cold, sick and sad

It's just that time of year I guess. Some of us feel it more than others, other people - well they just motivate themselves to stay healthy and happy. Being somewhat of a lazy slob, I just hate it. Frickin' hate H-A-T-E it. The few golden days that cast childhood shadows are soon enough cut thin by the November winds that strip those leaves and cut to the bone. So many times in my life' when feeling so bad, I thought of Napolean's lost army, or the Germans at Stalingrad to bolster my own feelings of cold, lonley, hoplessness. It's not an uncommon trait - one that supplants the possibility of happiness with it's ghost image - someone else's misery.

Mental health fits nicely into one of those categories. It's sorta like a sore back. Everyone has had a sore back - what's the big deal? Why, we're ALL crazy, some of us just CHOOSE to keep it private.

These ignorant statements are born from the very same mother as all ignorance. A genuine lack of empathy, stemming from fear. Blind fear residing deep inside - so very ghastly that the finger pointing that occours on all levels keeps so many of us from ever examining the truth of our own mental health issues. Far too often, great damage is done to the individual, and the fabric of society when there are so many who CAN do something about the hidden epidemic that robs so much from so many.

Anyone who has ever had a few drinks can plainly see how a small amount of any thing can affect your brain and judgement, speech. mobility...etc. Why is it so hard not to appreciate that some people have wiring in their brain that does not allow for normal function in a normal fashion at all times. Madness has had many guises and suffered many fates over the centuries - but it's been here forever, and it's not going anywhere unless we wake up and treat it like it needs to be treated. Funded and researched - the human mind - is a great investment - happy lives, functional families and decent living conditions should not be just for the chosen few.