Gum on My Shoe

This post was inspired by a TED Talk video I watched the other day, in which journalist and author Johann Hari discusses societal factors affecting our mental health. I recommend the talk in full, but for me the key message occurs seventeen minutes in. Johann is discussing a project by Professor Tim Kasser and Nathan Dungan involving a group of adults and teenagers. Part of the point of the group was to get people to think about a moment in their life they have actually found meaning and purpose. For different people, it was different things. For some people it was music, writing, helping someone. I’m sure everyone here can think of something. And part of the point of the group was to get people to ask, “OK, how could you dedicate more of your life to pursuing these moments of meaning and purpose.” Later that day, I dialled into the weekly coffee morning call at work. Hosted by Mental Health First Aiders, these calls offer an informal opportunity to chat about how we’re doing, sh...

Dear Marty, We’ve known each other for a long time but I don’t think I’ve ever written you a letter before. I’ve thought of it a few times, even started once or twice. Maybe I won’t finish this letter either, or will decide not to send it after all. It’s scary to get real with someone you’ve known a long time but have never really been open with. But you know that, I think. It seems to me we would both benefit from some honest connection. So here goes. I see what you post on social media but sometimes I wonder what’s really going on for you. From what you’ve shared recently it seems you’ve been going through a lot and I just wanted to reach out and ask if you’re ok. You seem to be there for other people a lot. I hope you have people who are there for you too. I’m pretty sure you do, to be honest, but hey if you ever need a new shoulder or someone to hold space for you, I’m here. I don’t find it that easy to open up, even with people I trust. But I think we would do ok. I was talk...

Writer, poet, and mental health advocate John Medl hails from Ohio, USA. I chatted with him recently to discuss his life and work. MB: Hello John, could you tell us a little about yourself? JM: I’m an author and mental health advocate from Cincinnati, Ohio USA. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features in 2006, and I have general anxiety and panic attacks. I will be forty years old in October. MB: When did you start writing? JM: I’ve been writing since high school, but my first book wasn’t published until 2014. That first book was out of desperation. I didn’t know if I was going to survive. I wanted to tell my story in case anything happened to me. MB: That’s a powerful motivation. How many books have you written? JM: Five altogether. The first was Millions Like Me: My Struggle with Mental Illness , followed by Poems From a Bipolar Mind , The Last Day of July: 13 Years of Madness , The Entropy of Bipolar Disorder , and Mental Illness Is An Actual Illness . They...

Cause lately I don’t even know what page you’re on. (Taylor Swift. “The Story of Us.”) I spent a few hours last weekend with my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson. We had a good catch-up (hard to shut either of us up when we get talking!), watched a movie, and ordered takeout. Best of all, we journaled: Aimee in her scrapbook and me in my beloved Passport Traveler’s Notebook. We’re close friends but we have very different life experiences and approach things from different perspectives. Difference can be divisive. People can become so estranged they’re not only not on the same page, they’re scarcely in the same library! But as we chatted away and decorated our journals it came to me that difference isn’t something to be feared, skirted around, or avoided. Difference can be positive, complementary, and creative. My notebook pages are far smaller than those in Aimee’s scrapbook, giving me much less real estate in which to work. She sources images and quotation...

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