The News and Recovery

I usually do not talk about the news when someone with a mental illness kills someone.  Although this latest one hit home, because I have grandchildren and I would never want them harmed in anyway.  My heart goes out to those families.  It is stories like this that bring on a bad image to people with mental illness.  There are online websites trying to change laws like the TreatmentAdvocacy Center I read their website every week.  To see what they say about what happened during the week and the changes happening around the country.  Also I heard on the news this morning that Governor Hinkenlooper is asking for changes in policies in the City of Denver concerning the mentally ill.
When I became mentally ill for the second time here in Denver, my mom called a mental health place and they told her that she could not do anything I would have to ask for help.  That was the law and I think it still is.  The same night she asked for help I was drinking and committed a crime and was sent to the state hospital.  I do not like the state hospital, although it was the best thing that happened to me.  If I would have asked for help out here on the streets I would not have succeeded as well as I did.  The state hospital gave me a chance to start not only my typing from zero also my life.  I was able to take a different fork in the road and change everything about my life.
It worked out good for me because I did not kill anyone.  For that I thank the lord. I hate being mentally ill when it happens.  I know when I read that someone with a mental illness killed a lot of people.  It makes others look bad at that person and all people with mental illness.  I also think how that person ruined their life because they or those around them did not seek help.  Locked up for life in prison or a state hospital is no fun.  I can remember when I was doing thirty days for a DUI and a person I knew told me he had just received a life sentence and laughed about it.  That freaked me out.  Although then life was twenty year before parole now it is forty years or without parole.  That is insane and I do not wish it on anyone.
I do not glamorize my years locked up especially to my grandchildren.  They only know me now and that is the way I will always keep it.  I do not put blame on anyone in the past for the way I was.  I am just thankful for my life now.  The people and the times in the past were just the way they were brought up and they loved in the way they knew how.  Although I would never want anyone to become an alcoholic or drug addict.  I saw too many young people become addicted to drugs and throw their life away and just want to do that drug and forget family and everything.
That is one reason I wanted to become a drug counselor was to help young people.  Although the politics of that profession made me change my mind and go for my masters in a different field. I could not help the ones I wanted to.

Expectations through Recovery

In general medicine and psychiatry recovery has been used as a term meaning the end of an experience or an episode of illness.  A larger concept of “recovery” as a philosophy had become popular in regard to recovery from substance abuse or drug addiction, which for example is within the twelve step programs.  The use of recovery is recent to psychiatric disorders and its movement of self help and the advocacy came forward during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.  The attitude of psychiatric rehabilitation began to incorporate it in the 1990’s in the United States followed by other countries.

There are Elements of recovery which are being stressed about in that each person’s journey is a very deep and personal process related to that persons place in the community and society.  There is Hope, finding it as a key to recovery.  It is not just optimism but a belief in yourself and the will to persevere through setbacks.  Hope is not only trusting, yet it also means risking failure and overcoming such.

A secure base or housing, sufficient income, freedom from violence and access to health care is also a part of recovery.  This is how a person builds personal visions and strength instead of being institutionalized.  Recovery is a sense of self and self esteem.  Moving away from insecurity and nurturing a personal space that allows development of understanding, wisdom and growth through spirituality.

Empowerment and self determination are important to recovery which includes self control.  This means developing self confidence for independence and decision making, challenging stigma and prejudice about ones differences and or mental stability.  These ideas in “Recovery” highlight my attitude in maintaining self esteem and strength.  Though I have been in a state of weakness for many years because of addictions prior to my optimistic insight believing I can achieve through understanding and faith, I would like to believe that others can find Hope as their key to recovery and freedom from their fears so that they can build a sense of self and have a more meaningful life. 

Written By Donald Sammons

American Giving Awards

This show was on air Saturday night.  Glenn Close received a special recognition award. Her organization is called Bring change 2 mind.  Her organization tries to change the stigma surrounding mental illness.  Glenn’s sister is bipolar and her nephew is schizoaffective.  Her nephew was diagnosed first.  Her family before this happened had never brought up the word or had knowledge of mental illness.  She received her award and talked as did her sister.  It was not discussed in my family either.  She also appeared on the Today show.  I have felt the stigma regarding my illness.  I do not like it when people will stop talking to me because I have a mental illness.

