and health care professionals don't take their suicidal patients seriously. Or cannot. Lack the ability. Maybe it's that old and perhaps mythic rubric – "if someone talks about killing themselves, they'll never do it"?

More likely, part of the reason, as Jamison states in her book, is that doctors, themselves, are twice as likely to kill themselves than other people, especially psychiatrists and psychologists – women more than men. And doctors tend to carry their emotional burdens along with the burdens of their patients, working independently and not seeking help or even recognizing that they need it.

Pills are perceived as an easier solution.

Last week, psychologist John M. Grohol on his PsychCentral blog World of Psychology mused about suicide rates in 2006 remaining virtually the same as in 2004 and 2005 – despite antidepressant use on the rise and a dramatic decline in talking therapies. Check it out. 

He also points out a new American National Drug Use and Health report on "Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours among Adults". For the first time, all adults in this survey of 46,190 Americans 18 year of age and older were asked about suicidal thoughts. In the past, they were only asked about clinical depression. Check it out, too. 

Philip Dawdy at Furious Seasons posted about this, too, and his take is well-worth reading. 

Check out the World Health Organization's global picture.

There's an important clue in all of this, I think. It's found in an August 2009 post by Grohol about the fact that pill use is up (antidepressants) and psychotherapy use is down. People are demanding quick-fix – pills as their primary avenue to mental health and well-being. Maybe because they just can't connect with the right psychotherapist for them. Or the waiting list is too long. Or it's too expensive.

But, as I've said again and again, the answer is not in pills alone. 

My friend, Dr. Ron Pies, Tufts University professor and clinical psychiatrist addressed the issue of medication use in effectively helping people with mental health issues recently, when I asked him about it. He wasn't referring specifically to suicide or even depression, but talking more generally. His remarks, however, are important:

"I think so much depends on what the 'issues' are; how serious and impairing the problems are; and how skilled the clinician is who prescribes the medication – and how closely he or she monitors the patient's response... medication alone is virtually never 'the answer' for those who experience serious emotional or behavioral problems. I continue to believe that, in carefully selected instances, it is often a part of the answer." 

That's vital. I wasn't kidding when I suggested a hug might be better. If not a hug, at least some kind of human engagement. Part of the answer lies outside the realm of strict medical science and in human and humane interaction and communication. 

Yesterday, I discovered this right here at Healthzone in a Toronto Star story recently written by Health Reporter Joseph Hall.

In this story, Hall quotes Karen Letofsky, the executive director of Toronto's Distress Centres, who says: "If you are concerned an individual is at risk (of suicide) then the first thing you would do ... is approach that individual...." and this approach "should be couched as an invitation for this person to share their feelings, while asking directly about thoughts of suicide."

Maybe you don't need a health care professional, Dorothyanne. This is such a crucial question.

Maybe you need a human being who knows how to listen to you. Who can feel with you and for you. Even a stranger on the other end of a Distress Centre phone line.

Or one of us, here, in this online community at Coming Out Crazy. Maybe we can harness the power of the internet to help out. Reach out to you. To each other. We've done it before. Why not with suicide?

I'm throwing this out to everyone reading this post. 

What are your thoughts? If you can talk about suicidal thinking, share your feelings about suicide here, where it's safe, then perhaps it won't seem so difficult, so frightening to face. Perhaps you'll be able to reach out when and if you need support – to the right people for you.

What do you think?

All quiet on the August front...

I'm happy. I'm free. For the next 13 days minus one morning, I am not a part-time community college teacher. I am a blogger. Full-time. Your blogger!

If I have not commented or responded to your recent comments, please forgive me. I read them. I wanted to respond, but I was under a huge gun. Thank you for them, for caring and being so tuned in to me and to each other. That's what community is and we, I believe, are a community. I want us to be.

But now, today, as of 2:40 p.m. this afternoon, the Summer 2009 term at Seneca College is officially over and I am me again, entirely. Not a split personality, driving madly between my life with you, thinking about you, and concerned about you, and my students, and their concerns – trying desperately to get them through my course. If you want a thoughtful and very insightful sense of my life as a part-time community college teacher, read this from The New York Times. My niece, a newly-minted PhD who began teaching today at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh sent it to me and in turn, I've sent it to about 12 of my part-time colleagues, all of whom agree that it was the story of their lives.

Not now, though. 

Right now, I have NOOOOOOOOOOOO students. Yipppppeeeeeee!!!!!!!

So, I want to celebrate. Here I sit, with not a thought on my mind. Well, not quite. I have two deadlines that are niggling at me and I'm going to do something about those. That's a good thing.

