Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Mental Health Awareness Month: 2012

Mental health blog party badge
All entries for the next
month that are specific to
mental health will bare this
badge, as will guest entries.
Another year in blogging, our second year "celebrating" Mental Health Awareness Month.

(This was what we wrote for last years mental health month: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/mental-health-awareness-month-our.html)

We're a day late with this entry of course, because we had other things to write about yesterday. When we have to write about something to clear our mind and find a spot of peace, we have to write. It's a drive some of us try to fight, but in the end we do it, and we feel better.

I'm not so sure how to proceed with the rest of this. I really don't want to be the one responsible for writing this intro.

We blog for so many reasons. One is writing therapy, another is journaling to track our life, and make it easier to remember in the future. We also love to write, and to share with people and to help others; but some of us don't do it for others, some of us do it purely for us, some of us dislike other people (hate is too strong a word, 'disgusted by' is a better way to say it).

Also, our parents have access to this blog (all of our blogs, and all of our social media presences) so they can check in on us whenever they want - we don't like talking on the phone - and we tend to move about a lot, currently we're in England, we used to be in Canada...and who knows where we will go from here, maybe mainland Europe - we are American. We like to share our life with them in writing, especially now that we are older. We have had checkered past with them, some of us way more than others.

We write about our life and make it public to the world to share the many normal things that people with issues in mental health go through, to show that while the mind of the mentally "ill" may be considered different, it's really not that different from a non-mentally "ill" person; and sometimes what is labeled a mental illness these days is a completely normal experience that pharmacological companies exploit by making people insecure about who they are (another day, another many blog entries for that).

We write to demystify mental illness, particularly DID/MPD and in turn reduce the stigma created by news, films, books and other media.

We write to help others who struggle, as an example to show that it's possible to have a "normal" life, to overcome and move past abuse from the past and not to use it as a crutch, and that a "normal" and successful life is how one defines it for themselves, not how other people define it.

Experiences are what makes people different, makes them who they are; but at the end of the day no matter who you are, the color of your skin, your religion, your level of education, your job, your mental health, everything. We, you, us...everyone are all just people. And to quote the title of the famous book "Everybody poops".

We could go on. But I'd prefer to end it there.

Our hope for mental health month is that people learn about the issues, instead of confusing them from one to another and continuing the spread of ignorance.

We want people to learn and understand what they make jokes about, because people do. We want them to understand pretending you have a mental illness for the sake of a joke, to someone who is mentally ill, is not funny - ESPECIALLY if you mix several illnesses/get the symptoms wrong. It would be akin to pretending you have cancer for the sake of a joke, but mixing up the symptoms of two completely specific and unrelated cancers. Also, how rude would it be to pretend you have an life-threatening illness just for a joke? Mental health can be a life-threatening illness. People die due to mental illness every year by the tens of thousands.

We hope:
That people learn the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder.
That people learn what autism actually is.
That people understand real depression, not just feeling "blue" or "disappointed with life" or "lonely"...but understand what it means to be depressed.
That people choose knowledge over ignorant stereotyping. That they learn the facts.

Those are just a few of them.

New hopes for a new year of positive mental health advocacy.

~ Catherine et al
_________________________________________________________________


What we know about multiple personality disorder from media, books and blogs:


Mentally "ill", and functional.

10 Things You Should Know About US That MIGHT Surprise YOU: (this list was originally written in the Spring of 2011...some things have changed and notation has been made as to changes]
  1. We used to be a Baptist missionary (yeah, can you fucking believe that shit?!) [we are NOT religious]
  2. We were once married (didn’t last long) [some of our stories talks about him]
  3. We have had nearly 30 physical addresses in 30 years, mostly as an adult (nothing could contain us in the early days) {we even owned a house for two years, and will again}
  4. We’ve lived in 2 countries: 1 province, 6-7 different states (running much); {and now England for three months}
  5. We have lost 120 pounds since the age of 24 (100 of it when we were 24) [and it's close to 140 pounds now)
  6. We have a full time job. {we got fired after a year, one of the longest jobs we've held in July of 2011}
  7. We deal with social anxiety type symptoms nearly every day.
  8. We have multiple “mental illness” diagnoses (doesn't everybody?) [p.s. all misdiagnosed]
  9. We have two beautiful cats, who piss us off every day (but they are special, because they put up with us) [though one of us hates them beyond belief] {one of us misses them terribly while we are abroad}
We have struggled to survive, over and over, defeating the odds thrown against us (read our stories) [seriously, how are we not dead yet?]
The following are mental health entries we are willing to share by making them easily accessible, we've culled the more focused entries out of our archive page, in no particular order.
*Please note, some are disordered, as far as the understanding the person who is writing has of our system, particularly in the beginning. As we have grown to know each other things have become clearer, as is the point with writing therapy in dissociative identity disorder.

2012
2011
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