Recovery Library

I was sent the following link to review.  One thing it has that we would all like to read is recovery stories.  One of the recovery stories is on a person losing 135 pounds.  We would all like tips on how to do that.  They have both transcript of the videos and videos to watch.  Another story on the recovery page of this library is about the roots of peer support that should be interesting learning how the peer support movement came about.  A lot of different topics that a person would find interesting are on this library.  On the whole health section there is exercise and health information besides ways to lose weight.

They have a section on self-advocacy and that tells you about stigma and also how to get benefits how to get them what happens if you go to jail and lose benefits.  How soon after do you get them back and do you get them back.  Do you get them back everyone would love those answers? They also have a section on making amends and life gets better after stopping drinking and drugging.  They have a section on the myths and facts of reentry back to society after being in jail.  All and all I believe this would be a great resource to have to learn the facts.

To know what happens if a certain scenario happens. Healthy eating is a good topic. The topic on medications side effects what types of medication are out there?  All things a person would like to know about.  It is a good resource to find just about everything that happens and a person needs when they have a mental illness.  Just answers to questions that might come up. If a person would need to know instead of wondering here is a tool that gives all the answers.  I know reading some of the sites of people with schizophrenia that these answers would help.  This is a tool for everyone with a mental illness not just schizophrenia.

To know that such a tool exists is half the battle.  Use it if you seek answers to questions and other people’s stories on how they lost weight how they battled addiction.  Another way to stop smoking that is on here also.  It is good to know all of that so you can use what you want and discard what you want.

Judges, Psychiatrists Confer on Handling Mental Illness in Justice System

That is the title of this article I am writing about today.  “Judges and psychiatrists are putting their heads together to devise ways to temper justice with mental health care for defendants and prisoners.  Psychiatrists and judges must learn more from each other to make headway together in dealing with the thousands of people with mental illness confined in U.S. jails and prisons, said speakers at the Judicial-Psychiatric Leadership Forum in Philadelphia last month.  Having doctors at the table is important, said Judge Ernie Glenn of San Antonio, Texas.  They understand far less about what we do than they should, and we understand far less than we should about what they do.  Jail should be the last place for people with serious mental illness, rather than the first, emphasized Miami-Dade County Judge Steven Leifman head of the Judge’s Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative (JLI) and a long-time champion of reform, addressing the 60 psychiatrists, judges, and court administrators at the forum. We have the leaders in this room to make a difference and change a horrific policy that has been an absolute, intolerable, unacceptable failure.”  I hope things change in the future because jail and prison is the last place a person should be with a mental illness.  My mental illness came about in prison in the late 80s and it was new than.  There was not that many with mental illness in the prisons or jail.  To be crazy in jail before I went to the State Hospital was not fun or like jail I had been to before.

The article goes on to say: “There needs to be a mutual recognition by judges and psychiatrists of the need to rehabilitate the prisoner and protect public safety, said Fred Osher, M.D. director of health systems and services policy at the Council of State Governments Justice Center in New York. I have optimism about the ways we can move forward.  The Judicial-Psychiatric Leadership Forum was cosponsored by the Justice Center, the JLI, and the American Psychiatric Foundation. Leifman is a member of the foundation’s board.  Judges have a great advantage when they want to get something done, said former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton. People listen to judges, and judges are used to being obeyed, Stratton noted.  Most of the judges in attendance were already part of the solution, working in mental health, drug, or veterans courts or other specialized dockets.  However, mental health training, perhaps in the form of continuing legal education, should also be expanded to reach judges in the system who do not have experience in specialty mental health courts, said Glenn.  Better yet, crossover education should start early in professional training, in law school and medical school.  I hate the state hospital but that is where people with a mental illness belong.  With others that have similar problems or mental illness.
The article also says: “The two professions could do more at both the beginning and end of a prisoners sojourn in the criminal justice system, since special mental health courts get only a small number of those with mental illness.  For example, judges could encourage police training to divert people with mental illness to hospitals for evaluation before they are arrested, because it’s much harder to get them out of the system once they’re inside.  More than 4,000 police officers in the Miami area have been trained to do just that, reducing arrests of people with mental health problems sufficiently to permit Miami-Dade County to close one of its jails, its Women’s Annex, earlier this year.  The average number of inmates fell from around 7,400 a year to just 4,800 at latest count, saving about $12 million a year.  There was also a 73% reduction in jail bed days.  Judges and psychiatrists are both interested in gathering information, noted Michael Champion, M.D. director of Champion Forensic Services in Santa Fe, N.M. Judges can do a good social history but don’t know how to turn that into a defined intervention strategy, and information is sometimes blocked on the psychiatrists’ side as well, because clinicians are not clear about what information will be used for.  Will it help or hurt the patient?” It is better to do something before a person goes to prison or jail.  Once you are in the system it is hard getting out.  It can take years of good behavior before you are released from all types of probation or parole services.
The last of the article says: “Both groups struggled with the problem of transitioning people out of the criminal system.  Clear release policies and procedures are needed for people with mental illness who are being treated in jail or prison, and then connections must be made with outside mental health providers.  One county found a simple solution: faxing or e-mailing a list of prisoners about to be released to local mental health agencies, said Judge Chad Schmucker, state court administrator for the Michigan Supreme Court.  The agencies frequently find the names of released inmates who were already on their client list and reconnect with them after their release.  We need to bring the criminal justice system into the continuity of care, agreed Debra Pinals. M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and director of forensic education at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  The dialogue between the two professions has to continue. Leifman and Osher maintained.  The want to see more, and larger, meetings like this one, to expand the interactions.  We need an army of you, Osher told attendees.  Let’s go back to our communities and work together on this issue.”  Let’s hope they all work together because being in jail I know for me was hardest time I ever did.  If they can rehabilitate so people stay out of jail and prisons and even the state hospital it would be great.

