Carpe Diem #1779 Cliffs of Moher ... a tribute to Jane Reichhold (monody, Senryu)

Image source

in that last moment

I hope that you were at peace

may you now fly free

~Cie~

Notes:

I was previously unaware that Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016) had committed suicide because the pain of her fibromyalgia had become unbearable. Please click the Fishy banner to find out more about Jane's story.

We will never learn how to reduce the rate of suicide if it is a stigmatized, taboo subject. If people are afraid or ashamed to discuss suicide ideation, then their struggles will remain internalized. The ways that suicide ideation and attempted suicide are currently handled are ineffective and the unthinking and unfeeling diatribe that the surviving family members of a person who committed suicide are subject to are simply shameful.

Any time a celebrity commits suicide, there's always someone sanctimoniously spouting about how "selfish" this person was, and I want to take them aside and shake them and shout: "Hello, you insensitive twit! Did it never occur to you in your moment of self-righteousness to realize that anyone listening to you could have a loved one who took their own life? How dare you be so thoughtless!"

When I was in high school, I had a friend whose brother had committed suicide when she was eight years old. She said that people would come up to her on the playground and tell her that her brother was in hell for what he'd done. I say there ought to be a special spit in hell reserved for mealy-mouthed marshmallows who make such unkind assertions.

I leave you now with this banner that I use as my Facebook avatar anytime a celebrity takes their own life because I just know that the ignorant spoutings are going to elevate at such times.

How Not to Write About Neurological or Psychological Differences

Definitely, don't include the above statement in your piece. However, the points I'm discussing are a bit more subtle.

I recently read a review of a book about a woman with bipolar disorder. I have not read the book myself at this juncture but am taking it on myself to do so for the reasons stated below. 

The reviewer made this statement:

"Individuals affected with this disorder, eventually take up the nature of a 'zombie' because of the effects of the drugs given to control it. They are also known to be suicidal."

I left this reply to the reviewer.

As a person with bipolar disorder, I would suggest doing further research on bipolar disorder before making blanket statements regarding how people who live with the disorder behave. There are several types of bipolar disorder: type one, type two, and cyclothymia. There are also a variety of medications used to treat it, and some of us who live with the condition do not take medication.

There is an increased likelihood of suicide ideation with bipolar disorder, however, this does not always manifest in the same way. Speaking for myself personally, I have frequent suicide ideation but it tends to be situational. I have learned coping techniques to deal with it. I never "become a zombie" because of medication because I refuse to take medications which allow me to become a zombie.

As I have Kindle Unlimited, I feel the need to take it upon myself to read this book because if this is the sort of picture it is painting of people with bipolar disorder, that is troubling indeed. We already face enough stigma. We do not need the world viewing a varied population in an extremely negatively stereotyped fashion. 

As this book appears to depict a single case and one person's manifestations of bipolar disorder, please do not stereotype all persons with bipolar disorder as behaving in the same way. We are as varied as any other population of individuals. Your review was concise, but the sentences stereotype an entire population of people. Instead of saying "people with bipolar disorder are known to...", personalize the review by saying "Geraldine experienced feelings of lethargy due to the side effects of her medication" or "Geraldine was suicidal."

I would also avoid using terms such as "suffering from" when referring to neurological differences such as autism or psychological aberrations such as bipolar disorder. Such a description can be offensive. Persons with these conditions often are not suffering due to the condition itself, we suffer because of the negative ways in which we are treated. I have told people that if I could have a cure for my diabetes, I would take it in a heartbeat, but I would not take a cure for my bipolar disorder. Having bipolar disorder disappear would change the way my mind perceives the world, and I would not know how to function in the world. I am not going to say that bipolar disorder is a "gift," but it is an oversimplification to say that bipolar disorder causes suffering, implying that eradication of bipolar disorder would eradicate suffering. Many things cause suffering. Bipolar disorder simply causes a shift in the way a person perceives the world, which may or may not cause suffering.

Cheers.

