This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. We get loud about it.

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. We get loud about it.

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. We get loud about it.

From funding to front-line services, programs are lacking for youth, advocates say. Youth suicide in Canada is the third highest among industrialized nations. [image by Vince Talotta / Toronto Star]

Beth Nowosad started feeling anxious and suffering panic attacks in Grade 8. A counsellor at her elementary school was no help. In high school “there were absolutely no resources,” and by Grade 10 she was self-harming. Before her 18th birthday, she tried to kill herself and ended up in hospital.

“Unfortunately, the funding isn’t there” to help kids, said Nowosad, now 24, who only started getting proper treatment when she enrolled in a college program to become a child and youth worker and learned about resources in the community.  Read more at The Toronto Star…

During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. We get loud about it.

This year during the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health Week, Canadians are speaking up: we’ve been in line for mental health care for way too long. We can’t wait anymore. We are literally sick of waiting. But we’re not only waiting for mental health care. To be truly mentally well, Canadians also need psychotherapy, counselling and community-based mental health services and programs; we need acknowledgement and respect; and we need adequate housing. This CMHA Mental Health Week, May 1-7, Canadians are writing their MPs, speaking out on social media, and donating our time and money, all in the name of getting loud for mental health.  Read more here…

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song written for jazz singer Nina Simone, perhaps sums up how a lot of people living with bipolar disorder feel

Dr. Barry Rich, for one, thinks the time has come for understanding. Rich, a retired physician, is putting the final stamp on what was a two-year manic binge in which he bought 300 guitars. He is auctioning them on Sunday, May 7, at Able Auctions in Surrey. “I have a 1941 Harmony Gaylord. I figure it was one of the last guitars made before Pearl Harbor,” he said. “I have a Gretch acoustic made in 1963 that’s as rare as hen’s teeth.”  Read the rest of this story at The Province…