crazymom, please do not judge so harshly. The purpose of this thread is to meet people where they are and then hopefully, with our words, experiences, and new found education, grow in our understanding of what mental illness is. I think it's working. It may not be precisely the way you want it to be, but I'm certain some of us have learned more about mental illness simply by reading one another's stories and feeling compassion. If you think we are shallow, educate us, but don't label us as such.

Just like someone doesn't know what it's like to live with two diabetics (as I do) not everyone has experienced mental illness first-hand. As with every topic posted about at BWS, we are all learning from one another and growing in ways I thought were unimaginable before launching a forum community.

Taken right from our Forum Guidelines:

Life stories - "We simply ask that you not attack the beliefs or choices of others. Please don’t tell others what they should or shouldn’t believe. Don’t tell them how to live their lives."

I just want to bring this up because we are allowed to and expected to share our voices, but we are not suppose to attack others for their voices. Everyone is in a different place in life. One of the reasons we are here is because we want to learn. Please let us do so without judging us.

I hope you will stick around and get to know us better. Bring us along on your life journey. That's what we do with one another. And in doing so, we grow and have an appreciation for what other boomer women are going through.

In the progress toward better education of all disabilities and illness we have to first grasp what our preconceptions and beliefs are.This is learned individually.
I have learned that a wide spectrum of knowledge is out there in society so this will be mirrored here on a forum.


Word use/terminology has changed throughout the years and although mostly framed originally in the medical mode soon can become slang and used loosely.To the hurt of those affected and their loved ones.

The reader can pick up a sentence posted on a forum and bring their own belief/value system into play .If the topic is a passion and of great personal importance then what others say may wound deeply.In groups body and facial response of everyone guides the conversation.Here it cannot happen unless addressed at source with good intent and manners..so a short question in response to a statement asking for clarification can assist discussion.

The question.."Are you afraid of people with a mental illness"
I believe I balance my bounderies and respect for humanity well so dont feel afraid.
If in a professional capacity I would say..No but would wish to have information in order to work to full benefit.

Mountain ash

Crazymom, you are not going to get people to act better by being judgmental yourself. Yes, it's true: mental illness is stigmatized, undertreated, often mocked, and simply not believed in by many. A lot of these attitudes are holdovers from beliefs in possession, fear of the unknown, and general ignorance. Do not get me started on our treatment of the mentally ill; if we treated our other physical illnesses the same way, namely by expecting the sick person to diagnose herself and make herself better, those tax Tea Paries would look like picnics. All true, and I have plenty of experience with mentally ill friends and relatives myself.

But if you're going to tell the truth, tell it. Mental illness is not one condition any more than cancer. For some people, their illnesses will be treatable and for others they will face a lifetime of illness and inability to function normally. And yes, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia can be worse than being blind; it all depends on the severity of the illness. People whose illness renders them unable to form any meaningful, positive human relationship have truly been given a hard challenge. Let's not pretend otherwise, and let's not pretend that some people's illness -- some people -- will not eventually exhaust their friends and family members, the same as can happen with other chronic conditions. There's a huge range of mental illness; some people function well with occasional lapses and others have no contact with reality. And if I happen to sound less than politically correct, it's because I see no reason to stigmatize mental illness or to cover it up. In our family, we use a lot of black humor as a coping mechanism; otherwise you'd cry at the unhappy situations that will probably never improve.

We might have made great strides in better understanding and in medications, but like treating diabetes or cancer. We still have a long way to go. It's not nothing and sometimes it's scary when someone decompensates. Having to call the police so they can help a friend is never funny -- and I have done it more than once.

My point has been twisted. The issue is the ATTITUDE of the posts in this thread. As another poster remarked in another thread about this topic, will the next acceptable topic be "Do you fear homosexuals?" How would Dotsie feel if someone posted the topic "Do you fear diabetics?"

I, for one, will not dispute the Mayo Clinic and thousands of other esteemed professionals who are working to de-stigmatize emotional illness. From above:
"Stigma, by definition, is a mark of disgrace or shame.... stereotyping people who have that condition ...Creating a division — a superior "us" group and a devalued "them" group, resulting in loss of status in the community...Statistics, however, don't bear out a connection between mental illnesses and violence. Most people who have a mental illness are neither violent nor criminals...Negative portrayals of people with mental illnesses fuel fear and mistrust and reinforce distorted perceptions. That leads to even more stigma, causing a vicious cycle..."

Were you aware that overeating is considered an emotional/mental problem?

crazymom....you obviously have tunnel vision when it comes to the women on the forum and their attempt to reach out. Makes me wonder why you left the other forums....hmmm...