Cie

Tan Renga Challenge 2019: Day 6: In Shadow

Image Source

autumn moonlight--

a worm digs silently

into the chestnut.

presenting a sunny face

though my brain feels full of worms

Basho & Cie

Notes:

The Hokku (Haiku) stanza of this Tan Renga was written by Matsuo Basho. The Akegu (closing stanza) was written by me.

Matsuo Basho was born in 1644 and died 28 November 1694. As a point of coincidence, my father died on 28 November 2010.

As Chèvrefeuille explains, Basho's Haiku references his desires for a man. Basho was a Samurai, and, as with the warriors of ancient Greece, homosexuality was considered normal and acceptable. Relationships between older men and adolescent boys were also considered acceptable.

I do feel that homosexuality is normal and acceptable, but I think it is better not to have sexual relationships between adults and youth.

My portion of the poem does not refer to my sexuality. Being heterosexual, I never found myself in the position of keeping my sexuality a secret. It refers to living with mental illness in a society which stigmatizes people who struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. 

Some people think that in this age of readily available psych meds, no-one should struggle with psychological problems. Many people do not respond well to psych meds, and not all psychological problems are chemical in nature.

Inspire Me Monday #224 + Spread the Kindness #119: Real Cie Reviews: Eighth Grade

This post is a duplicate of my review of this product for Amazon.

4 out of 5 stars

Elsie Fisher does a marvelous job as the insecure, likable Kayla and Josh Hamilton plays his role as the sweet but sometimes irritatingly out-of-touch and overprotective dad perfectly. Kayla's high school mentor Olivia is adorable if a bit clueless. There is the eye-roll-inducing stereotypical pretty mean girl Kennedy, and Kayla's crush Aiden has all the personality of wallpaper paste.

The movie does a nice job of addressing sensitive subject matter such as Kayla's panic attacks. I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and was unable to discuss my psychological issues with anyone for fear of being placed on a psych ward or dismissed as "seeking attention" or being "overly dramatic." When I read about bipolar disorder (then called manic depression) in my junior year psychology class, I recognized myself in a lot of the symptoms. I approached the subject with the teacher and she told me I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis and I wasn't psychotic. I would not be properly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old.  If nothing else, movies such as this one approach issues such as panic attacks without pathologizing the person suffering from them.

The movie also does a good job of addressing the pressure on teens, particularly teenage girls, to be sexy and sexually active. Olivia's creepy friend Riley attempts to pressure Kayla into removing her shirt during a game of Truth or Dare when they are alone in his car together, and Kayla's crush Aiden is rumored to have broken up with a previous girlfriend because she wouldn't send him nude photos.

The movie is appropriate for teenagers. Kayla is a relatable character, an ordinary and likable if socially awkward young woman. I found myself thinking that it was a shame for her to waste any time or energy on a shallow, self-absorbed twit like Kennedy or a limp dishrag like Aiden. 

Teens struggling with feeling like they don't fit in and those of us who used to be (and sometimes still are) the odd one out will feel a kinship with Kayla and be proud of her as she learns to stand up for herself.

~Cie~

Also sharing to the Spread the Kindness blog hop on Tuesday April 23, 2019.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 16 + Poems in April 2019 Day 16 & 5: Poetry As the Place Where the Spirit Within Hemorrhages Truth

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

You return whenever I write poetry

Troublesome little ghost

Not sugar and spice and everything nice

You mournful, shadowed thing

Troublesome little ghost

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

You mournful, shadow thing

Needing to bleed out your words

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Needing to bleed out your words

"The poem is the way," I say

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Offering truth a way to be set free

"The poem is the way," I say

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Offering truth a way to be set free

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honesty

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Or so it is that I have always believed

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honestly

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

Or so it is that I have always believed

But there are those who disagree on poetry

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

You need not present as light when you are shadow

But there are those who disagree on poetry

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You need not present as light when you are shadow

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

Bleed your truth as freely as you need

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

You mournful, shadowed thing

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You return whenever I write poetry

~Cie~

Prompt #5

Prompt #16

Notes:

The poetic form is Pantoum. Fortunately, a Pantoum need not rhyme.

