If you are interested in the subject of mental illness, there are a lot of great resources online and elsewhere to educate you about it. You can find information about any illness, treatments, medications, support groups, doctor recommendations, and even personal stories like the one I am attempting to tell here, but one of the areas where there seems to be a dearth of both information and support is for families of people who suffer with mental illness. There is even a shortage of personal stories out there because of the stigma attached mental illness as a whole and a lot of the misunderstanding that surrounds it.
As they say in the public service announcement, "knowledge is power," so in that vein, I wanted to share a blog from Tara Ulrich, one of my fellow 31 Dayers, who is writing for 31 Days about her experience as the daughter of a mother with mental illness. I came across her blog and immediately knew it was one I wanted to follow and one that deserves a wider audience. To quote my friend Chez, "check thou it out!" While you're there, give her some love in the combox too! In addition to posting it here, I'm going to add it to my blog roll on the sidebar of my blog so you can find it there too! Happy reading!
thanks for giving Tara a shoutout! We've been facebook and blogging friends for a long time, and she is totally amazing, faith-filled, thoughtful, reflective, etc., in every way. Blessings on your blogging journey this month!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to do it! I have enjoyed what she is writing so far and am looking forward to more of it. By the way, is your moniker a Doctor Who reference?
DeleteI wrote a very long reply, hadn't logged in yet, and after I did lost the reply since I hadn't copied and pasted. I'll explain more later, but the short answer is no, I had no clue whatsoever about Doctor Who until a fb friend told me. this time I did copy/paste, and hope you don't get doubles; I need to get offline now.
DeleteAh, okay. I just wondered as I'm a bit of a Doctor Who fanatic :) I would love to hear more about your name when you get a chance! Thanks for dropping by my blog and for commenting too!
DeleteI don't do films, movies, fiction, etc., and still don't know what Doctor Who is, but I do know one of my facebook friends is a fan and calls herself River Song! My first gmail was the highly theological shekinahjubilee, and when I decided to get another account, I tried both river song and Sunday river, but both had been claimed. So why not sundayriversong? For the day of resurrection or eighth day, for the river of life, the river of our baptism, for the song of life. I'm a compulsive theologian; my main and currently only active theology blog, www.desertspiritsfire.com is twelve years old and counting! I mostly work as a graphic artist/designer, with my fb page and non-fb design page both suntreeriver design. Persistent biblical images, of course! Thanks for asking; thanks for listening.
DeleteIt's a British science fiction television series that has been going since 1963 (they just had a huge 50th anniversary thing last fall) and has featured 13 different actors playing the titular role of The Doctor. The Doctor travels through time and space righting wrongs, saving planets and people, and does it all without any weapons except what he calls a sonic screwdriver and his intellect. He sometimes travels alone but prefers to have others along for his adventures (usually humans). The show refers to his friends as his companions and River Song is, in short, one of the companions who travels with The Doctor. She's more than that, but that's the basics. She's one of my favourite characters in the series because she's got a lot of qualities that I admire -- strength of will, determination, courage, cunning, wit, and the ability to stand up to The Doctor and tell him when he's going wrong.
DeleteI love your meaning for river song! It's so multi-layered and evocative of many of the images found in scripture. I admire your artistic abilities. I wouldn't call myself a theologian, but I am almost always reading both scripture and other theological reading. I have an interest in apologetics, particularly Catholic apologetics as it seeks to explain and defend what we as Catholics believe and I read a lot of books and articles that have to do with that topic. I admire your artistic talents. I am not a visual artist at all, but I have always enjoyed singing and acting (I was a double major in music and theatre in college) and have a love of many artistic pursuits. I am delighted to meet a fellow artist and lover of Our Lord! Thank you for listening to me too!