Recovery and Time

How long does Recovery from mental distress take? I like time and projects to go fast. I remember being in the State Hospital and was told that people are there a minimum of five years. I could not believe that, people should be able to get all the information from groups and lectures a lot faster then that. You have five days a week in which to learn. I had school, groups and A.A. also alcohol groups. I figured alcohol groups would take awhile since I was an alcoholic for quite awhile. It was in the State Hospital where I learned about triggers to drinking, and symptoms of mental distress. I did end up getting out of the State Hospital in 3 ½ years. I still thought that was long. Although before I left people came up to me and asked how I was being released so fast. All I told them is I did the work, because I believed that was the only way out to learn everything. As for alcohol, I have been recovering for twenty years now. While at the State Hospital on the same grounds but not connected to the State Hospital they had a place called the Circle program. At the time it was the number one drug and alcohol program in Colorado. I had asked to go there and they let me for 90 days. I was released from there much faster because I excelled in the program. I learned a lot there, of course there were some groups and lectures I did not like. Was I recovered when I was released? I have to say no. I had to yet learn about living a different life. I had to learn about living a different kind of life. I had a good case manager at MHCD, that was strict, but he helped me learn about college and living out here. A lot of people have told me a long the way, that they do not have time to learn something different. Its years later and I am glad that I started from scratch, no matter how long it took. Also glad I had the opportunity to change my life. I am happy and have a good life.

Once upon a time ago - trust

Once upon a time ago, when I was young; my father once said to me, “What right have you to tell me that I am wrong, I am older than you are.” I couldn’t find an answer, he spoke the truth; I knew no more about what we were talking about than what I thought I knew, and my friends knew no more than I, and of what they had understood about being grown in the city as we were growing. We didn’t know about love, trusting your heart; or what honor was, even faith escaped our senses. I eventually reached out, began my trek onto the concrete, steel and glass world of waiting to be; of what, I had many ideas of; what I became, was a shambles of my own deceit.

Those words haunted me for many years, even to this day. Yet four others stood out in my mind, twisting as the winds within the trees, love, trust, honor and faith. Sometimes I give up and I want to run, I can’t conceive any other way to believe I have a way to succeed, except through some kind of criminality; it’s an easier way to think, it’s not A.B.C + = ?, not knowing what to expect; not caring. I often feel the tears inside when I think of my father’s words, have you taken the time to think, of whom you will believe in or whom will you trust, when you are unsure, besides that first thought of where will you run to or what does it matter?

What trust has love, if you have no heart, and your heart is of deceit? What honors have you of others if you have none of yourself? Recovery is just that kind of slow road. Bewildered by those above you; by others who can’t care or you may seem to feel you are a child again, with questions, only you have the answers to, with trust; remember it is your faith, never to fear to see, so that you may go far in belief of your newness in wanting to be free.

Recovery and Life

I hardly think about my mental distress anymore. I am lucky as I have no symptoms that flare up. The only time I really think about my mental distress is when I see my psychiatrist or I write for this blog. That is one good thing about employment you do not sit at home and just concentrate on your mental distress. Instead there is work to concentrate on. At home it is talking to my family or friends. Also I watch something good on TV or listen to music. I have also been exercising every night after work and on weekends. After you get in a routine it is easy to do, I just make it mandatory that I do it. I put on my MP3 player and exercise. There is a pond at my building now and I also just take a walk around it to get my mail. I could take a shorter route, although it is a nice walk. I have problems that come up a big one right now. I will just deal with it and any others that come up. There is so much life to live that I do not want to worry about symptoms or relapse. I’m happy with the way my life has turned out. It did take awhile to get to this point. Although it was worth the wait and effort to reach this point, along with the good people I have met along the way. We can do nothing about the not so good, but wish them the best. How is recovery going for you?

Don't Worry if I'm shy

There are times when I wished I had a friend, not just a see you later kind of friend; a wish you happiness kind of friend.
At my present age, I don’t want to be the one to say that I don’t have any true, caring friends. Having become connected with the Mental Health System, and after 25 years, having employment which is meaningful, my level of trust just isn’t what it used to be when I was ‘using’ illicit drugs and drinking all of which caused the maladies of the mind of which I lived with for many years. Yet a friend whose eyes smile while I pray, I have yet to understand. I know many people. By sight and sound and habit, I have many associations, yet someone who can tell me the world is bright, I wish for; trust is not only a companion, but a question in the mind of many, whom have crossed the borders reality and fancy.
When you become a part of the Mental Health System, your friendships change. Don’t let this perturb you, or worry you when you seem under the weather and you’re in need of someone to relate with. You learn from not only your clinician, or case manager that there is always someone there waiting with you, whether in spirit or reality, and there is no reason to give up hope when things are not looking brightly about you.
It took me a while to face this reality of having no one about me with peace or with a trusting nature simply because I had to learn to undo the ignorant ways I lived around others before I found help with Mental Health. At my current age, 55, I am not as trusting as I can be of others having lived not so good a life, yet I become better as I find new associations and keep the foolishness at a distant, I have to understand life is not a balloon ride on a string, it is belief in what you understand, hope in what you see and faith to keep the bonding of reality with love.
Someone that is an acquaintance and neighbor came to my door right after the fourth of July, asking me to take his check for the amount of the check, give him the money from my wallet and take the check to my bank the next day and deposit it in my account. He has always been a kind of smiling guy with seemingly a good heart, yet for some reason when I told him I could not do it, and would not do it, he became angry. I thought he was kind person, now I understand I was just someone who had cash in my pocket. There are others who live in the neighborhood who call me foolish for wanting to reach out and become more responsible instead of living month to month on a check for disability. They were once my friends who now say that I think other than about myself, because I am working, paying my own way and developing a completely different response to living.
“Know the truth,
And you will believe.”