We do need more people like Glenn Close to fight the stigma.  If I did not hate it when I am mentally ill, I would say this illness has changed me for the better.  When I won my appeal and was released from prison.  I wanted to stop drinking and did not drink with my friends and found out we had nothing in common but our drinking.  I could not do it on my own and within two weeks I was drinking again.  This illness gave me a second chance at changing my life. They gave out award to quite a few charity organizations.  One thing I was impressed with was when they talked about hope.  You just put one foot in front of the other and keeping going forward that is what they said.It reminded me of when I had to go to an AA meeting when I was at the state hospital.  The meeting was a mile away and I had to walk and this night there was a bad snow storm.  When I finally made it back to the state hospital I was frozen my mustache was ice.  Although I did it when I crawled into bed, I had proved I would do anything to get out of that place.  You might wonder why I hate the state hospital so much.  It is because of all the freedom there you can wear street clothes; you can meet girls on the grounds and talk to them.  You can go to the cafeteria and buy a hamburger or any meal you would like.  You carried money and with passes could go out to eat or a store.  What kind of lock up is that if I did not hate it?  I would have been there for ten year or longer if I liked the place.
Hope is never giving up just keep pushing forward something has to change or break.  You have to hold on to that dream and not let anything stop you from reaching it.  It took me a long time in college, although I knew one day I would graduate.  Then something that was not planned was getting my Master’s.  It happened a lot faster in getting that.  That is good because it was time to go to work.  We need more shows that show people succeeding when they have a mental illness. I know there is a lot of success out there.  Recovery and success can happen.  American giving awards was a good show to watch.  To see all the organizations that try at help bring change to so many lives.

Pre-diabetes

I have done a few blogs about diabetes and have become conscious about my Type 2 diabetes in the long run as well.  Well it’s the holiday season and the sugar, and puddings and cakes and moans and groans of not being able to partake of all the sugar and spice begins to take its toll on all my friends and my own mental health as well.  One of the ideas that came across to me from an editorial about the “early warning signs” of diabetes is, could a person have diabetes and not know it.  This is called pre-diabetes and you may not know you are experiencing its physiological stress upon your body.  Pre-diabetes is an impaired glucose tolerance, a health condition without symptoms.  It exists when the glucose levels are high yet still too low to be known as a diabetic diagnosis. Most everyone knows what can happen while having diabetes.  Blindness, heart attack, stroke, these are serious affectations of diabetes.  Having pre-diabetes is certainly present, before someone contracts Type 2 diabetes, and that includes the complications, including depression, anxiety and apathy, which are all mental illnesses, of which a therapist can be seen for. 

 Early Diabetes Warning Signs You Shouldn't Ignore | Live Better America

Pre-diabetes can be diagnosed and it can be prevented.  Making behavior changes such as choices of food, and changing your physical activity to help lose weight and reduce Type 2 diabetes helps in overcoming pre-diabetes and thereby overcoming the malady.  If you are over 45 years of age, overweight or not physically active, you might find these are a few of the characteristics which may bring about pre-diabetes.

When the holiday season begins, eat fresh, fruits, vegetables, grain, low fat dairy products and lean meats.  Don’t tell yourself “I’ll just have one”, if you’re offered candies, and pies and puddings and cakes, give them to someone else or wrap them up to give away at a later date, and of course it doesn’t hurt to say no.  Exercise can help you with your weight loss, if your ashamed of your weight, run in place with small five or ten pound weights, this can help you, your lungs and heart and build your self esteem as well. 

Written by Donald S.

