Gifts of encouragement

New messages from people out there, whom I have never met. Gifts in the mail and online that are sources of encouragement for me. I DEEPLY NEED THIS. Maybe everyone does. But certainly those of us who are mentally ill/extra sensitive need this especially.

I received a lovely gift, a blank journal with quotes from Anais Nin, from a young woman whose work I decided to support, sight unseen, in the Caribbean. And people here and at firedoglake seem to feel that my being very open about my mental struggles gives them some hope. Not sure how that works but hey go for it!

We are in a transitional generation in our understanding of mental illness.

Diagnoses are missing or wrong. Medicines---please don't get me started on their inadequacies, yet medicine is one of our powerful weapons for fighting this darkness.

There should be no shame in taking medicine for mental illness. Would you feel bad about taking insulin, if you had diabetes? We are struggling with something that has not only a psychological component, but a physiological one. If medicine helps you, please accept this great gift.

Doctors don't get it, or if they do, don't help us enough [insert another really long rant here...I'll do it in the future].

Our families and communities are baffled by our strange behavior. We can stifle all the time or we can freely be ourselves and have others declare us weird.

Quote from someone on a parallel journey, I don't know how much you wish to be public/private so won't give your nom de plume:

"I've purged myself of most of my epic self-destruction, but lost my drive and purpose in the process. I've just recently come to the conclusion that it is all me, the highs and the lows, I'm the same person and I need to integrate rather than hiding from the trail of spectacular failures that make me doubt my value in this world."

Thank you for sharing this very personal and sensitive view. Are you the person looking back at me in the mirror? Because this is how I feel.

We have much to offer the world. If we don't feel too humiliated and overwhelmed to participate.

At a time when normal thinking isn't working very well for us, maybe those of us who always think outside the envelope will have some answers.