The Poems in April prompt #16 was to create a poem with a title starting with "Poetry As..."

The Poems in April prompt #5 was to describe a supernatural creature who is a troublesome housemate. I can think of no more troublesome a housemate than the child I once was who each day laments that the big dreams she had for her life slip further and further away from her grasp, fading into the impossible.

I think the NaPoWriMo prompt ended up eating the dust of the other two prompts.

A couple of years ago when I was doing OctPoWriMo, I almost ended up ceasing participation in poetry blog hops for good when I allowed the troubled spirit who will always be a part of me to express itself and was admonished that my poetry was "catharsis" and I would one day become "a beacon of light in the world" or some such thing.

To me, these well-meaning but inaccurate statements showed two things.

First, that people who are not happy by nature are unacceptable as they are and must become, or at least pretend to be, the sort of person who is "a light in the world." 

Second, that dark poetry (and depressive people) are not as valid or worthwhile as happy, well-adjusted people writing poems about the joys of life and how grateful they are to live under the rule of a benevolent deity in a happy and joyful world where there are no Debbie Downers or Negative Neds messing things up with their dark ickiness.

To me, poetry must remain the domain where you can TELL IT LIKE IT IS, not like other people think it's supposed to be.

Poetry must remain the place where one can hemorrhage one's soul all over the damn place and not have people constantly trying to slap smiley bandages on their spiritual wounds.

Poetry must be allowed to be dark and filled with pain.

During the final years of my nursing career, a statement had been popularized that "PAIN IS WHATEVER THE PATIENT SAYS IT IS." 

I greatly advocate for this belief. It is so much more helpful than awful epithets such as "drug-seeking behavior," which had previously been the dismissive go-to whenever a patient requested pain medication earlier than it was scheduled. 

People who experience high levels of chronic pain do not respond to pain medications the way people who do not experience chronic pain (or who experience chronic pain of lesser degrees) respond to pain medication. A person with high levels of chronic pain could ingest enough pain medication to knock out a large horse and be perfectly coherent, and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

FYI, low-grade chronic pain (such as I have) isn't a walk in the park either. I'm tired all the time and have a tendency to experience brain fog and disturbed sleep. My pain levels aren't such that I require narcotics, but NSAIDS don't really help. 

I experienced intense chronic pain for about six weeks when I initially injured the median nerve in my left arm. I couldn't sit up for more than about 45 minutes before I had to lie on the arm to try and numb it. Intense chronic pain is no joke, and anyone who says things like "people need to just push through the pain" or fail to understand why people become so desperate for relief that they obtain medications through illegal channels because the medications they've been prescribed legally aren't cutting the mustard need to get off their high horse. 

At this point, my left arm constantly tingles. I've gotten enough sensation back in my left hand that it no longer feels like a lump of clay, but I was damn grateful for "lump of clay" as opposed to constant searing pain up and down the arm. Physical therapy saved my life, literally. I would need more P.T. to get rid of the constant numbness and tingling, but Medicaid will only pay for 12 sessions per injury. Better than nothing, but ridiculous to put a limitation on the sort of thing which doesn't tend to behave in a predictable fashion.

In any case, just as pain is whatever the patient says it is, POETRY IS WHATEVER THE POET SAYS IT IS.

My poetry need not be "catharsis." It need not lead to me becoming "a beacon of light in the world" to be absolutely 100% valid. The wounded inner self is allowed to express its truth without expectation of transformation.

People with depressive personalities are valid as they are. They need not be drugged into compliance. For some of us, the drugs don't work anyway, or they make things worse. Drugs are not the answer to everything.

I don't need to be like you. 

I am valid just as I am.

Apologies for jumping on ye olde soapbox, but some things cannot be said enough.

The Cheese Grates It: Ending the Stigma: Hoarding Disorder

This is a response to a post on The Mighty about what gifts to give and what gifts to avoid giving to a person who is struggling this holiday season.

