Tag Archives: brain disorders

What Mental Illness Should Not Be

By Ordinary Servant | Published May 23, 2019

I hear terms like, “the weather is so bi-polar,” or “I’m just a little OCD,” and I cringe. When people say things like this, they have no idea what they are saying.

Photo by Callie Gibson on Unsplash

Terms like these are used loosely all the time. For the record, there is no such thing as being a little OCD.

Just because you are clean and meticulous doesn’t mean you suffer from OCD. OCD is a serious mental illness and those who have it suffer a lot and it’s no laughing matter.

Being clean and organized has nothing to do with the fastidiousness of washing your hands countless times a day to the point of bleeding. Those who suffer from OCD will tell you unabashedly, it’s like living a reoccurring nightmare.

OCD is a debilitating disease that never goes away. And, as with most mental illnesses, there is no cure.

Sometimes people associate all mental illnesses with psychosis which is a separate diagnosis. Here is a short clip of what psychosis is like: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0783qvh.

Society dumps everything in one batch. When they think bi-polar or schizophrenia, they automatically associate it with being “crazy or like I mentioned in my previous post, “Psycho.” But, nothing could be further from the truth.

Mental illness is the result of a brain disorder that affects your mood, thinking and behavior.

For example, with OCD, there’s a barrage of uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over. They can’t stop it or snap out of it either.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, bi-polar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.

Bottomline, mental illness (i.e., OCD, bi-polar, schizophrenia) should not be the butt of jokes, the brunt of mockery, or made light of nor misinterpreted, misrepresented or stigmatized. Because mental illness is not fun or funny. Those suffering from it live in constant torment and daily torture and they  hide in shame and suffer in silence due to all the ignorance floating around.

Which is why I’m speaking up to help end the stigma on #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth.

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His Bright Light by Danielle Steel

By Ordinary Servant | Published July 24, 2017

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Delta; Reprint edition
Price: $10.69
Purchase: Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description

“This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold, and a tortured soul. It is the story of an illness, a fight to live, and a race against death.

I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it. I want Nick’s life to be not only a tender memory for us, but a gift to others. . . . I would like to offer people hope and the realities we lived with. I want to make a difference. My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it.”—Danielle Steel

From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother’s joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel’s powerful, personal story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories and Nick’s remarkable journals, Steel brings us a haunting duet between a singular young man and the mother who loved him—and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression, which afflicts between two and three million Americans.

At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel’s tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing, and understanding to us all.

***Vlog Review: https://youtu.be/YC8qgK_JpQQ***

Review

His Bright Light was written as a tribute to Danielle Steel’s son, Nick Traina who was born with bi-polar disorder and committed suicide at the age of nineteen.

This is a well written, detailed account chronicling his life and everything he/she went through trying to get help within the medical community. The failures and the successes, the ups and downs, the sadness and the joy.

It was heart wrenching and difficult for me to read. I had to put it book down a couple of times, because I felt bad for Nick and all he suffered, as well as Danielle Steel and her family.

Mental illness is real and it not only effects the person who is suffering from it, but it also impacts everyone else around them.

At that time, there wasn’t as much information regarding treating bi-polar disorder, (otherwise known as manic depression) as there is now. Although I’m grateful to see there have been strides in the medical field, there is still more to be uncovered and revealed regarding brain disorders.

I get into more detail about my thoughts in my vlog review.

If you want to learn more about what bi-polar looks like, I highly recommend His Bright Light. 

Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Dangerous Games, The Mistress, The Award, Rushing Waters, Magic, The Apartment, Property of a Noblewoman, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.
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