You know, it's interesting, but since everyone takes August off, it seems, nothing much is happening in the mental health world. I subscribe to about 20 psychiatry, mental health and bipolar blogs and right now the biggest news story is that Prime Time on ABC is airing a show on Mad Pride in a few minutes – the old violence issue will be a focus. You'd think an outfit like ABC News could come up with something other than this tired stereotype. 

You know what they say. Good news is snooze news, so it's easier to go after a sensational angle that represents a tiny minority of cases than find the real story. When the media does the diagnosing, as often happens with a sensational crime, I wonder how accurate those diagnoses really are. Well, I'm not going to think about it right now. It's borrrrring. 

I'll watch it tomorrow.

Other than that, nothing much is happening in the blogosphere around mental health.

I guess when the psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and other psychotherapists go on vacation, "illness takes a holiday," too.

Helen Henderson's piece in this paper a few days ago about a British film called "Schizo, the horror story" was, as always, excellent. Have a look. The Brits are light years ahead of us in challenging mental health discrimination and working to end it. That's exactly what this new mini-movie, produced jointly by the British government and Time to Change, a leading mental health charity, is doing.

While the Mental Health of Commission of Canada is "Making the Case for Peer Support" with yet another cross-country, face-to-face consultation and focus group, we're still the only country in the G8 with no National Mental Health Care Strategy. They're still working on it. As if "peer support" is news. It's important. Very important, but I guess since it's August, nothing else is newsworthy. Please.

How many people are able to access Wellness Action Recovery Plan (WRAP) groups in this country? Or Pathways to Recovery? Does the MHCC even mention Mental Health Recovery on its website in any meaningful way?

But you know what? For the next few days, I don't care. I'm going to relax. Take care of business I've neglected. Doctor's appointments. Spend some time with my husband who doesn't recognize me these days. And my Dandies. Read anything that has nothing to do with what I'm going to be teaching in the fall. Go to a movie, if we can find one that appeals to us. And think about some intriguing material to share with you.

The Fall film line-up doesn't look all that promising, but I don't care. The Toronto International Film Festival is around the corner, and that's always intriguing to read about. Right now, though, this minute? I don't care about anything. I haven't a care in the world. Until September 8, when it's back to school.

On one sad but inevitable note. Senator Edward Kennedy has died. A voice for reason and compassion in health care, all health matters. Yes, especially mental health care. When you consider the madness that is exploding south of the border around securing  fair and equitable health care reform so all American people can receive the health care they need, Senator Edward's Kennedy's passing is a true loss and a great tragedy. His voice or reason will be missed.

Be well and speak soon!

Very soon!

My "Mad" Week...

Toronto's Mad Pride Week 2009 is drawing to a close tomorrow. I don't know if it's a coincidence or the stars just happened to have it in for me this week, but this has been, without a doubt, the craziest week I've had since beginning to write this blog.

I am sitting here exhausted. I have a stomach ache. Emotionally I'm all churned up inside. I had no idea this was going to happen. Last year's Mad Pride Week, the world didn't land on my door with questions, comments, concerns and complaints about the meaning of Mad Pride.

This year, it did. Literally. I wasn't expecting it and reviewing the last five days, had I known this was going to happen, I would have taken a holiday. I wasn't prepared. Now, I think I'm prepared for anything.

Ahhhh, the power of lived experience. But I didn't have a clue last Friday, when I announced I'd be writing about Mad Pride this week.

Since then, I've been deluged. I try to answer the comments I receive and the personal emails, especially if they're from people stressing out. This week, for some reason, many people decided to connect with me. To "come out" to me! And I respect them and engage with them. How can I ignore a cry for help? It's not my nature.

My email box is overflowing with unanswered personal emails. Personal questions from people who need to share their life stories of survival and suffering. 

And asking advice. 

That's one thing I don't do – advice.

Like whether you can emotionally handle the rocky terrain that's covered in the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Next to Normal if you have a family' history of bipolar disorder.

How can I answer a question like that? I'm still processing it, but the short answer is, this is a remarkably hopeful rock opera. Judging from the spontaneous standing eruption of applause as the show ended and the empathetic and heartfelt comments I overheard leaving the theatre in June when I flew down to see it, people were touched, surprised, and visibly quite uplifted with what they had seen, heard and experienced.

When I'm not posting here, I'm keeping up with other activities related to mental health and wellness – this week Mad Pride was the focus. I'm always learning. There's so much to learn.

And speaking of learning, I have another life, you know.

Right now, I'm a teaching a course called Women in Canada, part-time at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology. I've taken over the last half and I'm getting to know about 18 new students and helping them through the shell-shock of adapting to a teacher with a completely different teaching style than my predecessor, who created the course around 1971, when I graduated from Seneca with an Applied Communications Media diploma. Now I've come full-circle.

