The gifts of giving back...

In my early adolescence, I remember struggling to learn to play George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on the piano. How perfect for a budding manic-depressive, years before psychiatrists branded me that way. Back then, my diagnosis was schizophrenia, though I didn't know it. Nor did my family. 

OBSESSED WITH "RHAPSODY IN BLUE"

I was different. And difficult. Histrionic. My nickname was Sarah Bernhardt. I was also taking drama classes, then. My mother considered drama to be a "good outlet" for me, and those classes kindled a lifelong love of the theatre.

But at home, I was obsessed with "Rhapsody in Blue." Mysteriously it whispered to me, deep down. I couldn't explain it. I tingled with exhilaration. Its manic rhythms resonated emotionally. Not rationally or intellectually or verbally. It calmed and excited me simultaneously. Not only listening to our Oscar Levant recording with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra – but attempting to play this complicated jazz concerto on the piano, myself. 

I have no musical talent whatsoever, but my persistent pounding on the keyboard of our baby grand demanded concentration and focus. It transported me far from my anxieties at that time. Was I making music? I wouldn't call it that, but whatever I was doing was transforming. Tranquilizing. For me.

I felt a little guilty about the way I was mangling Gershwin's masterpiece. He was probably twirling in his grave, but that didn't seem to matter because his music and my attempt at playing it were magical. It had to be therapeutic, though this was years before music therapy was as prevalent as it is today. It felt good. Liberating. It was a healthier emotional release than my acting out.

Until someone in my family, driven mad by my painful practising, demanded I stop. I did. My lessons were stopped, too, I'm sad to say, though I never lost my love of Gershwin and his music.

THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MUSIC AND THE ARTS

I was very lucky. My parents were vigilant. My mother could see early on that I was struggling in school and needed other more artistic outlets beyond what was offered there. Not all kids are so blessed.

That's why am I talking about the transformative power of music and the arts.

Last Thursday evening, I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre where I was elected to the volunteer board. I'm so excited about this. 

For me, helping this small, grassroots organization in any way I can, transports me back to my youth and, in a curious way, to my unfinished performance of Gershwin's piano concerto. 

The CCAC was founded in 1979 by a local Cabbagetown resident, the late David Blackmore, to offer arts programming to children in nearby Regent Park. In 1985, it became a registered charity and now serves all Toronto inner city children. 

"The bulk of our children come from single parent families earning incomes of less than $20,000 per year," CCAC Board President Peggy Weir said. "They have to register with us and we have a sliding scale of fees." 

Individual lessons are offered in instrumental music, and classes in vocal music, drama, visual arts, photography and karate. Homework tutouring is available, as well as pre-school art, reading circles and creative movement classes for moms and tots.

"We focus on individual music lessons and we have qualified teachers who are more than role models and mentors. For many of our children, meeting with their music teacher is the only chance they have each week to engage with an adult, one on one," Weir said. 

 AN OASIS OF LEARNING WHERE CHILDREN ACQUIRE AN EXTRAORDINARY SENSE OF SELF

"Our vision," according to a one-page overview of the CCAC's mandate, "is to be an oasis of learning where children acquire an extraordinary sense of self, of a world where all children and young people have a sense of belonging and are loved and valued. A world where they can fulfill their potential, shape their destiny and experience the joy of life."

Its mission is to do this by "providing them with arts and music lessons focused on building character, discipline and skill."

One woman at the meeting, clearly passionate about the work of the CCAC, sent her son there when he was a child. She talked about how she used to clean the Centre to earn extra money so she could take him to concerts to "see and hear" the music he was learning, being played by the Toronto Symphony or other professional musicians.

Though he's now 29, he did not follow his musical muse professionally, his mother reported. Instead, he became a medical doctor and he's now studying in Florida.

"But he went through the University of Toronto," she said, stressing that the values, skills, disciplines of his musical training and the sense of community at the CCAC equipped him to carry on with his higher education. It changed the course of his life.

Other students have gone on to study music at the Royal Conservatory of Music and funds raised by the CCAC can cover the costs of their entrance examinations. 

MUSIC MAKES EVERYONE FEEL GOOD

"There are oodles of studies showing that studying the arts, particularly music, promotes learning," Weir said.

"Children who take music lessons often become quite enamoured and end up practicing. We give them instruments to take home – violins and keyboards. They have the responsibility of taking care of them. Also, if you're practicing, you're less likely to be hanging out at the corner with friends who may be offering you illegal substances."

Weir has been involved actively with the CCAC for six years and has lived in Cabbagetown for 25 years. 

"I know this community and through my personal experience, I know that music is the great leveler," she said. "It doesn't matter where you come from, it's the international language. I moved to Canada from Brussels. Listening to music or playing an instrument, it no longer matters what language you speak or what your dad does or where you live. It makes everyone feel good. It lifts you up and takes you out of whatever closet you find yourself in."

My music making days are long gone and with my hearing loss, even listening to music is not what it used to be, but I have another source of pleasure that's even more rewarding.

Volunteering. I grew up with a mother who was always active in the community and I've been volunteering for years.  

GETTING OUT INTO THE COMMUNITY AND GIVING A HELPING HAND

There's tons of research proving how volunteering is beneficial for your physical and mental health. I believe in preventative health. Who knows what problems the CCAC may be preventing down the road for its children?

And everybody has something to give. 

That's why I'm so thrilled about joining the CCAC board. Meetings take place in the centre, a newly renovated, brightly-lit space in an old red brick house on Parliament Street. During our meetings, which take place there, we can watch young people bustling to and from their classes. 

You have no idea how exciting it is to watch how your efforts are transforming lives right before your eyes. I can't wait for the Spring Recital.

Not long ago, I met a woman who was struggling with depression. She decided to drive patients to and from their chemotherapy treatments for the Canadian Cancer Society. Her mother had died of cancer and she found that a meaningful way to give back. She admitted that it made her feel better. 

"I still have my dark days, but it gets me out and out of myself," she said.

You cannot buy these gifts of time and care that you're giving. No store carries them. They are priceless. As priceless and rewarding as the way giving them makes you feel.

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!

Coming Out In Class...

It may surprise you to learn that I've never "come out" in any of my classes, and certainly not at the beginning of a new school term.

