isabella mori's Blog

Change Something: Mental Illness, Drugs, Homelessness, Poverty

isabella mori — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:21:01 -0700

“Mental health is the ability to meet our obligations and challenges; adapt to change and adversity; share, not hoard; give credit, not blame; relate well to others; lead by example.”

What if, because of mental illness, we cannot always meet these criteria? What if, like Geoffrey Reaume, a person is “zonked out all the time”? What if mental illness leads to homelessness? What if a person is met by adversity and is unable to deal with the paperwork that would help alleviate it?

That’s when help is needed. And that’s why I keep rooting for the CMHA to receive $1,000.

Mental health is perhaps our most precious good. With our mental health looked after (I hesitate to say “intact” because to some degree, none of us is in perfect mental health), it’s easier to be of service in other areas – from environmental issues to the plight of abandoned pets to literacy in Africa.

Read on to hear Geoffrey Reaume’s story, about homelessness and mental health advocacy.

Activists say treatment for mental illness is too often more about the pills than the person

Geoffrey Reaume was 21 when he headed for the Dominican Republic with a youth group and a secret.

It was the summer of 1983. For seven years, Reaume had been taking chlorpromazine, a drug prescribed to people diagnosed with schizophrenia. For seven years, he had also endured the drug's side effects.

"I was zonked out, tired all the time" he recalls. "People were always asking if I just got back from Florida because the skin on my face was all red."

Silenced by the stigma associated with any diagnosis of mental illness, Reaume, who now teaches at York University, couldn't bring himself to tell anyone what he was going through. "I was scared but I wanted to try to wean myself off the drug," he recalls.

For the rest of the story, go here

Homeless hospitalized more often for mental illness: study
10,000 people in Canada are homeless on any given night

Homeless people in Canada have more mental health problems than the rest of the population, leading to higher hospitalization rates, says a new report released Thursday.

Mental disorders accounted for 52 per cent of acute care hospitalizations among the homeless in 2005-2006, said the report, released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Change Something: Mental illness and Powerful Forces

isabella mori — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:57:32 -0700

A strange-looking man. He is alone, he is lonely. He is big and strong and does things that seem to upset people. He feels misunderstand. He sounds melancholy.

Then one day, someone sees his potential, and everything changes.

Watch this video, and feel the breeze of inspiration ... a beautiful, moving and poetic metaphor for so much of the change that is needed in this world.

(Thanks to Friday's Child for pointing me there.)

Change Something: The Lives of People with Mental Illness

isabella mori — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:39:38 -0700

I have to confess that I haven’t blogged much here on this site but when I got the challenge to “change something” I just had to come back!

There are many things in this world that need changing, and many that I feel quite strongly about.

However, one of the issues closest to my heart is mental health. Close to my heart, mind and spirit.

And the Canadian Mental Health Association here in the Vancouver/Burnaby area is the one that I think works the hardest and best at it.

Let me come right out and tell you that I’m part of their board of directors. But you see, I’m part of the board because it is such a great organization.

Mental health is one of the “invisible” disabilities, like deafness or chronic pain. On one level that means that you literally can’t see it. On another, it means that it’s often hard to understand. And human beings have a tendency to be afraid of things they don’t understand.

Take schizophrenia, for example. People who haven’t been affected by it, either themselves or through a friend or loved one, have a lot of misconceptions about it, for example that many people with schizophrenia are violent, or that schizophrenia makes you so “crazy” that you simply can’t work.

One of the things CMHA does is to work on dispelling these myths, on getting rid of the stigma.

It’s really mind-boggling when you think of it. At least 20% of the population has had a run-in with mental illness. That means that at least 40% of the population has been touched by it.

Yet it is never talked about.

How often do you hear someone casually mentioning that they haven’t been so well lately because they’re having a bout of depression? Or that they won’t be able to attend a party because their agoraphobia is acting up?

Never, i’d guess. Or very, very rarely.

Can you imagine what it’s like to suffer from these illnesses and having to hide them?

That needs to stop.

One of the ways CMHA is working on this is through an award-winning program, Mental Illness First Aid or MIFA.

MIFA is an exciting new course designed for people who want to gain a better understanding of mental illnesses and develop basic skills to deal with concerns arising from a mental illness.

MIFA is based on the premise of physical first aid – students learn an ABC framework for how to respond to someone experiencing mental distress. MIFA provides information on depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, suicide intervention. Just as with physical illnesses, in a mental illness, early intervention leads to faster recovery.

Today, people who suffer from mental illness are often in a perpetual state of crisis. So much of this is preventable – with better community care, destigmatization, more housing, less systemic poverty … and it is something that affects us all. Even if you have never been touched personally by mental illness, just think of the Downtown Eastside.

A significant percentage of the people who life in abject poverty are people who do not receive enough support to lead the productive lives that they CAN lead despite their illness. As someone who has worked for many years in the Downtown Eastside I speak from experience. Often it doesn’t take that much to provide this support.

CMHA responds to this crisis of mental illness in our community with a unique set of wide-ranging services - from prevention, education, and information services, right through to rehabilitation and community support to those recovering from illness.

This organization has a track record of developing many of the most innovative and effective new approaches available in the community today. Those of you who know me know that’s one of the reasons I’m part of it – when it comes to innovation, I’m right there.

