The Stigma of Mental Illness

It was with great sadness to hear of the recent death of Mindy McCready at the age of 37.  This troubled young person took her own life just a couple of weeks her boyfriend, David Wilson, took his life.  Her life  aside of being a country music star was in turmoil.  There were accusations that she had actually killed her boyfriend and McCready felt the investigating sheriff was on a witch hunt.  The underlying problem in this case was mental illness and addiction with the failure to seek help due to the embarrassment and stigma of mental illness.

Addictions are in some ways a coping mechanism for dealing with mental illness.  Folks learn from a very early age that self medication via alcohol, OTC or prescription drugs, or illicit drugs eases the pain enough for them to function somewhat in society.  In fact, substance abuse is the number one way to deal with ADHD, ADD or OCD without having to tell any doctor you have a mental problem because there is a stigma with having a mental illness.  Even the doctors look down on those with mental problems!  Then it becomes a vicious cycle because once addiction kicks in there is the stigma of admitting you have an addiction and we all know an addiction is a mental disorder whether or not you have another mental disorder complicating the issue.  

The natural human response is self preservation so even thoughts or acting on suicide is abnormal.  The question is, it is simply abnormal and a sign of desperation or is it a mental illness.  Well, by definition of a successful suicide, the person can't keep repeating the behaviour or be cured from the result so I would not consider the act of suicide itself to be a mental illness.  Now, some have said only the insane would commit suicide.  True, as that goes back to the self preservation argument, but drugs and alcohol can cause a person to hallucinate or hear things that aren't there which could cause them to act on their suicidal thoughts when normally they wouldn't which only means they had addiction problems not necessarily a mental illness.

Society really is to blame, if you ask me.  Society asks too much of the individual but doesn't provide the support yet is quick to judge when the individual cannot meet those expectations.  Society constantly bombards a person with you are too fat, too thin, too ugly, too whatever come to mind and essentially never good enough.  Even if a person knows they have a mental illness, the chances of getting help is slim because if it goes on their medical record they could lose their job.  Good gosh help them if they are a celebrity like McCready if the news of a mental illness gets out to the fans or worse yet to the bloodthirsty, do anything for a dime paparazzi.   Child protective services could be called if a parent has a mental illness that could harm a child and let's face it the legal system is far from a friend to anyone with a mental illness.  Friends and family do treat those with mental illnesses differently.  They become judgmental, critical and even holier than thou because they are better than the one suffering as they aren't mentally ill.  They may become enabler as part of their unmentioned mental illness to keep their family member ill because it does feed into their own mental illness and dependency.  Heck, bullying even at the school age has become so common that kids are committing suicide regardless whether a mental illness has ever been diagnosed.  

Really, the label of the mental illness is just another way to keep people oppressed.  It is a way for society to get rid of the weaker while not taking blame for creating the problem it the first place.  At the same time for this to function for society, society has to convince those with mental illnesses that they are inferior.  They cannot seek or accept help and the only way out is suicide of which society will again judge.  Therein lies the stigma of mental illness...

Traveling in In Climate Weather

We live in beautiful Ontario, Canada.  February and March are always pissy months especially when it come to traveling.  Heck, you can have sunny skies and dry roads easily turn into freezing rain and black ice.  Right now we are getting freezing rain.  This is the time we love to avoid driving if at all possible.  Now, we live in a community without public transit but hubby can walk to the office in about 5 minutes.  I can walk to the grocery store in about the same time.

If we have to travel out of town, if the weather is bad we just post pone it unless we have vacation plans.  Then it is onto plan B.  Most of our traveling to the sunny south is via air BUT we also enjoy traveling by train.  Granted we have to drive to the airport or train station but once there, travel is usually problem free.  We can grab a bit to eat and relax until we meet our destination.  It's a win:win situation that leave us not exhausted from fighting weather conditions when we arrive at our destination

Onto Round Two

Well, I really shouldn't say round two as round one is still hanging in there.  There is a horrid cold strain going around and I managed to catch it despite avoiding people like the plague, frequently washing my hands and not touching my face.  This is what at best I can describe as being a cold/flu hybrid as it has symptoms of a cold, the worst coughing fits ever producing a burning searing pins and needles sensation, mild gastointestinal upset, overall achy and yet no fever.  There's been some night sweats but that's it as far as fever and since I've had them before, I doubt they are related to this illness.  My cheeks are a bright red and according to others I look sick (nice complement) and the best compliment ever is I look pasty.

