I Pledge to Change the World!

There is a stigma attached to my life, it is called Bipolar Disorder. My pledge is about educating those around me and beyond me. Stigma comes from fear. My fear of how you’ll respond when I tell you and your fear that I will suddenly go postal on you.

I won’t. You are safe. This is my problem, not yours. This impacts my family, not yours. You are safe. Sit down and talk with me, ask me questions about it. I will not bite. I am happy to share because once you know me and understand me you will feel better and so will I. I am making the world a more understanding place one person at a time.

I have joined forces with Jade Moore to create the mental health blog, Letters to the Mind, where we invite YOU to write to your mental illness. You will grow from the exercise and you will teach by leaving your letters, poems, and stories behind for others to consume, relate to, and learn from.

We want you to have a dialog with your illness. We want you to grow and flourish and be all that is possible. We want you to help educate others. We want your creative voices to join us in changing the world!

Do you live with someone who is diagnosed with a mental illness? Please, join us. Your viewpoint is just as weighty as ours.

Jade writes on the Contribution page:

There are no restrictions as to what you write or in what form you write in, and no issue is excluded. This is your piece of writing, and it is for you to make it whatever you want it to be, so there is no wrong way to do this, but here are some suggestions of forms you might like to write in:

A letter
A poem
A short essay/blog post
A script-like conversation (between you and your issue)
A short story/flash fiction (involving you both as characters)
A piece of art – see the ‘Art’ page for more information.

Like I said, you are not restricted to these forms and I encourage you to use your imagination, but I put emphasis on the fact that the act of writing your piece should (I hope!) act as a coping method and a technique that will help you to deal with your mental health and to feel better and think differently about it.

Get out from #behindthedisguise!  Click here to go to the How to Contribute page of Letters to the Mind blog project.

The feature photograph of the scouts was taken by Pauline Loroy and acquired through Unsplash licensing.
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