It's ironic to me that the very thing you profess to desire, is the very opposite of what you give back.

You may be right. I think it is time to throw in the towel. We wish you well, and hope that you find the right people to welcome into your world. You are always welcome back here. But we make no apologies. We've tried.

Good luck!

Though crazymom may not be here with us for awhile (or maybe never?), I am wondering about Eagleheart's latest comments.

I guess Eagleheart my perception, is that you've been hurting alot and as a stranger to you, I don't feel comfortable asking directly about something that you've spent alot of time sharing with us (though some of us, like myself, haven't been part of the group as long as others here). YOu have been so open to express in a graceful way that it's just the right amount of info. for me about yourself, the lows and highs in life.

Or maybe I should turn the question abit differently: I just posted a new topic under Redefining Life. Does a topic like that make you uncomfortable to respond?

You don't need to respond. I'm just reflecting that on the time I was feeling depressed, the whirl of humdrum predictable life swirled around me, but I felt locked within myself /muffled in my world of uncerrtainities, etc. On one hand I wanted some important people in my life to understand what I was going through, on the other hand I took strange comfort of being with other people who asked nothing out of me, but just to be my usual ordinary self (despite feeling convoluted inside) and just to be with them as they expected me to be. ie. have dinner with family, see a movie, go shopping with them, etc. I was afraid that if they knew how depressed I was, then they would unintentionally be asking me often/bug me about 'progress' or just talking about the depression or whatever. That was the last thing I knew I didn't want...untrained, unsolicited help from well-intentioned family and close friends.

I just wanted to be left alone in my struggle and work with my counsellor. I did tell people,...my family..several years later and 1-2 of my closest friend when I was the middle phase of counselling.

Orchid, how eloquently you have expressed EXACTLY what I feel these days. I could never have expressed it as perfectly as you have. That's precisely why I love to be HERE at BWS. I've tried other forums that are specifically geared to people with mental illness, but I always felt like I was drowning in negativity and everything, every topic, was centered around the illness.

For me, I need/choose to always remember to not define myself by my depression or limitations...I am infinitely more than my depression, and I love the freedom to explore and just be ALL that I am. Depression is not the totality of who I am and I love it when people dare to go beyond that label and discover the "more" that's there.

Before my Dad died in 1999 I had been symptom-free for almost 20 years. I was working full-time, very active in my church and community and enjoying life with every fiber of my being. I might have weathered Dad's death okay, but when Mom died two years later, every other facet of my life was also in upheaval, and it was too much and I broke down. That's about when I arrived here. This place helped me immensely, precisely in the freedom to just be with caring women who asked nothing more of me than to just "be".

Again, I was rising from the ashes of that dark period when my brother died, and then another devastating family crisis emerged the same week as he died which ended up almost completely shattering our family perhaps beyond repair. My family has always been the center of my life, so these past two years have been exceptionally painful. My brother was not just my brother, but my best friend and confidante, and his passing has left a huge void in my life. And losing contact, albeit hopefully temporarily, with my other brothers during this time of grief has just compounded the grief. And the nature of the situation has caused immeasurable sorrow that haunts and gnaws at me, despite every effort to do whatever I can to fill the void in other good and nourrishing ways.

Anyway, that's the journey in a nutshell. I'm strong, healthy, wiser than before (thanks to the women here) and faithful to both myself and to life itself. I love life, I embrace all that there still is in me to discover and all that there is to discover in others. It's slow-going, but I'm grateful to still be alive to keep going.

Thank you for sharing, Orchid. Your words were the perfect description of where I'm at.

As for topics, I steer away from political discussions, not because of depression, but because I just hate political discussions. But I read some of the posts to get a better glimpse into the women behind the postings. My focus here is always to either discover new wisdom through listening to other women's experiences, or to help other women through their own journeys in whatever small way I can. If posting something helps or contributes to the culture and laughter of this place, then I post. If nothing comes to mind, or I don't know what to say, I usually defer to someone more eloquent and wise in that area of expertise.

I keep wondering which of the names women that were unsatisfied with us crazymom used before? The words sound eerily familar, just the name has been changed to protect the sneaky!!!

Eagleheart, there are times I envy your natural gift of word usage for complicated stuff that you feel/think! I could have only expressed what I did, in hindsight from long ago. Not during that time period which what you are feeling now.


Interesting chatty, but then I haven't been a long-time participant here compared to some of you. If we could all meet crazymom in person. After all, if she is comfortable talking about her depression and breaking down stereotypes, best thing is for us to meet her in person.

Mountain Ash, it's really good to hear your voice again. I've missed you more than words can say.