By Ginny Nyholm, Mental Health Outreach Coordinator
For the month of February, I bid you a Happy Valentine’s Day (14th) and Happy Presidents’ Day (20th) in advance. The beginning of year 2012 has been good to us. We produced successful outcomes from both the Community Education Workshop and the Communication Workshop for the month of January.
On January 17 just after Martin Luther King Day, a community education workshop was provided at Oxnard Public Library in Oxnard with a very good number of attendees. Jessica Johnson, Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) and I gave a revised PowerPoint presentation on Mental Health and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community: An Introduction. Surprisingly, the attendees were very receptive and shared their experiences with the mental health issues. One of the deaf and hard of hearing community members, Tailiana Garcia, gave a short but yet captivating presentation on her mental health issues.
We had a successful run with the featured hard of hearing speaker for the communication workshop on January 25 at Camarillo Christian Church in Camarillo. Her name is Hayley Lemmer and she works for the County of Ventura. She gave illustrative situations in the personal and professional components of her life and the attendees were in awe of her stories, especially with humor. The questions and answer period was very amazing and Ms. Lemmer closed her presentation with a beautiful video clip with captions from DeafNation, “We are Deaf.” Erin Yastuake, the community educator, had the workshop attendees introduce themselves prior to the featured presentation. A captioned short video clip, “The Emotion Commotion: Stress Mess” from Described and Captioned Media Program was shown afterwards and Tailana Garcia, the ASL instructor, gave a lesson on “Home Sweet Home”.
Bipolar disorder, historically known as manic-depressive disorder, is a condition with mood swings from mania to depression. Here are a few examples of the symptoms of manic and depressive phase in the bipolar disorder:
Mania
Risky behavior
Too much talking
Feeling high
Depression
Sadness
Crying
Focusing problem
This disorder occurs in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. It also affects the relationship in families, colleagues, or friends and it can occur at home, work, or play. However, this disorder can be treated with treatment such as bipolar treatment, medication, and counseling.
