Category: Uncategorized

People Have the Power

“People Have the Power” is my favorite Patti Smith song.

Yes I believe it’s true people in America have the power to change the the direction our country has been going in.

This starts when we challenge the hateful rhetoric in the media. It continues when we speak out against the drastic policies being enacted. The dialog can’t end it can only change its focus.

Why just fight for our rights? Why not figure out new rights we haven’t had that we can champion for everyone?

Instead of merely reacting to what goes on. We can be proactive in helping each other. We can treat each other with dignity.

Responding to hate with hate solves nothing. To love bomb the haters is the solution.

I read somewhere that if America wanted to convert other nations to our democratic ideals we shouldn’t bomb them. We should drop TVs on them.

I doubt anyone who needs to read what I’m writing will chance upon this blog. Yet here goes for those of you aren’t loyal readers. Here goes too for the ones who tune in every week. Here goes for everyone:

See who a person is not who you think they are. Labeling other people and judging them and stereotyping them is not the way to go.

I’ve listed in here the names of the over 30 people cops killed as well as written about Kate Spade.

Having been bullied early in life and having a diagnosis I’m no stranger to being viewed as the Other.

Yet it seems that before a person meets me or you or someone else that person sees fit to judge us and stereotype us and label us with a name.

Those of us with this kind of psychic ability to figure out a person’s life story just by looking at them: should set up a table on Venice Beach telling fortunes.

This aim might not be accurate so then again that would be a lousy way to make money.

Only our elected officials are making hundreds of thousands of dollars by daring to judge the needs of ordinary Americans as subservient to corporate greed.

Our elected officials are daring to think that the lives of ordinary Americans–lost to poverty, disability, lack of education, imprisonment, etc.–aren’t worth saving.

Sadly, I have given up on our government as being an agent of change.

The latest measure I’ve heard coming from Mr. Toupee is to stop funding public libraries.

No kidding.

Bombs away? I think not.

Let’s band together to treat each other with the respect, dignity, and compassion that seems to be lacking in media editorials and congressional fiats.

This blog will always be a hate-free and stigma-free forum.

 

Kate Spade – A Tragedy

Today Kate Spade–the designer of iconic handbags–took her own life.

She had everything going for her in terms of external success.

It’s a tragedy that inside at her core she wasn’t doing very well.

A year or two ago in my Flourish blog I wrote about the phenomenon of “smiling depression.”

Women are suffering all alone because no one takes them seriously.

“How could you be depressed when you have a great life?”

“Just pray and go to church and you’ll be fine.”

“Get married and have babies and raise a family.”

That last sentence contains actual words a young woman was told years ago.

The other two sentences are oft-repeated ill advice that women are given too.

I remember vividly when I was going on a job interview in the 1990s.

I rode the elevator up to the office with another woman. She held a Kate Spade tote against her shoulder. I coveted that Kate Spade pocketbook.

It wasn’t until this spring that I dared splurge to buy myself a Kate Spade pocketbook.

I bought it at a reduced yet not cheap cost at an off-price discount retailer in New York City.

Kate and her husband sold their company years ago. Yet American women have coveted the Kate Spade handbags since their first creation.

Disability is no joke.

Mental health issues strike everyone from all walks of life.

It’s a tragedy that Kate Spade and hundreds possibly thousands of nameless faceless individuals feel the only way out of their pain is to end their life.

What if Kate Spade could’ve gotten treatment? What if she had bipolar or another mental health issue that wasn’t diagnosed?

A part of Kate Spade lives on in the pocketbook I bought this spring.

Yet that’s no consolation for the fact that another human being’s life ended in tragedy not recovery.

God bless you Kate Spade. God bless everyone living with a mental health issue who suffers. You are not alone.

The Suicide Prevention Helpline can be reached at (800) 273-TALK (8255).

You can use the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Please. The pain you are in can be healed. People care about you. Help is available.

There is a way out of the pain that will enable you to live a better life.

There’s no shame. What you feel is real and true. What you feel can be healed

 

“Dignity is Valuable”

david bowie super CD

“Heroes” is my favorite David Bowie song. I bought a Heroes magnet at the David Bowie exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I used to play this song all the time on my FM radio show in the 1980s.

Everyone gets a headset to listen to a documentary while viewing the items from start to end. It was just beautiful.

The words “Dignity is valuable” kept repeating in the headset. Soon after I was able to listen to Bowie’s “Major Tom.”

David Bowie had a career that lasted over 30 years. After the show I picked up in the gift shop his Scary Monsters CD.

That’s what it’s like to be a “super freak” in the eyes of others: You have to act true to yourself or you’ll wither.

Years ago I wrote in this blog “Conformity is repression.”

You can’t keep trying to be someone else to get others to like you and approve of you. That’s the quickest route to ill health.

I”m a Dilettante / Lover. These are actual archetypes.

If you’re an Artist or a Dilettante / Lover get yourself a ticket to the Bowie exhibit. Do this if you’re in NYC before July 15 when the show ends.

Adults cost $20. Senior citizens if I remember cost $12.

You will hopefully be so inspired by this experience. As it was I got turned on to live a freely creative life after seeing this homage to David Bowie’s work.