Understanding Schizophrenia

The title of this article understanding Schizophrenia is the blog I am writing about today.  It talks about Toronto’s Lesley Skelly who is getting to know her son who is the age of twenty three.  For her he is not the same son she raised. “When he was diagnosed, at 19, with schizophrenia, it was like he died and our family went through the grieving process, Skelly says.  Now we are learning about our new son who is different from the child we once knew.” The illness changes you.  For me it changed me for the better I believe.  I am not the same person that I was in my teens and early twenties.   I had DUI’s and was in prison.  I do not hang around all my friends from that time.  They have left me their numbers if I ever change my mind and want to talk and be friends again.   I do think of them and sometimes I want to pick up the phone and call my old friend.  Although I am different and I do not get high no more and even though alcohol has not affected them.  They never were in trouble just me.
This illness changed me for the better, although it is not the same for everyone. “The shock of schizophrenia is that it manifests in late adolescence or early adulthood, and parents must accept that the child they have known and loved for more than a decade may be irrevocably lost, Andrew Solomon writes, even as that child looks much the same as ever.”  I am a paranoid schizophrenic and my illness did not come on till I was twenty eight.  I was in prison at the time and it did change me, I went from one prison when it happened to another.  It was not because my friends at the time changed I had changed. It is hard to describe.   I was already waiting on my appeal and knew that I no longer wanted to be locked up.  Although the illness changed something in my life where I wanted to different and was.
The media always portray people with mental illness as dangerous and going to hurt or kill you. “But people with schizophrenia are really at a higher risk of hurting themselves, Baruch says. They are individuals who have difficulties in their thinking, they hear voices, they see things, they don’t perceive reality the way others do; they are often suspicious and withdrawn.  We need to educate the public as to what this disorder actually is.”  I remember at the state hospital thinking the TV was talking to me.  I could not watch it and that is one time you do not want to be in your mind and wish you could listen to the radio or TV.  The radio also bugged me; I believed it was being broadcasted from prison.
The good thing about the state hospital is that they taught me how to take my medication and to do it at a set time.  That helps to always remember and become routine.  “The majority of individuals with schizophrenia do not take their medication, says Baruch, explaining non-compliance can mean anything from not taking meds at all to missing a day here and there.  Data shows that even if you miss 10 days on an annual basis, the chances of relapsing or rehospitalization is doubled.” I never want relapse.  I do not like being mental ill, so I always want to remember my medication.  I have grandkids that I love and do not want to miss a day without them or my daughter.  Life is hard enough but to add being mentally ill that is too hard.

A Recovery Story

I have read a few recovery stories, reading them now and then, to keep myself in check with my own Recovery and therapy.  I often cheer for those who have overcome their drug use, their alcoholism and still battle with having to overcome the mental diagnosis which caused them to forsake the world they live in.  The person I am writing about at this time lived a clean and sober life after getting out of prison for many years, then suddenly relapsed on cocaine and became lost in despair and recklessness, living the same abandonment he suffered in his childhood.  He caught himself falling and faced his mistakes once again, this time teaching others as a peer specialist, he has relapsed and gained strength again as others before him have done.

As he began to slip away from his sobriety, thievery began to take him down into other depths.  He had been married and began using again on the streets, literally stealing from his job, yet as he understood what he was doing, he turned and faced the problem he was having and began to stand up again to the circumstances which caused his problem.  He said one reason he relapsed is because he forgot his coping skills as he is a trained mental health educator, who has a dual diagnosis—mood disorder and drug addiction.  He eventually checked into the hospital knowing this was the most necessary of things to do.  This same man was an ex-convict and those whom he had worked with who were either drug users or drug dealers who he felt put his sobriety in danger.

Ex-Convict Uses Battle With Addiction and Mental Illness to Help Others - NYTimes.com

“The mental health care system has long made use of former patients as counselors and practice has been controversial…”

For one thing our ex-drug addict/convict is a self taught ex-convict who has become a prominent peer trainer giving classes across the country today.  He is one of the small number of people whom have described publicly how hard it is to manage a severe dual-diagnosis and what the setbacks could be.  With the help of religion, medication and self expression, he as others have found a way out of addiction and learned to maintain their symptoms of dual diagnosis, without having to return to the shadows.

 

Written by Donald S.

Exercise and Schizophrenia

This article says that exercise benefits physical and  mental health in patients with schizophrenia. “In a study of 63 patients with schizophrenia, Thomas Scheewe (University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands) and co-authors found that 1 or 2 hours of exercise therapy per week significantly reduced positive and negative symptoms, depression, and the need for care, and improved cardiovascular fitness compared with occupational therapy.” I do know that exercise will help you lose or maintain the level of weight a person has.  It is good to learn that it helps with the negative symptoms also.
They also say: “Exercise therapy appears to be an effective add-on-treatment in schizophrenia, they write in Acta Psychiatica Scandinavica.  In total, 31 patients were randomly assigned to undertake 6 months of exercise therapy, which was primarily designed to improve cardiovascular fitness but also included muscle strengthening exercises for variety, and 32 to receive occupational therapy, which comprised creative and recreational activities such as painting, reading, and computer activities.” I have continued doing my walking, although I have not hit the treadmill.  I have no excuse I have to start again, because that is what helps a lot to lose weight changing up to different exercises.
The article goes on to say that: “Moreover, in per protocol analysis, which only included patient in both groups who had a compliance rate of at least 50%, exercise therapy was associated with a significant 20.7% reduction in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores…”That is good news and of course it helps keep depression away.  They also say it helped reduce the need of care.   I know exercise work well, that is why I have to do two types the treadmill and walking.  I want my legs to be able to walk well into old age.  You can also visit us at http://mhcd.org/blog