Showing posts with label advocacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advocacy. Show all posts

On the Road Again for NAMI: No Cougars Encountered

NAMI and I go way back. I don't even know when or how I heard of this organization, the nation's largest grass roots organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. But it has walked beside me for thirteen years now, as I have tried to build my own better life.

NAMI began in 1979, when some Wisconsin parents of people with schizophrenia pushed back against the prevailing theory of the day, that they had caused this terrible disease in their children. They aligned their new organization with the view that schizophrenia is an illness of the brain, and a commitment to support research into medical approaches to alleviate this and other mental illnesses.

NAMI provides advocacy, education, support and public awareness. My own life has been touched by NAMI through their Peer to Peer classes and support groups. My wife attended Family to Family classes. In the last ten years, these core programs have expanded to address other needs.

So most years, I have participated in their annual fund raiser, the NAMIWalk. For the first few years, I walked with NAMI Johnson County in Iowa City, with Team Prozac Monologues. It was a party affair, kicked off with balloons and Middle Eastern dancers and roller derby demonstrations. And t-shirts, always t-shirts.

This year we did it DIY. COVID cancelled the big events. We all walked our own routes.

One More Reason to Ask About Suicide

It's always dangerous to listen in when psychiatrists and therapists talk among themselves. I used to do a whole series, OMGThat'sWhatTheySaid, devoted to overhearing what they say about us. More than one post was devoted to their discourse about suicide.

There's been lots of opportunity to overhear in the last several days since the Meghan Markle interview. The clinicians weighed in on Stacey Freedenthal's New York Times article where she dared to repeat what some doctors and therapists have told her (an expert in the field of suicide and suicide prevention), that they fail to ask the question about suicide. There have been proclamations about professionalism, training, protocols, risk-assessment, and - God help us - malpractice.

I started to write a post reporting my own experience of risk-assessment and the failure of my doctor and therapist to ask, even as they told me they were concerned about me. Concerned about what exactly?

But I began to feel -- empty. Like the whole conversation, including my part in it, was missing the boat.

The boat is pain.

What is at stake is whether we have a safe place to talk about our most painful feelings.

Do You Really Want to Use Mental Illness as an Insult?

I am tired to death of hearing mental illness diagnoses used as pejoratives.

I am tired to death of hearing technical medical terms that apply to me and my friends hurled as insults at political figures, used to describe weather conditions, and employed as self-deprecating comments in the context of life's little challenges.

I am especially tired to death of hearing this language in the postings of Facebook friends and in the pulpit from educated people who should know better.

Especially after I have called them on it over and over and over.

So you can imagine that my eyes perked up at a thread that addresses this issue, posted on Twitter by somebody who goes by the handle @queerfox.

Can People With Mental Illness Become Saints?

 The day approaches - the start of Lent Madness.

What, any reasonable person might ask, is that?

Take March Madness. Mash this bracket-style competition with a list of saints, some well-known, some utterly obscure, chosen by Scott Gunn and Tim Schenk, the two members of the Supreme Executive Committee who answer to nobody. Despite years of campaigning, they still will not include Fred Rogers. But I digress...

Every weekday through Lent the reader is presented with two saints and asked to vote. Anybody with an internet connection can vote - only once - they will know. The saint with the greater number of votes advances to the next round.

Suicide is Not a Mystery - Get Beyond the Romance to Get to the Work

Suicidal people have not been quiet this year during Suicide Prevention Month. Most years we are the topic of conversation, not the source of the content of all these campaigns. But Twitter, at least, has been filled with our own voices this year. I have always shot my mouth off, and seldom taken the party line. Which means my voice is never included in the campaigns of the typical mental health organizations.

The following is an example, a post from a previous Suicide Prevention Month, edited with my more current thoughts on the matter.

This is Suicide Prevention Week - from September 8, 2011

When I started Prozac Monologues, I didn't know there was a Suicide Prevention Week. I spent a month writing about suicide in June, 2009. I chose June because it is the month when the highest number of suicides take place. So I wonder why the officially designated week is in September. Maybe because when everybody else is so happy about the sunshine in June, they wouldn't give any thought to the darkness? Maybe because they didn't ask those who are suicidal?

If you want to know my take on suicide prevention, here is the link for those original posts. Among the Labels in the right-side column, you will find links to other posts tagged suicide, suicide prevention, and the like.