Do not give a person who struggles with hoarding disorder (a subtype of OCD, NOT laziness, and if you think it is laziness please unfollow me now) things, unless it is something like socks which everyone can use and which are going to wear out. I appreciate money (helps to pay down debt or maybe buy some yarn for my craft projects), gift cards, and socks. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't mind some organizational bins either.

I don't know why I wear out socks so quickly, although, admissibly, some of them do fall victim to the Sock Gnomes. I have a whole bagful of socks which have lost their mates, and I've never figured out where they've gone.

My son and I are working on getting rid of the huge amount of stuff that I accumulated through my years of hoarding disorder which was only treated with blame and shame by those around me, and thus became even worse because it made it a bigger source of anxiety and so my reaction was to stuff things away and not deal with them. We have the storage unit about halfway cleared out and are aimed at having it entirely gone by early next year. 

This has been an enormous struggle for me, and it has pretty much destroyed my life. I'm trying to get my life back so whatever I have left can be spent doing things that are worthwhile rather than struggling with a surplus of stuff.

I still have a shed full of stuff and three spare rooms full of stuff.

I've known people whose hoarding disorder, probably combined with depression, was so severe that even doing basic cleaning was impossible for them. I've been down that low a few times. What didn't help one bit is hearing things like "lazy," and "disgusting." These television programs that exploit people with severe problems for the entertainment of assholes wanking to schadenfreude make me sick. To me, it's like watching someone being tortured or raped to watch those programs. It's disgusting the lows to which people will stoop, where instead of trying to help someone who has a serious problem we point fingers and ridicule them.

Many years ago, I rented out a townhome to a woman who had severe hoarding disorder. I was getting Section 8 payments from the government for allowing her to stay there. She wouldn't allow the inspectors in, and the HOA eventually wrote me a letter threatening to have me thrown in jail if I didn't evict her because there were huge numbers of flies in the windows.

When I got in, the place was beyond a nightmare. There were a few bags of things which were salvageable and which I took to give to the local thrift store to sell. Other than that, everything was trash and there was also dog feces everywhere. For reasons unknown, she had disconnected the pipes under the sink and had slime-covered dishes soaking in two basins in the sink.

This woman had two sons. One had a predilection for violence and eventually ended up in the Fort Logan state mental health center. The other one wasn't violent but he seemed totally "at sea." 

I never hated this woman for what she did. I felt sorry for her. I knew she had a serious mental illness. There was a housekeeper who was sent by the county to help out. (I did have to pay her, but it was at a reduced rate.) She was very disdainful, said she'd been here to help the tenant before, and that all said tenant did was "lie on the couch on her fat lazy ass and apologize for the condition of the place.) The tenant had a heart condition, which is why she was on section 8.

Being disdainful and hateful and exploiting rather than assisting people with a serious disease helps no-one. It is a barbaric society which turns people who are suffering into sideshow entertainment.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 28: Schism

Copyright Didgeman

Demanding that one

Who has been repeatedly broken

Must make the choice

To appear whole and happy

In order to bridge the chasm

Between rejection and belonging

Only serves to foster

A life built on a lie

The schism remains

And the least misstep

Means falling back into the abyss

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 24: Out of the Attic

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

Outside

She stumbles out into the sunlight

No longer will she hide

Fling 

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

The people hide in the shadows

To see her in the open is quite a shock

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

Fling

How dare she try to approach the good people?

She's such a hideous thing!

Gape 

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Surely she doesn't fancy herself equal to us

Who does she think she is really?

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

~Cie~

Note:

I have type 2 bipolar disorder which was not properly diagnosed until I was 38 years old. I first noted symptoms of bipolar disorder, then termed manic depression, in myself when I was taking a psychology class in high school. I approached the teacher with my thoughts, and she told me that I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis, and I evidently wasn't psychotic.

Bipolar disorder has since been recategorized as a mood disorder rather than a psychosis.

Bipolar type 2 can be difficult to diagnose because it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Bipolar 2 does not have psychotic features. Bipolar 1 may or may not present with psychosis.

