Another Wornout Cliche!

Over the past years I have read many biased opinions on why people should not medicate mental illness. Here are just some of the comments: “It ruins your body” “you can self-heal” “It’s just the drug companies trying to get money off you” “it’s addictive” And then there’s those who tell me what I should be doing instead: “you need to sleep more” “you need to exercise more” “you need to eat healthy” “you should be in therapy” “try natural therapies” So, what happens though, when you are already doing all those recommendations? When, no matter how much you sleep, how healthy you eat, how many natural therapies you try, how much you exercise, or how much therapy you get, your mental illnesses are still stopping you from living a fulfilling life? I have tried all the above, and I still do all of the above, however without medications, alongside my sleep, exercise, healthy eating, and therapy, I am a danger to myself. I’m not denying that these things help…they help a l

My Pop was such an awesome person. Seriously, no-one will ever compare. He was funny, smart, caring...all those adjectives that come along with a person being amazing. Our birthday's were a day apart, so we always celebrated together. This made the day extra special for both of us. In order to celebrate how kick ass he was, I am sharing my top 10 memories with him.  When I told him I had a boyfriend, he replied with "tell him if he hurts you, I'll break every bone in his body". Riding in the car with him. He never had volume on in the car (if he did it was always classical music at a low volume), so to this day whenever I hear a clicking indicator, my mind takes me back to riding with Pop. Pop used to make furniture, so a lot of these trips involved delivering chairs to others houses.   Picking up tacks (nails) in his workshop. He had a magnet on a piece of rope, and would give me 1 cent for each tack I collected. This turned out to

I remember the day I proudly told my therapist that I had found the key to happiness I told her “I will never love again” I told her that I will be strong and not let anyone break my cast-iron heart. That I will be strong enough to walk away from beautiful women That I will be strong My god…I was wrong Because then I met  you And you were too beautiful to walk away from And I said to you Here is my tattered heart And you can break it into a million pieces For you…it is worth it Even if I can never put it back together For you…it is worth it You opened up the dictionary  and showed me the definition of strong Not locking up myself like some gutless bully in a playground but by saying here is all of me and I know if this ends I will want to die and I can imagine all the pills I will take to stop the pain and I will probably end up in a psych ward screaming “I love you. I love you. I love you” but loving you is worth that risk it’s worth th

I remember when I first read Antoine De Saint-Exupery's 'The Little Prince'. It was as though all those morals I believed in, all those things I thought made someone a good person, were all in this one book. Here I have compiled my top 10 quotes from the book, and explained why I think they are essential to live an honorable and meaningful life. I will explain what each means me to, and why I love it so much, but of course this is only my own interpretation. It will be impacted by my life experience, so like all great literature, you may interpret it how you like. 10. When it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it. I don't consider this to be just about plants. To me this is about people. When you start to see some negative behaviours in a person you need to work on helping them manage them as soon as possible. Obviously you don't destroy the person, but you must try and treat the behaviour

1. People standing side by side on escalators and travelators Seriously, use your brain. Not everyone is as lazy as you, or has the time to stand there waiting for the snail pace escalator to reach the top. Have some courtesy and stick to the left so others can get past. 2. Passive aggressiveness If you are ever angry at me, please just tell me. I do not want to spend all my time trying to work out what I may possibly have done wrong. I will rarely get it right, and instead try to fix everything I think I could have done wrong, thus giving you more reasons to be annoyed at me. No one likes walking on eggshells, or lego, or fire, so just tell me what the issue is so we can talk about it and move on. 3. People not thanking you when you let them in while driving I know this annoys a lot of people. How hard can it really be to just give someone a wave to show appreciation? I will probably mention this a few times, but I can't work out if people are ignorant, stupid, or ju

When I was a kid my parents sat me and my sisters down and told us they were getting a divorce And I remember being so angry that they chose then to tell us Because we were meant to go swimming with our next door neighbours And they made us stay home instead But things started to look up Because my dad and sister went out So mum gave me money to go to the milkbar to buy a sausage roll for dinner I rode my bike there But the sausage roll bag broke on the way home And I cried and cried over that damn bag and the lost sausage roll About a year later my mum took a bad turn And she had to go to emergency It was about twelve at night So dad woke us up and took us in our pyjamas We waited there for hours Playing hand games trying to kill time I don’t remember when we got home But the next day My teacher asked us all who had brushed our teeth that morning I  hadn't But I was too scared to tell her that S

Watch this - Now that I have your attention and hopefully disgust like that video gave me, I would like you to read on.  Recently my year 10 students have been doing persuasive oral presentations, which is a great avenue for them to direct their opinions. What I have found difficult is listening to a few presentations opposing same sex marriage. It disgusts me to see that some people believe they are above others so much that they can determine who they can commit their life to. The only people who should be able to decide on that is the two people in a loving relationship. What is even worse is that in Uganda they are currently trying to implement harsher penalties on homosexual people, for simply loving another human being. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20318436 . I know I am biased on this topic, as I hope to one day marry my girlfriend, but let me present you with some of the arguments they give against it.  1. It is unnatural -  So love is unnatural? Dying hair