I am taking a tremendous amount of dietary supplements so now we wait and wait for this blasted illness to break..................

The Sick Factor

During the worst of my recent cold symptoms, I called my doctor to get evaluated, actually as soon as the coughing led to vomiting.  It was an odd week with her away for a funeral so I could either go to the walk-in clinic (30 minutes away) or to emerg.  Now the thing is I was not running a fever, the classical sign that you are sick.  My cheeks were bright red but no fever so I continued treating at home.  I figured sitting in the comforts of my own home with hot tea was a bit more pleasant than sitting in an emergency waiting room.  So, I called my doctor with an update of my status and the symptoms yesterday.  To which, apparently, there is now a great need to be evaluated.  Go figure!  Most of the symptoms are gone.  My body is beyond sore from the searing pins and needles, my skin is tender to the touch but other than that I feel just fine and I'm looking good too. At any rate, she would like to see me NOW.  Honestly, I feel no reason to go but perhaps there is something I am missing.  So I will humour her just a tad and hopefully in the end find out what caused that horrible searing pins and needles sensation!

The Cold From H E Double Hockey Sticks!

I'm just getting over a cold.  It didn't present like a cold.  In fact, it presented as a sore neck so I thought I had aggravated an old injury.  The sore neck gave way to a horrible sore throat.  A week ago Monday, the coughing started and there came my nightmare.  The coughing started suddenly making me feel my lungs were going to explode along with a beyond painful sensation of searing pins and needles (paresthesias) throughout my body.  For the next two days, I experienced that horrible sensation with each coughing fit followed by vomiting.  The sensation was a bring tears to your eyes worse than childbirth pain.  Once the cough settled down somewhat the residual effects of that searing pain remained so even today, I have some rather tender to the touch spots.  I'm still troubleshooting to find out what caused the pain.  I'm telling you this was the worst cold I have ever experienced and believe me I have had a few doosies.  And it was a cold because over the 11 day duration, I did not have a fever.

Be warned, there is a horrid strain of whooping cough going around.  Now this was not whooping cough as there was no fever or the tell tale whoop sound but it was brutal!  There is also a very nasty and very aggressive flu strain going around.  So do take a few preventative measures to stay healthy and happy during this cold and flu season.

A Recap on 2012

Well, for the most part I think 2012 came up slapped me in the arse, twisted me around and said thank-you very much.  It was about the oddest year even though we made a lot of progress.  Life is good and it is really beyond being good so I can't complain.  Even though we were adjusting to our new home, we did a lot of renovations, travelled more, entertained more and life was basically good.  Just 2012 was odd.

I had an injury accident that saw me off my feet for about 3 weeks.  Then hubby came down with a gastrointestinal upset that put him in the hospital for five days.  He very seldom gets sick but when he does, he does it good!  The weather was off the entire summer and the first time we took the boat out we took out the outdrive, again.  We used the boat twice meaning it was a costly toy.  The decision has been made to sell the boat.  End of.  That was made a bit easier by a new acquisition last week.

So, looking back at 2012 the only word that works is odd.  Good but odd.....

Blog Your Blessing Sunday - The Retiring of a Meme

I have been doing Blog Your Blessings Sunday for almost 7 years now.  I can't believe it has been that long.  I started out participating in the BYBS, the brainchild of Neoblue Panther.  At that time there was a good following.  Over the years it has dropped to no following.  In fact, I haven't seen any of the originals that are still blogging, and many of them have moved on so are no longer blogging, still using BYBS.  I guess it is time for me to move on as well.