But yesterday, the first day of school, I did. I've never done it before. Here's what happened.

My class began at 8 a.m. It's a double-period class. I arrived at the Newnham campus of  Seneca College more than an hour early, at about 6:55 a.m. I knew had a tiny class – with only nine students registered. If I was lucky, maybe six would show up. 

8 a.m. classes are loathed and shunned by students. They're never awake at 8 a.m. If they take an 8 a.m. class, usually it's because they need it and it's the only one that fits into their timetables. 

Naturally, I was nervous. I always am on the first day – and tomorrow, I'll have another "first day" at another campus. So I'm nervous again, right now.

Yesterday, I was wondering exactly what I going to do with such a tiny group. I was anxious, too. I wanted to make a good first impression. So, I was up until close to 1 a.m. on Monday morning preparing and twigging my lesson plan. Then the alarm went off at 5 a.m. yesterday morning. I was running on raw energy. No gas.

My husband teaches at Humber and was dropping me off en route to his Lakeshore Campus a full 50 kilometres from where we live.

Was I tired? Not until the class ended. I was too excited at the prospect of meeting the students who will be my top priority for the next 13 weeks. I treat my classroom as a community and my job is to do everything I can to ensure the members of this community are successful and leave my course with invaluable Leadership skills and an understanding of the process of leadership -- grounded in communication, teamwork, self-awareness. If all goes well, this course can be life-changing through the Community Service they are required to complete over the term. 

I teach an elective, a Gen Ed in the School of English and Liberal Studies. It can be a little precarious at the beginning of term. Students often shop around during the first two weeks of classes before deciding which course they want to commit to. It's a bit of a popularity contest, though I've learned not to take it personally. Yesterday, with only nine students registered, I was especially worried. I didn't want to lose them especially because my class is action-oriented, filled with activities. The more students, the better.

The course I teach is called "Leadership in Society" -- subtitled "for college students who want to make a difference."

Leadership is a process. Leaders are not born, they're made. Leadership is all about relationships. I didn't want to lose any of the few students I had. (At Markham Campus, where I also teach this course, I have about 31 students registered. I'm over the moon – but who knows how many will stay with me.)

I was asked to develop this course which combines leadership training through community service and experiential learning because of my lifelong history of volunteer work in the community and my mental health advocacy. It's a tall order, but since I started to develop it during the Fall of 2007, it's been an extraordinary and steep learning curve for me. 

Towards the end of the class, we were sitting around in a sharing circle, and I asked the seven students who made it to class why they decided to enroll in this course. "If you took it because it fit into your timetable, that's okay. You can tell us," I said. "You can be honest." 

I explained that "Leadership is all about relationships and honesty is vital. Along with integrity and ethics, both part of the Relational Model of Leadership we're going to learn along with the Social Change Model."

Surprisingly, for the first time in three terms, after teaching six different classes of this course, no one took it because it fit their schedules, they said. These are amazing students. Several of them already do community service on a regular basis. Others want to learn leadership for the right reasons – not so they can boss people around. That has been a motivating reason in the past. This term, my students want to take a more active role in their communities through leadership training.

I was over the moon. Teaching a Gen Ed course means you draw students from the entire college, so in this class I have students studying Accounting, Accounting and Finance, International Transportation and Customs, Human Resources and Early Childhood Education. They're also from all over the world, multicultural, delightfully diverse. You have no idea how fascinating this is for all of us because throughout the term we learn to understand each other's cultures. It's such a rich learning experience. At the same time, you never know how these cultures traditionally view people with mental health difficulties, like me.

We were sitting in close together. It was very intimate. Finally, at the end, when my turn came, I explained how this course came into being. I said I developed it because I'm a mental health advocate – that's part of my community service. I told them I have a mental health difficulty and speaking out is the best way for people to learn, understand and be more enlightened about people, like me, with mental health issues. More accepting. More empathetic. (I always show my students my coloured hearing aids, too. A little hearing loss advocacy never hurts, especially because so many young people are permanently damaging their hearing by listening to loud music.)

They listened intensely. Several nodded their heads in agreement. No one seemed shocked or upset. No one ran screaming from the room.

Telling them had felt like a natural thing for me to do. I told them briefly about my life since attending Seneca in 1969 and graduating in 1971 with The Seneca Cup, my education at Queen's University and at Ryerson, my 30 years at The Toronto Sun and coming back to Seneca – full-circle. I mentioned my work as a member of Seneca's Alumni Board. I explained that when they graduated, they would automatically be Alumni. Then, I told them about this blog, Coming Out Crazy at The Star.

I couldn't believe how receptive they were.

And guess what? I just checked my class list. They're all still with me and I now have 15 students registered instead of nine.

Will I disclose in the same way tomorrow, with 31 students in my class? I don't know. It all depends on how I feel and how receptive they seem. Every class has its own culture. 

But if someone asks me why I teach this course, I'll be as honest as I feel I can be.

Shhhh! Wanna hear a secret?

(Editor's note: this has been modified from the original version to correct an error.)

I wear hearing aids!

It's no secret, really. I started wearing them in December 2005 after my sister Elayne turned to me at a big, noisy social function and said, "You know, you really should look into wearing hearing aids. I'm having trouble communicating with you. Why don't you go and see Jerry?" 

She was right. I had been in denial. I knew I had a problem with my hearing. I just didn't want to face it. Now, I decided to. Head on. Am I ever glad I did.

Jerry, Elayne's husband and my brother-in-law, happens to be the head of the ear, nose and throat department at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital. So I bit the bullet and made an appointment with him for a hearing test, which I flunked. Big time.

Turns out I had 20% of my hearing in my right ear and 70% in my left. It was so uneven, Jerry sent me for an MRI. He thought I might have an acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour that can cause hearing loss.

I didn't.

But as it happens, my maternal grandmother had a similar kind of hearing loss. She died when I was a kid and Jerry never knew her. My hearing loss is hereditary. On both sides of my family. My late father wore little inside-the-ear hearing aids and his "kid" brother, my Uncle Laurie, has had two cochlear implants.

