<![CDATA[ <body> <h1>jeanine pohlhaus photography,mental health,family photographs,documentary photographer,bi-polar disorder,clinical depression, families love and struggle</h1> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="8"> <tr> <td align="left" class="links"><a href="/index.html"><span class="links"><a href="/index.html" target="_top"><font color="#999999">Home</font></a></span> <span class="links"> <a href="/portfolio.html" target="_top"><font color="#999999">project</font></a> </span> <span class="links"><a href="/content.html?page=2" target="_top"><font color="#666666"><b>about Joan and Ernie</b></font></a></span> <span class="links"><a href="/content.html?page=5" target="_top"><font color="#999999">biography</font></a></span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left"> </td> </tr> </table> <h1>about Joan and Ernie | jeanine pohlhaus photography,mental health,family photographs,documentary photographer,bi-polar disorder,clinical depression, families love and struggle</h1></span><br> <div> <h2> </h2> <p> My father always understood my sense of humor. When severe debilitating clinical depression overwhelmed him, on his better days our relationship survived with a subtle look a smile and a mutual understanding that this situation, too had its own dark humorous moments. My photography that has long been a way of capturing ephemeral familial quirkiness began to take on a different dimension. I was witnessing how clinical depression overwhelms my father but also everyone else in what became a narrowing world.</p> <p> </p> <p> I returned home to help during my father’s first hospitalization, my family has been caught up in both the natural highs and lows of clinical depression and the system that seems to recognize the lows. I am using my camera to capture the daily observations and subtleties of an illness that most often gets lost in the daily passage of life. I am trying to humanize a sickness that has most often unfortunately referred to in only clinical terms.</p> <p> </p> <p> My father’s battle is shared with millions of Americans. Depressions stranglehold can often be minimized as a “weakness in character” and there is no sense of accomplishment other than getting through each episode each day.</p> <p> </p> <p> Years have passed, my family has grown more and more supportive and I continue to document his ongoing illness. This has been a very personal journey and the focus of my work. I have lectured, have exhibited photographs and have found intense interest by other families and who have experienced this and the stigma involved in having a mental illness. This is a struggle that extends far beyond one household and with my family’s support I have decided to reveal our experience. I hope to reach other families who have felt the sting of the stigma attached to mental illness, as well as the frustration of moving through the managed health care system.</p> <p> </p> <p> Present</p> <p> Fifteen years have years since Ernie's diagnosis. Joan continued to work full time and care for Ernie as his physical heath declined. He needed help looking after himself and taking his medications. He was never really physically the same after his depressive episodes. There were more hospital visits and some long term stays but he usually was able to return home. On his good days and he enjoyed the dogs company, watching movies, and had a ravounos appitite. Ernie anticipated Joan's homecoming after her work day. When i would visit them at night, i could hear laughter from their bedroom as i was drifting off "if you could marry me all over again, would you? E would ask, and Joan would reply "not a chance!" and they would both break up in hysterics. These were the good days -</p> <p> At present, my father resides in a nursing home and requires skilled care. He never recovered from complications from a broken hip, three years ago. My mother is now facing her own medical issues. She struggles in her heart and mind with wanting to bring him home but can not physically manage this.</p> <p> This is not a story about clinical depression, bi polar disorder or even aging, this is documentation of Joan's unconditional love and devotion and my father Ernie's stamina to survive. It is a tribute to caregivers who challange adversity from moment to moment - sometimes without being noticed.</p> <div> jeanine pohlhaus photographer's ongoing project documenting her fathers struggle with mental illness, declining health and aging.and her mothers fight as a caretaker to keep going. </body> ]]>