How MAD are you? Number 2. Outcomes.

Forgive me but I am just going to rave on a bit here, read at your own risk:

I don't know whether I need to release hidden anger, be annoyed, express bewilderment, fear and or a big X-factor i.e. something unknown.

I just had the opportunity to view the second and final part of the "How MAD are you?" on SBS tonight. If I had a hat on, I would take it off in total admiration of all those amazing 10 people who participated in that program, yes, and I would add the three professionals. I loved Mitches summing up about the labels not being who we are we are people. A label was used against me in such a derogatory put-down-way, by my spouse many times (in our early marriage) when he couldn't cope that I developed a real complex and internalized my anger toward him and the illness over it that I have never fully recovered nor shaken free from the extreme negativity of being labelled. I hate labels. It was like a control thing as if I was a naughty little girl - "You are mental therefore your opinion doesn't count, kind of thing." It made me so angry. It was not just the diagnosis of Bipolar 1 that I was given 40 years ago that stuck in my psyche like a festering wound that never heals because the scab is continually being disturbed. But also in the sixties and seventies during my school and early adolescent years you heard of people being put in straight jackets in mental institutions and locked aware out of sight, every kind of crude, cruel and unkind jokes abounded regarding the mentally ill. Definitely not something you would admit to having. And further shame and reproach when my father refused to (own me) visit me in the psych hospital.

Strangely enough, although I have struggled with an increasing awareness of an unrealistic (psychotic) believe building up to a crescendo over 10 months and bursting its bubble in early September after 40 years of being pretty well I am totally mystified as to how my church friends just treat me as normal. If they only knew what I was thinking during my psychosis. Which could go to prove that I am my own worst ongoing critic? What do you think?

I hope the participants in "How MAD are you?" have all been given plenty of opportunities to debrief and receive ongoing counsel after that show. Such courageous young people. Thank you for helping to destigmatize mental illness.