I am very lucky. My wondrous audiologist Leslie Garbett assures me that I will never need a cochlear implant. My hearing will never get that bad. I will always have problems with clarity, but new hearing aid technology will to continue to improve my hearing. Isn't that good news?

With my very lopsided hearing, one of my hearing aids is twice the size of the other. 

All this is really no secret. (Nothing in my life is a secret, it seems. No one would ever describe me as a woman of mystery, except my husband. Maybe. He often finds me difficult to understand.) 

I've written about my hearing loss. My first story – headlined Hear! Hear! – appeared on pages 10-11 of the Summer/Fall 2007 issue of "The Sentinel," the Seneca Retirees Association magazine. It was reprinted from the Mount Sinai Hospital's Spring 2006 issue of "Your Health Report."

Another, Hearing is Believing on pages 14-16 in the Fall 2006 issue of "Network" magazine, published by the Canadian Mental Health Association (Ontario). Quite a different slant. 

What's really important is that every time I walk into a new class (or I make a speech, for that matter), I trumpet my hearing loss. I announce to my new crop of mostly very young Seneca College students that they'll have to speak up for me to hear them clearly. 

Here, we know all about "speaking up," don't we?

"Speaking Up" and "Speaking Out" is what Coming Out Crazy is all about. Advocacy. All of us are or can be advocates for change by using our voices. That's all it takes.

In class, I whip off my brilliantly coloured big, behind-the-ear Widex Inteos to show people what they look like. 

No tiny little nude-coloured hearing aids that fit neatly, almost invisibly inside your ear for me. Nope. They're not strong enough. I need the big guns, so I wear a bright, cherry-red coloured one on my right ear. And a magnificent deep turquoise-blue coloured one on my left.

Red-Right. Blue-Left. The nautical approach to hearing aid wearing. It makes them easier to tell apart, too.

I wear my red and blue hearing aids like fashion accessories. Like you may wear eyeglasses. Today, they've become fashion accessories, whether your eyesight is fine or you need corrective lenses. Either way, eyeglasses are facial fashion and these days, there's nothing particularly bothersome about needing glasses.

Unless you take Dorothy Parker's "News Item" seriously:

"Men seldom make passes
 at girls who wear glasses."

That might be "news" to you and it still may be true today, but I doubt its validity, especially if those glasses are sunglasses! Designer sunglasses – prescription or not – are mega-high fashion.

The bottom line is, whether their lenses are tinted or clear, it's all in the way you look in them and what you see or choose to see.

Furthermore, it's how you wear them. I sport vintage frames for my prescription glasses – for sun and shade, reading and distance – in wild colours or big black dramatic classic shapes and sizes. I always receive compliments. It's fun to turn a liability into an asset. 

That's my philosophy. It's another version of my favourite hobby – turning lemons into lemonade.

I apply this maxim to almost everything. Especially my unique brand of madness and my hearing loss. I'm me. I celebrate my differentness. I enjoy who I am. You can, too.

Depends on how you look at it. Your point of view. Your lens on life.

By the way, I am not deaf. I have a hearing loss. There's a huge difference.

Whenever I talk on the phone, I don't use my hearing aids. They don't work for me. I use my good ear. My iPhone has a fabulous sound system because it's also an iPod. I don't store music, but I love talking on it. It's better than any other phone I use, anywhere.

Hearing loss is like any disorder or difficulty. It's not objective but subjective. Peculiar to each individual. There are many kinds, causes and varieties of hearing losses just like there are many kinds, causes and varieties of mental health issues, disorders, difficulties, challenges. 

Madness. (Such a nice simple compact yet all-encompassing word. That's why I like it so much.) Difference. That's another way of looking at it.

Hearing loss could be viewed as difference. I don't like the word dis-ability. I've never felt dis-abled by either my mania, my hypomania or my hearing loss. I've always felt that "labels disable." So I've learned not to take the labels too seriously. I'm lucky that way, but I've worked hard at it. This fall, I enter my 50th year of psychotherapy. Dr. Bob remarked the other day that he doesn't know of any psychiatrist who's been practicing for 50 years. 

Anyway, hearing loss and psychiatric disorders or madness have several things in common. 

They're relatively invisible. They're most misunderstood and frightening to too many people – ignorance and fear go hand-in-hand with prejudice and discrimination. They're part of the human condition. Hearing loss is inevitable as we age. In our youth-obsessed culture, no wonder people deny needing them.

Consider some stats. 

• 75% of people who could potentially be helped by some form of intervention do not receive it – be it recovery-oriented, peer-support, community mental health and what clinical social worker Ron Unger likes to call the "Life Model" or some form of biomedical approach, according to Queen's University epidemiologist Dr. Heather Stuart, who has consulted with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

• 90% of people who could potentially be helped by some form of hearing aid either will not wear them, cannot afford them or are in denial about their hearing loss, according to Krista Riko, Director of Audiology, Speech Language Pathology and Hearing Aid Dispensary Services at Mt. Sinai.

I remember telling a friend about being fitted for hearing aids in the fall of 2005. "Oh really?" she said, sounding shocked. "I thought hearing aids were only for old people." 

I quickly discovered that not only is noise-induced hearing loss affecting younger people these days because they crank up the volume of the music they listen to, but hearing loss has long been deleteriously stereotyped. Linked inextricably to an image best summed up in the insensitive, erroneous and archaic phrase "deaf and dumb." 

Not unlike the phrase "mentally ill", an adjectival phrase I never use. I hate it. It colours a whole person and we are all so complex. So multi-faceted. We may have challenges, difficulties – who doesn't? But, we are all human beings first. People first. Individuals first. And the way we use language colours the way we perceive the world. That's why I try to be so careful.

I know so many people my age wearing hearing aids and desperately trying to hide them. Most musicians and DJs have serious hearing loss. Famous people, too. 

I don't hide mine. What's the point?

Hearing aids are just that - aids. If you don't let people know you have a hearing loss, they won't take the time to slow down or speak up. I tell people that. Even though I'm a brilliant lip reader, when someone takes the time to accommodate my hearing loss a little, it beats my saying something inane or insane-sounding because I haven't been able to aurally process it correctly. It's terribly isolating when your hearing loss shuts out conversation.

It's often embarrassing, although nothing embarrasses me anymore. I just make a joke of it. I whip out my trusty little Widex remote control and adjust the volume controls of my hearing aids and the mode in which they process sound.