On Wednesday morning, following my two-hour class and a stream of students who came to see me to ask questions about assignments and connect with me personally, I rushed home to ready my house for the annual Board Meeting and Summer Social of the Executive of the Seneca Alumni Association I belong to and I offered to host.

I only slept for about four hours that night. My female Dandie Dinmont Terrier Lucy is in season right now, so she wakes me up at 5:50 a.m. 

Yesterday, all I wanted to do was write my post and plan my lesson for today's class at Seneca. But that wasn't going to be. I was too drained physically to concentrate intellectually, plus I received requests from several journalists for interviews. After all, it's Mad Pride Week, and I've been musing about it since last week.

Then, on top of that, a journalist from CBC Radio's current affairs show, The Current, called yesterday at 3 p.m."just to chat" about Mad Pride and what it means to me. 

Some question. Huge. Mammoth. The answer is endless. I couldn't resist. I can go on all day with an open-ended question like that and I did, for about 80 minutes until I and the journalist ran out of time even though I was just getting up to speed. 

I was late. I was behind in my lesson planning for this morning's 8:00 a.m. class at Seneca. I was late posting for you. I had to get all gussied up for this family affair at my sister's and I didn't even know where to begin. 

It was pure madness. Art imitating life. And my life felt out of control. I desperately needed sleep, but that wasn't going to happen because when we came home after the dinner at 10:30 p.m., I still had to finish my lesson planning and then try to think of yet another brilliant insight about Mad Pride for you.

And I was empty. Dry as dirt. I couldn't think yet I couldn't sleep. And that's my tale of madness. 

So I'm signing off right now and going to bed. It's 3 p.m. If I don't, I'll go out of my mind, crazy, bananas, nuts, bonkers, insane, mad, manic. Sleep heals my mind. I hope you'll forgive me for not writing another word about Mad Pride.

Because as far as I'm concerned, we each have to find our own answers, our own paths, our own meanings, our own ways to live peacefully with ourselves. 

There is no magic bullet. it's a life-long process. Not just one day a year or even one week. It's every day, 24/7 – all year, every year,all your life. That's what Recovery is and as far as I'm concerned Mad Pride and Recovery are joined at the hip. It's not easy, quite the opposite. It's often painful – a series of struggles – but it's worth it. 

Now, for me? Sleep.

Hugs.

 

More on "Mad Pride" and "Knowing Your Rights Day" ...

Happy Mad Pride Day!

July 14 – A Universal Day of Liberation from old stereotypical thinking about mental health and mental illnesses. To challenge mental health discrimination and prejudice. To educate and enlighten and declare ourselves. To celebrate who we are, educate ourselves and others and remember our history. To break out of denial. To stop being afraid. To end our silence.

To be proud.

Wow, is "Mad Pride" ever a red flag issue, though? At least on this continent.  

Not in England and other countries, where "madness" is an increasingly acceptable word to describe having a diagnosis of a psychiatric or "mental illness" and that's very significant. 

Just click onto the comments to my last post, In the mood for Mad Pride 2009 to see an intriguing discussion that took place over the weekend. Not quite a repeat of what happened in the comments to my post about 2008 Mad Pride Week. That really upset people. Big time. 

So, we're making progress. One step at a time.

This morning, I received a Facebook invitation from Mary Ellen Copeland of the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery to join her group called "Mental Health Recovery and WRAP© – Wellness Recovery Action Plan". Copeland is one of the leaders in the U.S. mental health recovery movement and she has a remarkable recovery story, herself. 

I met the Stephen Pocklington at a conference last year and posted all about WRAP. These eight week programs offered in Toronto and all over the U.S. Worth considering if you want to add more tools to help you with your recovery. It works!

There is a profound relationship between Mad Pride and Mental Health Recovery. As I see it, they go hand in hand, even if you choose not to describe yourself as "mad" and feel more comfortable with the term "mental illness." Whatever works for you!

My friend Tufts University psychiatrist Ron Pies, a valued presence here at "Coming Out Crazy",  suggests that being very specific is probably most helpful and healthy. 

Here's what he says: "As for how people diagnosed with so-called mental disorders ought to refer to their conditions, I think its often best to name the specific condition, such as 'I have an anxiety disorder' or 'I have bouts of depressions.'"

Everyone is different and should find their own "comfort zone" – and it's doesn't have to be carved in stone. You may find yourself changing and evolving. "Coming Out Crazy" is a process. It can take years.

These days, I don't run around town saying seriously that "I'm utterly mad." (Although, I do less seriously, in certain situations, among friends and people who know me.) What I usually say is that "I'm in recovery from a unipolar mood disorder. I'm not bipolar. I have never been clinically depressed. I get high. Very high. Not happy. Insane, crazy, nuts, mad!" 

