I randomly met a young lady through facebook named Melissa and she lives a wonderful and plentiful life embracing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).  This is a mental illness that is is a characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce anxiety, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxiety, or by combinations of such thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).  I am sure once you read Melissa’s blog at http://blogs.mindingyourmind.org/my_fight_for_imperfection/ you will learn so much more-an intimate view of OCD.  She is clever as she plays on words such as IMPerfection which reminds me that we are all truly perfect the way we are and of course mental illness is perfectly packaged in our gift of life.

This young lady is quite ambitious and is a Keynote Speaker for mental health issues in the USA at 23 years old!  Amazing!  She is a mental health advocate, actress and author and takes part in organizing and runs in stigma stomping marathons for mental health.  I plan to do the same in Victoria, BC and I was amazed when I stumbled on to her website and the slogan ‘Stomping on Stigma’ echoed each other.  It felt very cool to know I was meant to cross her path.

Many may often feel it can be distressing ‘waiting’ for your dream career or life’s goal to be achieved, but as I have told Melissa perhaps just consider taking it in stride and enjoy the ride.  Where are we truly trying to ‘get to?’  We are here now making an impact and I have learned that it is about binding together in the world, striving in stomping stigma steps to create a beautiful place to live that is accepting for those with a mental illness.

Melissa, I will need your guidance to help our team create a ’Stigma Stomp Marathon’?  Was it a marathon you hosted or just a run?  A run, I hope!  Thank you for all that you do, all that you are and your radiance and warmth shines in this world.  It is recognized and appreciated. 

Please Visit Melissa’s website at: http://www.melissahopely.com/ and view her national award winning video: Journey to A Better Day…isn’t is an amazing place to be, as we are living in that better day and the journey just gets better and better each day.

Much love and hugs,

Bipolar Babe  xo

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 4:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.