The World Health Organization (WHO) has made October 10th World Mental Health Day to put mental health care and awareness in the lime-LIGHT. Why should you care about today?? Well there is a good, a very good chance, that you or someone you love has experienced a diagnosable “mental illness”.  The lack of quality care for people living with mental disorders is the focus. How to change it and bring not only awareness to theses issues surrounding mental health.

The goal of this blog party here on Psych Central is to bring together mental health advocates and bloggers from around the world to talk about MENTAL HEALTH.

Last year, I posted for Mental Health Day: Lessons Learned from a Bipolar Dad and I wanted to expand on being a Bipolar Dad and what I’ve learned over this past year.

I started out by calling my Mother to check up on Mum. We are moving and we have not talked in the last few weeks. My Father was born in 1934 (I just found this out via http://www.ancestry.com). He was the “original” Bipolar Dad living with Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression) undiagnosed till about a year before he died in 1996.

Over the last year, I have made many positive changes and I have lost many battles. I’ve gone through a 3 month period of Depression and had 5 months of balance and lost 35 pounds…WAIT, I did not say I kept it off. After that 5 months, I crashed which led to a period that I probably should have been hospitalized.

All the while my family has been on the ride…I believe this past year has still been one of my best over-all years in sometime. My kids are making great progress and the wife, Joan Winifred, is now blogging, too! Yes as I reflect on the past year, I can see where I’ve make great strides and where I had epic FAILS.

That leads me to the above-cartoon that could seem a bit shocking and gruesome but it does make a point that mental health does not go away so easily. That fact is there IS NO CURE, there is RECOVERY. Yet that comes with a price, too. That is why we need to take Mental Health out of the cellar and dungeon and address it, accept it and work towards getting better!

That is why this Mental Health Day, I will keep working on being better than just a Bipolar Dad! I will be a Father just living with bipolar.

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Friend me on Facebook @chato B Stewart.

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Mental Health Day: More Lessons Learned from a Bipolar Dad – PsychCentral.com (blog) | Health News (October 10, 2012)

World Mental Health Day 2012 – ‘Depression – A Global Crisis’ « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog (October 10, 2012)

Piller H (October 10, 2012)

Health new report (October 10, 2012)

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chatobstewart (October 10, 2012)

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chatobstewart (October 10, 2012)

From Psych Central's website:
World Mental Health Day Blog Party, October 10, 2012 | World Mental Health Day (October 10, 2012)

altpsych.org (October 11, 2012)

CB Stewart (October 11, 2012)

Laura M. Fagan (October 11, 2012)

Trish Hurtubise (October 12, 2012)

From Psych Central's website:
Do You Have the Tools to Access Inner Mental Power? #MentalHealth http://bit.ly/RPLvck | Mental Health Humor (October 16, 2012)

    Last reviewed: 9 Oct 2012