Do you believe stigma around taking medication for mental illness exists?
Or put it this way:
If you had to choose, would you rather disclose that you were taking insulin or psychiatric medication (antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, mood stabilisers etc) to your employer, your family, your friends, and a room full of strangers? And why?
Here’s a paradox: My mental health improved after I developed a mental illness. When I am not symptomatic (which is a lot of the time) my mental health is fantastic. It is possibly better than that of many people who don’t live with a mental illness. Here’s why:
Mental illness can teach you a lot about mental health, because it confronts you with the choice to change the way you approach your life.
Continue reading “What a mental illness can teach you about your mental health”
Have you ever tried rescuing someone who doesn’t want to be rescued?
There’s the itchy frustration of being able to see they need help. You do everything in your power to help them, but they want none of it.
We had the following teachable situation take place in our household recently:
My daughter loves birds and started feeding the sulphur crested cockatoos in our garden. Word of the new food source got around. Each day more arrived. One morning the cohort included a scruffy straggler. He was bullied by the others. His point of difference was a plastic cone around his neck, almost identical to the Elizabethan collars we put on dogs and cats to prevent them chewing out their stitches.
But this was a school sports marker. The cockatoo had poked its head through it. I assume out of curiosity or to get to food in the middle of it. And now it was stuck. It could still eat, but not well. We thought hard about how we could help this bird. I suspected removing the cone wouldn’t be difficult if we could only catch it.
It flew off as soon as we got anywhere near it. My daughter phoned Australia Zoo who referred her to a wildlife organisation, who referred us to the RSPCA. I explained the dilemma and sent pictures of the cone headed bird. The RSPCA delivered a large metal dog crate and we rigged the door with string, so that we could close it remotely.
Thought Food 