Talk About It. Your Story Could Change A Life. Stamp Out Stigma first launched in 2013 by ValueOptions in response to the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. The country was experiencing a national crisis around mental illness in which stigma was playing a large part. The initial intention of Stamp Out Stigma was [...]
Realistic and Positive: My Recent Life Journey What if I told you that no matter how bad your mental illness is, you can still be successful? Would you believe me? If you believe in something I like to call “realistic positivism,” you can do anything you set your mind to do. First though, you have [...]
Perfect We were the family with the white picket fence around our house and the smell of baking permanently wafting from the kitchen. In our drive way were three newish cars always polished even though there only two of us to drive them. Our house had more bedrooms than we needed, our wardrobes more clothes [...]
I read these stories about suffering and pain and my heart goes out to the authors for the struggles they have had. But I also am impressed by the courage each and every one has shown to make their story public. I want to say thank you to them for reaching out and touching others [...]
Imagine my surprise when one nice afternoon after I had gotten home from my job as a teacher, a job I might add that I have held for over 30 years,, I heard a knock on my door and looked out to see a policeman on my porch. Of course all kinds of thoughts flooded [...]
My Journey Though I struggled with depression for much of my adolescence, my mental illness journey began not with me, but with my sister. She was battling bipolar disorder when the only things that I was concerned about were Pop Warner football and video games. In the span of two years during high school, she [...]
Often viewed as one of the most tell tale signs of a true "junkie", there is no doubt about the stigma that comes with track marks. It has been three great years since the last time a needle punctured my skin in a desperate search for a functioning vein. Some scars still remain, lightly tracing [...]
Empower Yourself and Recognize Stigmas Hold Zero Validity By Robert Parmer We live in a country still unfortunately filled with some social, physical health, and mental health stigmas. America doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to these types of shamming behaviors and that is, to put it lightly, disappointing. Taking the steps [...]
adhd: it is not child's play anymore I’m an adult with a disorder most people think children grow out of. I have ADHD. For those that aren’t “in the know” ADHD is an acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Usually it’s tossed around as a joke. “Oh, I got distracted while I was in the [...]
Cynthia's Story Where does it really begin? That’s the million-dollar question. I’m pretty sure the doctors and therapists consider the beginning as the date of diagnosis – which was September 2005. But then some doctors reflect back to my teen years (when I had a rather manic episode) as the origin of the illness. But [...]