Donald G Sammons
July 5, 2010

Changes

We have grown from childhood, walking other hallowed halls, daring ourselves to grow even more. Some of us are stricken by poverty and are beginning to learn its meaning and begin fighting the wars within the mind before we are 15 years of age; watching the eyes and minds of others untested of starvation, large families dilapidated homes and a lack of money; without work, while the streets and her hero’s guide those who slowly succumb to pain, drugs or alcoholism others reach for mental seclusion.
Some people change their lives, even the affluent become of the ghetto, while the many cling to another bolstering strength to win the world as even the poor with a bit more to say about it. The poor are of another mighty storm, yet trying to gather the soils to cross the vast ocean of life, discovering lore and the twisted motions of monopoly from street vendors of many walks of life, without inventions; only the wares passed around by others with smiles that turn skeptics.
Outcomes can cause the weak to turn and reach out, through arguments within themselves, with a need for recovery from the aberrations of their illness, Outcomesmhcd.Adult Becoming a consumer of the Mental Health System and understanding hope, what causes the illness, how to change the realm they have grown into, to progressing to a much more positive world and growing with faith beyond the fallen world they had once chosen, is the miracle of change one many have worked towards to overcome their illness.
Accepting help is the greatest test, simply because it is not a bounty of treasure you first choose to receive, this is a test, receiving a decent place to live, through city and state offices, searching and receiving employment, with some one else’s helping hand guiding you, becoming educated, starting over again, while fighting the old virtues’ and conundrums, of other lives and most of all doing all of that without the use of drugs, without the use of pain.

Getting away from the veils of other eyes you have peered into, of people whom you have smiled with while slowly depressing the inexact nature of your knowing, is hard even to shake hands with those that don’t care, can cause a person to understand there has to be a positive outcome to accept, so that changes can be made, and you can be seen as a changed person.

Tell him to live by
Yes and no—
Yes to everything good,
No to everything bad.
Written by William James
By Donald Sammons

Recovery & Hope

Without hope I do no believe there is recovery. You have to hope things will change for the better. Hope that you can have a good life doing what you would like to do in life. Hope you can recover and do all that you did before you had mental distress. Sometimes even do better, because you are stronger from having gone through the experience of mental distress. As you know if you read some earlier blogs, I watch and compare 70s to now days. On one show they did not want to bring children into the world back then because of over population and the war that was going on. I believe you bring children into this world so they can decide if they want to change the world for the better or like it as it is. Hope they can make everyday brighter for others. I know my grandkids do for me. I do not like what we are leaving our children and grandchildren, like debt and pollution. Hopefully we can change the world before we leave it to them. Recovery is to incorporate everything including hope, employment and managing your symptoms. Ridding yourself of harmful addictions, if you have them, and retaining employment or education to do what you want with your life. In that regards it will give you something else to concentrate on besides addiction or mental distress. Hope that all can recover and learn their triggers of their addictions or symptoms. How about you do you have Hope or think it is important in recovery?

Diabetes and Mental Health

In the year 2008 scientist had found that diabetes is associated with depression. Diabetes also known to doctors as Diabetes Mellitus is a disorder which affects the way our bodies digest food for energy and growth.
Almost all the food we eat is changed into glucose (a form of sugar), and this is the primary source of energy for our body. The cells in our bodies use the glucose for energy, sometimes the glucose cannot get inside the cells of our bodies without having insulin and it is this insulin that makes it possible for our cells to use glucose.
Insulin is a hormone that is produced by an organ in the body called a pancreas. After you eat, the pancreas releases insulin to move the glucose in the blood to the cells and lowers the blood sugar level. When a person has diabetes, they have too much glucose in the blood called (hyperglycemia). This means the body has not produced enough insulin or no insulin at all and the pancreas is without cells that do not respond to the insulin of the pancreas. With Type 1 Diabetes you produce no insulin at all; with Type 2 Diabetes you don’t produce enough insulin to process the glucose in the blood stream. Both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are chronic medical conditions.
What does this have to do with Mental Health?
Doctors who study both diabetes and depression have for many years associated the two illnesses as being in tandem when a person has one or the other disease. Approximately 30 million people have had at least one bout with depression having also diabetes.
The groups of people vary ethnically and over the years as this study went on people were examined for depression and Type 2 diabetes. The disease is genetic and usually occurs in overweight people or people who have a diet high in sugars. The people in the higher levels of depression had a 50 percent chance more, in developing diabetes, than those people who were not depressed. The people who were in the higher levels of depression tend to smoke more, exercise less, overeat and also tend to be overweight. All of this increases the chances for diabetes and also cause higher rates for depression
Depression raises the levels of hormones in the body that cause stress. These chemicals can affect the person and cause diabetes. With all of the different illnesses such as osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke and others associated with depression it is no wonder that both diabetes and depression are linked.
People, who are known as diabetic, eventually suffer from depression, also from anxiety or worry; and have reached the chronic stage of their diseases, and these people must consider their health and change their life style and eating and exercise habits or continue to suffer even further, with nerve problems, heart disease, even blindness.
Depression as a mental illness in not just a mental illness, it is a illness of habit and it is a illness of being, diabetes is the same and without proper treatment one can no longer be dismissed of the other.

I have set before you
Life and death,
Blessing and cursing:
Therefore choose life,
That both thou and thy
Seed may live.
Deuteronomy 30:19
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Written by Donald Sammons