YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Another great episode. I just wanted to let you know, Paul, that all of us appreciate your podcast and doing the dirty work of removing someone from the forum. It could seem like there is nothing positive about it, but you are helping nice people communicate in the forum, and that is a very important thing for us, your listeners. Thanks!

Great show altogether, when the interview ended, I instantly thought I'd love to hear more from this Ray guy.

I've moderated a couple of gaming forums and some of those places people get banned left and right, but I've also had to ban people from more intimate communities, where you really get surprised someone would go out of their way to create conflict where there was none.

Ray seemed to be a little insulting toward police. Did I imagine that?

I kind of felt he used knucklehead cops kind of the describe the intrusion that the families feel, when they get woken up in the middle of the night by two case workers and two LEOs and their lives has to be investigated.

By the way I noticed the angel harps chiming twice, but the ads were missing.

This podcast was an interesting look into California's CPS system, do similar agencies in different states work the same? ie Do they have standard operating guidelines from the federal government or is it all state run? I'm Canadian so I have no idea Not that I know anything about my province's laws on the subject either so if anyone from Alberta wants to chime in here go ahead knowledge is power after all.

On a side note, the forum story was such a teaser, what happened? DETAILS!

Yeah, sorry about the chimes. I've got to make sure that's not in there next time.

The forum thread is Abuse/Violation and subthread "Podcast Helped Me Realize". You can see the post I banned him for, but the mean things he wrote were sent to me via email and I don't intend to share those.

Paul

Ok, just read the thread I get it 100% Thanks again for the work you are doing Paul.

Paul,

Got no problem with the chimes, to me that's just the sound of you getting paid for your work. I just wondered if you forgot to place an ad in between the chimes.

Am I the only one that felt some serious condescending classism?

I really like that he was able to refer to older episodes and things Paul's said in the past. It's so awesome when guests do that, because it's a nice reminder that the podcasts -- and by extension, us -- are all interconnected.

The email toward the end of the podcast made me so happy. The way KJ(spelling?) described her bipolar girlfriend: "she has that light in her eye and a love of life that is infectious." I always worry that my boyfriend only sees me as depressed girl he has to take care of and I started to tear up hearing KJ talk about her girlfriend and how her desire to keep her safe stems from love, not pity, which I'm sure is true for everyone who lives with/loves someone with a mental illness.