Michele Gyselinck

 Mental illness is less stigmatized than it used to be, but in some areas they are still the lepers of our age.  And yet, mental illnesses are NOT contagious.  You can't catch one by touching someone who suffers from a mental illness, regardless of which illness it happens to be.

Actually, I'm still part of Community Supper.  The wife of the couple in charge convinced me to stay on.

 I did watch this webinar, and it reminded me that even though anxiety is not a major problem of mine, I do tend to get anxious when responsibilities pile up and I have to be careful that I don't take more than I can handle.  Having schizophrenia even if I'm functioning at a high level still leaves me more fragile than people who are healthy.

 Once again I got the impression that this classis is still at the breast milk stage when they should be eating meat.  In other words, they still need to have basic concepts explained to them, and the author only talks about physical disabilities.  What would it be if he were to discuss mental illnesses?  One of these days some preacher in that classis, or in the whole denomination for that matter, should undertake to debunk the Health and Wealth Gospel for good and show it up as the bullcrap it is.  It's a shame that people in this denomination that prides itself on being more knowledgeable than other churches still believe that nonsense.  I can think of at least two passages off the top of my head that contradict its assumptions: Job 42 :7,8 ; and John 9 :1-5.  And there are probably other ones that could be found if someone did a thorough study on that subject.  How about it? Anyone up to the challenge?

 This is one of the reasons I have decided to become a Regional Advocate.  Fortunately, the classis I work for is receptive to this issue.  Not the gun violence part so much because the right to bear arms is not part of the Canadian Constitution, and as a whole our country counts fewer gun-related massacres in ten years than the U.S.A. in one year.  To give you an idea, here in Québec we still commemorate the Polytechnique massacre that happened in 1989.  There have been a couple more since then, but that's all.  

 I don't think people in my church are afraid of people with disabilities, because very often, in our congregation, the people who have disabilities now are people they have had around as they grew up.  I've been attending this church for 40 years, and other people who have developed disabilities with age have been around for even longer.  A couple of individuals have had strokes while others had accidents where they fell down a flight of stairs and now use a walker to get around, but some of those people are founding members of the congregation.  Others have joined our church, but what's one person with a disability more or less when you're used to having them around already?

As a child I was slow and had coordination problems that were "side effects" of the schizophrenia that developed in adulthood. (See "Schizophrenia : Stolen minds,Stolen Lives" on YouTube.)  For example, I had a neurological handicap that prevented my eyes from focusing at the same time, and still makes it difficult for me to see things in three dimensions, which is why I don't drive.  And because I was born left-handed but was taught to use my right hand to write, it was difficult for me to do basic tasks like setting the table because I always had to think first on which side of the plate to put the cutlery.  But my father was an impatient man, and he would often call me names if I didn't do things fast enough to his taste or do them himself so they would be done faster thereby denying me the opportunity to practice and become more skillful at them.

In addition, I was also bullied at school because I was different in some way than the other kids.  At times I had a weight problem, and they would pounce on that. Or I 'd have to wear glasses, and back then glasses only had one style of frames--black and square--regardless of age or gender, and that also made me a prey to those kids. Whoever believes that kids are naturally good has never been living with a handicap in a schoolyard.  Anyway.  Good thing cyberbullying didn't exist back then because I would have been overwhelmed.  Between my dad and the kids at school I had little reprieve to begin with, and when I did start hearing voices, one of those voices telling me to kill myself was my own father's.

I did forgive.  Because I don't burden myself with grudges.  For me, forgiveness is a matter of psychological hygiene.  I can go for days now without hearing the voices, but if something upsets me there they are again, and forgiving whoever is the cause of my getting upset shuts them up so fast they don't know what hit them. And even if they do know they're still silenced.

 The more I think about that documentary--Schizophrenia: Stolen Minds, Stolen Lives--the more the narrator's harping on the notion that the minds of people with schizophrenia are shattered, the more convinced I am that that part is a load of BS.  I know it's what the word schizophrenia means, but that's why I say that term is a misnomer.  Our minds are not shattered at all, and each of us is completely connected to their own experience and memories.  This term is why outsiders believe that people living under the description of schizophrenia have multiple personalities, when we don't.  Please ignore this repetitious harping on a fallacious notion.

 Other than that this documentary is still useful.

  I tend to think out loud in public places, and as a result sometimes when I get off a public transit bus some people look at me as if I were dangerous or something.  This is another prejudice against mentally ill people. Actually, people who think out loud are probably a lot less dangerous than terrorists who strike when you don't expect them to and because you didn't the attack coming.  You SHOULD be so lucky as to hear a terrorist thinking out loud, but it's not likely to happen.  The truth is that the chronically normal are a lot more dangerous than mentally ill people who take their medication, and even many mentally ill who don't.  

I pray that despite the fact that this last shoot-out was indeed a terrorist attack, the American people will come to a consensus about the need to control firearms AND take action on it.  Don't let the NRA fool you. Having a handgun in a desk drawer will not help you if someone hell-bent on righting a perceived wrong barges in to your workplace with a machine gun.  You won't have time to pull it out anyway.  And how does the fact that so many Americans do have firearms contribute to the order of your society?

 I've come to figure out that the reason God allowed me to suffer from schizophrenia was that I would have it hard enough to know what I was talking about yet mild enough to be able to speak on behalf of those who can't tell what it's like to live with schizophrenia.  How's that for God' will?