"I'm a bionic woman," I quip. Dazzling people with my smile. Humour is a great way to diffuse embarrassment. Most people grow curious and start asking questions. Opening their minds as a dialogue begins. Then I have an opportunity to do a little on-the-spot advocacy. One person at a time. That's how social change happens.

That's what we're doing here. You and I. Social change. Together. 

Thanks for listening. Let me know your thoughts and feelings about all this. I'm curious. In the comments, please. That way we can all join the conversation. No one will be left out.

Have a lovely meantime and a sensational weekend.

Speak soon!

In the mood for Mad Pride 2009...

Since I started writing "Coming Out Crazy" 15 months ago, I've been on the steepest learning curve of my life. 

At least twice a week I sit down here facing a blank screen on my trusty iMac to muse and investigate issues around mental health and wellness that matter deeply to me and I hope to you, too. Particularly Recovery. Plus any relevant news. These days, there's lots of it.

Your comments are my only barometer, my only way know if I'm plucking at a few of your psychic chords. I live for your reactions, to hear your voices, to learn more about you and this community we've created.

Today, I am launching a short series on Mad Pride, which means many different things to many different people. I believe that Mad Pride is analogous to Recovery because they both share one very crucial quality. Hope.

Perhaps you'll think about what Mad Pride means to you. If you want to know the truth, I'm glad to be mad. I know I'm not normal and I wouldn't want to be. I'd rather be Next to Normal. I think everyone is. No one's normal. 

Being different and proud of it affords me enormous freedom, though I've worked hard to get here. Now, thanks to my psychiatrist Dr. Bob and his brand of talking therapy, I don't ever have to dare to be different. I simply am different. I like being different. That's part of my madness. I'm fine with it.

Some of you don't like the term "mad" or "madness" but perhaps you'll change your mind by next week at this time.

Anyway, here goes. A few annotated highlights for the first day or two of Mad Pride Week in Toronto.

• Mayor David Miller has once again officially proclaimed next week, beginning this Monday, July 13 and ending on Sunday, July 19 to be Mad Pride Week 2009. 

Incidentally, according to a PsychCentral 2007 post on its World of Psychology blog, July is considered Mad Pride Month.

And for all the folks of MindFreedom International, Mad Pride is central to its ethos as a "movement that celebrates the human rights and spectacular culture of people considered very different by our society."

For this "non profit organization that unites 100 sponsors and affiliate grassroots groups with thousands of individual members to win human rights" and alternatives for people labelled with psychiatric diagnoses, Mad Pride is a constant campaign – one of many.

NOTE: This year, due to the City Worker Strike, many of Toronto's week long Mad Pride Week Activities will take place at the May Robinson Auditorium at 20 West Lodge Avenue. That's one block east of Landsdowne and one block north of Queen Street. 

This year, Mad Pride Toronto is up to the minute electronically.You can follow our local Mad Pride Toronto events by watching them on YouTube. Or read the Mad Pride Toronto Blog. Or by following on Facebook.

Mad Pride is a cultural festival of arts, entertainment and heritage activities. Several activities honour and commemorate the contributions of men and women who lived, worked, struggled and died in the former Toronto Hospital for the Insane which was located at 999 Queen Street West.

Here are a few events that intrigue me:

• At 6 p.m. on Monday, July 13, you won't want to miss Geoffrey Reaume's unique historical guided tour of The Patient Built Wall, constructed in 1860 by unpaid patient labourers in what was then known as the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) now stands there. Patients lived and died building that wall and Reaume, author of the landmark history Remembrance of Patients Past – Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940 is well-acquainted with their stories. Soft-spoken, thoughtful and profoundly knowledgeable, Reaume teaches a course in Mad People's History at York University, where he is an Associate Professor. He is also co-founder of the Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto.

• At 8:30 p.m. a Candlelight Memorial will take place at the wall.

• Tuesday, July 14, is Mad Pride Day globally. It's celebrated from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada and from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa. Celebrations vary, but often Mad Pride is an opportunity to challenge mental health prejudices, discrimination and negative stereotyping by raising awareness through community activities and the arts. Music, theatre, poetry, art and literature can transcend so many barriers, especially the unnecessary ones perpetuated by societal and media ignorance and fear.

• It's no coincidence that July 14th is also Bastille Day, the French National Holiday marking the anniversary of the storming of this Paris prison in 1789 that started the French Revolution. It's a universal symbol of liberation and, according to Mindfreedom, "when the Bastille was stormed, two prisoners with psychiatric labels being detained there for that reason were freed."

(I wonder what those psychiatric labels were, back in 1789, before there were psychiatrists.)

• The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Ontario Human Rights Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall and MPP Cheri Di Novo will be attending the Opening Ceremonies at 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning to kick off Mad Pride Day.

• Following that, a virtual variety show of entertainment, song, poetry and readings is planned.

• At 1 p.m., York University's Geoffrey Reaume will be back to present an intriguing, no doubt healing and historically provocative program called "Hugging Our History: Why Psychiatric Survivors Need to 'Own' our Mad Past." This is a one-hour presentation I'm going to try to see.

• Wednesday, July 15th is "Know Your Rights Day" and features a presentation by The Dream Team – consumer survivors who advocate for more safe, secure and affordable supportive housing for people living with mental health and addiction issues. 

Next week, I'll continue with my Mad Pride series and some surprising information about how Toronto has led the world in the Mad Pride Movement.

The original organizers of Toronto's first "Mad Pride Day" was almost called "Crazy Day" back in 1993. Instead, they decided to call their event Psychiatric Survivor Day." But I'll leave the rest of that story until next week.

Finally, to get yourself into a "Mad Pride" mood, why not download some utterly amazing interviews on Madness Radio – "Voices and Visions from Outside Mental Health." 

Have a peek.

More of that next week, too. Have a "Truly, Madly, Deeply" sensational weekend.

Hugs,

sln

"Next to Normal" – Electrifyingly True!

I never felt so normal in the audience of a Broadway musical as I did on Wednesday sitting second row centre at The Booth Theatre on West 45th Street in New York watching the Tony Award-nominated Next to Normal with my husband.