BYBS was always meant to be a way of acknowledging your blessings throughout the week, as small as they may be.  I absolutely loved and still do love the concept.  Being thankful for blessings as they come keeps us humble, always thankful for those good things in life, regardless of how small or insignificant they may seem.

I have been very blessed to be able to share the blessings in my life with you over the the past few years.  I am retiring BYBS but that doesn't mean I won't replace it with a regular feature but I'm not sure yet.  I have really enjoyed the BYBS posts.  Adios, fair well and to all those treasuring their blessing, I hope in some small way my weekly posts have helped.

2012 Draws to a Close

My gosh, it has been a very eventful year for us even though it really hasn't been reflected on this blog.  The bottom line is, I author six blogs BUT life events resulted in me losing a bit of my blogging mojo.  Somehow, the simplest task of editing a picture for the blog became a huge chore I just couldn't do.  Now, I know that sounds funny but I've been blogging for over six years now and with six blogs that for quite some time were getting daily updates, perhaps I burned myself out.  Or perhaps spending time at our vacation home and not wanting to be on the computer all the time contributed to the problem.  But is was the the first year in our new home so there was a lot to do, I had a nasty slip and fall in February and my husband was hospitalized for five days with an unknown gastrointestinal problem in August.

I have a few plans for this blog in 2013.  I really do love the idea of Blog Your Blessings Sunday but most of the original participants are long gone, bloggers on the blogrolll have quite blogging and I think even the founder no longer participates.  It was a wonderful blogging concept that just ran its time then fizzed.  Clearly that is something I will need to change in the up coming year.  I will likely make a new graphic and rename the Sunday posts to reflect that even in the bad times, there are blessings.  The Wordless Wednesday posts are always great even though I have be slack of late but I think I'm going to keep them in another form.  Originally, Wordless Wednesday was started by bloggers to post a picture that says a million words without anything added.  It not like any of the Wordless Wednesday crowd ever acknowledges me so I suppose renaming them wouldn't be a huge issue, so maybe I will rename it to my pic of the week.  

So expect a few changes in the posts, perhaps the introduction of a couple of regular posts and the modification of two of the regular posts.  I will be doing a bit of background tweaking but for the most part you shouldn't see anything.  I'm looking forward to a brand new year with a few changes and hopefully getting this blog back on track :)

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Remembrance Day 2012

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, a day we honour those who have served our country and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to serve our country.  Because of them, we are free!  We have the freedom to do pretty much anything we want in our beautiful country as long as it is legal. We are blessed to be able to freely move about our country and travel outside our country.  We are beyond blessed to live in a country of abundance that our veterans fought so hard for and continue to do so.

November in our little corner of Ontario, Canada is always dull and grey.  It's rare that the sun peeks it's way through.  November 11 quite often is very cold, rainy or snowing.  It never is pleasant weather to be out in for things like Remembrance Day services.  In perspective, our veterans had no choice whether or not they wanted to be out in the weather.  They couldn't just say 'Hey sarge, I'm taking a sick day.' or 'This weather is going mess my hairdo.' or any number of excuses we, who live in a free country can come up with for not going to a Remembrance Day service.  We are beyond blessed to have folks who serve our country proudly, unselfishly and so giving of themselves  to make it a better place for all of us.  Lest we forget...

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

WE SHALL KEEP THE FAITH
An answer to Lt.Col John McCrae by Moina Michael - 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders' Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders' Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders' Fields.

---

IN FLANDERS NOW
An answer to Lt.Col John McCrae by Edna Jaques

We have kept faith, ye Flanders' dead,
Sleep well beneath those poppies red,
That mark your place.
The torch your dying hands did throw,
We've held it high before the foe,
And answered bitter blow for blow,
In Flanders' fields.

And where your heroes' blood was spilled,
The guns are now forever stilled,
And silent grown.
There is no moaning of the slain,
There is no cry of tortured pain,
And blood will never flow again
In Flanders' fields.

Forever holy in our sight
Shall be those crosses gleaming white,
That guard your sleep.
Rest you in peace, the task is done,
The fight you left us we have won.
And "Peace on Earth" has just begun
In Flanders' now.

