It’s Bell Let’s Talk Day – let’s review
It is a measure of self-compassion on this Bell Let’s Talk Day when I can slow down and remind myself of where I am and where I’ve come from. I…
stigma
The ever-present question: Now what?
I describe myself, rightly so I think, as a long-term survivor of AIDS and HIV. I offer as evidence my being diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and my long, slow…
Thank you Rosemary Barton and MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes
Celina Caesar-Chavannes appeared tonight on CBC Power and Politics with host Rosemary Barton. She was there to discuss her experiences with depression, before and since becoming MP for Whitby and…
Canada’s forthcoming “drop your pants” trans* blood donation policy
In addition to reducing the required wait time between having sex and donating blood to one year for gay men, Canadian Blood Services is poised to release its first-ever guidance…
I’m Thinking, “This is Going to Hurt!”: On ‘How Not to Deal with Grief’
From my friend Betty Ann on her Facebook page: “This article deeply moved me…as I suspect it will for any of you who have been impacted by the kind of…
International Youth Day: Youth and Mental Illness
by: Public Service Alliance of Canada | Posted Thu. Aug 13, 2014 August 12 is International Youth Day, a day endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 in…
Another important day for self-acceptance
If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography…
Another important day for self-acceptance
If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography…
Ending The Stigma
This op-ed appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on January 28, 2014. On Dec. 29, Christopher Peloso, the 40-year-old husband of former Ontario deputy premier George Smitherman, was reported missing.…
Sound Advice for Autism Speaks
In yesterday’s commentary Autism Speaks Joins Drake And J.Cole In Insulting 40% With Autism AND Intellectual Disability I criticized Autism Speaks for stigmatizing persons with Intellectual Disability, particularly the 40%…
Review (and a personal retrospective) – Behind the Candelabra
With only the most scant help from Google I have been trying to remember more about my personal, professional meeting with Liberace (“Please, call me Lee.”) It was some time…
When words turn bad
The other day I was on a conference call and we were discussing which tags and keywords should be included in a collaborative online database. The terms “substance use” and…
Yes – Let’s Talk
Though dismissed by some as a cynical marketing ploy, Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign not only succeeded in raising $4.8 million for mental health initiatives, but also provided a forum for…
There are at least a few, if not many, important people with whom I need to have my own conversation about…
…this! It’s certainly not too early to think about Mental Illness Awareness Week When I read the Ottawa Citizen article (linked above) I immediately thought, “Mom will have read that…
Oh look! It’s happened again!
I’m delighted to be at the top of the list, perhaps it’s random, of 16 Five Star Rated AIDS Information Sites & Blogs – and I’ve found a few fellow…
For those who loved Kyle
I’ve been wrestling all day – less with what to write than how to write it – so I thought I’d begin with an absurd fruit-plate. Leading with humour is…
Newspaper clipping from Mom: “A GAY JOCK TAKES OFF THE MASK”
It was on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen’s March 17 “Saturday Observer” section. The paper sat on a table beside Mom’s comfy chair, where she keeps anything she…
No sentence could undo the harms caused by Graham James
I join the outcry today over the sentencing of convicted serial pedophile Graham James to two years in prison for the sexual abuse of Theo Fleury and Todd Holt. Counter-intuitively…
Something that made me think “Huh?” on World AIDS Day
As I do every Thursday, I spent two hours late this afternoon with a group of gay men. We range in age from something like 35 to just over 60.…
There is no hierarchy in grief: Of Norway and Amy Winehouse
Please read this from Scott Dagostino, whose writing makes me admire the way his mind works. Being someone who might preemptively describe myself as naive (which endears me to world-wise…