Within the first 10 minutes, I felt like I was watching myself. 

It was a peculiar feeling. And I have to admit these feelings are really hard for me to process. Much more complicated than I thought they'd be because they resonated so deeply. It would be much easier to intellectualize about this electrifying show. As I've been struggling to write this post for the last 24 hours, I've found myself slipping into a different voice. My critical, reviewing voice. 

But I wasn't given two complimentary tickets to intellectualize or be a theatre critic and write a review. Next to Normal has received rave reviews. Critical acclaim. From the leading theatre critics in New York and Washington. For it's bravery, originality, spirit and sincerity.

I flew down to Manhattan on Wednesday morning – and was on the ground for all of nine hours – to see this show and react to it viscerally. Diana Goodman, the suburban housewife and central character in Next to Normal, and I share a very similar psychiatric diagnosis – bipolar disorder.

We're not identical – no two people with the same diagnosis ever are – but the way Diana is treated by her doctors, what she goes through on her odyssey to wellness is so close what I've gone through that it's almost uncanny. That's why I've been struggling and it's taken me so long to process my feelings. Her story cut me to the core.

Minutes after the curtain rises, sleep deprived and speedy, Diana is madly making her family's lunches. She covers the kitchen table, chairs and eventually the floor with slices of bread, lettuce and ham in a frantic attempt to get ahead. Until her husband stops her and they go back to her doctor, once again, for a readjustment to her psychopharmacological cocktail of drugs.

Diana is a victim of today's North American quick-fix, pill-popping, McDonaldization of psychiatry culture. Over a period of seven weeks, Dr. Fine, her psychopharmacologist, keeps readjusting her meds to gradually numb her symptoms, or rather the side-effects of all the powerful psychoactive pills she taking – until she admits "I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't feel anything."

Finally, Dr. Fine is satisfied, as he pronounces, "Patient stable."

That was me 40 years ago, when there wasn't the same smorgasbord of psychopharmacological drugs available. The few that did exist – chlorpromazine and haldol, the "chemically-lobotomizing" antipsychotics – were primitive mind-bludgeoners compared today's offerings. I barely remember how I felt because I was knocked out, practically deadened by their force.

We've come a long way. Or have we?

It's just a question of degree. Diana Goodman's doctors approach her today in much the same way as my doctors approached me then. That's why this riveting rock musical is hard hitting. It hit me hard. Over the head.

Has nothing changed in all these years? Obviously not. 

Today, we're brainwashed into believing that we should be controlled. All be emotional "square pegs." Diana's profound emotional "differences" are harrowing for her family. Her husband is happier when she's more complacent and compliant. Calmer, more "normal" – even if she's dying inside.

I wasn't married when I was experiencing my most dramatic moodswings but my immediate family – my parents and sisters – mirrored exactly what The Goodman Family experienced. That was a revelation for me, watching this show.

My mother, like Diana's husband, Dan, was understandably happier when my manic episodes were tranquillized. The family functioned better, I guess. 

No one really knew how I felt inside except me. Years of my episodic emotional cycling must have been so emotionally trying, tiring and taxing on my family, I can understand why they were ecstatic when I met and married my husband almost nine years ago.

Ironically, one of my sister's said to me: "He perfect for you. He's a rock." 

I'm absolutely sure they're thrilled that he has taken me off their hands. More or less.

Watching the Goodman family dynamics play out in front me with its passionate and at times violent rock rhythms, for the first time I was able to empathize, not only with Diana and her family, but with my family, too. I've never been able to feel what they must have felt, until Wednesday afternoon. The process of writing this post has been cathartic for me. It's forced me to put into words a reality that I've never admitted before because I didn't have their point of view.

My relationships with members of family have been and, at times, can still be rocky. But until now I only perceived my own pain. Not theirs. I couldn't really empathize with them. I didn't have two-way vision. 

Diana's sixteen-year-old daughter, Natalie, could have been one of my sisters, when I was at the crest of one of my many emotionally and mentally turbulent times.

Like this beautiful, sensitive, searching young girl, they, too, must have felt invisible when one of my over-the-top outbursts overshadowed them and their lives. Or when my mother, like Diana's husband, Dan, was overwhelmed by a crazy-quilt of confusing feelings and guilt. They both navigated an arduous, uncompromising, and at times, horrifying medical system that can seem so cruel and inhumane.

There is no escaping collateral damage when one member of a family is struggling to live with a mental illness, especially given the still essentially regressive approach offered by mainstream medical practitioners. 

"Next to Normal" has nailed many of these truths in my consciousness for the first time. And, as a rock musical, it accomplishes this in a way that no straight play or movie ever can. The music is emotionally jarring, at times. Poignant and plaintive, at others. I bought the CD but it's hard for me to listen to because it's so provocative. Musically and lyrically, it's exploring a rugged emotional landscape that's been my experience. An experience no one wants to talk about. 

Diana decides to try a new psychiatrist. Dr. Madden, a psychotherapist, not just a psychopharmacologist. He explains that medication and psychotherapy work best in tandem. But when she hits a wall, he hypnotizes her, opening to her memory of the trauma she's buried for 16-years in order to survive. (It took me 14-years of psychotherapy to unearth the trauma of my adolescent sexual assault.)

Mind you, Diana's story is not exactly like mine. No two stories are. Nor is her diagnosis – Bipolar depressive with delusional episodes. Mine is Unipolar disorder with a vulnerability to mania. 

She misses the vibrancy of her emotions when she's medicated. The drugs mask the real reasons for her madness. She's wrestling with unresolved anger and grief. The pills aren't helping her with that. Pills don't unravel or clarify the causes of your psychiatric symptoms. All they do is fiddle with the chemistry of your brain. It's futile. Her depression would be considered "drug-resistant." 

And she knows it. So, understandably, courageously, she pours all her pills into the garbage. She's a brilliant, charming, vivacious and educated woman. Both she and her husband were architecture students when they met.

None of these exquisitely performed scenes by the show's magnificent ensemble seemed to make anyone in the packed Booth Theatre squirm. We were enthralled. Fascinated. Fixated. Touched. The satire pinched and pricked us. We rode with the pulsating waves of the music and with each character. And surely, all of us identified with at least one character in the show.

