This week actor and comedian Robin Williams ended his battle with mental health issues by taking his own life. At age 63 he was not going through some sort of growing pains or teenage angst, he was facing the challenges that he did and choose the avenue which seemed correct for him.
What has this got to do with Ocean Optometry?
What has this got to do with eyes?
You may ask these questions, and on a clinical sense vision is simply the neurological processing of data provided by the eyes - themselves, a simple tool for turning light radiation into an electrical signal.
Yet, your overall mental wellbeing may have a huge impact on your perception and therefore your vision.
and this is where the blog could end
but.
both Dr. Euan McGinty and Dr. John Wilson feel that mental wellbeing is much, much more important.
The cold hard facts are undeniable. You may see stats saying 1 in 5 Canadians suffer from mental health problems, the reality is more like forty percent. That's two in every five, look around you, how many people do you see? Now consider that almost half of them face mental health challenges.
Consider this.
Recovery.
Recovery should not be a hope, a goal or an ideal. Recovery should be the norm. We should aim for recovery with every single person who suffers from mental health challenges.
If you are not sure ... ask us
Here's some resources:
Canadian Mental Health Association: http://www.cmha.ca/
Recovery: http://ontario.cmha.ca/mental-health/mental-health-conditions/recovery/
If you wish to talk, reach out to Ocean, we're here. info@oceanoptometry.ca and (902) 446-4470 . If you know someone with mental ill-health challenges, heck, forget that, if you know someone ... just send them a message to say "hey?". We are there, you are there, let us move forward on this.
PS the worst of it ... the very worst of it ... Robin wore some fabulous glasses, here are some of our favourites.
RIP Robin
