recovery network: Toronto

Amanda Todd

Posted on October 25, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

I was pleased to have been invited to co-presenting on Friday at the Ontario Psychological Association’s Annual Conference with Dr Erica Martin a workshop: – Hearing Voices- Learning to listen to “Auditory Hallucinations” as an introduction to new training we are developing together that will enable more psychologists, clinicians, counsellors to offer their support to those struggling with voices and other experiences that get called names “psychosis”.

I was more pleased to see that the OPA was paying serious attention to the impact of bullying, the keynote speaker was Carol Todd, mother of Amanda and in his introduction to Carol the OPA President Dr Jonathan Douglass shared how he too had been bullied at school. I was pleased to introduce myself to him afterwards – it was at his request were were invited, to thank him and say “me too”.

I didnt get to meet Carol Todd, but Carol, thank you.
Most of all to Amanda Todd – thank you.

Amanda Todd ended her own life after having being shamed then repeatedly bullied and trying to find a place she could feel safe and move on – but not being allowed to do that by other. She was targeted by online predator who is now awaiting trial for a number of offences in The Netherlands before being brought before courts in Canada. But there were many others too who made her target of their own hatred..

Bullying only works when the person targeted is left isolated, rendered powerless. It can be hard to fight of our own powerlessness and find ourselves joining with the bullies, or simply not acting.

Yet we must.

Bullying is about power and we end it by fighting our own powerless and instead connecting with those who are being targeted.

Your bullying is #notmyshame.
It’s just your shit,
you own it.

Amanda’s story is not just about online bullying or even bullying in general, and it is certainly about both , but it is also about community, connecting and many, many other lessons for us – not least the failure of our schools, medical and justice systems to protect those most vulnerable.

It is also a story of how our society still has a great deal to do before it is safe even for those in the majority – women.

Below is the video Amanda made that speaks Amanda’s pain living in a world she could not find a place to feel safe and how she wanted to connect with one person who would hear her and accept her as she was.

As it says at www.amandatoddlegacy.org Amanda made the video because …

Amanda wanted her Voice heard

She would have wanted everyone to know how much she hurt emotionally and how the same thing also hurt thousands of other children and youth each day. Amanda couldn’t stop what was happening to her and it was her dream to make it right for others. She thought it would help to tell her story for others to hear.

Posted in bad things happen and they fuck you up, bullying, Emancipate yourself..., hell is other people, making sense of "mental illlness" | Tagged Amanda Todd, bully, Bullying, Carol Todd, OPA | 1 Comment

Difference, discomfort and discovering…

Posted on October 19, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Seth Godin on differences, the line we draw, and the energy we waste drawing it, between “us” and “those people” as a way of dealing with our discomfort at not knowing how to handle difference.

And yet, we are more alike than we are different.

If we learned to focus on that our discomfort decreases- and we discover that is is those differences from which we can learn and it is those differences are what make us interesting.

Differences

If you’re sharing a cab to the airport with a stranger, what happens if he’s two inches taller than you? Probably nothing. There’s nothing to distract, or to cause discomfort. You make small talk.

What if he’s a little shorter than you? Or left handed?

Perhaps he’s not from your town, but from Depew, about twenty miles away. Probably nothing to consider…

What if he has shoulder-length red hair?

At some point, most people reach a moment of discomfort. What if he’s 7 feet tall? Will you mention it? Or if he’s under four feet? What if he’s from a different country? Or a different race or speaking with a significant accent (or, more accurately, an accent that’s different from yours)?

For as long as we’ve been keeping records, human beings have been on alert for the differences that divide us. Then we fixate on those differences, amplifying them, ascribing all sorts of irrelevant behaviors to them. Until, the next thing you know, we start referring to, “those people.”

It seems as though it’s a lot more productive to look for something in common. Attitudes and expectations. Beliefs in the common good and forward motion. A desire to make something that matters…

Because there’s always more in common than different.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged difference, discomfort | Comments Off

What is “psychosis”?

Posted on October 17, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Look it up and you’ll find all kinds of nonsense up/downloaded as answer to that question, most commonly:

“Loss of contact with reality.”

What does that even mean?
For sure, whoever says that to you most assuredly has.

Truth is we don’t know, but it’s not as baffling as “experts” would have you believe and it doesn’t have to be as scary either.

The so called “symptoms” of “psychosis” are in fact experiences everyone will have – one in three will be experiencing at least one right now. Many are judgements made about stepping outside cultural norms. None have anything to do with test tubes and labs and bodily specimens.

So. this thing we call “psychosis” is not a separate “thing” that only some of us “have” or can have, but a state that any of us can, given challenging enough circumstances, find ourselves in: confused, disoriented, isolated and sacred.

