Mad Pride makes the NYTimes front page

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/fa...hp&oref=slogin

There is even an understanding quote from E. Fuller Torrey...

Interesting. They need to overcome the idea that "pride" isn't just for the other group. I'm sorry they feel they are "mad" in that respect, but certainly they will get people's attention with it, and that's what they want right?

TC (((pachy)))

Interesting article, hopefully this movement will bring awareness leading to greater understanding and tolerance

TJ

Interesting article. I wish I had more nerve to be more open about my mental illness / addiction. I just started a new job, after being off for more than a year while I got my life sorted out, including hospitalization. And I feel really bad lying about what I did during the time off, when part of me feels like I'm really proud about what all I've accomplished - but I don't feel safe enough to disclose my history for fear of limiting my future career prospects.

I feel really lucky that laws up here prevent employers from asking questions about medical history, since I was able to negotiate taking Mon. afternoons off to attend "outpatient" therapy once a week. I mean I'm pretty sure my boss thinks it's for something mental health related, but she can't ask.

--splitimage

Interesting movement! I think this signals progress!

Going public offers many opportunities. Increasing interest and public awareness, coming into dialogue, growing mutual understanding and, most important in my point of view, a possibility to make a lot transparent, beginning from the causes and the conditions that underlie mental problems.

What can be done to make society and the political and economical foundations of our times more healthy? Where are the risks of our way of life in regard to mental health? What can be done to help those who are struggling with mental illnesses? What can be done to prevent some well-known causes of distress and disorders, for example all kinds of abuse?

To put these questions and topics on the headlines and first pages makes a lot of sense to me.

I really hope those times when the feeling of a need to hide one's mental problems was overwhelming will come to an end at last.

@splitimage:
I made the experience that covering and hiding, especially lying about my past and my disorder, did more harm than good to me, especially on the job. I felt stressed all the time. Since I decided to open up and speak frankly about my "weaknesses", I do and feel a lot better. To me, this was one of the most important and effective steps to recovery.

Greets,
bluna

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
bluenarciss said:

What can be done to make society and the political and economical foundations of our times more healthy? Where are the risks of our way of life in regard to mental health? What can be done to help those who are struggling with mental illnesses? What can be done to prevent some well-known causes of distress and disorders, for example all kinds of abuse?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yesterday I watched a couple of programs on one of our local community college TV channels, about childraising. Most of the scenes were of healthy children and healthy childraisers. It struck me how different this was than my own upbringing. And comparing those TV programs to others that were on at the same time, by channel surfing, really brought home to me the effects of childhood care on especially really young children. It explains so much of what is on TV and in the news these days. Seeing how much can be explained by imaging adult behavior as the squabbles and hostilities of children raised in unsupportive family conditions!

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
pachyderm said:
Seeing how much can be explained by imaging adult behavior as the squabbles and hostilities of children raised in unsupportive family conditions!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Hi pachyderm,

I fundamentally agree with you. I had similar thoughts, thinking "everything could be so easy!"... We do have a born intuitive feeling of what is good for us and what is bad, and we can feel what would be good for others and what not, don't we?

And it is not even difficult to find that out, because we already know deep inside. We can realize that by heart. So why are there harmful environments and life conditions? I have often been looking for answers on this question. But I haven't found THE satifying answer. Only hints. And I am still pursuing them.

Unsupportive family conditions is one very very important aspect.

But family is not everything, I think. There is enough outside of family that intervenes and does harm to the family members from outside. Family is no save haven, I am afraid. It can be supportive and protective, yes, but I fear, there are limits even to the strongest homes.

Parents and grandparents have their own stories, their own past. I think they cannot be made responsible for everything. Because they became the way they are or were because they were made to become like that. Same thing as with us.

What I have in mind is a solution of how to get rid of both bad inheritances and of bad present influences. What can be done to make it better, for ourselves and our children as well.

Just a few thoughts in addition to yours, I hope you don't mind.

Best wishes,
bluna

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
bluenarciss said:
Unsupportive family conditions is one very very important aspect.

But family is not everything, I think. There is enough outside of family that intervenes and does harm to the family members from outside. Family is no save haven, I am afraid. It can be supportive and protective, yes, but I fear, there are limits even to the strongest homes.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yes, the support the family is able to give is influenced by outside conditions.

I suppose in the early days of humanity, humans were often on the brink of extinction, so that desperate methods of survival developed which were not really conducive to mutual support on a large scale. Maybe that is no longer true, so that we should be able to develop better methods of cooperation, influenced less by the anxiety of feeling ourselves close to annihilation. When anxiety is reduced, we are more able to think clearly and use our powers of reason to examine what is going on around us and within us.