Tuesday morning

Chosen family of friends
supports creativity in chaos

by Lindsay

The question is: Do I maintain my sanity and who decides that?

To begin with, I believe my mother did not want to have a child when she was pregnant with me and for that reason my experience in utero was very negative. I decided to get out of there and find a good mother! (many actually...) I arrived a month early, weighing four pounds and with internal problems which caused digestive complications.

There is no blame. My mother was a very angry and frustrated woman who gave up her freedom at age 37 to conform to society's norms. I was in Scotland's "Riverview" at age 18 and again at age 20. I made plans to get far away from Glasgow.

I moved a lot and traveled from country to country, city to city. This way keeping my stress level low and responsibilities to a minimum. At age 30 I found myself heading for Vancouver and knew that I was "home". Three years later, I experienced the medical model of mental health practiced in BC via the Shaunessy psyche-ward. The drugs made me so sick.

It was another five years before I found a wonderful therapist named Wendy when I was in the midst of several very traumatic events.

Over 14 years she has gently encouraged me to do some very intense and painful yet healing group work. I still use anti-depressants but much less than before and not more tranquilizers!

The experience of neglect, rejection and abandonment as a small baby becomes internalized at the cellular level. Even 53 years later, I still take any sign of these things very personally! Thanks to Wendy, Ronnie D. Laing (who's books I have devoured) and Stan Groff's holotropic breath work, I understand these issues and know I can recover.

I feel very lucky that I am able to work and I have also discovered my artistic talents! The freedom this brings has opened my body and mind to endless possibilities. I can now be the "teenager" that I never was, with joy and confidence instead of fear and numbness.

I now have a wonderful "chosen family" of friends and can allow myself to be supported instead of hiding from the world. These are friends who have shown me it's OK to cry, who have told me I'm not lazy and have seen the creativity in my chaos.

Things to remember
on Tuesday morning

by Kit Lee

"Get up! Get up!...It's the time!..." Every Tuesday morning I tell myself to get out of bed after the long wake-up call of my alarm clock. The sedative effect of the medication I take makes me lazy in the morning and drowsy all day.

"What a nice day! Yeah, the days of fall are best. It's warm, even when sometimes it drizzles a little bit. Oh, yep, I have to prepare for the office. where is the lunch box, the mug, the medication, a lot of things...?" I always talk with myself to remind me of any thing I need to bring to the work place.

I haven't attended office work since I came to Canada six years ago. This is my first job in Canada. At first, I was very nervous. I was anxious about whether I could take up the workload, cope with the environment, this and that. Now, I am completely relaxed.. It is a small office with one salaried staff and several volunteers. As volunteers, subsidized by the Network or Ministry (MSDES), we maintain the office. We all have the same goal - to provide peer support to people with mental health issues. That is the reason I work with the Network.

Before I joined the Network, I strove hard to pass the sedation time. I told myself to be diligent. I sat in front of my desk at home and tried to clear up the documents, but I could only do a little bit. Oh! What a bad time for me. After a few visits to the Network office, I got my strength.

In the office, we use computers with up-to-date programs. Daily office routines are all processed by the computers. It is planned that we will use ACCPAC to handle all the accounting work in the future. What a nice office!

During office hours, we input data or read files - with a cup of coffee for refreshment. Sometimes we need to change the procedures of a job to make it better organized. Here is a place for us to see our abilities.

We do not fight for the reward, but we work. We sow our efforts without any anxiousness. We know this is the way for us. what we need to do is to take up our courage to face the fact; to strengthen our ability in receiving the future.