You’ll not find it in medical text book but one of the most reliable ways to tell if others think you’re “in psychosis” is the expression on the face of people around you and the names they are calling you.

Most times it’s entirely understandable as an overwhelming state of being in which a person feels unsafe, and not disconnected but intimately and painfully connected with events in the present and past.

It pays to go carefully, and with compassion – despite popular myth that people in psychosis are violent they are more likely to be victims of violence, and a person who has been given a diagnosis “psychosis” is fifteen times more likely to have been abused as a child.

Most Docs and other “mental health professionals” don’t have a bloody clue, some do, eg –

In Finnish Open Dialogue “psychosis” is conceived of not as a problem in one person’s brain but in the spaces and relationships between people, with language playing a key role.
Jim van Os and PsychoseNet have more of a clue than most, and have developed an approach that is hopeful and based on noticing patterns in unique personal experience and building strengths and resilience.

Below is first three of PsychoseNet’s fourteen…

Principles for good care of psychosis

It is scientifically impossible to make a clear distinction between psychosis and other experiences: one can view psychosis as a state during which personal emotions impact thinking and perception to such a degree that it becomes difficult for other people to understand. Psychosis is furthermore linked to alterations in motivation, mood and cognition. Psychosis is treatable, just like depression and anxiety.
Over 15% of adolescents and young adults experience mild psychotic symptoms (eg. hearing voices or paranoia) over the course of normal development. In 80% of these, symptoms disappear by themselves – these people simply continue their life and their functioning is not affected.
About 3.5% of the general population develops psychotic symptoms, combined with changes in motivation, mood and cognition, that are so severe that they require treatment. Their symptoms are part of a psychotic syndrome that manifests itself differently in each person. The name for this broad syndrome could be Psychosis Susceptibility Syndrome, or Psychosis Spectrum Syndrome – PSS abbreviated.

PsychoseNet’s 14 principles…
https://www.schizofreniebestaatniet.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Manifest_UK.pdf

PsychoseNet https://www.schizofreniebestaatniet.nl/english/

Posted in Difference and Diversity, Emancipate yourself..., hell is other people, psychosis | Tagged psychosis, reality | 2 Comments

loop in my heart – M-Flo ft. Emyli & Yoshika

Posted on October 16, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

You called/I called/we talked/we laughed/we did…
That lighthearted summer
In no time we/caught up/and uh…
One thing led to another…
In love/in what?/In love/say what?/say what?…
Girl I can’t be your lover
He said/she said/rumour?/rumour?…

Baby… You know the truth is you’re in my mind
All day long, for real, I ain’t exaggerating
It’s like…inexperienced, but I think
In a midday dream I drift li~ghtly
Lightly, together, wanna touch ya
Wrap you in my body, thinking about nothing else until the finale
Taking my imagination with me
Imagining, getting paranoid, tension rising
But it goes down, the truth is
No communication, that’s a fatal wound
That’s why, I’m sad, I’m alone
I want to take a step, so we could go home

You laugh
As coolly as the passing wind
Come closer just right next to me
Show me the love story that follows

You called/I called/we talked/we laughed/we did…
We started with a lighthearted feeling
Itsu no ma ni ka/caught up/whassup?…
I thought we fell deep
In love/in what?/in love/now?/say what?…
Girl I can’t be your lover
He said/she said/rumour?/rumour?…but the truth is…

Bet you wanna play with my heart
Feelings soaring high
And it feels so right (so right) so right (so right)
In no time at all I fell
For you~ (you tellin’ me…it’s ‘cause of you)
Ah~ (but I’m with you baby)
So bad (so bad) so bad (so bad)
You loop in my heart

I wait for the your call but the phone doesn’t ring
Gazing at our picture
Its so unfair to him, but baby
I can’t get you outta my head

My name’s V-E-R-B the A
And ending with an “L”
And I’m a part of a group you can’t forget
Our name, with the letter “M”
And then sing “F-L-O”
With Yoshika, once you start, don’t stop
Takataka to the bridge on the beats that rock
Emyli, once she gets going she don’t stop

Why you wanna play with my heart
Emotions soaring
And it feels so right (so right) so right (so right)
Realised I got a crush
On you~ (you tellin’ me… it’s ‘cause of you)
Ah~ (but I’m with you baby)
So bad (so bad) so bad (so bad)
You loop in my heart