Who has not known someone like Diana? Loved someone like Diana? Or been someone like Diana?

We weren't uncomfortable. I didn't sense that. We laughed and cried. We were moved because what was happening was so real. So genuine. I had no idea that it would resonate with me so deeply. 

It's 2009. Diana reluctantly consents to a course of ECT or electroconvulsive or "shock" therapy treatments. They destroy the last 16-years of her memory. Wipe it out. This was not my experience in 1965, or again in 1967, or again in 1975. I had three courses of ECT, but my memory is intact. If I've forgotten anything, I have no idea what it is.

Diana's experience is extremely rare. But, it's mind-blowing in a Broadway rock musical. 

My knee jerk reaction, however, was one of anger. At first. Why portray such a rare scenario in such an otherwise authentic production? I know that ECT can be helpful in cases of drug-resistant depression. Won't this reinforce old stereotypes?

Writing this post, I've been processing my feelings about "Next to Normal." My mind has flooded with painful memories and distressing emotions. Forcing me to relive my own past. It's no sentimental journey, I can tell you. But I realize how enlightened and enlightening this Broadway rock musical is. 

And one thing it is not – is docudrama or medical research.

So I'm not angry anymore. Experiencing "Next to Normal" – watching it live – is a journey in itself because it's so real. When you see Diana's tears streaming down her face. They're real.

And so is it's ending.

On her own, sad, but hopeful, Diana leaves her family and returns to her parent's home, a safe haven for her, to begin to heal and recover. To start to live with an awareness of the trauma she's experienced. Understanding will take time for her to process. That will be her recovery journey.

Her husband and daughter will survive and recover, too. There's no doubt they'll grow stronger. And as the stage went black, I felt inspired and hopeful. It won't be easy for Diana, but mental health recovery isn't easy. It, too, has it's ups and downs. It's all about finding a meaningful way to live. It's different for everyone. 

This is such a rich, multilayered musical. Utterly unique. There's not a derivative minute in it. It has many truths.

For me, Diana's odyssey keeps on resonating. I cannot get her out of my mind. We're all "next to normal" because, after all, what's normal?

As far as I'm concerned, this show is a clear-sighted, and at the same time, empathetic critique of today's biomedical neuroscientific approach to psychiatry. It shows how little many psychiatrists, especially psychopharmacologists, know about the workings of the human mind – which is far more complicated than the brain. How frustrated and impotent they must feel. 

Brian Yorkey, who wrote the book and lyrics for the "Next to Normal" defines the difference between "treatment" and "healing" – and far too many modern medical practitioners simply are not being taught the tools to heal the "whole" person. This is a real tragedy.

He certainly reinforces a fact I have learned – having lost a kidney to Lithium toxicity. There are no quick fixes for the devastations of emotional trauma, which invariably play a huge role for so many of us diagnosed with so-called "mental illnesses."

Diana's recovery begins when the show ends. Perhaps she'll begin to find a way to live a life that's meaningful for her. Whatever that may be. Recovery is different for all of us.

We all jumped spontaneously out of our seats at The Booth to give the six-character ensemble a standing ovation. How they deserved it. This is not an easy show to perform eight times a week. 

Alice Ripley was astonishing as Diana. I'd put money on her winning a Tony Award on Sunday night. Next to Normal deserves to win one for Best Musical. You can watch at 8 p.m. on CBS. The Tony's are by far the most intelligent and entertaining televised award shows.

I left the theatre inspired and uplifted. Not flying high. But proud. I sensed that everyone felt the same way. People were talking about the show, exploring their feelings and voicing them. 

And there's so much to talk about. 

Flying-High on "Next to Normal" ...

I'm Broadway-bound and here's the scoop! It's cool. 

On May 12, the publicist for the Broadway musical "Next to Normal" sent me a personal email. 

"This show, which was recently nominated for 11 Tony awards, has a very unlikely subject matter for a musical – it focuses on a woman living with bipolar disorder and the effects it has on her family," he said.

He attached a link to a fascinating "must-read" New York Times story about the show's depiction of mental illness and then added: "I think your readers would be interested in this show and we would love to invite you and a guest to see the show, if you are in the NYC area anytime soon."

How about that?

Besides being a mite shocked as to how he found me, I couldn't agree more. You would be very interested, I'm sure, in Broadway's first mainstream musical – a rock musical, actually – about manic depression. 

But... until I received his invitation and two complimentary tickets, I hadn't planned to be in NYC "anytime soon," though I already knew all about Next to Normal. 

Originally, it opened at the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival, titled Feeling Electric – Up the Dose – "Darkly funny and brutally honest, this powerful new musical chronicles one family's personal battle to cure a mother of her long-term depression, with the controversial help of one hotshot young doctor who prescribes electric shock therapy as her last resort treatment."

One of my cousins who lives in Manhattan and frequents the theatre saw that production and said "it blew me away."

It's come along way, since then, when tickets were $15 each and it ran for only six performances. 

When the newly-named Next to Normal opened at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre in February 2008, Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic of the New York Times, wrote: "To watch this tale of a haunted housewife (beautifully played by Alice Ripley) and the household she in turn haunts is to ride a speeding roller coaster of responses. One minutes you're rolling your eyes; the next, you're wiping them. When the show ends, you're probably doing both at the same time."

With direction by Michael Grief, who also directed Rent and Grey Gardens – I saw the latter on Broadway in 2007 – the current revamped Broadway production of Next to Normal at the Booth Theatre is a "brave, breathtaking musical," Brantley wrote in his April 16, 2009 New York Times review. It "focuses squarely on the pain that cripples the members of a suburban family, and never for a minute does it let you escape the anguish at the core of their lives."

  

It's not "your standard feel-good musical" he said, which is probably why I was offered a couple of complimentary tickets. Ticket sales have vastly improved since the show received 11 Tony Award nominations – all the major ones, including Best Musical. 

That's not why I've decided to fly down to Manhattan for the day to see this show. I want to share my impressions with you. Brantley, to the best of my knowledge, has never been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. I want to judge for myself. Through my experience. Not the least of which is that I, too, am a suburban housewife (well, sort of) with a husband and 22-year-old stepdaughter. 

