STAND-UP COMEDY FOR OUR WELL-BEING

Posted April 30, 2014, at Crazywise by Phil Borges, post by Crazywise co-director, Kevin Tomlinson

One of the most audacious and exciting forms of treatment for our health is laughter. David Granirer of Vancouver B.C. who lives with depression, is a counselor, stand up comic, keynote speaker on mental health and author (The Happy Neurotic, How Fear and Angst Can Lead to Happiness and Success). David founded “Stand Up for Mental Health“, an 8 week stand-up comedy program to people with mental illness as a way of building self-esteem and fighting public stigma. 

Stand Up for Health

Posted at ted.com,  June 2011, Joshua walters

Just Crazy Enough

 

http://www.thejoshuawalters.com/

Joshua Walters is a comedian, poet, educator and performer. He incorporates elements of spoken word and beatbox into his shows in a mash-up of comedy, intimate reflection and unpredictable antics. In the last two years, Walters has performed at theaters and universities throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Finding a Voice, UCLA Broad Art Center, May 6th

Finding a Voice to Silence the Crowd:

Health Through the Arts

Photo Art by Sandra Cheng

Tuesday, May 6^th, 7-8.30 pm at the UCLA 2100A Broad Art Center

Dave Leon, LCSW, Foundation Director of “The Painted Brain” and Jim McGrath, Director of the Imagination Workshop at UCLA Semel Institute, will discuss the work of Imagination Workshop & Painted Brain, both peer-driven creative arts programs for adults with mental health issues.

A 15-minute performance and a Q & A between a psychiatrist and program participant will follow.

Healing through the ARTS

“We heal by entertaining our psyche.” – Denise Maratos

 

Stopping Traffic

Join us on April 13th at 6.30 p.m. for a tour of Leigh McCloskey’s art discovering the Hieroglyph of the Human Soul and a performance by Mary Pat Gleason, as she explores her journey with health in STOPPING TRAFFIC

$20/ticket, use Pay Pal at 310.457.5398, call Carla McCloskey to RSVP, or the Wildflowers’ Movement at 951.638.WELL

at the OLANDAR FOUNDATION in Malibu, click here for directions

 

 

 

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE U.S. CONDEMN FORCED TREATMENT

March 30, 2014

PLEASE email now or CALL TOMORROW EARLY:         SENATORS information HERE

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES DO NOT WANT ANY FORCED “INVOLUNTARY OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT”! IT IS AGAINST HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS UNTIL CONGRESS LISTENS!

Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014, AT 4-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 7-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!

FOR CALIFORNIA PLEASE CALL:

Boxer, Barbara – (D – CA), 112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553,  email DIRECTLY HERE: http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm

Feinstein, Dianne – (D – CA), 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553, email DIRECTLY HERE: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

FOR ALL OTHER STATES PLEASE CALL HERE

Leave a short message:

“I am (name, city). My Senator should NOT vote for a Doc Fix that includes Section 224 of the House bill (HR 4302). Section 224 has nothing to do with Medicare. It would use Federal dollars to pay for forced psychiatric treatment in our communities. Forced treatment is traumatizing. It criminalizes people in crisis. It scares people away from seeking help. It is costly but not effective. Keep Section 224 out of the Doc Fix bill.  (Leave your phone number if you want a return call.) Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY AT 5-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 8-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!

Your voice counts if you make the calls.

From MAD IN AMERICA

March 28, 2014

An array of national mental health and disability advocacy groups joined together today, urging people to contact their senators in protest of a section of a bill rushed through the House of Representatives by voice vote yesterday. Section 224 of HR4302, up for a vote in the Senate on Monday, would subject people in crisis to forced treatment. “In its rush to fix a problem with Medicare, the House passed a bill including a highly controversial program, involuntary outpatient commitment, with no debate and no roll call vote,” said Raymond Bridge, public policy director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, “And it seems that the Senate may pass a version of the House bill including this troublesome provision on Monday.” “This legislation would eliminate initiatives that use evidence-based, voluntary, peer-run services and family supports to help people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses to recover,” said Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D. “It would bring America back to the dark ages before de-institutionalization, when people with mental health conditions languished in institutions, sometimes for life.”

Of further interest:
List of phone numbers for DC offices of U.S. Senators
Research on Outpatient Commitment (Psychrights)
Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders (Cochrane Review)

Contact: Dr. Daniel Fisher, info@ncmhr.org, 877-246-9058, cell: 617-504-0832 (press only) Raymond Bridge, 703-883-7710, raymond.bridge@ncmhr.org

BUT PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SENATORS IN EACH STATE: 

DR. DANIEL FISHER ON MENTAL HEALTH

Dr. Fisher has an M.D., Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the National Empowerment Center and a member of the President’s Commission on “Mental Illness”.  He is one of the few psychiatrists in the country who openly discusses his recovery from mental illness.  He is a role model for others who are struggling to recover and his life dispels the myth that people do not recover from mental issues.

LET US REMEMBER MARTIN L. KING JR. “I call upon you to be maladjusted, maladjusted as the prophet Amos who in the midst of the tragic inequalities of injustice in his day cried out in words that echoes across the generations: ”Let judgment run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

As maladjusted as Lincoln who confronted a nation divided against itself and had the vision to see that the nation could not exist half free, and half slave.