I feel comfortable making a little fun of myself and playing with words and I can pull it off. I've been out all my life. I've had years of practice. It wasn't as easy when I was much younger, as it is now.

It depends on context, of course. Where you are. Who you're with. We're all different. I'll often add that, "This is a very rare, very serious mood disorder. I've been hospitalized about 20 times for mania. I get psychotic. It's no fun. Trust me! But I haven't had a major manic episode since 1988." 

When I talk about myself that way, more often than not, people are comfortable asking me questions. That's when I can self-advocate and educate. It's a win-win-win! That's how you can bring about change, one person at a time. It works. 

That's my brand of Mad Pride. Why don't you try to think about yours. Everyone feels differently. How do you describe yourself and feel about yourself? Why not comment about your brand of Mad Pride and if you don't have one, pretend you do. Put words to your thoughts. Brainstorm. Add your thoughts and comment on them, here.

After all, this is Mad Pride Week. It's the one week in the year when Madness is on a lot of minds. Have some fun with it. Think about some positives. Break out. Be a little optimistic. Cockeyed Optimistic! Think outside your box! Forget about the old resonating ideas for a minute. Just be free. Take a deep breath and for a moment, remember that you are you! There's no one on earth like you. Never has been and never will be. You have special gifts. Try to turn your thinking around. 

Be proud of where you are right now. If you're here, you're in a good, safe place. And we're all here together with you!

One last word – five really important words, actually – before I list highlight tomorrow's Mad Pride Week activities. 

These are the five key concepts for Mental Health Recovery according to Mary Anne Copeland.

• Hope

• Personal Responsibility

• Education

• Self Advocacy

• Support

Meditate about them, too.

Now them, tomorrow, Wednesday July 15th, is "Know Your Rights" Day during Toronto's Mad Pride Week. 

Here's what's on tap. Click here for an overview and details about location.

From 11 a.m. to 12 noon: The Dream Team, a group of "consumer survivors" who advocate for safe, secure and affordable house for people living with mental health and addiction issues will share their stories. Over the last year The Dream Team worked with various groups and communities across Ontario to explore the issue of discriminatory zoning. In this presentation members of the Dream Team will illustrate the concept of discriminatory zoning and the impact on people with mental health and addiction issues. 


At 12 noon to 12:15 p.m. The Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre or PARC Ambassadors Program is a remarkable grassroots community success story. This Parkdale Community consultation program engages, informs and consults with residents and stakeholders in the community in relation to their building development at Edmond Place. Nine Ambassadors, PARC Members, receive remuneration for their peer and member driven work, which incorporates and builds on the principles and values of the recovery model and PARC’s Mission – PARC – A Place Where People Rebuild Their Lives. 

When the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre acquired Edmond Place from the City of Toronto to develop affordable, social housing for marginalized persons in our community there was extreme opposition to PARC by residents and stakeholders in Parkdale. Since the PARC Ambassadors Program's inception in September 2007 this inner-city community has evolved from a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) neighbourhood to a YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) neighbourhood. 

The PARC Ambassadors Program is proof positive that through community organizing and public relations, marginalized people have a commitment to their community. They have all the necessary attributes and capabilities to be productive, to contribute to their neighbourhood and to society. They can a do live a healthy, meaningful and fulfilling life. This is a powerful snapshot of recovery.

PARC Ambassadors will discuss their work at this presentation 

12:15 noon to 1 p.m. Lunch – light refreshments generously provided by The Raging Spoon

*RSVP: http://www.madpridetoronto@yahoo.ca

Special lunch time presentations featuring Laughter Yoga with Salimah Kassim-Lakha, and more!

1 p.m. – 2 p.m. – Presentation – Legal Jeopardy by Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS)

2 p.m. to  3 p.m. – David Carmichael

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

When it comes to treating your own mental illnesses, we often assume that doctors and other mental heal professionals always know what’s best. During this presentation, David will raise a few issues about scientific drug research and help you understand, based on his own experience recovering from major depression, how important it is for people living with mental illnesses to take responsibility for their own recovery and rehabilitation by asking their doctors and mental health workers questions, questions and more questions, and by becoming regularly physically active. 

David holds a masters degree in physical education and is the former director of national projects at ParticipACTION. After experiencing his first major depression in 2003 at the age of 45 and a relapse in 2004, he tragically learned the importance of good mental health and does not assume that doctors always know what’s best.

A Q & A session will follow.

3 p.m. – 4 p.m. Street Nurse Beth Pelton 

Beth Pelton is a registered nurse currently working with Street Health Community Nursing. Most of her nursing work has been in the community, and with people living with cancer. Her experiences have included working in medical and geriatric and psychiatric nursing, practising from a Harm Reduction Philosophy.

Mad Pride can help you on your Recovery journey. Go for it!