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Home From Vacation

We spend a considerable amount of time between September and the end of December at our vacation home in sunny Florida.  We flew out to Florida on October 2 and returned home on October 23.  It was wonderful to get away!  Family joined us for the first week followed by friends the second week then we spent two days at Disney World with our oldest and spouse before finishing up our vacation by ourselves.   We arrived home in the early morning hours of October 24, happy but beyond exhausted.  It had been a funny vacation in that we were on the go almost non-stop plus we had to deal with a couple of problems there but that is to be expected any time you own property.  It didn't help that I was physically under the weather most of the three weeks.

At any rate we had a wonderful time.  We spent time with family and friends, ate a lot of great food and just all around enjoyed ourselves.  We are very much looking forward to our return to our vacation home shortly.  For now, we are enjoying the peace and quiet of being home.  Both of us are exhausted but we have a couple of weeks to recoup before heading back to our vacation home.

Bell Canada Frustrations

The other day I got a call from Bell Canada.  The person on the other end said 'I'm so and so from Bell.  I need your account password to discuss your account with you.'  Now, our account is not nor has been in arrears and Bell does have internet service so you would think asking for an account password.  I told the person I am not comfortable giving my password over the phone.  She was a tad upset but what the heck.  The next day, Bell Canada called again asking for my password.  We have caller ID but this number was not identified as being from Bell.  Again, I declined to give my password.  About 10 minutes later they called again so I asked them for a call back number.

We had been at our vacation home for the past 3 weeks. I am not happy with Bell because we have fought with them all summer over our PVR and believe me that was beyond nasty EVEN though it was their mistake.  This is the same PVR we have been fighting with Bell for almost 2 years.  See, we bought the Vbut the installer gave us a rental  according to the box.  I called Bell and they sent out a different PVR that quit about 2 months later.  We called Bell who sent out another PVR.  When we moved here an incentive for keeping our services with Bell was a free PVR so we said yes.  It never arrived and meanwhile the old PVR quit so we called them again.  They actually gave us a free PVR as part of their loyalty program then sent out another PVR under the replacement program.  We called them to tell them of their mistake and the rep said the PVR under the replacement program was ours to keep.  The following month we get a bill for the PVR under the replacement program that was still in the original packaging.  We called them back.  Despite what the first customer service representative said, we had to send back the PVR sent under the replacement program.  So basically we spent a good portion of our time in August and September dealing with Bell Canada who for whatever reason cannot get things straight!

I checked our call record when we arrived home from our fall vacation.  I saw where this number supposedly from Bell had called us on average of 4 times a day since we were left. They called twice the morning we returned so I called them back to ask what the heck the problem was figuring it was related to the PVR issue.  First I get Emily, Bell's friendly automated answering, click until you  die to find a live person, answering system.  After spending about 10 minutes on the phone with Emily with my temper rising, I finally got through to a customer service agent who  obviously was not in Canada and English was not his first language.  He says which account are you calling about to which I said this one but according to him we have two accounts registered to our house phone.  I told him we only have one account so he had to do this troubleshooting, finally deleting the redundant account.  Come on Bell, how can you be this stupid?  By now my temper was rising.

We don't need Bell Canada.  I think they really don't realize that  even though we have been loyal
Bell customers for over 35 years.  Currently, we have telephone, internet and  television through Bell Canada but that could easily change with one phone call.  I calmly told the rep that I had had enough of dealing with their incompetence for the past three months and if I got one more call from them, I would be taking our services elsewhere.  The ball is in their court but as it stands right now Bell Canada is definitely on notice.  I have had enough of dealing with their nonsense.

Canadian Geese

Canadian Geese
January 2, 2008

The new year has started peacefully surrounded by family, friends and nature. It hold all the promise of a great year ready to unfold all of its wonderment. The Canadian geese have been visiting us lately. They make a lot of noise but it is rather interesting watching their interactions. It is a rather large flock with only about a quarter of it being shown in the photo. Yesterday they were visiting while it was snowing. Such a pretty picture!