And also... winging to New York for the day to see a Broadway show is nothing new for me. In 1969, I flew down to see the original Broadway production of Hair, which opened in 1968 and is now another Tony-nominated revival on Broadway. Theatre producer Marlene Smith hired me to write the program notes for Toronto's first 1985 production of Cats which had opened on Broadway in 1982. On both occasions, I jetted down to La Guardia early in the morning, taxied into Manhattan, had lunch and caught a matinee – then went back to the airport and was home before midnight. It's a kick, believe me.

So, I'm pulling the same routine and I'll be reporting and giving you my own review. By the way, I've reviewed theatre before – I'm not a neophyte – but this time, I'll be watching closely for authenticity. Hollywood has an abysmal record recreating characters with mental illnesses who are remotely close to real. I'm a huge fan of Tara in the new HBO series United States of Tara – but she's an artist. (Think Vincent Van Gogh.) In this show, we have a suburban housewife and the creative team did their homework, apparently, and created genuine characters. We'll see.

This show cuts even closer to the bone, for me. 

Stay tuned. I'll be getting back to you.

*    *    *

On the British front – I jwant to report that I've become a member of Rethink and Time to Change and I've made connections with the heads of several other agencies there, thanks to social activist Robert Ashton. In the coming weeks, I'll be branching out even further – to Australia and New Zealand. 

Wish me luck. And let me know what you think and what you're interested in learning about:

• How other countries' approach mental health and wellness, and mental illnesses  
• How they challenge discrimination  
• How people like us, with psychiatric diagnoses, emotional problems, mental illnesses and disorders are "treated" 
• How we can "heal" 
• How they define "Recovery" 

As far as I'm concerned, you never know, unless you ask. Here, in North America, we think we're the centre of the world – and we're not. I'm curious about other G8 countries with national mental health strategies. I know Australia and New Zealand are even more evolved than Britain. Certainly more evolved than the U.S. and Canada – where the neurosciences currently rule, along with the drug companies.

Something's gotta give. Let's keep the dialogue going. I want to hear your thoughts and ideas. 

I would love your comments, but there is a problem with the blog commenting function right now. If you have a comment that you would like posted, please contact me by email – let me know – and I'll arrange it, until this situation is resolved. 

Trust me, the powers-that-be at The Toronto Star are working on it.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Have a great meantime!

Have a Happy, Homey New Year!

So, what are you doing for New Year's Eve?

Better question. Do you really care?

When I met my husband, Marty, and we were dating, on the second date, he asked me out for New Year's. I thought he was a little cracked.

It was July.

Later, he confessed that he didn't want to take any chances of someone else slipping in ahead of him.

He didn't know that there was no one beating a path to my door. Never, ever before had anyone ever asked me out for New Year's Eve. I was 50. 

This has never been a problem. I have never felt deprived because I have spent 50 New Year's Eves on my own, usually alone, or with one of my dogs. Often, I feast on a big bowl of popcorn and entertain myself with an old movie, or better still, a good book.

On several occasions, I've spent a few hours kibitzing with a friend on the phone. Occasionally, I've watched on TV as "the ball dropped" in Times Square, but more often I'm sound asleep long before midnight.

The point is, I have never been particularly excited about celebrating New Year's Eve the way most people traditionally do. Making merry. Dressing up. Dining out on exorbitant, outrageously-priced, often mediocre restaurant fare. Drinking too much. Whooping it up with a bunch of strangers. Pretending to be having a grand old time.

For one thing, I don't drink.There's nothing more boring than watching a bunch of people get silly and inebriated. 

What's even worse, is that everyone is trying so hard to have a good time. The expectations always outstrip the reality. It's usually a big disappointment according to most people I know who "go out on the town on New Year's."

Isn't is just another night of the week? Especially when it falls on a Wednesday?

I suspect, although I could be wrong, that many people may scale back on their New Year's celebrations this year and perhaps re-think how to spend this night. Just as many people have carefully reflected on the meaning and values of Christmas gift giving and refocused on the people they love and care about more than the presents they may have, in years past, cost them outrageous amounts of money. 

You cannot help but give this some thought.

Marty, if you want to know, has never "taken me out for New Year's" because I've never wanted to be "taken out." I prefer small intimate gatherings at home and that's how we have spent our eight New Year's Eve's together, thus far. This will be our ninth. We either have a few people in or visit friends. At most, there are four or five couples. This year, there will be six of us, not all "couples," either. Six good friends.

We have a pot luck dinner which is always more delicious than anything you can buy in a restaurant. This year, Thai food is on the menu and I'm making Pad Thai. 

What's best about spending a quiet New Year's with friends at home is the feeling of warmth, closeness and camaraderie.

There are no extra-special expectations and we're never disappointed.

If you're a list-maker, here is a list of 10 good reasons to reframe your New Year's Eve and celebrate at home:

1. It's warm.
2. The price of drinks is right. 
3. Ditto for the food, which if it's home made is far better than anything you'll find in any restaurant.   
4. There are always second helpings. 
5. There's no chance of colliding in your car with a drunk driver.  
6. You can go to bed at 12:01 a.m. or at 11:59 p.m. – and skip it altogether.
7. You don't have to get all dressed up – no tuxedo rentals, no sequins – you can spend the evening in your p.j.'s all night. 
8. You can sing  Auld Lang Syne at the top of your lungs even if you can't carry a tune.
9. You can go onto the Internet and really celebrate New Year's – around the world, in every time zone. You'll be up all night. You'll be New Year's Eve'd-out but it might be fun, for a change!
10. In the quiet of your home, you can spend a few solitary moments reflecting back on the past year and think about how you can make 2009 a little better, in whatever way that's meaningful for you.  

I wish you health, most of all. Peace of mind. Happiness of heart. Calm. A year of sweetness. In Judaism, we celebrate New Year's in the fall. We cut up apples and dip them in honey,to symbolize a sweet New Year. You could try that, too. If nothing else, it tastes delicious.

Be well. It is an honour for me to be able to spend time with you here. To communicate with you. To share with you. See you in 2009!

So what is Mad Pride?

What a wild week I've had here in the Coming Out Crazy cranny.

