When I was excluded from the group I had needed so badly I felt like an outcast. Not long after, when I retired from Living Room, I was told I could no longer come back as a peer, I wrote in my journal: “Now I have no group at all. I’m an outsider.” Unwanted. Left […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 257 (November 14, 2009) A couple of days ago a friend sent me photographs comparing how good most of us have it with how bad things are for some people. There was a picture of a plump, well-fed baby next to a picture of a starving baby, all skin and bones. Another […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 256 (November 11, 2009) My friend asked me this morning whether I’ve prayed over my anxieties, all the stuff that seems to be triggering the threat of depression right now. And I realized that I hadn’t prayed. Hadn’t even thought of praying. Pretty bad. She pointed out Psalm 37: 3-5 in particular, […]
Read More...(From my journal, July 2015) It hurts to realize I’m different. Not normal. Is that why no one wants to spend time with me? But there are corners where I do fit in. At the Shop where I volunteer and at Living Room I’m accepted the way I am….at least I thought so. I loved the […]
Read More...I decided in November that I needed to tell the story of my life with Living Room: The joyful times, as well as the painful times Part of the reason for telling my story was to reclaim the life I had lost. I wanted reminders that I had lived a good life, though things had […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 255 (November 6, 2009) An exciting thing is happening for Living Room at the end of the month. We have been accepted to present a 4’x8′ poster at the Into the Light: Transforming Mental Health in Canada conference at the Hotel Vancouver. This is a national conference put on by the Mental […]
Read More...(From my journal October 2013) On October 7, 2013 I was admitted to CRESST where I was to stay for three weeks. It was my first time at a psychiatric treatment facility in fifteen years. The biggest reason I was there was to adjust my strange sleeping patterns. They were thought to be bringing on […]
Read More...Oh, I wish I could have received compassion like Jesus modeled. Jesus was in tune with the suffering of sick people, the suffering and needs of people who are judged by the world. How can people rightly judge a person they don’t understand – whose pain they cannot feel? How can they understand the pain […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 254 (October 18, 2009) Our guest speaker at church today was David Collins. He talked about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, pointing out that the sins they committed were symptoms, they’re not the root of it. At the root was something else. Quoting Ezekiel 16:49: “Now this was the sin of […]
Read More...“When our pain is emotional our head fills up with it. It’s hard to make room for peace. So hard to escape except, perhaps, to die.” (from my journal, July 28, 2015) There are various reasons for people wanting to take their lives and I wonder if some of them are more difficult to resist […]
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