Get in the History Books

One of our local radio stations has a cute little jingle they play before announcing their tamed down version of the daily Darwin awards.

History is made by stupid people
So if you want to get in the history books
Do something stupid before you die!

Now if this jingle were true, I should be in a lot of history books! Apparently the trend towards doing stupid things started quite young in life despite being intellectually gifted. From experience, a high IQ does not mean you will not do stupid things. With that in mind I would like to take my noble place in the history books. So I am going to share a few stupid things I've done since being born. Believe me from the looks on my family's faces sometimes to their total speechlessness, I know I am still the queen of doing stupid things! There is seriously nothing better than getting that "I can't believe you did that" look for one of my kids but getting it from my husband is just priceless! I'm sure there will be more stupid things I do in the future so if the authors of the history books are reading, please add me to your biographies.

1. flying - Yes I did attempt this off our back porch with a towel for a cape attached with a safety pin. The outcome was not as expected but did not deter me from trying again and again.
2. horseback riding - Bicycles do not make good substitutes for horses and after going ass over johnny cake trying to use a rope for reins to steer the handlebars, you would have thought I would have learned my lesson. Nope, I did it again with a wooden wagon aka wagon train attached to the bike only to repeat the outcome but with the wagon landing on my head.
   
3. Brussels sprouts - Sorry to inform those new mothers who do not know, Brussels sprouts are not good fodder for homemade baby food. The baby will turn into a giant green volcano! The spill-out will be everywhere for days. Thank goodness we had more than one kid as the first got a heavy dose of stupid things that I'm sure he kept on file to warn his unsuspecting sibs.
   

Blog Mainenance Due to New Blog Signature Image

A few days ago I decided to update my blogs with a new blog signature image to replace the old text based signature. What this meant was creating an image, adding it to the blog HTML then removing the existing signature. That is easier said than done as I know of no easy way to remove the existing signature other than manually. Now, consider I have 6 blogs I am making this change to which means six different images and manually opening each existing post to make the change. On this blog alone there are 1564 posts spanning 63 pages. That is a massive lot of work! At the same time I am adding labels, correcting spelling and adding alt tags where necessary so it is beyond a massive amount of behind the scenes blog tweaking. It is slow going and it is creating a considerable amount of eye strain because it is all coding that I'm going through. The end result will give a better reading experience but it is still a lot of work. So far, two of my blogs have been fully updated and I'm now working on this one. Three more to go and life will be good :)

Getting Posting Back on Track

Oh wow! I did not realize how much my posting here had dropped off. It wasn't intentional, it just sort of happened. Quite frankly, 2012 has been a bad blogging year for me all the way around. Part of that is due to moving here in September of 2011 then spending almost three months spanning three periods at our vacation home in the sunny south. Part of it is due to still unpacking and getting organized combined with necessary new house work. Part is due to do things like painting and dealing with woodworkers, plumbers and those type of things. Believe me they can eat up a week's worth of time in a blink of an eye. Part is due to significantly increasing my home canning to compensate for almost two years of reduced home canning. And part of it is due to sheer exhaustion from a serious injury, a husband hospitalized and life in general. The past year has really been a merry-go-round of chaos. Well, there you have it in a nutshell the reasons for the lack of posts.

It's not that I don't have blog fodder, it is I have too much blog fodder. I haven't even finished writing about our spring vacation to Florida and Aruba yet and here we are gearing up for our fall vacation to the sunny south.

Ok, time to get back into the blogging loop to have a strong finish for the third quarter of 2012. I have added a new signature image to replace the old text base one and am not working through manually removing the text based sig from older posts, correcting spelling and adding label. So there is a lot of behind the scene activity going on. Progress is being made!

