Dissolving stigma - page 128

"Are you embarrassed by your diagnosis?"

I was ashamed of my diagnosis until I began to see that others had the same symptoms as me!

Now I transcend my "label" and I am no longer neurotic about my "psychotic features". Anger can be treated and diminished. Anger must be vented and sublimated. Deep breathing and shouting obcenities in private helps me. That way I don't turn it inward on myself only to produce more symtoms later. Anger is expressed and shame is defeated. Anger management is a reality therapy for me.

What do you do for anger?

Dave :>)

Kathleen Crowley - chapter dissolving stigma

Page 121 of The Power of Procovery:

"Over time, consumers begin internalizing expectations of not making progress or not achieving the same things in life as their peers".

Maybe we can not achieve the same as our peers but we can acheive different successes than those peers.

I will never have the American dream of a wife a house a two car garage with our two cars and our kids but I may achieve the rich harvest of having lived a happy and joyful life of peace and freedom not having to be obligated to a church or the responsibility of children. I'm rich with all my friends who are also happy and joyful people not fretting or worrying about all the burdens of parenthood or house upkeep or mortgage expenses. My heart is truly free from false expectations. The matter just becomes the ability to see the other 'happy' side of the coin!

Peace and joy,

Dave :>)

My procovery

Dear viewer:

I have been doing my own watered down version of procovery for a while. I just never realized it. My procovery "takes a licking but keeps on ticking". This I say because when something goes wrong I just get down and unfocused. Sometimes my effort stalls while I try to understand why I failed and just what happened to me. I ask did I do something wrong or did I just get attacked? Was I verbally assaulted? Sometimes I am thoroughly stunned for awhile. But then later I see what overwhelmed me and I pick up the broken pieces and put them back together and my procovery goes on. Kathleen Crowley has verbalized to me what I have been trying - very weakly - for a long time. Now I have a word for my "rescueing and ministry" and it is Kathleen's word: Procovery!

My hero Spong said: "Wholeness for everyone is required before any individual can be whole.."

LOOK OUT everyone because I want to be whole!!

Dave..

To Brighten your DAY!!

Here's a bright red and yellow tulip I photographed at the Missouri Botanical Garden, just the other day.
1k-tulip-7481 Originally uploaded by creativity+.

PROCOVERY - Dissolving Stigma

On page 16, of The Power of Procovery, Kathleen Crowley writes:

"There is a great deal of talk about stigma, meaning negative judgements and discrimination by others. But the most powerful and destructive stigma of all is inner stigma. " (from the Power of Procovery, copyright 2000, used with permission of the author)

Those words strike me as being so very true. So often, we blame others for attaching negative labels and meanings to mental disorder. We think, "If only THEY would think more positively of us, things would be better." It takes only a moment of reflection to realize what a powerless, victimized approach that is.

Do you realize that people with a mental disorder are about the LAST group to "come out of the closet"? Alcoholics have done it. Gays and Lesbians have done it. We seem so ashamed, as if there were something "wrong" with us.

The starting point, quite certainly, is our views, concepts, and feelings about ourselves. Other people have simply been "reflecting" what we see in ourselves. If we see someone looking forlorn, we assume he's sad. If we see someone who looks ashamed of what they are, we think there's something shameful about them.

Once we become comfortable, even proud of who we are, we will flash those feelings like a lighthouse to all around us. Then, when they've come to know and respect us, we can share about our disorder comfortably.