Very Awesome Video About Depression Advice
Jul 16 2008 | Comments 4
liz | 3:38 PM | Uncategorized
The Trouble with Spikol | Make Major Moves | PW Style | Cup o'Joel
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.
Got a big Chuckle out of it…
So whose advice would you take?
Excellent. Absolutely excellent.
Excellent video! The least useful advice I’ve received about my depression came from two mental health professionals. In response to my expressed dissatisfaction with my social life, a psychiatrist recommended I move into a group home. I left home before I finished college so the notion of moving into a group home is well, er, beyond the pale. In response to the lack of intimacy in my life, an APN told me to go to a day program. Been there, done that and intimacy was a taboo subject. We weren’t even to permitted to get together with the other persons in the program outside the program for coffee. (Now I understand why Starbucks is so popular. Coffee leads directly to intimacy.)
Possibly, I have it all wrong. Could it be that group homes and day programs are at the forefront of meaningful social activity and intimacy? Perhaps, I am missing the very opportunity to write a best selling memoir, “The Wild Thang: My Year in a Group Home and a Day Program.” And who knows, it could be turned into a blockbuster movie with an even more racier title. Later, I could write “How to Improve Your Social and Intimate Life: The Group Home / Day Way.”
But, I think I’ll pass despite all the glorious possibilities which seem no more possible then the outcomes the original professional advice could have conceivably engendered.
I like this video because it’s visually interesting and the artist put it together without any judgemental tones. It is sad that we live in a world where there is still so much misunderstanding of mental illness. I posted about my friend Rachel’s
(http://danomacnamarrah.blogspot.com/2008/05/rachels-cancer-is-not-her-problem.html) battle with cancer; that it was not her biggest problem. Rather, that she was so debilitated by her depression she was too unwell to fight the cancer. I have been asked by her to explain depression in the past, to family members who are ignorant, frustrated and concerned. It’s unfortunate that one needs an advocate to reinforce and explain that which one has already said.
The video is a reminder of the simple-minded bliss that some people enjoy.
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