Michele Gyselinck

I hope that one day you will find your way to become a disability advocate because there will never be too many people to speak on behalf of those who struggle with mental health challenges.  You are living proof that there’s a need for that kind of work.  Please join us at Disability Concerns and add your voice to ours.  Michèle Gyselinck 

@Tricia Rhoda.  The concerns you voice can depend on a host of factors like how severe their depression is,; what they’ve been told, I.e. that the reason they’re depressed is unconfessed sin, lack of faith etc.  When people are made to feel guilty about an illness, they may be afraid to push back against platitudes.  Also, not all people are equally connected to their emotions or able to verbalise them.

 In the book Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges, by John Swinton, the author wrote that in some churches believers who have mental illnesses are told by other people that they have a demon or are demon-possessed.  You have to investigate what their background is before you assume that people are content with platitudes.

Hang in there.  I hope she’s taking medication for her depression.  I realize that it can be difficult to find a formula that works for her because not everyone responds equally well to what’s available, and these days pharmaceuticals are more interested in buying back shares to give their CEOs fat wallets than in developing new products, but I remain confident that an appropriate antidepressant will eventually lift her mood.

 In my blog “On Confusing Sadness with Depression,” I mentioned some things I do to boost my own morale, but what works for me would not necessarily do so for her, but she needs to make an effort to help herself.

Dear Mrs Wesselius,

I hope your granddaughter is doing better today than when you wrote this comment.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many options when it comes to psychiatric medications, and pharmaceutical companies these days are more interested in buying back shares to make the wallets of their CEOs thicker than in investing in research to create new products.  
I’m glad that she found creative ways of coping with her illness.  It’s necessary because medication doesn’t replace being healthy.  I’m also glad that you encourage her to do that.

Thank you. 

 Good article Terry.  I'll post it on my Facebook page.

 Belated congratulations Terry.

 I've seen seen see-through masks advertized, but I haven't seen anyone wearing one yet.  

Yes, unfortunately, black people have found another wall to bump into.  When prejudice alters the way you look at certain groups of people all your assumptions about them are tainted with it, and it seems that whatever they do, they just can't win.  It's the, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" conundrum.  I wish I could say it's better for black people in Canada, but I don't know.  Maybe not quite as bad as in the States, because here at least they have access to free healthcare like everybody else, but a couple of years ago I read about a black man who had parked his car somewhere to read a book, and somebody sent the police to check him out.  They thought he was acting suspisciously.  That was in one of the Maritime provinces.  When the police arrived he told them he was reading and showed the officers his book, and they left him alone.  Here we don't have the cultural habit of lynching black men, which is a good thing, but since I'm not black, I can't say what they have to deal with that "white" people don't.  There is a racial bias, but it doesn't affect only black people.  Natives and other groups suffer from it too.

 One song that means a lot to me is Blessed Be your Name.  I'm not sure I'd say it comforts me, because there are still times when I sing it with tears in my eyes, but it speaks to my experience with schizophrenia.  Like Lamentations it's a song that I can relate to.  I also like Ancient Words, Sing, Choirs of New Jerusalem ( grey hymnal) and other songs that don't come to mind right now.

 Thank you for sharing this.  I have both schizophrenia and diabetes Type 2, and because of the side effects from my meds I often struggle with diarrhea.  If I can't get to sleep at a certain time at night, the sedative in my antipsychotic carries over the next day, and I never know at what time I'll wake up when I go to bed at night. Sometimes I wake up REALLY EARLY like this morning (6:40), and other days I'll get up at noon and still be drowsy, but now that my mom knows that it's because of the sedatives that pharmaceuticals put in psychiatric meds to make people sleep, she has stopped assuming I was indulging myself.

 So, who won?