Sunday, May 6, 2007

Mental Health Awareness

I am being serious today.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and each year I cover one or two public events that our local behavioral health organization holds to mark the month.
When I observe some of the folks who need and receive services to help them function in society, I count my blessings.
They are mostly middle-aged, unemployed or else they have menial jobs.
They like to talk a lot about their recovery. I find they are all amazingly self-centered. They seem to have no empathetic feelings toward others. They are pleasant enough, but it ends there.
I don't know if I am making sense with this. I am not belittling them in any way.
I have been greatly helped over the years by psychotherapy. Last week I was telling my mental health professional about my blogging. It's scary because it was almost all that I wanted to talk about, I enjoy it so much.
He doesn't know much about it, and was asking basic questions. He said "it's like talking to yourself" because there is no human interaction, as there is in traditional talk therapy.

It's true, but I told him how many interesting bloggers Ralph and I have met already and it's nice to know there are like-minded people out there.

4 comments:

Lynn said...

May is also 'Better Hearing and Speech Month'.

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

what you are talking about sounds almost like an na meeting!! me me me me me... but if it helps them feel better about themselves i guess it's okay. when we go to the va hospital though i don't find this so much, they like to talk about the military stuff, but not so much themselves. wonder why that is? did they lose their personal identity in there somewhere?

smiles, bee

Michael C said...

Blogging has been a major release valve for me, that's for sure!

Joan said...

I find blogging very therapeutic. Sometimes I'm able to voice emotions in writing that I'm not willing to do face to face.