Love Art and Illness

Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby play two people struggling with what it means to live with bipolar disorder. (40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks)

This film is just coming out and I look forward to seeing it. Not having seen it, I can't comment on the quality of the film. But after listening to Paul Dalio this morning who produced the film, that is based on his own personal experience with being bi-polar, and after he'd read Kay Redfield's book Touched With Fire, he was inspired him and I am convinced this film is both truthful and well done.
Any truthful media coverage and artistic expression surrounding mental health issues is a always a very good and much needed.

I know personally, what it means to love someone who lives with mental illness, including physical illness. I've several friends with serious illnesses and a brother who died from MS at 59.

 My late husband who was a writer, lived with paranoid schizophrenia since the age of 16. He died at the age of 26 from a combination of Brittle Diabetes and schizophrenia. This was the most painful time of my life but it was also the most intensely beautiful because of our love for one another and our spiritual beliefs. This experience changed my life forever.

For me it has become so important to know and to remember, when a loved one has mental illness or what ever the disease, it is absolutely vital to openly talk about it, to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room, that no one wants to acknowledge, and it is vital for everyone to get help.

Silence and denial I believe is worse than the disease itself, because it keeps everyone sick,  the person directly affected by the disease, and everyone else affected.

As a 22 year recovering alcoholic, I know for every alcoholic there are at least ten other people in their lives who have been affected. It is the same I believe for every disease.

Yesterday I listened to an online webinar that included a most beautiful, strong and inspiring young woman, Kris Carr who was diagnosed with cancer at the young age of 31. She went on to produce a film and wrote about about her experience.

 Kris is still living with cancer, but in spite of, and no doubt because of cancer, she has discovered who she is, gone on to help so many others, and built a thriving successful business.
People like Kris, and those like her, inspire and touch my heart beyond description.

What Is Beautiful? Who Is Perfect? Get Real?

This article from Global News entitled, Mannequins are getting tatoos, back fat and pubic hair, makes me think it's a great thing there is a discussion happening about how people are getting all "haired up", ( pun intended), over hair, and mannequins etc. In spite of there being so many other things to concern ourselves with,  I do believe it is an important, and necessary discussion.

People are perfect in their imperfections, in an natural state, and we all have a story to tell. Life isn't perfect, far from it, causing one to ponder perfection, beauty, reality and the meaning of our lives.

Many don't see beyond the surface, not seeing the person first, but only the superficial. Often we can't see past the so called, disability, the disease, whether it be physical, or mental. The preconceived, rigid, and often self or externally imposed , social, economic, and cultural norms within society lead us to judge, compare others, and ourselves relentlessly , according to a existing every changing standard.

I believe it to be a positive development in the world of fashion in particular, that challenges the constraints, and confines of  the ideal . Body image, appearance, ideas surrounding beauty, and perfection are based on image, and illusion, certainly not on reality.

I remember a good friend once relating to me the idea, if we perceive ourselves through an image, and not through a belief in what I would describe, as being the God of my own understanding, image does not exist. Image is illusion, and a standard we will never measure up to, and we will always fall short.

 Reading the book, The Spirituality of Imperfection , by authors, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham,  helped me immeasurably, to understand the importance, and necessity of imperfection and how the idea of perfection is so imperfect.

Tangles

Sarah Leavitt Dot Com

I heard an interview with artist/writer Sarah Leavitt today for the second time on Shelagh Rogers. It featured Sarah's powerful book, entitled, "Tangles", which is about living with her mother's Alzheimers disease. One thing that struck me was that she spoke about how isolating the disease is. It caused me to reflect on how most diseases are isolating, and those of us who are well are convicted by this and we need to change our attitudes about disease. As a recovering alcoholic I know how isolation works. It kills people.