Blog For Mental Health 2013

1.) Take the pledge by copying and pasting the following into a post featuring “Blog for Mental Health 2013″.

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project.  I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others.  By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health.  I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.

You can consider this an open pledge, so feel free to link to A Canvas Of The Minds andthis post!

3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.

I literally lost my mind a decade ago this month. Problem is, I didn’t know it. After a series of traumatic events, life changing surgeries, and pharmaceutical bombardment of my system, I began to lose time. In addition to losing ever increasing chunks of time, I had great difficulty regulating my sleep….sleeping away most of the day, not sleeping at night, finally catching sleep only to experience horrific nightmares. I was suddenly uncharacteristically anxious, complete lack of commonsense or sense to be aware of my own physical safety, and reckless. Four years and tons of medications, surgeries, and doctors…..I finally got an answer. I have DID…..dissociative identity disorder with an AXIS 2 diagnosis of  Chronic PTSD and major depressive disorder. The impact on my life has been enormous, and my journey to recovery a monumental effort unlike anything I have done before. I am so happy to report that I have been free of all psych medications for over 18 months now. I still take a 15mg dose of morphine everyday for pain management but hope to be free of that in the future as well. My road to recovery means everything to me, and I pledge to continue to help others in their journey in any way that I can.

This pledge is my opportunity to commit to mental health awareness. I can publicly display this badge to instantly tell my audience what this is all about. And, I can encourage others within the mental health community that have a Dx to do the same.

4.) Pledge five others, and be sure to let them know!

I am pledging all of my fellow bloggers who have stood with me, and have proven their mettle in my eyes as mental health bloggers.

Out of respect for all of you and your own wishes, If you follow my blog and want this opportunity, you are nominated. If not, I respect and admire you still.

As mentioned above, if you happen upon this without being pledged,I still pledge you.  Feel free to take the pledge!  Promote awareness!

5.) And, as something novel for 2013, Lulu and I ask one more thing of you.

As you may have noticed, Canvas does not keep an official blogroll, outside of links to our authors’ personal blogs.  For something new and special to introduce Blog For Mental Health 2013, and really build a sense of community — and show everyone how many of us there are, and how strong we are, coming together — we are launching a Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll!  So, in addition to linking back to the person who pledged you, please include the link to this original post in your piece.  As this gets passed along, link back or click here and leave a comment containing the link to your pledge, and we will put you on our Blog For Mental Health 2013 Official Blogroll page!  Show the world our strength, show them our solidarity, show them what we are made of.  Take the Blog for Mental Health pledge and proudly display the badge on your blog!