Maladjusted as the — hundreds and thousands — of Negroes, North and South who are determined now to stand up for freedom, willing to face possible violence and possible death, who are willing to stand up and sacrifice and struggle until segregation is a dead reality and until integration is a fact.

Maladjusted as Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery cried out in words of cosmic proportions: ”All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I call upon you to follow this maladjustment. It is through such a maladjustment that we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom, equality and justice.”

Martin Luther King Jr.,     Excerpt:

“There are certain words in the technical vocabulary of every academic discipline that tend after a while to become stereotype and cliches, there is a word in modern psychology which is now probably more familiar than any other words in psychology. It is the word the maladjusted; it is the ringing cry of the new child, psychology — maladjusted.”

When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home

This is an incredible project started by Dr. Paula J. Caplan, a clinical and research psychologist, and an Associate at Harvard University’s DuBois Institute and a past Fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of:  The Myth of Women’s Masochism, They Say You’re Crazy: How the World’s Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who’s Normal, and ten other books. Her articles, essays, and op-eds have appeared in both scholarly and popular publications. 

Thank you for your interest in this work!

Listening is “the art and practice of putting someone else’s speaking, thinking, feeling needs ahead of our own,” wrote Marc Wong in Thank You For Listening.
The Welcome Johnny and Jane Home Project helps veterans heal – and reduces the too-common chasms between veterans and nonveterans – by having one nonveteran at a time simply listen to a veteran from any war. You can become involved by doing one or more sessions, by helping organize others to get involved, or both. Listeners are not therapists, and – except for speaking two sentences – they truly do nothing but listen. However, they do so with 100% of their attention and their whole hearts. Harvard University research has shown that veterans describe this as helpful, and the listeners say it is wonderfully transformative for them.

This is about human connection through the often overlooked but astonishing power of listening. Regardless of the veteran’s politics and the listener’s politics, the sessions are healing.

The three main steps you need to take are becoming familiar with the purpose and guidelines, finding a place to do the session, and finding a veteran who wants to do a session. For more information about how to get involved with the project, click here.

When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home

“He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.”
                                                                                                                                                   – Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Just Imagine…

It was December 8^th, 1980, 33 years ago today. John and Yoko were just returning to their home in The Dakota, the posh apartment building that looms at 1 West 72nd St., in Manhattan. John turned when he heard someone call, “Mr. Lennon!” Mark David Chapman, 25, fired five shots from a .38, into John Lennon’s back. John staggered into the building saying; “I’m shot!” Yoko called for help.

This post is DEDICATED to John Lennon and Nelson Mandela for imagining a world of PEACE and EQUALITY and fighting for this cause until their death. As we continue to fight for HUMAN RIGHTS, let’s always remember and honor our comrades who proceeded us.

My Mood, My Choice Mad in America

“Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.” -Voltaire

in Mad in America    Science, Psychiatry and Community,  Robert Whitiker’s:  http://www.madinamerica.com/

My Mood, My Choice   by Cyndi Roberts

“People are just as happy as they make their minds out to be.” -Abraham Lincoln

I remember, just four years ago, when I was wrapped up in the grips of depression, that this quote made me very angry. I thought it was so absurd that I was in control of my thinking, that happiness was my choice. At the time, I believed I was my diagnosis— which actually was a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder— and that I had no control over it. Doctors told me that I was “sick”, that I had a “brain disease”, and that it was just the way it was for me, and the way it always would be. I also endured severe anxiety that was so intense I wouldn’t leave the house most days and fantasized about death as a way to relieve my suffering.

I believed those doctors and suffered tremendously and silently for the next twelve years, wrapped up in my many addictions and a lifetime of negative thinking. As chance would have it, I started to feel that something was seriously wrong with me, and consulted a naturopathic physician for help. Blood work revealed that I was unhealthy in every way possible and that I had about six months to live before my liver failed completely. It was overloaded with chemicals and toxins from medications and my addictions. Miraculously, my intuition hadn’t been completely silenced after all.

With nothing left to lose, I’d reached the point at which I had to make a choice: to fight, or to give up. Though things seemed to not be going my way, I decided to take back control and make drastic changes in hopes to survive. That’s when yoga, meditation and nutrition came into my life, but first, I had to find a doctor to help me get off the medication I was currently on. The doctor I’d been seeing had refused to help, so I printed out a list of doctors covered by insurance and made some calls. Each nurse I spoke with wanted to help but doubted the doctor would take my case on. Weeks and thirty-seven “Nos” later, doctor thirty-eight finally said “Yes”. This doctor was not covered by insurance but had a sliding scale payment plan available, which made it possible for me to see him. The painful journey of detox began and so did my intense study of meditation, yoga and nutrition.

Up until this point in my life, I was searching for balance, peace and happiness outside of myself rather than looking inside, where I know today that it really resides. Yoga and meditation allowed me to journey inward and take a look at my internal world. Through daily yoga and meditation practices, I began to get to know myself better and discovered the way my brain worked. I uncovered a stream of negative thinking about myself, others, and the world around me. I began to see that these thoughts made me feel terrible and would often spark more negative thoughts and depressed or anxious feelings. With what I learned from meditation, I began to notice and be aware of my thinking, and then my moods. I learned to become the observer of not only my thoughts, but also my emotions.

continued here:   http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/08/mood-choice/