I have experienced mania and psychosis when they were triggered by SSRI's, the darlings of the psychiatry field. It was terrifying and upsetting. While taking Effexor, a patient in the long-term care center I was working for at the time asked me why I was so happy. I wasn't happy, I was manic as fuck and felt completely out of control. I never experience mania if I don't take SSRI's. 

Just another reason why people suggesting that I should "try medication" makes me want to go all Norman Bates on their ass. I did, and the cure was worse than the problem. Having a psychiatric anomaly does not make a person stupid.

I realize that sometimes it can be difficult when dealing with people who do improve with use of medication and who then feel as if they have been cured and quit taking the medication. Psychiatric dysfunctions are not one size fits all. 

I do best using a low dose of Lithium Orotate. It short-circuits the irritability that is part and parcel of my condition.

I once had a doctor tell me to "just stay on" a medication (Zoloft) which made it feel as if my brain had developed tiny hands and was trying to pick its way out of my skull. To this day, I would like to know how the fuck he thought that was an improvement. That was a psychotic reaction to the medication. I normally do not experience psychosis. I knew it wasn't really happening, but it sure as fuck FELT as if it was really happening, and who the hell knows what I might have done to stop it if it kept on. 

These medications are not "happy pills." They change the brain chemistry. Some people are helped by them. For some, they don't work at all. For others, the cure is worse than the disease.

I think that one thing which desperately needs to change is the idea of making people who live with neurological or psychological differences into "normal" people, and to stop acting as if those of us who live with these conditions are "broken." 

It would have been nice to learn how to live with a brain like mine from the time I was in my youth rather than being told that I had to be "fixed," to be "normal." 

I will never be normal.

I will only be me.

Stop the stigma.

Haiga copyright The Real Cie

You are welcome to use it with a credit back to me.

The Cheese Grates It: The Not So Great Unfriending and Empathy Deficits

PERSONAL:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTION OF WEIGHT LOSS, SUICIDE 

I recently unfriended someone that I had been online friends with for 12 years. I encountered him through blogging and a mutual love of the horror genre. He was the coolest guy until his life became all about weight loss. Then the cracks started to show.

I tried to give him a break, even though I found him becoming more and more confrontational. He wasn't friendly anymore, but I hoped maybe the characteristics that made me like him in the first place would resurface.

 I never could be his weight loss cheerleader, and he seemed to resent that. He was always posting pictures of himself next to a pair of his old trousers, announcing how much weight he'd lost, and want people to stroke his ego. 

The only comment I ever made on one of his weight loss pictures was that I thought he was a cool guy regardless of what size he was. He went off on a tangent about how much better he felt and looked and so on. I tried to be sympathetic because I knew he'd gone this route because he'd been bullied, and I didn't blame him.

The straw that broke the camel's back was actually not about weight loss. I was doing my thing, trying to raise awareness and end stigma where suicide is concerned. He wrote this long comment about how he didn't feel sympathy for people who committed suicide, he felt sympathy for the people they left behind. He felt that people who commit suicide are weak and cowardly, and then he went on a tangent about how he had been bullied and molested but he forgave his abuser and he never committed suicide, so why could these people not do the same and realize that whatever higher power they believe in has put them here for a purpose.

And then he went on about how he has lost 368 pounds and his health is sooo much better (except it really isn't, he still has the same underlying issues, he's just thinner so he doesn't get the same ration of shit from the doctor anymore.) I had to hold back from saying "ah yes, your weight loss. Great. What do you want, a cookie? Oh, I'm sorry, that's probably not on your diet. So, I'll eat it for you."

I said that I was sorry that he had endured such a hard life and it was good that he was able to overcome his adversities, but everyone is not wired the same and I was distressed that he seemed so unable to muster any sort of sympathy for people who were unable to go on. I said that I did not feel that my cousin was a weak person for committing suicide after many years of fighting severe depression with no relief. I said that some people are better able to withstand adversity than others, for a variety of reasons. I then said that maybe he was somehow superior because he had come through adversity without attempting suicide, but that doesn't mean that people who aren't able to do so are lesser.