It was a beautiful experience. The rooms were crowded yet that was part of the fun:

To see a woman dancing while listening to a video on a screen.

To see a woman in a wheelchair view the exhibit.

The David Bowie exhibit was simply life-affirming.

I beg you if you are a Dilettante / Lover or an Artist that you dare commit to making art all the days of your life.

Even if it’s just changing the dining table decor at the start of each new season.

Or stirring up a pot of onion soup you created from a recipe in a cookbook.

Whatever you do that is artistic be it ordinary or big just keep doing it.

David Bowie continues to be a great inspiration to me long after he’s gone.

The Man Who Fell to Earth left this earth to soon. Luckily we have his music and his legacy to carry us on.

Autism Acceptance Month

I’ve been schooled in how to refer to April: as Autism Acceptance Month not Awareness Month.

Self-advocates think having awareness of autism is only a halfway measure—almost there. Autism advocates prefer the term Acceptance. At first I didn’t understand this because not everyone with autism does well.

It comes down to seeing the glass as half full (not half empty) and wanting to drink up. Advocates attribute their strengths to their autism. These advocates don’t see their illness as a tragedy even though there are struggles. They choose to focus on the positive.

The term is neurodiversity with typical and atypical expressions of this.

Those of us with an MH diagnosis need to get over our self-stigma surrounding the medical terms used to describe our condition. You don’t see advocates lobbying to change the name autism to something else. They accept what happened to them and advocate for full inclusion in society—something I did decades ago in the 1990s for MH peers.

Hell yes though—I’d be the first in line if a cure for SZ was available. I’m not one of the “I love my disability” folk.

No—I wouldn’t wish SZ symptoms on anyone as a permanent lifelong mental state. Having been there, I understand what it’s like. Having lived through the worst I would rather be in remission than symptomatic.

Give me a cure—okay? Give me the term SZ any day. Are people still spooked to have a diagnosis? In the early 2000s I railed against this and lobbied for acceptance.

Readers—I urge you not to get twisted over having a diagnosis. Next month I will advocate for changing May’s theme to Mental Health Acceptance Month.

We need to do this because without acceptance full inclusion remains a hollow dream. It isn’t the end for outsiders to have awareness. Awareness is only the beginning. Acceptance is the goal.

We need to accept the role the MH condition plays in our lives. This doesn’t signal that we have to like having an illness. No–I don’t like having an illness.

Yet hey, I say take a tip from the autism self-advocates: lobby for acceptance and inclusion.

Focusing on how having an illness has given us strengths sure beats dwelling on the negative.

I might not like having a diagnosis. Yet I appreciate all the good things I’ve gotten and that I’ve done because of it.

 

Spring Cleaning Outside of the Closet

The spring is the perfect time to start over.

Outside of the closet sometimes you have to cull your beliefs or your relationships as well as your clothes.

It’s not easy to let go of a friend or lover yet at times you must to reclaim your sanity.

It’s possible this person’s trash talk towards you has depleted you of energy.

I call such people “energy vampires” because they steal any good feeling you have about yourself.

Each of us deserves better. We deserve to be treated with kindness and empathy.

You can feel like you’re all alone after a breakup. Yet remember: their negativity is no longer seeping into you.

It comes down to what you’re comfortable with.

It might surprise readers yet a couple of years ago I decided to fade away from a person who made an objectionable racist comment out loud when we were in public together.

I felt it wasn’t right what they said. I won’t repeat the comment and this is because I don’t want to set off readers.

We need to lift each other up not bring each other down.

Our friends shouldn’t verbally attack us. They shouldn’t attack other people.

As hard as it can be to let go I’ll end here with this:

You can meet a new friend or lover in due season.

I’ll be 53 in April–I’ve been around this block for too long. The older I’ve gotten the less inclined I am to mollycoddle haters.

In coming blog entries I’ll talk about”The Change”–the M Word–menopause.

Living through “The Change” can be challenging yet it can bring on renewed happiness and a sense of new purpose.

I want to talk about “The Change” because no one else is doing this for mental health peers.

Normal is Over

Normal is Over.

If you have a Brooklyn Public Library library card you can watch for free videos on your computer or smart TV via the Kanopy database on the library’s website.

This week I viewed Normal is Over.

The documentary focuses on how the prevailing “economic growth” model is the chief culprit in climate change.

I recommend you watch this film. I wrote down too many quotes from the video to transcribe them here.

Yet I can tell you this: climate change is no joke. We can’t continue to ravage our earth in the name of consumerism to buy more and more products.

Highlights of Normal is Over:

  • 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is man-made.
  • Producing beef uses 16,000 liters of water.
  • Elephants may become extinct by 2020 if they continue to be killed for money.
  • The $200Billion/year that one professional estimates it would take to save civilization from climate change is less than the cost of funding the military.
  • Most GMO soy and corn feeds factory animals that are slaughtered.
  • 1% of the population owns 1/2 of its total wealth.

After watching this film I decided to write a series of blog entries about how the best way to heal the planet is to first heal ourselves.

In the coming blog entry I will start to talk about this in more detail.

