Tag: humor

Great comic strips about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

On By quriosityIn Life, Science, Society and Popular Culture2 Comments

A student mental health nurse who is also a cartoonist is creating a book about mental illness. Calling himself “Tall Guy,” he has published his chapters on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder on his LiveJournal blog.

These comic strips are very informative as well as entertaining, and I think they are very accurate — I have studied counseling and abnormal psychology and worked for several years as a counselor and mental health worker in a psychiatric institution. I have also worked as a volunteer helper for mentally ill people and have friends and family members who suffer from mental illnesses.

Having befriended many people suffering from these disorders, I like to see others educate themselves about them. Tall Guy’s cartoons are a very accessible way to do that.

Here are links to his blog entries on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder:

Schizophrenia cartoon Bipolar cartoon

One source says Tall Guy’s name is Daryl Cunningham and that his book will be called Psychiatric Tales, to be published in 2010.

As an aside, for an alternative viewpoint on psychiatric medications, Crazy Meds is an interesting web resource. It’s a user-oriented web site “by crazy people for crazy people,” maintained by Jerod Poore, who calls himself “Chief Citizen Medical Expert.”

AB — 24 Sept. 2009

Why I can’t play piano

On By quriosityIn art, Language and Linguistics, Life2 Comments

I just decided today that I can’t play piano because of my first-grade teacher’s southern accent.

For my first few days in the first-grade classroom of Miss Margaret Mackintosh at Mount Vernon Goodwin Elementary School in Raleigh, NC, in 1957, I was puzzled by the kids who left the classroom at odd times during the day to take Miss Margaret “out.”

I couldn’t understand why Miss Margaret would need little kids to take her out, presumably to dinner. I was even more puzzled because Miss Margaret did not go with them on these mysterious excursions. How could they take Miss Margaret out when she didn’t even go with them?

Later I learned I had been the victim of a linguistic difference between Miss Margaret and the dialect I learned at home. Miss Margaret was not in fact asking to be taken to dinner. She was inviting students to take piano, which she pronounced as “pee-ann-uh.”

Unfortunately, the piano-lessons boat had already left the dock, and I had missed my opportunity.

AB — 10 Sept., 2009