Showing posts with label Advocacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advocacy. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Mental Health Awareness Month: 2012

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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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Friday, April 6, 2012

A Peek Into Id, Ego and Super-Ego

And here in sits the problem.

We write, obviously, here, on Twitter, on our many outlets around the internet...and people who don't know we share a body AND an account (though we have other accounts floating around Twitter, all tagged so people know it's us [as far as we know], because otherwise we'd think WE'RE creepy); who know nothing about Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, who think it's similar to the common id, ego and super ego - which are all parts of one person, and one set of experiences - and something of which every singular person on earth has, as per Freud's structure of the psyche and modern psychology. A person dealing with DID/MPD can have anywhere from 2 to over 100 personalities inside them, with the average being 10 (hey, we're pretty average, that means we're NORMAL! Yay! *throws streamers* We have ten, a possible 11th, but that's all part of mapping therapy, not the subject today).

Why the problem in people not understanding the difference between the "normal" constructs of the human mind and the constructs of personalities in DID/MPD? Because everybody starts to think they have it, and any sort of awareness and advancement of studying it, in order to help people learn to live happily with the people they have become, is blurred, and becomes murky. Living with it is not a complete hell, but it's not always a picnic either, and any sort of help that we can provide by educating people, and sharing our experiences of life with it, and how it works in our brain and body, are steps forward in being able to "treat" people in the future.

[for more info on causes and healing DID read: Treating and Healing Dissociative Identity Disorder located on this blog, there are many things written here too, with sources cited]

Some day soon we'd like to research the structures of the psyche and DID/MPD, for our own fun and entertainment, because some of us (smarted people) have a hypothesis about personalities in DID having the id, ego and super-ego to begin with. The existence of the disorder seems to be in part the lack of developing it by the appropriate age (age five), or at all - which is due to trauma and abuse in most every case of the documentation of the "disorder".

Another thing about id, ego and super ego is it exists in the mind, not in the fabric of the brain. Meaning there are no links to the nervous system in the "Me, Myself & I" construct of Id, Ego and Super-Ego; whereas in DID/MPD there are actual alterations to the biology of the brain and body between personalities, meaning linguistic skills, learning patterns, chemistry, mental and emotional development, facial structure (sometimes). It's not uncommon for personalities to have allergies, food intolerance, pain levels (very common), etc., that the others do not share.

And then...

Wait now, what the hell were we saying? Right...the things that come out of our account don't always match with what was "said" yesterday.

At least one of us thinks our life doesn't suck, we don't all agree. Some of us are nicer than others, some of us dislike each other, we don't all like the same people we interact with in the outside world.

Yesterday you probably though your life was great, but maybe you don't today. Who knows how your brain works. We know Cassandra isn't always happy with our life, as well as Catherine, but Ivy is in love with out life, and well...we won't do a roll-call on who thinks what about our life, because you're probably bored by now, if you made it this far...

In the end is occasional "inconsistencies" in what we say, how we act, what we feel, we all have our own opinions, our own existence. Is it a problem? Only if you think of us as one person. And then...even then, it doesn't really effect YOU...does it.

This entry had dual purposes, not intentionally but by design of our babble. As always we come here and free write what's in our brain (not just to piss and moan about life), and conversation we have with each other, and more often than not, so we have a place to remember, to relay information to each other. And now we know that we have some fun research we can do in the future...when life slows down, when we are less stressy-pants, more grounded. Perhaps when we return to the states, because right now, the floating around we will be doing come Tuesday, for the next month, is not conducive to doing any serious research and learning.

Happy Friday, or whatever day it may be that you are reading this. Also, Easter...and bunnies...and chocolate. We're not religious, some of us used to be...but that's an entry for the weekend...all about Jesus.

~ et al
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Quick primer on Id, Ego and Super-Ego, it's a very basic description of each, with volumes written, if you so choose to research and learn.

Id-the impulsive, child-like portion of the psyche that operates on the "pleasure principle" and only takes into account what it wants and disregards all consequences.
Id is equivalent to the devil sitting on one's shoulder.

Super-Ego-plays the critical and moralizing role in the psyche, aims for perfection, includes ego's ideals, punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt.
Super-ego is equivalent to the angel on one's shoulder.

Ego- the organized, realistic portion on the psyche that acts according to the "reality principle" and seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief.
Ego is equivalent to one's conscience.

[Primer source:  http://freudsigmund.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/id-ego-super-ego.html]



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