Looking back at these posts, I wish I had less to say about suicide. But having this much to say, and frankly, a lot more, I think it's best I go ahead and say it. That was my POV for The Suicide Monologue. And I'm sticking to it. I urge you to take the same approach. If you have something to say about suicide, go ahead and say it.

You know, all those years we never talked out loud about cancer, our silence never saved a single life.

To Write Love - Hope for Depression, Addiction, Self-Harm, and Suicide

There is power in a story. You tell me your story. You are seen, heard, affirmed. I tell you my story. You know that I am for real. We are not alone.

To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) harnesses the power of story to offer hope to people struggling with depression, addiction, self-harm, and suicide.

The organization itself began with a story, a young woman who was suicidal but could not be admitted into a treatment program because she was also addicted and they couldn't bear the liability of her detox.

Yes, if you think you're done after you tell your suicidal friend or family member to get help, read that sentence again. Trying to get treatment can be enough of a nightmare to push us over the edge.

But that was just the beginning. A group of friends took it upon themselves to create a safe place and treatment program for this young woman for the five days it took to detox. The treatment program was admittedly unorthodox. She stayed with friends. In rotating teams they supported her, kept her safe. They also took her to concerts, Starbucks, and church. They prayed. They smoked cigarettes. They were her hospital.

Mostly, they listened.

Mental Health Care as our Institutions Fail

There are twelve psychiatrists in Zimbabwe for a population of 16 million people. When Dixon Chibanda, one of the twelve lost a patient to suicide because she could not afford the $15 bus fare to get to her appointment, he did not blame her for breaking the appointment. He came up with another system to deliver mental health care. He trained grandmothers.



Silence Kills -- The Stigma of Mental Illness Redux

It's Mental Health Month again. Out comes the stigma word, the pleas for understanding, the heart-warming whatever.

I am so done with stigma. Frankly, I am insulted that NAMI et al still use the word. Is Black Lives Matter about stigma?  It's dangerous to be either in the US, and for the same reason. Prejudice, people. We are talking about prejudice.

The following was first posted in July 2013. Alas, we are still trying to get our heads out of our asses. The Affordable Care Act made some progress, a little, toward mental health parity. Insurers had to get creative to deny us coverage. But this congressional session, it's all up for grabs again, whether our illness will get covered at all. And the prejudice of doctors -- don't get me started.

So from July, 2013 --

                              *************************

I don't use the s-word. I hate this title. I use it only because people who need this post will use it when they google.

I don't use the s-word. But here it is.

First from Google:

Definition of STIGMA

Noun
  1. A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person: <the stigma of mental disorder>.


Hearts Beat As One

It is common knowledge that we can slow our heart rate by slowing our breathing. Breathe is arguably the most important tool in the whole recovery toolbox for relieving stress and staying in the here and now. The folks in Sweden have taken this data a step further, into building community for common action.

Having taken a leave of absence just as DSM-5 was published, I have a backlog of posts on diagnosis to write. But let's break it up, shall we? This one gets filed under both recovery and political action.

It would take researchers from outside of the United States to think of examining the physiology of a group activity. Swedes, with their solid background in hymn singing, did just that, using group singing as a stand-in for group action.

Doctors' Prejudice Against Mental Illness

One in four people in the United States meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental illness in any given year.  About half will develop a mental illness sometime in their life.  Allen Frances, editor in chief of DSM-IV wants fewer people, only those with the most serious illness, to be diagnosed to spare them the stigma of the diagnosis.  The chief mechanism to achieve his goal would be to change the DSM criteria, so that fewer people qualify.

This series began by introducing Dr. Frances, whose work has inspired it.  It continues to address the topic of stigma, what it means, where it comes from, how to respond.  Last week I defined terms, adding one that expands our frame.  Briefly, Merriam-Webster says that stigma is a mark of shame or discredit; while prejudice is injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one's rights.

I think it is important to distinguish between the two.  To do so, one has to clarify the context.  Stigma, when used by somebody who is the object of stigma, is the internalization of somebody else's prejudice. When it is used by somebody else, stigma is a mechanism of diversion that calls on the object of one's own prejudice to bear the responsibility of that prejudice.

So is Allen Frances trying to protect those whom he calls the worried well from being marked with shame or discredit?  Or is he creating a diversion that calls on people who are suffering to bear the responsibility for somebody else's prejudice?