Interested? Ok, I can’t help it, here is a pitch:

The CMHA has a one-hour breakfast event on October 3 where they will showcase their work. On top of a scrumptious meal at the Marriott Pinnacle, you’ll get tons of information, as well as first-hand stories from people who share how they’re coping and thriving despite mental illness. If you’d like to come, email me at moritherapy at shaw dot ca.

And if you can't make it to the breakfast, read these recovery stories here. Then you'll know what I'm talking about.

a book written by someone who couldn't read

isabella mori — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:47:39 -0800

have you ever had difficulties reading, writing, or doing math? do you sometimes find it very challenging to organize your thoughts? have you ever had a hard time telling time, or telling left from right?

if so, maybe you're one of the 20% of north americans who are alternative learners.

they used to be called people with learning disabilities, or slow learners, or dyslexics.

tina mcinerney just calls them "alternative learners." for many years, much of reading and writing just eluded her.

and then one day, she got it. one day it clicked for her. a lot of it had to do with feeling confident that she COULD learn it.

now, tina is working on a beautiful book. it's called "the truth about reading." i want to help her write this book. if you'd be interested in that, too, go to her project at give meaning.

100 mile breakfast

isabella mori — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:14:52 -0800

okay, so here is my report from libby davies’ 100 mile breakfast.

it was a raging success! pondok indonesia restaurant seats maybe 35 people at best – but there was standing room only! at one point, there was so little room that this poor palm tree was put out into the freezing (but stunningly beautiful) morning air to make more room for humans. (hmmm … would that be a metaphor?)

the breakfast was fantastic, consisting of food grown and produced within 100 miles or less of commercial drive – hash browns, corn fritters, smoked salmon and blueberries. the delicious blueberries were from formosa blueberry farms , a farm in maple ridge fighting against a highway project scheduled to be built right through their farmland.

it was good to meet karun koernig of the environmental youth alliance . we briefly talked about one of my pet topics – composting. apparently they have a project right now where they take some of the food donated to the downtown eastside which couldn’t make its way quick enough to the consumer and is beginning to rot to strathcona community gardens for composting. right on! and if you’ve never been to that garden, get yourself over there, it is a magical place in the midst of the city.

i also met arno from the vancouver area cycling coalition . it was inspiring to talk to him – maybe that’ll bring me closer to my hopes of getting myself one of those electric bikes – great for people like me who like to be respectful to the environment, like to exercise a bit, but are just so not into the heavy workouts needed to careen up and down our hills here.

and best of all, going to this breakfast made me think of another change i could help bring about … so stay tuned …

alternative learners

isabella mori — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:51:32 -0800

yesterday, tina mcinerney and i did another presentation for the society for the immediate awareness of alternative learning.

quite the name, huh?

we raise awareness of the fact that people who are labeled "learning disabled", "dyslexic", "ADD", etc. are often simply people who learn differently.

like winston churchill, for example, or michelangelo, or walt disney.

alternative learners see the world a little differently. for example, when they see a word written on a blackboard and are asked to copy it, they may try to copy it exactly as it is written. an "a" in one font (say, arial) is not the same to them as an "a" in another (times roman, for example).

this gives them unique capabilities and unique difficulties.

rather than shaping them into a poor replica of people who learn the "normal" way, we want to make sure that they can use their gifts and are not hampered by the ways in which they don't fit into restrictive educational molds.

so we give presentations at schools, mostly to parents and teachers.

tina, who is an alternative learner herself, is also working on a fascinating book that charts her experience with going through the school system and with being the parent of two alternative learners.

tina didn't really start mastering reading and writing until quite a while after she finished high school. (yes, she finished high school. like so many other alternative learners, she clowned and weaseled her way through school).

fortunately, she found a way to make friends with letters and numbers. although she still prefers pictures - like here, on her blog.

we're also trying to raise funds for the project, with an interesting new online tool, givemeaning.ca

100 mile breakfast

isabella mori — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:05:34 -0800

on january 11, libby davies, MP for vancouver east, will hold a breakfast with food grown only within 100 miles of vancouver. (time, location - go here)

my involvement with the environmental movement has been spotty. but i've done a little bit (including working for greenpeace for a few years, and writing a column about environmental issues for a small independent newspaper years ago). on the other hand, it's been, what, over 10 years ago that i decided i wanted to eat only organically grown meat, coming from animals who had a relatively good existence before giving up their life for me - and i still haven't done that. so - yeah, spotty.

one of the things i've been thinking about a lot is all the transportation that happens in order to get the simplest things - ketchup, pasta, bread. it's mindboggling when you imagine it. the environmental cost of most of the food we get is phenomenally larger than the monetary cost. i saw that when i checked up on my ecological footprints.

so when there is an opportunity to get a little inspiration to do more for the environment, i'm grateful for it. that's why i'm going to that breakfast.

wild women dancing!

isabella mori — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:06:13 -0800

it was really rainy out today so i couldn't go out for my walk. instead, i put on my bellydancing CD and danced my heart out. it was such a wonderful experience that i thought, hey, let's get a whole bunch of women together and do that! so that's what i'm wanting to do some time this year. probably after i've finally defended and published my thesis.

in the meantime, i'll keep on with my practice and my blog.