Seen it, done it, been there done that
But you, really, lookin’ so bored
You yawn, the truth is you got something to
Tell me, so why you keep frontin?
You got something to say, come out and say it
If you got nothing to say, why you wanna stay here?
Feel incomplete, our relationship’s turning sour
Tell me one thing, but…
No matter how many times I try
No matter how much I say, I can never get the message across…
Baby you don’t know (baby you don’t know)
Baby you don’t know (baby you don’t know)
It’s like the same stuff happening again and again, but
It doesn’t seem to be reaching your heart…
Baby you don’t know (baby you don’t know)
Baby you don’t know (baby you don’t know)

Even when I’m with other people, baby you’re on my mind
No matter what I do, just can’t help it so can’t tear myself away from you
Can’t forget you, my feelings are going round and round
You keep running back to me again and again

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged heart, loop | Comments Off

walk away – Tom Waits

Posted on October 15, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

There are things I’ve done I can’t erase

I want to look in the mirror, see another face
I said never would I do it again
I want to walk away, start over again.

Dot King was whittled from the bone of Cain
with a little drop of poison in the red, red blood
She need a way to turn around the bend
She said I want to walk away and start over again.

There are things I’ve done I can’t erase
I want to look in the mirror, see another face
I said never would I do it again
I want to walk away, start over again.

No more rain
No more roses
On my way, shake my thirst in a cool, cool pond.

There is a winner in every place
There is a heart that’s beating in every page
The beginning of it starts at the end
When it’s time to walk away and start over again.

Weather is murder at a hundred and three
William Ray shot Corabell Lee
A yellow dog knows when he has sinned
You want to walk away and start over again.

No more rain
No more roses
On my way, shaking my thirst in a cool cool pond.

Cooper told Maui the whole block is gone
They’re dying for jewelry, money, and clothes
I always get out of the trouble I’m in
I want to walk away, start over again.

I left my bible by the side of the road
Carve my initials in an old dead tree
I’m going away but I’m going to be back when
It’s time to walk away and start over again.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged rain, Tom Waits, walk away | Comments Off

#NOTokay

Posted on October 13, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Reposting a piece by a good friend to recoverynetwork:toronto – one of the millions who shared their first experiences over the last few days.

To men everywhere: It’s time to end this crap.

#NOTokay #notMYshame #endthiscrap

#notokay

by willowispaperio

This is why I write what I write most times.
When does it ever stop?
Will it ever stop?
Most days I’m fine then something like this happens and it stirs up all the memories, all the shit, all the pain.

The most powerful words ever spoken to me: “He can’t hurt you anymore.”.

No maybe not physically, yet carrying years of memories in my skin can’t be of any help either. Because he wasn’t the only one. There were so many.

Sneaky gropes, words, innuendos and the actual physical assaults over the years as a child and an adult.

I ran away from home at fifteen to get away and found myself experiencing even more assaults because I didn’t know how to protect myself except to step away inside, go to a space where no one could get to.

Floodgates have opened here because of #notokay

Now I need to decide whether to shut them down, dam it up or let it loose and wash over me.

Reblogged from: https://wilowispaperio.com/2016/10/12/notokay/

Posted in bad things happen and they fuck you up, Crazy World, Emancipate yourself..., shit is f#cked | Tagged #NOTmyshame, #NOTokay | Comments Off

Control…

Posted on October 12, 2016 by dave umbongo

Humans are funny lot, obsessing over some thing they call ‘control’ – but its a weird word, like humans can control anything… like as if any thing controls any other thing…

“Control is about as real as a one-legged unicorn
taking a leak at the end of a double rainbow.”
Ray [from Mr Robot]

Engaging with voices doesn’t mean controlling them – or having them control you -it means [sometimes] listening to what they have to say – then making our own mind up, making your own choices, deciding for yourself…

…same as you do with people.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged control, rainbow, unicorn, voices | Comments Off

Just breathe….

Posted on October 11, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Posted in Emancipate yourself..., Healing, Ideas | 1 Comment

The line between…

Posted on October 6, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

The line between hallucinating and perceiving is not as crisp as we like to think.
In a sense when we look at the world, we are hallucinating all the time.
One could almost regard perception as choosing the hallucination that best fits the incoming data

Vilyannur S Ramachandran

Posted in Crazy World, Difference and Diversity, Emancipate yourself..., Ideas | Tagged Hallucination, line between, perception | Comments Off

Moone Boy

Posted on October 5, 2016 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Martin Kenny Dalgleish Moone is the kind of young boy who’d care for an injured chaffinch – or even a dead chaffinch believing its injured- and who has a constant companion, imaginary friend, in the shape of Chris O’Dowd.

Many children have imaginary friends. Sadly, most adults pretend they don’t, while perhaps many others wish they did – but practically all of us learn that it’s not safe to talk about it.

Moone Boy is in its third season, maybe that it exits will make it easier to talk about the diversity of human experience…

Series 1 Trailer