Joey Pantoliano Speaks Out Against Stigma

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Joe Pantoliano is the founder and president of "No Kidding, Me Too!"  For more information on the work being done there and a link to a trailer for an upcoming documentary, visit the website home page at NKM2.org.

I like to visit there and read and watch the videos to help me remember that I am part of a community, that there are others who understand what I feel and experience.

Nice Axe

Nice axe, originally uploaded by Lonnon Foster.

We are unemployed.

Driving on Overload

Here is a picture of how I'm feeling lately. Thank you for asking.

Manic again.   Lots going on inside this brain.

A thank you to maxw for sharing this photo in Creative Commons on Flickr.com.

The Need for a Predictable Life

A thank you to _aeb for sharing her drawing in Creative Commons on  flickr.

From Matters of the Mind*:

     "Some suggestions for helping others cope with bipolar illness include the following:

          "Create a low-stress, comfortable environment.  Keep sensory stimulation, such as noise, at a low level.  Keep life predictable." 

I guess it is no wonder that I am feeling depressed again, with a lay-off notice looming over our heads, scheduled to show up this Friday.  Kind people are helping in every way possible to keep it from happening.  I feel blessed so much, too, for savings in the bank, for food in the pantry, for the help of friends and of heaven.  

But I do think that I will be healthier when life is more predictable once more.

*Matters of the Mind:  Latter-day Saint Helps for Mental Health, Edited by Marleen S. Williams, Ph.D., W. Dean Belnap, M.D., John P. Liningstone, Ed.D., Deseret Book, Salt lake City, Utah, 2008, page 164.

"Everybody Deserves a Roof"

A thank you to franco folini for sharing this photograph on flickr.

As I wrote about on this blog before, I feel a great affinity with the homeless among us. I particularly empathize with a need to have more privacy than what is afforded by a homeless shelter. I was heartened, therefore, to find this website about the EDAR (Everybody Deserves a Roof) project. You may want to go visit the site and see and read more there. Here is bit of history.

"Peter Samuelson began counting the homeless people on his bicycle route from Westwood, Los Angeles to the beach in Santa Monica and return. There were 62 homeless people on those streets, including many women and several children. Peter interviewed all 62 of them and then conceptualized a mobile single-person device that would facilitate recycling (a principal source of income for many who are homeless) by day and at night convert into a dry, safe tent-like enclosure for sleeping, raised off the concrete, with privacy and storage space.

"Peter sponsored an EDAR design competition at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design. As a result, Peter met designers Eric Lindeman and Jason Zasa, who won the prize, and they have been working pro bono ever since. Wire design and fabrication have been provided free of charge by John Ondrasic and Mike Orozco of Precision Wire Inc."

(Read more here.)

Divine Design

"Now, as you and I look at our lives . . . , we sometimes do not understand that through which we are passing, but, being submissive, we can trust Him.

"The day will come, brothers and sisters, when the tapestry of your life will be unfolded, and you will see divine design all though it, and praise God for the experience and the tutoring which, in His goodness, He has given you"

(Neal A. Maxwell, "Willing to Submit" [address given at BYU-Hawaii devotional, 9 Feb. 1988, p.8).

A thank you to Whatknot for sharing this photo on flickr.

Like a Submissive Child

"Those who submit like a child do it because they know that the Father wants only the happiness of His children and that only He knows the way. That is the testimony we must have to keep praying like a submissive child, in the good times as well as the times of trouble.

"With that faith, we will be able to pray for what we want and appreciate whatever we get."

--Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in Conference Report, October 2001 or Ensign November 2001

With thanks to Collin Key for sharing this photo on flickr.

"Depression: They Just Don't Get It"

There is an excellent blog post today by Therese J. Borchard titled "Depression: They Just Don't Get It." Here is an excerpt:

"I was both enraged and saddened that friends and family were shocked to hear that two doctors sliced me open — before full anesthesia kicked in — to save little David’s life in an emergency C-section. Yet when I voiced the desperation of depression — which made the knife cut feel like a knee scratch — they often brushed it off, as if I were whining to win some undeserved sympathy votes.

But I should know better. Most people don’t get it. And the day I get that through my head I’ll be less disappointed."

See the full post here.

Photo by pulpolux.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways, saith the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." --Isaiah 55:8-9

I am so thankful today to know that the Lord is mindful of my family and has a plan for our good.

My husband received difficult news yesterday:
As of May 22nd, we will join the ranks of the unemployed.

A thank you to James Jordan for sharing this photograph on flickr.