When you are a bear of very little brain, and you think of things,
you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you
is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
~Winnie the Pooh
❤
You see, it's this way,
when you are the mother of a child who lives with mental illness
for whom it is nearly impossible to control himself
you often envision him
on the streets
homeless
eating a pack of Lance crackers
and a can of cold beans
(if he were able to safely steal them)
sleeping in an abandoned railroad depot
shivering in a corner
while that last little part of his heart
dies
with yours
❧
we have to stop the stigma of mental illness
because my child's life
and others'
depend upon a society that understands
mental illness is not a choice
❧
