D-WORDSLAYER

A culture of misinformation I did not know what mental illness really was until I was close to twenty. Before, I thought mental illness was something which resulted from a deficiency at birth and was genetic. This thought scared me as I grew up knowing my mother, grand mother and great grandmother were ‘mad’, as we were told from a tender age. My mother was the first of five children and my grandmother was one of more than five, and my great grandmother was also from a large family. No one told us about mental illness or what caused it or why it happened. I simply thought it was an unfortunate curse on at least one member of the family, and prayed to never 'get it'!  Some of the 'folklore facts' I grew up with were;   If you kept your problems to yourself you would ‘overload’ and go crazy. If you fell too much in love you would go crazy. If you had too many bills you would go crazy. If you had no friends you would go crazy. If you were too ‘bright’ in s...

You are invited to look closer My friends I'm sharing a series of blogs called "Open Book - Mental Illness" from tomorrow. It's a heavy topic but is a serious social issue in the Caribbean and the world.  There are many families with loved ones who have some form of mental illness. My friend  Lisa Fraser Gallagher  has shared on her personal experiences with mental illness and she is an excellent resource on this topic.  In my fam ily one of my sisters and my mother are mentally ill. Like any other disease if you are unaware of the symptoms, left untreated it gets worse. There is no cure for mental illness. It can be managed, however not many people are willing to accept their loved ones are mentally ill. In Trinidad & Tobago there is societal acceptance of mentally ill behavior once no one is physically hurt. Hence, we have many street dwellers and vagrants living a homeless life by choice because of their mental illness.  To offer help to ...

Distressed panties? Can the demand for distressed garments push you to the ultimate intimate? Distressed panties will not be something I will purchase even though I’ve got a few and they are too comfortable to let go. I had this crazy thought as I hung my undergarments on my outdoor line to get some sun while drying.  Imagine walking into a store and finding tired looking panties, shreaded, and with holes. Hmm that would get folks talking. It could even get those folks inclined to be ‘trendsetters’ buying a tired beatten flimsy panty for maybe double what one would pay for the regular stuff. The mind of the consumer can be confusing at times, thus I’m trying to figure out what would make someone get insane with intimates! Teeny Tweens. I can see this group of young-uns checking out a Kardashian blog or Taylor Swift update to see if they are wearing distressed briefs. If ‘reality and other famous stars’ are into a trainwreck piece of cloth these impressionable babes wil...

The Ugly Truth After reading a few articles and declining to read some more of the world headlines facing me today, I've come to the conclusion, that the world is really in a mess. Let me rephrase; many people in the USA are in a mess - morally, socially, spiritually, humanely. That about sums up my position on racism v vulgarity.  The fact that this can even be a topic of consideration underscores that sensationalism has taken over the more pressing need to solve world hunger crisis, terrorism control, species extinction, hurricane disasters, refugee crisis, human trafficking, global racism and gender biases, and the list goes on.  Twitter has become the tool of many folks who want an excuse to say what they want , when they want and yell "free speech" is our right. Thats a lot of 'bull and poppycock' if you ask me. Things are getting out of hand and while I would like to lay the blame squarely of the not so strong shoulders of the USA president, this...

I can vaguely remember a book I read during my secondary level literature class called ‘School’s Out’. I cannot recall the author but I remember the plot was one which involved the most unlikely careless people in the role of teachers. That book shed light on what happens when the education system fails children and the community. At the time I thought it was a funny satirical story about our West Indian education system which was not at all like that. Now, I think I have found an institution and society which resembles that type of attitude and embodies the dysfunction it exposed many years ago. School may be out for some, at least locally, where a lawless society is created, not from poverty and illiterate criminals, but from intellectuals who lack the discipline and commitment to be better examples. I am not sure this should be committed to paper, but it is troubling when faced with a facade which is a disgrace to an education system. The bully Bullies are breed. They are g...

The following is published on Citizen4life, and is something to think about! The concept of the greater good is used to justify actions where loss affects a few/ or takes place to allow for a perceived greater benefit. There have been wars waged based on ‘the greater good’. During war it is believed that a few hundred men will sacrifice /lose their lives for their country to achieve their goal of strength or freedom. At work there are times when someone ‘takes one for the team’ because there are proposed future benefits for all. Sometimes it can be a salary to avoid layoffs, and at other times a salesman may be asked to allow another to take over a deal based on bigger benefits for the company in a bigger deal. Whatever the reason, it is considered a sacrifice for the benefit of others. As I think about this ‘rationale’ it seems that it is a double-edged sword which can be for both good or bad depending on the person using the phrase for justification of action or decision...