Mental inspiration……

I updated and added some link to my sidebar. I also added an Interesting Biographies section that I used to have on my former blog. Two of special note are the ones on Pam Wagner and her sister and Dr. Frederick Frese. I will put a short quote of Dr. Frese’s biography up. I find it inspirational when I am going through a rough period.

Psychologist overcomes paranoid schizophrenia

Frederick Frese's astonishing story is simply this: Thirty years ago, he was locked up in an Ohio mental hospital, dazed and delusional, with paranoid schizophrenia. Twelve years later, he had become the chief psychologist for the very mental hospital system that had confined him.

Along the way, despite 10 other hospitalizations, he married, had four children and earned a master's degree and doctorate.

He's smart, impassioned and dedicated.

And now, after more than 300 public appearances in the last few years and a major role in a national campaign to end discrimination against the mentally ill, Frese is gaining prominence as a person who lives successfully with schizophrenia and who can share the lessons he and his family have learned from it.

Frese's accomplishments are remarkable by anyone's standards, given the often devastating nature of the disorder, which affects 2.5 million Americans. A fact sheet on schizophrenia from the National Institute of Mental Health calls it the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses.

Afraid, withdrawn and tortured by inner thoughts and voices, people with schizophrenia, particularly those who refuse to take medication, are more prone to suicide or estrangement from society. Once locked inside mental hospitals, as Frese was, they now make up a significant portion of the homeless population; many others are in jail.

But Frese, 55, of Hudson, Ohio, between Cleveland and Akron, contends he's not all that unusual -- many others with schizophrenia lead fulfilling lives.