Mental Health Awareness Day
In addition to what is a rather controversial US holiday, yesterday was also Mental Health Awareness Day. Mr. & Mrs. Knits, Phil and Bonnie, are delighted with the giant leaps taken recently in this area! It took a global pandemic to help more people take mental health seriously. How far was that giant leap?
It wasn’t that long ago when terms like crazy, retard, insane, and similar generalizations were casually hurled insults. Bonnie and Phil were both frequent recipients of all the above throughout their lives. Though in their case there were real diagnoses making that bullying all too real.
Phil was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and as an adult. His parents sought treatment for it, but not much of it was available in the 70s. Then it was Ritalin, Melaril, and some kind of cognitive testing. Meanwhile, school continued to be structured in such a way that painted Phil as somehow defective, poorly behaved, and just not paying attention.
As an adult, he tried Adderall with limited success. What REALLY worked though, was to stop trying to stuff Phil into some standard mold, and rather harness his way of thinking. For one, as a Hockey Referee, he became quite good at an essential officiating skill, shifting of focus. For example, he would be focused on heavy activity in front of the goal, but be sidetracked by something else, like someone getting slashed in the corner. Good time to be distracted to call that penalty!
While presenting some difficulties, Phil makes the most of this so-called disorder with composure, and often with a sense of humor. He refers to this song as an accurate soundtrack for his brain: Thoughts by Spock's Beard.
Bonnie’s challenges were by most measures much greater! Pronounced anxiety and ADD were always an issue from her earliest memories. Then as a pre-teen something horrible happened: she was attacked and had her head literally bashed in. When a bone is broken or another organ damaged, there can sometimes be permanent side-effects even after healing. Imagine that happening to the most complex organ in the human body, the brain. Of course there can be after-effects!
Bonnie refuses the label of crime victim. Call her a survivor! Just like everybody else, there are some things Bonnie does very well, like the artistry, color theory, and fiber knowledge of knitting. She also is particularly good at entrepreneurial activities like marketing. In other words, things Phil is not so good at. It works out that most things Bonnie is not so good at due to disability or otherwise, Phil is particularly good at, like inventory, shipping, finance, and store management. Bonnie even manages some stock market trading on the side.
This is why we are such huge proponents of people leading from their strengths in everything they do. Sure people should strive to improve themselves, but we all have different strengths, that in a good team environment, complement each other. Mind over matter only takes you so far. If a computer has physically damaged circuits, no amount of reprogramming can fix it - a simplistic analogy that begins to explain the complexities of the human brain.
No one should ever be thought of as morally deficient due to such physical brain defects or injuries! We could continue on about essential facts, like the fact that a small minority of people with mental illness are violent. But the truth is you probably know someone already with one or more mental illnesses, and they deserve complete respect, especially considering what they have overcome to accomplish some great things!
And now you know two more.
Wedding photo in September of 2015
