LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 231 (April 12, 2009) My roller coaster ride will not stop. I don’t feel so depressed that I don’t want to do anything. Just feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. Trouble with me is that I feel a need to reach out – to draw comfort from others. Yet that kind of […]
Read More...Why is it so hard for people with mental illness to have friends who don’t have a mental illness? Why do supporters fail to see that we need friends as well as support? Why don’t our supporters share their lives with us, in the way we do with them? Sometimes it seems as though people […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 227 (March 31, 2009) I’m trying to deal with an understanding I’ve come to that one of my friends simply considers me a project – someone to support because I have bipolar. And that hurts. I’ve always considered her one of my best friends, feeling her love and care. She has been […]
Read More...I felt embarrassed sharing the last post from 2009. How sick I was! Not just physically, but emotionally. Not only from bipolar disorder, but from emotional problems stemming from childhood. I found friends who showed me the greatest love I had ever known, but ended up stifling them. Is that what created so many problems […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 176 (July 3, 2006) Earlier this week a blogger wrote about the importance of wanting wellness if we want to be well. “As far as I am concerned, the most critical component of achieving wellness is wanting it….Wellness doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Whether you believe that bipolarity and/or clinical depression is […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 146 (April 4, 2008) Message for church leaders, people with mood disorders and supporters: You can give faith-based support to people with mood disorders. The first Living Room support group, with its home at Brentwood Park Alliance Church in Burnaby, BC, is now nineteen months old. This outreach ministry, in partnership with […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 101 (September 19, 2007) In the last post I talked about how my congregation learned to understand and support people with mental illness. I think one important thing that helps me when I try to educate and help people understand mental health issues – whether it’s through writing or meeting with them […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 100 (September 15, 2007) In their comments a couple of blogging pals say how they wish they could find a place of worship like mine. I’m hoping that this post will help you understand that this support has only grown gradually, over time. I had to educate members of the congregation and […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 97 (September 5, 2007) I’ve been meaning for a while to draw from Harold Koenig’s book, Faith and Mental Health, and share with you some of the treasures of thinking and understanding I have found there. Koenig tells of nearly 500 studies during the twentieth century that reported statistically significant associations between […]
Read More...LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 95 (August 29, 2007) A friend sent me this quote from a book by Jonathan Zeuss, M.D.: “Depression is a quest for vision; its essence is transformation. Depression wells up and encompasses us for a time in a state of painful, dream-saturated formlessness, but its true purpose is to provide the opportunity […]
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