Daily Lessons from Life 14 December 2013 - The Institute of Mental Health (IMH)'s Play

No headlines to comment on today. Instead I want to share my feeling about a play presented by IMH staffs.

It was a very well produced play by a non-professional team. The standard is very high and I salute them for the tremendous performance presented.

The play is about 3 persons with mental health challenge. A grandfather with dementia. A young girl with the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affliction and a young lady suffering from schizophrenia.

Lessons for me are:

1. people afflicted with mental illness can be helped if they find help early enough;

2. they can find help early only if the people around them can understand what they are exactly going through in their mind instead of doubting them and stimagtizing them;

3. caretakers of dementia patients must know what help to get in order to be healthy physically and mentally to discharge their duties and exhibit their love for the patients without burning out too quickly and too early!;

4. OCD can be overcome as revealed by one of the patients who shared her real story in the video at the end of the formal play. It was not easy but it could be done. She was very inspirational indeed;

5. schizophrenia is a real mental health issue that need medication and medical help for the patients to recover. So, the earlier the patients get help, the higher their chance to get it under control and live as normal a life as possible. At the end of the play, a schizophrenia patient also shared his life and how he appealed to the employers and people to understand it is an illness that can be controlled.

I personally enjoyed the play very much and I am amazed at the passion and dedication these staffs of IMH showed in using this artistic expression to pass the message that mental health is real and yet there is no need to fear it. There are ways to deal with them and everyone can benefit from understand the mental illnesses better.