As I am sipping a hot coffee and nibbling dried figs on my couch, I flip a month old Doctors Without Border newsletter I picked up on the subway last week. My th0ught is, something is wrong with all these pictures. I google and here are the photos I am having in my hand.
If you watch all the ten photos, I wonder if you wonder what I wonder? I'll be back to write about my wondering thought.
My daughter is 24, and has always had it difficult. But we are doing our best now with family therapy and good doctors. I think she especially liked the notion of being able to choose the layer she might like to show someone. My husband teaches special needs children. For 15 years he taught in hospital schools and he was always trying to communicate to other teachers the different needs the children had and that saying something they did was inherently good or undeniably bad was not helpful when there were so many different things going on with them--long-term hospitalization, separation from family, life-threatening illness, inability to lead a normal life, etc. etc. So, when I say "use it in his teaching," I mean he will use the idea for deciding how he wants to deal with the children he teaches. One thing he discovered was that young children in the hospital were thrilled to get a chance to bake cookies. And after they made them, they spontaneously began taking them around giving them away to nurses, doctors, their parents. He discovered a "layer" in them that needed to do something for other people, not always being the one on the receiving end. The children he teaches now are profoundly disabled, but he is relentless in trying to figure out ways to communicate meaningfully with them.
Posted by: Deborah | February 05, 2008 at 07:26 AM
Hi Deborah,
No more hives :)) I'm glad you see the onion theory the way I see it. How old is your daughter, if you don't miind?
And I would love to hear how did your busband use it in the class room?
Posted by: anasalwa | February 03, 2008 at 06:48 AM
Hi again, Ana, I discussed the "onion theory" with my husband and daughter (she's the one with many issues) and she just nodded her head... it was like "somebody understands!" I could almost see my husband formulating in his brain how he was going to use it in his teaching. So glad your rash is better!
Posted by: Deborah | January 30, 2008 at 03:13 AM
Hi Deborah,
Thank you for your comment. I agree with you that most of us are not aware that people with mental illness have many issues in their lives, just like us too. But for them those layers have been buried far too long they were not aware that they have them.
I'm trying to put together about my thought of those ten pictures.
Posted by: anasalwa | January 29, 2008 at 10:33 PM
Hi Ana, I'm new to reading this blog, but it is fascinating. I'm an American living in Japan, so I'm also a person with a "funny accent." I looked at the pictures--is the problem that they are too beautiful and perfectly posed? Please continue your thoughts. I'm also intrigued with your onion analogy. I have a lot of personal experience with mental illnesses and your ideas make perfect sense. I think it is so important for people to realize that even after a person begins to get help, it is still a long, long haul--and the person will be dealing with their illness for the rest of their life. Thanks for your good words.
Posted by: Deborah | January 28, 2008 at 06:56 PM