I’ve decided to use my YouTube powers for good. My prior videos have been funny, but now it’s time to get serious. This is the first entry in the mental-health-themed videos for YouTube. The audience that’s been watching me and not reading this blog will likely be a little thrown, but oh well. I’ll get new subscribers.
liz | 5:35 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
I come here often but this is the first time i’ve felt compelled to comment. Though i’ve enjoyed your past youtube videos immensely i feel you really hit home with this one. Reading your blog has changed my opinion of mental illness. Like perhaps hundreds or even thousands of other people i was under the impression that most (if not all) mentally ill people were violent. I do think this is because some people who commit terrible and violent crimes claim to be mentally ill. While their claims may or may not be true i figure the stigma that’s associated with mental illness stems from that. I, however, am glad to have been set straight, especially by someone who knows firsthand how it feels to be mentally ill. I’ll be looking forward to more of your videos on mental health issues.
i think you’re amazing for making this. i’m so proud of you.
LS,
This video took my breath away. The honesty and earnestness with which you write and now speak on MH issues is so wonderful and vital for people to hear. Brava, LS, Brava!
Liz… wow after watching a few of your YT videos you’re right I wasn’t expecting this. Ironically I started exhibiting symptoms of panic disorder about a year and a half ago so I definately think I will keep watching. You are right.. we are out there in bigger numbers than people think. And people also take their mental health for granted. It’s a hard thing to be faced with when you realize how much you depend on the normal operation of your brain.
I am happy to report that I am doing better these days. Now I just seem to have IBS. I will take that over panic attacks.
Cheers,
Jim
THANK YOU.
I love it. I expect your subscriptions will only increase from now on.
if karl was still around, you would have been more centered in the frame
That was so compelling I watched it twice. I’ve often thought that was true about anxiety and OCD being opposite sides of the same coin (especially if the anxiety was a severe type). I’m glad that you’ve decided to use your YouTube powers for good, Liz. I usually feel more comfortable with seriousness than silliness – especially if it’s well-meaning and honest (I hope that makes sense).
Anyway, speaking of incoherence (my last sentence), I’ve been wondering the last couple of weeks if you have any opinion of beatniks. You know – characters like Kerouac, Ferlengetti, Bukowski, and Kerouac (it might be the ECT from so many years ago that sometimes causes me to repeat things). Is espousing the beatnik philosophy something that would cause you to not want to have anything to do with someone? Is that a logical question?
(I know that sometimes the post office doesn’t do its’ job. If the second paragraph makes no sense, that would be the reason why. In that case, I ask that you just pretend like the second paragraph isn’t even there – maybe even delete it – and just judge me on the first paragraph).
You’re doing a great job Liz. I don’t think I’ve ever known such a wonderful writer (except maybe Judi Chamberlin, I’m not sure). Thank you, and keep it up.
Addendum to comment #8:
s’il vous plait.
(As in: “keep it up, s’il vous plait.”)
s’il vous plait.
s’il vous plait.
[plait (sp?)]
Hi Liz,
I for one am excited that this will be turning more into a “mental health” vlog than the funny vids. There are enough of those other types of things out there, and there are very few of any that are competently done on mental health. I will be back.
I’m just tuning in for the first time. Wow. Really good stuff. You’re providing information that is genuinely new and potentially transformative for a lot of folks. You rock.
thanks a lot. to me you seem to be an outstanding and dynamic individual. i say that not as a cookie for ego but as a note to self… i am definitely suspicious of my own mental quirkdom but your success in the public realm inspires me to continue pursuing my dreams toward a realer, more meaningful reality.
thank you again liz!
cheers to growth and life.
chris/ insidethegod
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