bro1988 Just another Blo9s weblog

Bipolar Disorder Children

Image by sweetmadness via Flickr

i've been quiet.  i know.  there are two reasons.  the first is that publication project.  i really bit off more than i can chew.  i decided to make not one, but three books.  with content.  and in materials out of my comfort zone.  my husband thinks i'm crazy.  and that's basically what i've been working on.  so i've had no pictures to share.

i will tell you a little bit.  the book is authored by tammy kushnir.  the tentative title is "repurposed journals."  we were to make a journal (not necessarily three!) using upcycled materials.  and complete the journal pages inside.  i made one book out of cabinet doors (it's really large!), one out of a bit of a drop cloth, and the last out of upcycled wool.  i have about half the journaling done.  the drop cloth book is filled it with spray painted stencils.  i found out that i really only need to do about 2 spreads of journaling per book, so that's great.  i should be done soon.

but the second problem is that my depression has returned.  i've spoken about having bipolar disorder before.  but i've pretty much been symptom free for a while.  just the past two weeks i've been feeling depressed again.  it affects my motivation and my ability to concentrate on my artwork.  everything feels like an effort.  so it's been hard for me to work and hard for me to blog.  i'm just hoping this is a short lived break through set of symptoms.

i managed to paint some book board, like in the picture above, and spray paint them to offer in the shop.  it will probably be a little while though.  i have to finish journaling, bind them all, take pictures, etc.  i'll let you know when they're ready.

•  Tonei Glavinic, writing for Student Pulse, gives us the piece Research Shows Lack of Support for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Youth in U.S. School Systems:

Transgender children are some of the most vulnerable students in America's schools. Nobody knows how many there are, and very few educators know what to do with them. Despite extensive advocacy efforts, trans youth are subjected to bullying and harassment in the classroom; diagnosed with nonexistent learning disabilities and psychological problems; and generally misunderstood by their doctors, teachers, and classmates. As a result, these students get lower grades than their classmates and are less likely to pursue higher education. The lack of a basic understanding of trans youth puts them at an extremely high risk for failure and unsatisfactory performance in schools.

(Authors note: "Transgender" and "trans" are used interchangeably to refer to transgender, transsexual and gender-nonconforming individuals. The term 'transgender' generally describes people whose physical sex characteristics do not match their psychological gender identity.)

I spoke with Kim Pearson, the executive director of the national advocacy organization TransYouth Family Allies, to learn more about the struggles faced by transgender and gender-variant children in schools2. The first thing she mentioned was transgender children being diagnosed with nonexistent conditions: in her experience, trans students who have not come out to themselves or those around them are often labeled as "dull or difficult," and diagnosed with a number of learning disabilities because of their poor performance in school (81). In other words, students get diagnosed simply because they are underachieving - the school treats the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause. While this can happen to other groups of students, transgender youth are particularly vulnerable because so few people can recognize the cause of their problems.

Misdiagnosis of transgender youth also occurs in the psychological field. While there is little published research in this area (Pearson's organization is working on compiling data, but suffers from insufficient resources), a young transgender man I spoke to offered numerous instances of his peers being diagnosed and treated for a series of conditions: attention deficit disorder, phobias, sexual abuse, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism-spectrum disorders. He also echoed the sentiment that doctors "diagnose symptoms rather than the real issue," and noted that it can take years for medical professionals to figure out the actual cause - if they ever do (Anonymous). Arlene Lev, a licensed clinical social worker with twenty-five years of experience working with LGBT people, supports these claims: she reports that "clinical experience yields frightening narratives of clients who have been misdiagnosed, mistreated, and misguided by uninformed clinicians (19)." If teachers and medical professionals had a better understanding of trans youth and were equipped with the tools necessary to identify them, these types of misdiagnoses would be much less common...

Pretty decent piece, I'd say.

•  GetReliegion.org's Transgender + Catholic = story:

You don't see 2,000-word stories in newspapers every day, so when you do, the editors probably deem it an important story.

The Des Moines Register gave several inches to a reporter to explain how Susan McIntyre, a transgender social worker, was fired from her job as a housekeeper at the St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Student Center at Drake University.

Before she was fired, McIntyre was using parish offices to provide counseling for transgendered clients. The Register reports that a priest discovered a piece of paper in the copy machine with McIntyre's authorization of hormone therapy for someone about to undergo a sex change. The letterhead included the center's name and address.

If you took the words "transgender" and "Catholic" out of the story, you probably wouldn't have anything to write about. I don't think it's that controversial to get fired for misrepresenting your employer. But put those words back in and you have a lightning-rod debate over doctrine versus acceptance. I have some follow-up questions, though, that I think would improve the story...

Yup. Pretty astute observation, I'd say.

• Our Wiener Story Of The Day: The Daily Breeze's Woman charged in $110,000 theft from Torrance Little League:

A former Torrance Little League treasurer and two-time Volunteer of the Year has been charged with stealing more than $110,000 from the organization.

Barbara Lynn Davidson, 44, of Torrance was arraigned on a charge of felony grand theft Dec. 29 in Torrance Superior Court.

...Davidson served seven years as treasurer of the group before resigning from the board in September, saying she had "abused her role" in the position, said President Steve Gottlieb.

...In her position, Davidson had access to the league's bank accounts and proceeds from its snack shack, the main fundraising tool for most Little Leagues.

Snack shacks sell drinks, hamburgers and hot dogs, candy and the locally famous taco boats.

"One particular year it showed a profit of $3,500, which at that point to me - it was my first year on the board - seemed awfully low based on the (number of) patrons we had at the window," Gottlieb said. "It just did not seem accurate, if you will." ...

Ah. An apparent wiener accused of stealing Little League weenie money!   Nice!

So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?

And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!

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