Initially, I didn't unfriend him, but then I realized that I always dreaded interacting with him since he began his "weight loss journey." After about an hour of deliberating (okay, wrestling with myself) I made the decision to cut ties with him. I told him that I felt no animosity towards him but I couldn't be friends with someone who could not muster the least bit of sympathy for people whose despair led them to a desperate act. 

I opened up about a gruesome suicide scene which was burned in my mind and gave me years of PTSD. I said I never hated the person who caused this memory. He was autistic, had brain damage from an incident where he was so severely beaten by his bullies that he nearly died, and had other serious mental health issues, including severe depression. This guy fought on as long and as hard as he could, but eventually, he couldn't anymore. I was angry at him for a time, yes. But I never for even a minute thought that he was weak or selfish or cowardly.

I've lost several people to suicide. I'm willing to realize that people are ignorant about this issue and to educate them, but when you express that much vehemence towards a person who was obviously in a great deal of psychological pain, there is too much of an empathy deficit, and I can't maintain a friendship with people who hold such beliefs.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Suicide Victims are Not Weak, Selfish, or Cowards

I just made something of a difficult decision to unfriend someone who has been an online friend for about 12 years. I didn't block this person, I don't hate them, but I really can't be friends with someone who expresses harsh opinions of people who commit suicide and is not willing to attempt to have sympathy for those who have made this desperate decision. 

Trigger warning for discussion of suicide and severe trauma

 Not everyone is wired exactly the same way. Some people naturally bear up under adversity better than others. Those who can't manage to get through are not bad people.

One of the experiences which caused me PTSD for years was the sight of a young autistic and severely mentally ill man with brain damage who could no longer continue the struggle and who blew the front of his forehead off with a shotgun.

 For years not a day went by that I didn't see that image in my mind. I never hated him for it. Most people had no idea the struggles this guy went through. The day came that he couldn't do it anymore.

I had to "flatten" the image and desensitize it so I would stop thinking of it all the time. It's the same thing I had to do with the last time I saw my father. He was a shell of his former self, lying in the bed in the hospice, not breathing and not moving. I was very stoic and didn't cry. I knew I would never see him again in this life when I left the room, but I had to leave. I was a zombie. I dreamed of that image of him and I didn't want to remember him that way, so I had to flatten the image in my mind.

When a person commits suicide, it causes trauma to those left behind. It's fair to be mad at the person. It's not fair to say they were weak or selfish or a coward.

Also, not everyone responds to the "magic pills" in the same way. Some people do very well with antidepressants, but not everyone is wired the same. My son had no response to them at all. For me, they made me manic and psychotic. I had a cousin who tried many medications and didn't respond to any of them. She ended up committing suicide. She was not weak, selfish, or a coward. She was at the end of the line and couldn't go on another day. What she did does not make her a bad person.

There is this tendency to believe that people who live with mood disorders aren't "trying hard enough." In fact, few people try harder to overcome their "stinkin' thinkin'" than people with mood disorders. If it was easy to break out of depression, nobody would be depressed. Who the fuck WANTS to be depressed?

Happy people are not "better" than people who are unable to be happy. I can count on one hand the times I've truly felt happy. I've been giddy, which is not the same as being happy. There is a peace that comes with actual happiness. Giddiness is a form of mania.

My baseline is moderately depressed. Over the past few years, I've realized that doesn't make me a lesser person than someone who is always happy. It is highly unlikely that I will ever become a person who isn't always at least a bit sad. This realization has lessened the suicide ideation to a degree, but the suicide ideation will also always be there. I don't need to "heal" and become a "bright light" to be worthy of respect and good treatment. If you believe in a higher power, maybe us "dark" sorts serve a purpose just as much as the social butterflies. Introspective people have a tendency to be both observant and empathic. That's hardly a bad thing.

If I commit suicide, it probably won't be because of my mood disorder. I can't say I'm friends with my mood disorder, but we've reached an understanding. I won't continually try to eradicate it, and it will quit trying to kill me.

