Vivid dream: Chevron
Last night I dreamt I was looking at the possibility of making a career change. So I applied for a job as publicist for the up-and-coming rock band called Chevron, which was based in Portland, Ore. My friends in Philly doubted the wisdom of the move, but I argued, “Portland has the highest number of Ph.Ds in the country.” I’m not sure why I thought this was a persuasive argument.
Chevron, like any good indie band, responded to my resume with a funky homemade postcard. “We got your resume!!! We’re interested!!! Please send a writing sample. If you can’t, that’s okay because we can read the stuff on your blog.”
And I thought: “Chevron knows about my blog? Cool.”
Today I learned there is actually a band called Chevron—well, there’s a guy named Jonathan Valentine who records techno under that name. This is a photo of him from his website. Maybe he’ll read this and send me a postcard.
liz | 11:00 AM | Uncategorized
Headline of the day
State Throws Millions at Mental Health Problems
I haven’t even read the article and I already love it. The headline sounds great! Now if they’d only throw millions at this state’s mental health blogger…
liz | 11:40 AM | Uncategorized
Breaking: Peer to peer
This is groundbreaking news, and groundbreaking thinking. Here’s the full press release from the Mental Health Association of Southeastern PA:
PHILADELPHIA (7/27/06) – People in recovery from psychiatric disabilities, researchers and others from around the country gathered on July 16-17, 2006, at the Renaissance Philadelphia Airport Hotel to create a new national trade association – the National Alliance of Peer Specialists – that will promote the emerging profession of certified peer specialist.
The participants – representing a “who’s who” of national and regional mental health advocacy, service and research organizations – met to establish the organization in response to the growing influence of the new profession of peer specialist – that is, people in recovery from psychiatric disabilities who are employed to help their peers work toward their own recovery, often in places where credentialing requirements have traditionally excluded consumers from staff positions.
“Peer specialists offer hope because they are walking, talking examples of recovery,” said Joseph A. Rogers, president and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP), which organized the meeting and which is fostering the peer specialist initiative throughout Pennsylvania. MHASP’s Institute for Recovery and Community Integration teaches aspiring peer specialists the skills for providing peer support – such as how to help others with problem solving and goal setting – as well as serving as a model for recovery.
liz | 4:44 PM | Uncategorized
Lexapro made them do it: commit suicide
I can’t imagine what Mark Bibbee and his ex-wife have gone through in the past few years. First their son David, who was bipolar, committed suicide by shooting himself. Then, about a year later, their son Brian, who’d been diagnosed with ADHD, also committed suicide—this time by hanging. They were both in their early 20s.
What must that loss be like? How do you go on from there?
Mark and his ex-wife are now suing Forest Laboratories Inc. of New York, which manufactured the Lexapro that both boys were taking at the time of their deaths. Both had received the drug in sample packets, which don’t have a suicide warning. That warning was required by law as of 2004 (though not required on sample packets), but the Bibbees assert the warning should have been placed earlier, since the drug company knew the risk was there well before the FDA forced them to feature it on the packaging.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. It’s unlikely they’ll win, but maybe this is something they need to do to put their lives back together, or to have such a tragedy make some kind of sense.
Anti-depressant drug maker sued for sons’ suicides
liz | 1:44 PM | Uncategorized
Lack of mental healthcare made me do it: push someone in front of a train
Finally, some bad news about mental healthcare that’s not in the U.S.
‘Psychotic’ killer let down by mental health care services
liz | 12:57 PM | Uncategorized
Overheard on trolley this morning
“Did anyone really think Philadelphia would get the fucking Olympics? I mean, I love Philly, but come on.”
liz | 12:11 PM | Uncategorized
Vivid dream: Jewsweek
The situation in the Middle East is so upsetting, it’s invading my every subconscious moment. The other day I thought I saw the headline “Jewsmakers” in Newsweek when it was actually “Newsmakers.” But then I thought it would be really funny to have a spoof publication called Jewsweek, and I got so into the idea, I really let it spin out in my head for about an hour. (There is actually a website that’s called Jewsweek, so it’s not an original idea, apparently.)
A couple nights ago I had a dream about a Jewish newspaper in Philadelphia. The paper was unnamed in the dream, and it must be said, bore no resemblance to the actual Jewish newspaper here. (I don’t want to get into any trouble. They hate me already.) For now, let’s call the paper Jewsweek, just for fun.
The dream began with a call from a Jewsweek reporter. She wanted to set up a secret meeting to talk about the Jewsweek’s “covert racism.” We sat in PW’s editor’s office and listened to her tale: As they were putting the paper together for that week, an obituary came in over the transom, as they say. It was for an African-American man, and the staffers at Jewsweek decided not to publish the obit because they didn’t want a black guy next to the Jewish people.
The young reporter was horrified. Now she wanted to write a story for us about working there, sort of like an undercover report by a slaughterhouse employee.
The idea seemed great. If this was true about Jewsweek, it would run counter to the radical community spirit that blacks and Jews shared during the civil rights movement and beyond. It would be a shocking turn for a newspaper that claimed to represent the voice of Jews, an ethnic and religious group traditionally known for being progressive, if not communists. Comedians and activists: two proud Jewish legacies.
The reporter returned to her gig, and we awaited her story. Then we heard through the grapevine that she was not, in fact, Jewish, as she’d implied. This changed things significantly. It’s one thing to air the community’s dirty laundry, which is already taboo. It’s another thing to have a shikse do it.
In the end, we decided not to run the story. I was relieved because there were people in the Philadelphia Jewish community who’d heard about it and were pissed off, even before it ran. One of those people was an elderly woman holding a squeaky faux-leather handbag like my grandmother Yetta used to favor. She hit me over the head with it and called me a self-hater. I woke up bathed in sweat and guilt.
“Am I an anti-Semite?”, I wondered glumly while I brushed my teeth. “I can’t be. I love being Jewish.” Oy vey.
liz | 12:33 PM | Uncategorized
True confession: Wednesday, July 26, 2006
I sent an email to the Daily Show’s Ed Helms, asking him to look at my YouTube videos. The reason I picked him? We both went to Oberlin.
Hours later, I realized I hadn’t given him the link to the page, so I wrote back with the URL.
Sometimes I’m just embarrassed to be me.
liz | 10:43 PM | Uncategorized
Hooray! (If “hooray” can be used in this instance)
Yates Found Innocent by Reason of Insanity
National Mental Health Association Policy Positions: In Support of the Insanity Defense
liz | 5:20 PM | Uncategorized
From Sandra: Suggestion for a word to replace “consumer”
I don’t define my health status by whether or not I’m seeing someone about it (although I am, and in context in the hospital I have no problem saying patient). But context is the whole thing. In identifying myself to someone new I say I have bipolar disorder. Specific and only stigmatizing as far as the word bipolar has been misunderstood. Admittedly a lot.
Saying I have any diagnosis is controversial to a few extremists who deny mental illness, and although I’m not supportive of that idea I do have to talk to them, and write about shared ground with diplomatic language.
A new word? The best neutral word I use in professional talk also works socially – stakeholder. Like it?
liz | 4:23 PM | Uncategorized
