Howard I can't believe I'm communicating with you, but I live in New Zealand and when I was viisting my brother in San Fran earlier this year I saw your book and put the title down in my list of books to read and finally managed to get a copy of it here in our library and have just finished the book a few days ago.
I admire your courage and do appauld you for being so brave and stepping forward and delving into your painful past like that.
I just finished your book, and you have had one interesting life, I have to say. Also, you're a talented writer, and it was really the most awesome thing to see your comment on my blog post about your book! I absolutely loved your book, as it seems strikingly honest, and I think there is a great power in people simply telling the truth about their experiences, particularly when the experiences are difficult obstacles that society doesn't give much attention to.
I have Schizophrenia. I know that you don't seem to have ever really had that illness, but the label was put on you at a young age. I have to say, I am one lucky chick that I wasn't born thirty years earlier, because I would probably have ended up having a lobotomy done on myself. Sometimes I think that taking 12 medications a day and getting injections of an antipsychotic every two weeks is pretty inconvenient. Sometimes it doesn't prevent me from having psychotic symptoms. I've also gained 100 lbs. on the meds, and I have to wonder if that was really worthwhile. But all in all, I know the meds have saved my life, and I'm grateful for them.
I'm really grateful I did not have to go through a lobotomy, or electroshock, or insulin treatments, or being locked up in a state hospital for my whole life, or any number of other things that so many people have been put through in the name of psychiatric help. I'm really lucky that the bad experiences I've had in doctors' offices and hospitals were nothing in comparison to what could have happened to me just a decade or two before I was born. I am really lucky for that.
I applaud your truth-telling and your desire to keep living, and the fact that you never gave up on yourself, even when things were really rough. I have had many rough patches myself, and I know it's hard sometimes to know what the point is of it all, but in the end, we only get one life to live, and we all have to make the best of the hand we're given. It seems like you have definitely done that with yourself.
Congratulations on your popularity and your book's success!
Just finished reading your book...when I read what your stepmother Lou's "issues" were with you all I kept thinking was there isn't anything wrong with Howard...he is a kid...acting like a kid. Howard you were only behaving like the kid you were, Lou is the person who seems to have had mental problems, unfortunately your parents, the "doctor's", the system as a whole let you down (I know I am not saying to you anything you don't now realize, but I just wanted to say it all the same)...for so long you thought different...so what can it hurt to hear the truth over & over for a few years.
I give you so much credit...you with the help of your wife and those that have believed in you have transended this unbelievable history.
Life is not easy for anyone and for some as yourself it is just that much harder, you are proof that the strong survive. You are a very strong person and from what I have read & heard on NPR clip you are a person with a big heart and much to offer those who are lucky enough to know you.
Continue to put one foot in front of the other, try to focus on what is ahead for you and now that you have dealt with the past try to leave it there. Put it in a box and close it as tight as you can and when you do peak inside from time to time realize how far you have come.
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
6 comments:
Howard
I can't believe I'm communicating with you, but I live in New Zealand and when I was viisting my brother in San Fran earlier this year I saw your book and put the title down in my list of books to read and finally managed to get a copy of it here in our library and have just finished the book a few days ago.
I admire your courage and do appauld you for being so brave and stepping forward and delving into your painful past like that.
Take care
Hi Howard~
I just finished your book, and you have had one interesting life, I have to say. Also, you're a talented writer, and it was really the most awesome thing to see your comment on my blog post about your book! I absolutely loved your book, as it seems strikingly honest, and I think there is a great power in people simply telling the truth about their experiences, particularly when the experiences are difficult obstacles that society doesn't give much attention to.
I have Schizophrenia. I know that you don't seem to have ever really had that illness, but the label was put on you at a young age. I have to say, I am one lucky chick that I wasn't born thirty years earlier, because I would probably have ended up having a lobotomy done on myself. Sometimes I think that taking 12 medications a day and getting injections of an antipsychotic every two weeks is pretty inconvenient. Sometimes it doesn't prevent me from having psychotic symptoms. I've also gained 100 lbs. on the meds, and I have to wonder if that was really worthwhile. But all in all, I know the meds have saved my life, and I'm grateful for them.
I'm really grateful I did not have to go through a lobotomy, or electroshock, or insulin treatments, or being locked up in a state hospital for my whole life, or any number of other things that so many people have been put through in the name of psychiatric help. I'm really lucky that the bad experiences I've had in doctors' offices and hospitals were nothing in comparison to what could have happened to me just a decade or two before I was born. I am really lucky for that.
I applaud your truth-telling and your desire to keep living, and the fact that you never gave up on yourself, even when things were really rough. I have had many rough patches myself, and I know it's hard sometimes to know what the point is of it all, but in the end, we only get one life to live, and we all have to make the best of the hand we're given. It seems like you have definitely done that with yourself.
Congratulations on your popularity and your book's success!
Take care,
Jen Robinson
Howard,
Just finished reading your book...when I read what your stepmother Lou's "issues" were with you all I kept thinking was there isn't anything wrong with Howard...he is a kid...acting like a kid. Howard you were only behaving like the kid you were, Lou is the person who seems to have had mental problems, unfortunately your parents, the "doctor's", the system as a whole let you down (I know I am not saying to you anything you don't now realize, but I just wanted to say it all the same)...for so long you thought different...so what can it hurt to hear the truth over & over for a few years.
I give you so much credit...you with the help of your wife and those that have believed in you have transended this unbelievable history.
Life is not easy for anyone and for some as yourself it is just that much harder, you are proof that the strong survive. You are a very strong person and from what I have read & heard on NPR clip you are a person with a big heart and much to offer those who are lucky enough to know you.
Continue to put one foot in front of the other, try to focus on what is ahead for you and now that you have dealt with the past try to leave it there. Put it in a box and close it as tight as you can and when you do peak inside from time to time realize how far you have come.
Wishing you & yours the best,
Deb
some more lovely comments left on my page for your book! you really have touched us!!
http://meredithwaterstraat.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-lobotomy-by-howard-dully.html#comments
I just got your book and after reading the comments I am really looking forward to reading it.
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