Shaping Families

Artist with Schizophrenia

“In the beginning before I got on medication, before I started seeing a doctor, it was very, very … terrible. I had hallucinations, I’d see things that I could swear were there, but then they’d disappear the next second and I’d go in and out of a state of delusion. – Jerome Lawrence

Listen - Transcript - Study Guide

Connecting Point

Natalie Francisco

I commend Jerome for sharing his story with us. Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorders and other conditions affecting one’s mental health and well-being may be a taboo subject for some, but the topic is certainly worth addressing for the sake of educating ourselves and others.

Shadow Voices website. A companion site to the Shadow Voices documentary. Stories from the documentary with Jerome Lawrence’s story in more detail, with links to many additional resources. 

The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., works at research, awareness, combating stigma and discrimination regarding mental illness.

Jerome Lawrence website with artwork and books written by Jerome Lawrence.

Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network: A Georgia non-profit corporation which assisted Jerome in recovery and with whom he was employed for a period of time. It was founded in 1991 by consumers of state services for mental health, developmental disabilities, and addictive diseases. 

Read comments by students who have studied Shadow Voices: Finding Hope in Mental Illness documentary.

Unsung: Family Voices on Mental Illness radio spots – winner of Gracie and Gabriel awards. Twelve radio spots celebrating the heroic valor of families and friends supporting those with mental illness amid an appalling amount of societal ignorance and stigma and a difficult-to-navigate mental health system. 

Natalie Francisco website.

VIDEO
Shadow Voices: Finding Hope in Mental Illness. A Third Way Media documentary. Hear more of Jerome Lawrence’s story, along with many others struggling through mental illness. This documentary will air June 12-July 31, 2011, on NBC-TV stations at their discretion.

BOOKS
How to Get What You Want By Changing Your Mind: Finding Life's Lessons in Art by Jerome Lawrence.

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez.

ONLINE 
Mental Health Ministries. Susan Gregg Schroeder’s organization for reducing the stigma of mental illness.

The Gift of Being Different

Burton Buller

Some of my favorite artists have lived with mental conditions some say are abnormal. Who can fail to see the confusing, heightened sensitivity to light in Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night?” Or the paranoia present in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “The Pit and the Pendulum?” An alternative way of experiencing common reality provides a mirror for our own reflections.

Cutting and Burning

Next week on Shaping Families we take you into the world of self-injury—cutting and burning oneself—a practice that more than an estimated two million people, mostly women, currently practice. We talk to Kari, who formerly practiced cutting and burning herself as a release from the pain she experienced in her life. Get an inside look at how and why people engage in self-injury and how many find healing and a way out. 

Homemade Ice Cream

In Sheri Hartzler's extended family, a birthday party (and a lot of other celebrations) includes homemade ice cream.  If there is any left over, it doesn’t crystallize in the freezer. Think summer and make a freezer full when fresh strawberries are in season. 

• Shaping Families Update - May 12
• Shaping Families Update - May 5
• Shaping Families Update - April 28
• Shaping Families Update - April 21

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