Loving and Losing Lilly - preview
Animal companions: their role in a life with psychiatric diagnosed disease, by Eliza Johnston
I want to offer a celebration of Lilly, my animal companion Many of us who end up with a psychiatric disease diagnosis have very good reasons for not trusting humans any more As a bridge, trust in Lilly became my only source of love
I had ten years of caring for and loving Lilly When I tell friends that she died, they are sympathetic, but I want them to know how important she was to my life
She was beautiful, pure white, with large green eyes, nervous, but litter-trained It only took her a few days to get settled, realising that it was her and me She was quiet and calm When she first stepped out of her box into her new world in 1998, I got a wonderful sense of a beautiful white light spirit arriving with her She was a mature cat, from Battersea cats and dogs home I was finally in my council flat, with a little garden, recovering from hospitalisation Back then that meant police, being under section for a six-month detention, with a manic psychosis diagnosis, part of the bipolar diagnosed in 1991 It had by then become almost an annual event Almost instantly Lilly started to change my life
Eliza Johnston
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In this week's
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Quakers get real on same sex commitments
Stephen Cox News round-up
news@thefriend.org Protests over academic freedom
Roger Sanderson The last respectable prejudice
Diane Brewster Comment
Jez Smith & Roger Sawtell Letters
editorial@thefriend.org Loving and Losing Lilly
Eliza Johnston The animateur from the ambulance unit
Mike Jenn Can hope and history rhyme?
Susan Robson Seeds of change through song
Alec Davison William Penn School
Will Harris
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