Keeping Warm in Winter

timothy goodman uniqlo

This is a Timothy Goodman tote bag I snatched up from Uniqlo.

I recommend Uniqlo for winter clothes as well as their collaborations with designers like Goodman.

In New York City the weather veers from minus 2 degrees with the wind chill on a Friday to 52 degrees the following Thursday.

We cannot continue to deny that this fluctuation IS because of climate change.

What can each of us do to keep warm in the Northeast and wherever else it’s cold in the winter?

I recommend buying from Uniqlo their HeatTech thin long-sleeve tee shirts to wear under your shirts and sweaters in the arctic chill.

I own two HeatTech under-layers: one in off white and one in black.

For any of you who are Petite like me in clothing sizes I have good news:

The Uniqlo items might fit you in their regular sizes.

Uniqlo is a Japanese brand that has stores and delivery options in the USA too.

It’s true the Uniqlo clothes fit me in their regular sizes. I haven’t had to alter anything from Uniqlo yet. And I’m a person who has to get Petite clothes hemmed and shortened to boot. So I can vouch for the universality of their sizing if you’re petite.

Their lounge sets are also comfy and warm. They sell cashmere sweaters and have designer clothes collaborations too.

I’ll be wearing my HeatTech under-tee shirts throughout the winter this season.

The Timothy Goodman tote bag actually reads:

“You have to make a lot of stuff before you can make stuff like yourself.”

I endorse that statement. I’ll be 53 in the spring and the view from here is delightful.

I will return in coming blog entries to talking about life during “the change” for women.

Yes, menopause is a fact of older life for those of us who are women.

Wearing layers is the way to peel off outer clothes respectfully when you’re having hot flashes.

Thus: HeatTech to the rescue.

United States Postal Service

I want to give readers a heads up this holiday season about shipping gifts in the mail.

This is my experience. I find it so amusing really only because it’s a well-off person’s dilemma

The two women from the Post Office who talked to me on the telephone were cheerful and helpful. It really helps to use the words please and thank you when you ask for help from another person.

The windup: FedEx lists as “delivered” by the United States Postal Service a package I was supposed to have received three weeks ago.

This package is missing in action.

As I waited on hold for the local person to come on the line a recorded message told me that using the United States Postal Service to ship holiday gifts is the best shipping method.

What? I was waiting to speak with a person about why my package the Postal Service delivered has gone missing.

I find this all so amusing. It’s an American dilemma so I really don’t care about this. It’s not like I’m a Syrian refugee or my life is in danger.

You have to put these kinds of things in perspective. I find it so amusing that a recorded message told me to use the Postal Service to ship holiday gifts. When in fact the Postal Service couldn’t be counted on to actually deliver my package.

I wanted to give my readers this heads up. I think using UPS even if it’s more expensive is the way to go. I’ve used UPS to ship copies of my memoir to people.

Mercury turns Retrograde on December 3 through three weeks of the month.

It won’t be a good time to buy expensive products or electronics or ship things through the mail. I advise shipping any packages out early this week.

It’s said that since Mercury will be Retrograde stores will often be out of stock of items and the selections will be poor.

Consider this blog entry to be a public service announcement.

I would like everyone’s holiday season–regardless of whether you celebrate a holiday–to be hassle-free as best it can be.

Change Starts Today

At some point you really have to say:

“This is who I am. Take me as I am–or leave.”

We cannot control what other people think of us.

I’m learning this lesson now.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what people think of us. Seeking their approval is a no-win game.

Thinking you know what another person thinks about you is circular failed logic.

In effect, you’re judging that person without knowing the truth.

As a mental health peer I realize that holding so-called normal people up as valid arbiters of our worth is a form of internalizing the stigma.

Holding anyone else up as a judge in terms of how they view us is also not healthy.

We need to like ourselves first of all and in turn have compassion for other people.

Each of us living on earth is doing the best we can with what we were given.

Change starts today. Often if we want to change our lives we first have to change our minds.

I’ll be 53 in April–in just over 5 months. This is what I’ve learned so far:

Judging people isn’t the way to go. Stereotyping people isn’t the way to go.

The way to go is to understand that those of us living with mental health challenges are worthy friends, lovers, and support folk.

I for one have gotten over thinking that having a so-called normal guy as a boyfriend is the way to go. I’ve given up for good trawling OKCupid for a mate.

I don’t expect anyone who doesn’t have a mental health challenge to truly understand.

We need to seek love companionship and empathy from people who are able to give it.

We can’t expect to change the hearts and minds of people who are stones in how they treat others.

It would be great if people would come to their senses and treat everyone they meet with love.

While we wait for this to happen we can help make it happen by acting on our own to model compassionate behavior.

The older I get I’m trying to make a difference in the world.

I call this ethic placing “service above self.”

Acting with love will show others the benefit of acting with love.

One thing I know: people can change as their circumstances change.

People can become more loving and generous towards other people.

I’ve seen that this is true. It’s entirely possible for another person to wake up.

Change starts today. It starts today for all of us.

We have only today in which to make a difference.

God has given us this day. Let’s use it wisely and for the benefit of everyone.