We made it onto several American blogs. Have a look at the fiery comment thread on my last post about Mad Pride Day. Some exciting, dramatic and intense emotions were flying fast, back and forth, from people on both sides of the Great Divide.

This is great. Just what a blog should stir up. Reaction. Emotion. Anger. Disagreement. Controversy.

All about Mad Pride.

So, let’s reflect.

Mad Pride fights oppression. Like Black Pride that evolved from the history of Black oppression and Gay Pride that fights discrimination against Gays and Lesbians.

Women have been and still are oppressed, so International Women’s Day on March 7 is an international holiday – and a day off in many countries – to celebrate women and recognize the history of the oppression and maltreatment of women, particularly in the labour force.

“Pride” movements are social-change movements and Mad Pride is no different. It’s a Human Rights crusade.

Mad Pride has a political agenda not universally accepted and hotly political.

If you believe the biomedical approach to “mental illnesses” – that they are lifelong, incurable conditions like diabetes, “brain diseases,” that must be diagnosed, managed and treated with medications and other therapies, Mad Pride will seem odd, perhaps trivializing.

In July 2007, Respectives, McMaster University’s Human Rights and Equity Services Newsletter devoted a whole issue to Mad Pride.

Worth reading. It refers to “so-called mental illness.” A philosophical issue. As yet, there is no scientific evidence that proves mental illnesses exist organically, in the brain, as “chemical imbalances.”

There are still a lot of assumptions widely considered to be truths. They have to be questioned.

Positron emission tomography or PET scans can show some differences in the brains of people with schizophrenia diagnoses, but Pet scans are not yet used for diagnostic tools.

Furthermore, "difference" doesn’t necessarily mean "disease."

Many people question the existence of schizophrenia as a “mental illness.” Between 30% and 50% of people with schizophrenia diagnoses get better with no medical intervention at all.

The World Health Organization did two very conclusive studies comparing schizophrenia recovery rates between developing and developed countries. Recovery rates in the developing countries were 50% higher than the developed countries.

Mad Pride may date back to the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1950s and 1960s when psychiatric patients often were subjected to cruel, inhumane treatments.

• Electroconvulsive “Shock” Therapy
• The earliest “typical” anti-psychotic drugs replaced lobotomy – Thorazine or Chlorpromazine were called chemical lobotomies and they were utterly dehumanizing, turning people into zombies and they had serious, sometimes irreversible side effects.
• Involuntary hospitalization and treatment
• Physical restraints

I lived through all of these “treatments” in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, I remember them, though I wish I could forget. I can empathize, though I’m more critical of psychiatry than anti-psychiatry.

Mad Pride Day is on July 14, Bastille Day.

Relevant because two of the seven prisoners freed by the crowd of French peasants in 1789 had been detained solely because they were considered ‘mad’.

Last year, Toronto Mayor David Miller officially proclaimed July 14 “Mad Pride Day” and a week of activities around it winds up this year’s events this weekend.

Tomorrow, the 2nd Annual Mad Pride Bed Push and Parade begins at 1 p.m. at the Ossington and Queen entrance of Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

On Sunday, a workshop and discussion about Mad Pride takes place from 1 to 3 p.m. in Room 560 at the Sally Horsfall Eaton Building at 99 Gerrard St. E.

Mad Pride is all about social-change and empowerment. It's for the public and for people who've been hurt by the mental health system.

It’s gone global since it started in the 1990s in the U.K.

Mad Pride fights fear and ignorance with public education. It raises awareness through serious and witty, often theatrical, creative events that celebrate the people who have been oppressed by a mental health system that was not always humanistic.

Mental hospitals or institutions were historically run more like prisons than places promoting recovery and well-being. Remnants of that prison model still exist today, though they’re slowly disappearing. In many psych wards, you have to earn a pass to leave with good behaviour. I remember having my clothes locked up.

Mad Pride is against psychiatric labelling, which works well for doctors but can destroy a person’s sense of self, his or her feelings of uniqueness.

Labelling can promote denial –  toxic when it comes to mental health and wellness. And Recovery.

To be continued...

Here comes Mad Pride Week!

Monday is Mad Pride Day!

According to the Toronto’s Mad Pride Organizing Committee – yes, we have one – July 14th has been officially proclaimed Mad Pride Day in the city of Toronto and in cities that celebrate Mad Pride in North America, Europe and Africa.

In Toronto, all next week is Mad Pride Week from Monday, July 14 to Sunday, July 20.

To be honest with you? I’ve never, ever attended a Pride event in my life. Any kind of Pride. Parades are not my thing. I’m not a crowd lover. I didn’t even like the CNE when I was a kid, except for the Food Building.

With two exceptions – in 2006, for The Toronto Sun, I covered Caribana and The Elvis Presley Festival in Collingwood. They were assignments. No choice.

Right now, I’m looking at the Toronto 2008 Mad Pride Week schedule and considering joining the festivities.

Mad Pride Week offers much more than a parade.

It’s a week of arts and edification. An entertaining way to learn about “Madness” through literature, poetry, film, theatre, music and lots more. Even an event to raise awareness about our Human Rights.

Everybody’s awareness.

On Monday – Mad Pride Day – at 6 p.m. at the Ossington Street Entrance, historian Geoffrey Reaume is leading a tour of the Patient Built Wall and Memorial at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at 1001 Queen Street W.

This is significant Toronto history, not only mad Toronto history.

I’m planning to be there. It’ll be worth it.

Reaume knows his stuff. He’s given this tour before.

He’s also associate professor in the Critical Disability Studies Graduate Program and School of Health Policy and Management at York University, where he designed and teaches a course in “Mad People’s History.”

Reaume is the author of Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada, 2000. A riveting yet tragic book.

Geoffrey’s a lovely man. I’ve met him and interviewed him. He’s charming and passionate about this subject.

Mad Pride is a celebration of our history. By “our” I mean people, like me, who consider themselves “psychiatric travellers” as I do.

So Happy Mad Pride Week, Toronto! It’s high time we all celebrated “madness.”

I often say, "We can all be a little crazy, sometimes, can't we?"

Heartfelt thanks go to the unflagging work of the Mad Pride Organizing Committee, The Friendly Spike Theatre Band, the Parkdale Community Legal Services, Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre and Soundtimes Support Services.