Eggnog and Mental Health
Everyone has their Christmas Parties to go to - for work, family, friends. Who needs a good party the most around this time of year? The Mood Disorder Association!
Yep, that's right - friends and I were partying it up with the clinically depressed! They sure know how to party. Ed (a fellow with a severe case of bipolar disorder) and his wife Vickie organized it. Ed played Santa and I've never seen a more giving Santa. He has been a driving force behind the Mood Disorder Association of BC - fighting to improve mental health care while providing support groups, newsletters and fundraisers (There was a fundraiser with rock bands of psychiatrists performing).
This Christmas party was the first party I've ever been to where everyone was sure to leave with a prize (ensuring that no one left feeling depressed) We ate way too much, played bingo and sang carols. There wasn't much order to any of it which made it a hell lot of fun - when bingo got too tiring Ed just started giving out the prizes. At the end of the night I left with a nineteen inch TV which will be good for the future appartment I'll be renting with Julie and Kenton (in spring 2005).
Earlier that evening I hit a truck with my car.
I was in a psychiatrist's office once where the wait room was almost bare. There were some coffee stained chairs I associate with those Sundays spent in United Church staring at the back of people's boring necks. Cardboard boxes with that tacky fake doorskin pattern were scattered across the beaten down carpet. The secretary's shoulders curled over her water-stained desk. Yelling came from one room, my psychiatrist waited for me in the other. He asked me about my problems, my physical symptoms, and then proposed to prescribe me children's bedwetting medication for my depression without accompaning psychotherapy. I didn't see him again but I would love to paint the memory of that waiting room.
Yep, that's right - friends and I were partying it up with the clinically depressed! They sure know how to party. Ed (a fellow with a severe case of bipolar disorder) and his wife Vickie organized it. Ed played Santa and I've never seen a more giving Santa. He has been a driving force behind the Mood Disorder Association of BC - fighting to improve mental health care while providing support groups, newsletters and fundraisers (There was a fundraiser with rock bands of psychiatrists performing).
This Christmas party was the first party I've ever been to where everyone was sure to leave with a prize (ensuring that no one left feeling depressed) We ate way too much, played bingo and sang carols. There wasn't much order to any of it which made it a hell lot of fun - when bingo got too tiring Ed just started giving out the prizes. At the end of the night I left with a nineteen inch TV which will be good for the future appartment I'll be renting with Julie and Kenton (in spring 2005).
Earlier that evening I hit a truck with my car.
I was in a psychiatrist's office once where the wait room was almost bare. There were some coffee stained chairs I associate with those Sundays spent in United Church staring at the back of people's boring necks. Cardboard boxes with that tacky fake doorskin pattern were scattered across the beaten down carpet. The secretary's shoulders curled over her water-stained desk. Yelling came from one room, my psychiatrist waited for me in the other. He asked me about my problems, my physical symptoms, and then proposed to prescribe me children's bedwetting medication for my depression without accompaning psychotherapy. I didn't see him again but I would love to paint the memory of that waiting room.
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