Rx for Joy - Joanne Shortell

Joanne Shortell took me up on my call for guest bloggers.  I am glad she did, as I learned of a blogger and mental health advocate I'd like to introduce to you.  Joanne has three websites.  Strongly Bipolar is a blog similar to Prozac Monologues.  Maevetour.blogspot.com/ is the source of the following piece.  And Servicepoodle.com gives more information about the issue it discusses.  

Rx for Joy Can Be Written by any Therapist in the U.S.


My current therapist is a nurse practitioner who can prescribe psychiatric drugs.  My previous therapist was an MSW who could not.  Both, however, could write a prescription for an emotional support animal (ESA).  A short, simple letter (see sample below) from a doctor (any medical doctor, not just a psychiatrist) or any therapist will allow a person with a psychiatric disability or a chronic pain condition to have pets in no-pets housing, to avoid any pet deposit or pet fee, and to avoid size limitations or species restrictions.  The person with the disability gives this to their landlord or co-op/condo board as a request for a reasonable accommodation.  (See link: How to Get an Emotional Support Animal.

Why should I prescribe ESAs?

Neuroscience of Meaningful Work

Fourteen years ago, I was offered a new job, Missioner for Ministry Development.  What's that?  Sometimes I said, I consult with organizations undergoing paradigm shift.  Other times I said, I do what Paul did.  Depended on the audience.

The details don't matter.  What does matter is that I got up every single morning rejoicing at what I felt privileged to do that day.  I considered it the job I was born to do.


Well, yes and no.  It combined my burning passion for advocacy, my deep appreciation of small congregations, and my abiding love for the highways and byways of Iowa, Beautiful Land, as the native inhabitants called it.

On the other hand, it gave me intense fourteen hour work days, conflict with long time friends, people across the state who piled their hopes, dreams and desperations on my back and the resistance of those who value certain aspects of an institution that others can no longer afford.  When we mixed all that with second generation antidepressants -- Keep trying, the doctors and my therapist said -- my bipolar II went into hyperdrive.  I was both madly productive and plain old mad.  It was beautiful.  It was ugly.  It didn't last.

Ellen Frank says that people with bipolar need to deal with grief for the lost healthy self.  It's one of the interpersonal issues that sabotage our adherence to the regimen required to maintain recovery.

Purple Heart for PTSD

I am pleased to have scooped NAMI and Fox News on this one by two years.

Some people say we have dumbed down PTSD, and that we dishonor the suffering of soldiers when we give the diagnosis of PTSD to people who have the same symptoms and same brain dysfunction of PTSD, but whose traumas were of a lesser severity.  In other medical departments, a broken leg is a broken leg, whether the person fell three feet or thirty.

Back in May, 2010 I proposed that the way to honor soldiers whose PTSD is the result of war injury is the way we honor any soldier wounded in war -- the Purple Heart.

Better yet, let's honor their sacrifice by preventing their trauma in the first place.  No more!

Meanwhile, check out Guitars for Vets.

Those Who Have Eyes, Let Them See

Yes, I said I was on sabbatical.  But I do have to write.  Like, I do have to breathe.  My facebook page this morning, somebody posted an Ernest Hemingway quote, There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.  I have learned there is more than one way to bleed.  Teresa of Avila's stigmata, by the way, were interior.  Mine (writing) seems better than other alternatives.

So yes, I am on sabbatical.  That means I don't have to post.  I might anyway.  Oh well.

NAMI National Convention 2012

It started with Shepherd.  He stood straight tall.  Life has taken a lot out of him, including a lot of teeth.  But he stood straight tall.  I remember him as a black man, with piercing light blue eyes.  I know that's possible, a black man with blue eyes.  Maybe it isn't true in this case.  My brain really isn't that dependable anymore.  But the piercing part is the most important.  I am so glad I wasn't afraid to look in his eyes.

Real Mental Health Advocacy - We Have Begun

Okay, so I just blew away this week's post.  Sigh.

Instead, I will honor the people in Chicago, who have tried every form of education, conversation and persuasion they could devise to convince Mayor Rahm Emanuel not to close six of the city's twelve mental health centers.  Finally, they staged an occupation.  For seven hours, they held the Woodlawn Mental Health Center, while Occupy Chicago gave support from outside the clinic.

They are my heroes.

Read the remarkable details here.  The videos seem to be missing from the text.  Here is the link to the story as recorded in stages on youtube.

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