No, if I commit suicide it will be because I am either in an intolerable state of physical pain or because I have developed dementia. If that happens, I will not tell anyone before I do it, I will just do it. No-one will know until after the fact. 

I would never say that someone who committed suicide for this (or any other) reason is "weak," "selfish," or a "coward.

If you're a person who can continue on in spite of adversity, great. Maybe that makes you a "better person" in some ways. But it doesn't make people who can't bad people who should be treated with disdain. 

A little empathy is in order. Maybe if you can't muster any, you should be questioning why your beliefs about people who are suffering are so harsh.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: The Media Throws Mentally Ill People Under the Bus Again

 chiripepe

The shooter was an old white dude. In before crazy online history is exposed with all that white nationalism bullshit or whatever this type gets into. They’re already actively framing him as being mentally ill, which is the treatment white terrorists always get. Pay close attention to how this man’s act of mass murder and terrorism gets framed by the media and pundits.

 wincestshippingtrash

Next: those of us who live with mental illness will have to put up with the bullcrap of people talking about mental illness as if the only form of it that exists is dangerous psychosis.

Most people with mental illness are not dangerous.

People with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

Most people with mental illness do not present with obvious signs of psychiatric issues to the general public. The most common type of mental illness is mood disorders with unipolar depression being the most common mood disorder. Regarding bipolar disorder, people who have type 2 do not present with psychotic features. People with type 1 may or may not present with psychotic features. In other words, most people with bipolar disorder do not stand out significantly either. 

Most people with disorders with psychosis, such as schizophrenia, are not dangerous either.

It is highly unlikely that this individual was psychotic.

I am extremely tired of evil behavior being excused as “mental illness.” All this does is hurt people who actually live with mental illness, most of whom are not dangerous and are already having a hard enough time as it is in a world which has little compassion for imperfect specimens.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Notes:

Wincestshippingtrash.tumblr.com is my Supernatural fandom/fanfiction blog on Tumblr. It is often NSFW and generally isn't political. I reblogged this piece there and commented on it because it is my Tumblr (and, in fact, my blog across all platforms) with the biggest audience.

The Cheese Grates It: The Old Tired Wal-Mart Gag

So, this was in an acquaintance's feed, and I was livid. I stated that I didn't find it the least bit funny as this is the sort of thing that someone with dementia or a severe mental illness might do. I also stated that the "Wal Mart" stereotype was pretty old and tired. In the area where I live, Wal Mart is one of the few options. You know who goes to Wal Mart in my area? People. Just...people. Maybe because I'm not a judgmental douchebag I don't pay them much mind, but nobody has ever really stood out.

This image was also upsetting to me as dementia has had a strong impact on my life in the past several years in particular. I used to work with geriatric patients but had to get out of the field because it was becoming too personal. My father had vascular dementia at the time of his death. My aunt has Alzheimer's and my uncle is trying to continue caring for her, but it's becoming more and more difficult. She spends much of the night dressing and undressing repeatedly and trying doors to see if she can get in or out.

Dementia also began robbing someone not related but still very dear to me of his mind when he was only 55 years old. He now remembers nothing about his life, including those he was close to.

So I don't find this sort of thing amusing. There is something amiss with this person's mind. They are almost certainly living in poverty. None of these things are funny.

The person who posted that crap also posted this and several others. I commented, "yep, because big people and handicapped people shouldn't be allowed to have friends or fun." Then I unfriended her shallow ass.

We all know that being my Facebook friend is a special privilege reserved only for the elite.

Yeah, right.

In truth, it's fairly hard to piss me off enough to get unfriended. I unfollowed a number of people due to their Lord Dampnut support but didn't unfriend them.

However, if you think it's totes hilarious to post demeaning images of an impoverished elderly person who obviously has a severe cognitive or psychiatric impairment and caption it with something along the lines of "hurr hurr hurr, Wal Mart shoppers, amirite?"

...and then when someone states that it really is not funny to ridicule people with dementia or severe psychiatric illness or people living in poverty...

you follow that so hilarious image up with images ridiculing fat people and handicapped people because hurr hurr hurr Wal Mart shoppers, amirite?

