Laughter

How's my mental health today? 

I'm feeling a little better this morning - probably because I actually had a good sleep last night. That hasn't happened very often in the past month or so.

I was looking through the files on one of my external hard drives this morning and I found a file of cartoons. I used to have many more cartoons but they've been deleted along the way.

I used cartoons a lot in my work - they can be such an effective way to make a point. I was asked to tell a bit of my story in an all day professional development workshop almost 10 years ago. I knew that almost half the participants in the workshop had heard my story before so I needed to do something a little different. I decided to put together a PowerPoint show (with timed slides) consisting of many mental health & psychiatry cartoons. 

The PowerPoint show ran on a screen behind me while I spoke. It added a lot of tension to my presentation. One participant told me afterwards that she didn't know whether or not to laugh at the cartoons because the story was difficult (emotionally) to listen to. 

There are days when I regret deleting that file (the PowerPoint show and that version of my story) but I needed to purge all work related materials from my computer so I could stop looking back and focus on moving forward.

A few cartoons did survive. Take a look.

(I know they're copyrighted, but since I'm not making money by using them I hope I won't get sued for using them without permission.)

Caption: The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.  --- Gary Larson

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I need to be able to laugh at myself in order to beat the depression. Stuff like this helps.

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, 
if I did not laugh I should die.  
~ Abraham Lincoln