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Getting Back to Normal

This past week has been rather hectic between my husband being in the hospital, trips back and forth to the hospital, trying to work home canning around that and life in general.  I am beyond exhausted but so very pleased that my husband was discharged from the hospital earlier this week and is well on the way to a full recovery!  What a wonderful blessing! Oh, and I did manage to home can chili sauce and tomato stock while he was in the hospital.  The past couple of days, I canned salsa and seafood sauce with more tomato stock to be canned today.  It is a blessing to be able to stock our pantry with delicious, additive free, home canned foods!

Blog posts have been rather hit or miss on this blog lately.  I'm working on changing that so you should see more regular posts for the last quarter of 2012.  The biggest change is I have changed from a text based blog signature to an image based one.  It will take me a day or two to remove all the old text based signatures from older posts.  I think the image signature looks a bit classier.  Quite some time ago, I was going to eliminated the Blog Your Blessings Sunday posts.  Most of the original members of the meme have moved on and are no longer participating.  However, it is a good way to remind me to stop and count my blessings so I will likely continue those Sunday posts.  I'm working on a few other changes for this blog just to help get my blogging mojo back as well.  Here's to a strong blogging end for 2012!

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - The Hospital

Despite living in the most populated region of Canada, many communities in southwestern Ontario are under serviced for doctors and many are having their small community hospitals dealing with severe cutbacks combined with threats of closure.  Yes, Dalton McGuinty's government has not been very kind.  Ours is one such community.  Many here including my husband do not have a doctor.  There is no walk-in clinic so our small local hospital's emergency room fills in the void.  It's not ideal and wait times can be long, but it is better than nothing.  Our hospital is facing the chopping block even though we are under serviced.  Many services that were once performed at the hospital (eg. obstetrics, overnight and extended sick care) have been moved to the next largest hospital in the system.  Our hospital has now become a 2 bed overnight and extended sick care, palliative care, emergency care and ambulatory care facility.  The cafeteria offers a meal on Thursdays only but you can get a sandwich, salad or small entré from the vending machine as well as beverages.  It now costs $4 per day to park there.

We try very hard not to abuse the emergency room services.  I have used them for serious injuries requiring x-rays and my husband last used the ER for severe unexplained leg swelling later followed by an unexplained gastrointestinal infection though to have been contracted at one of the airports while traveling.  Last Wednesday, we rushed him to the ER in severe and I do mean severe abdominal pain.  After a blood work, a quick ultra sound, IV (morphine, anti-spasmotic, antibiotics, saline) they admitted him where he remains today.  He has had amazing care!  I have been able to be with him most of the time, driving only a rather short distance (less than 10 minutes) home for a short break and at night to sleep.  They aren't sticklers about visiting hours which is really nice.

We are so very blessed to have such a wonderful hospital that was built by the community, for the community and that is a real asset to the community.  It is too bad that Dalton McGuinty and his cronies want to take it away from us.  Our hospital is a huge part of our community.  It keeps our loved ones in the community, keeps members of our community employed, and strengthens our community by attracting industry.   It provides medical care to an under serviced area that would easily see folks going without medical care if the hospital were closed.   Our community needs our hospital!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Home Canning

We have had a beyond go of it with the weather ranging from extremely high temperatures in March for two weeks (think barefoot and shorts in Ontario, Canada) to drought conditions, high heat and rather nasty, violent storms.  Well, I'm in the midst of restocking our pantry with home canned goodies that were de-pleated with our move last September.  So, I really don't have time for adverse weather conditions that are sending produce prices sky high.  Last week, I focused on yellow corn.  I was very fortunate to find it for $3 a doz about a mile out of town in comparison to the bi-colour corn in town that was going for $6 a dozen, and bi-colour corn just doesn't work well for preserving. 

So I'm in high gear home canning.  It started with cucumbers a couple of weeks ago, now into corn and peaches with a few berries mixed in.  Next will be tomatoes so that will be a very busy time for me.  I am very blessed to have the knowledge and equipment to do this kind of food preservation.  My pantry is filling up.  I'm busy, every bone in my body hurts and yet I am beyond happy!  What an amazing blessing...

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Wordless Wednesday - I Love Aruba

I Love Auba

(Oranjestad, Aruba)

May 14, 2012

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012