You can bet I'm gonna unfriend your unsympathetic, bullying ass.

We have plenty of shitty politicians whose awful policies and behaviors we can ridicule from sunup to sundown. Ridiculing the mentally and physically impaired and those whose bodies are viewed as unattractive in a society which has a very narrow view of beauty is quite simply a crappy thing to do, and I am not going to associate with the sorts of people whose idea of a good time is belittling others, especially those whose lives are hellish on a daily basis anyway.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Not a Defective Product

People who live with mood disorders or other mental illness are not some sort of lesser being. I get tired of posts/statements which attack those of us who do. 

For some of us, we've simply learned to live with it. 

I can't tolerate the medications, the "cure" is worse than the disease. 

Therapy never worked for me, it costs too damn much and I never found a therapist with whom I resonated anyway. 

Sometimes a person just has to vent. I don't do so any more in forums such as those found on Facebook because I know I'm going to get more of the "have you tried medication" crap that I've heard forever and a day than receiving any sort of encouragement or "atta girl", which can be really helpful but I'm old enough to know that it's damn rare. 

There are some of us for whom the "status quo" methods don't work. For me, I've resigned myself to the fact that I will always have a mood disorder in this life, and that the prevalent symptom in my particular flavor of mood disorder is depression. 

Maybe I'm broken, maybe to a great degree, but I am not lesser or a "defective product." I refuse to let people convince me that I am any more just so they can try to make themselves out to be superior somehow.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Moving Target

A response to the article "Stop Asking Me to Have Sympathy for the White Working Class."

I happen to be white, and I'm heterosexual. That's pretty much where my privilege ends. In most ways, I'm a target. I'm an older woman. I'm a big person in a society that hates big people. I'm mentally ill.

I am not a target in the same way that non-white people are a target, but I am still a target of prejudice and hatred for people who enjoy making others' lives miserable.

I also happen to not have voted for the Bully in Chief. I am one of those people being told to "get over it" and "stop acting childish" because I will never refer to him as President.

I am part of the working class. I work a skilled job (nursing) and make a little over $30,000 a year, although I often work 60 hours a week.

I am unsure how people in the working class can think that electing this racist, misogynist, xenophobic fascist can possibly benefit anyone but his fellow millionaires. He doesn't have sympathy for any of us. We're a big joke to him.

Yet I know people who I consider to be otherwise good people who truly believe that he is the best thing for our country. They stand against bullying, yet they voted for the biggest bully imaginable. They excuse him talking about grabbing women "by the pussy" because he "apologized for it." As if his apology had a grain of sincerity. If folks are that gullible, I'd like to discuss a little beachfront property in the Gobi desert with them. I can get them into it at a very reasonable price.

I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I'm smart enough to spot an obviously insincere con artist. I'd like to say that Don the Con pulled the wool over this country's eyes. In some cases, that's what happened. Sadly, in all too many other cases, his appeal was making America safe to hate again.

Adding on to the above comment:

I understand people's criticisms of Clinton as a candidate. She was not my first choice. I was in the "I'm with her because she's not him" camp. It was a "lesser of two evils" vote. I understand the people who voted third party because they couldn't stomach either candidate.

People like to claim that third party voters betrayed us all and got the Bully in Chief elected. In fact, Clinton won the popular vote. The Electoral College put the Cheeto Demagogue at the helm of the ship. This archaic system needs to be abolished. Presidential elections should be decided by popular vote.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: How Does One "Act Like They're Mentally Ill" Exactly?

“What is wrong with your staff they act mentally ill hiding from customers that come in behind the counter. Eric get some real employees “

This is an actual Yelp review of a restaurant in my area. I reported it due to its insensitive language.

The reviewer could have said the employees were rude or behaved strangely rather than insulting the millions of people who live with mental illness.

Most people living with mental illness do not present with outrageous behaviors. We suffer in silence because of intolerance for people like us.

Time to stop the stigma.

 

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~