Common biology shared in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

That is what the title of this article talks about. “Patients suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share similar cognitive and brain abnormalities, three new multi-site studies show.  The findings, published in the November issue of American Journal of psychiatry, add to growing literature that the two disorders share a common biology.  We have known for a long time that the clinical symptoms are shared substantially between the two conditions, but when you look at the biology, these illnesses also blur into each other, said Godfrey Pearlson, professor of psychiatry and neurobiology and a co-author of the studies.  It is clear that they are not two nicely separated packages, but there is a substantial crossover between the two.”  Comparing the brains of schizophrenics and bipolar disorder patients you can see the same brain in both.  Does the same medication work for both mental illnesses?

The article also says: “The diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have been used for almost a century to differentiate between symptoms, outcomes, and more recently, response to medications.  However, a growing number of researchers are beginning to question whether they are useful tools for the classification, understanding, and treatment of major mental illness.  While genome-wide analysis of patients DNA has not revealed clear-cut genetic culprits, researchers have known for years that schizophrenia and bipolar patients share similar abnormalities in such measures as eye movement and response to electroencephalogram tests.  Similar abnormalities are also often seen in their non-ill close relatives.”  They share some abnormalities in their brains that are similar so do there close relatives. These answers can help a lot of people searching for answers to why this happened to them. When none of their relatives have ever had a mental illness before that they know of.
Who is being tested for this: “Researchers at Yale and the Institute of Living in Hartford—as well as four other sites in Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas and Maryland—are studying 20 potential biological disease indicators in 3,000 individuals.  The subjects include those with schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder, as well as their close relatives and unrelated healthy controls. The study is known as BSNIP (Bipolar-schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes).  The new studies also show similar deficits in the brain among grey matter (neurons) and white matter (neuronal projections and connective cells) among schizophrenia and bipolar patients.  Also, the two conditions share similar forms of cognitive problems.  There are no clear-cut biological distinctions separating the conditions.  Intriguingly, similar brain abnormalities and cognitive deficits are shared to a lesser degree by relatives of the patients and likely represent markers of disease susceptibility.  These findings may lead researchers to common genetic causes of these deficits.  Pearlson also noted that the National Institute of Mental Health recently proposed a reclassification of mental illnesses based on biological measures.”  Bipolar face the same cognitive problems as schizophrenics.  College was tough on me.  If I would have went before my mental illness I know I would have done better especially in math.

Forget the headlines-schizophrenia is more common than you think

That is the title of this article.  What do they mean by it is more common than we would think? “Schizophrenia isn’t a specific, rare or rigorously defined illness. Instead, it covers a wide range of often unrelated conditions, all of which are also seen in people who are not mentally ill.  Which illness frightens you most? ‘Cancer?’ ‘Stroke?’ ‘Dementia?’ To judge from tabloid coverage, the condition we should really fear isn’t physical at all. Scared of mum’s schizophrenic attacks, Knife-wielding schizophrenic woman in court,  Schizo stranger killed dad, Rachel murder: schizo accused and My schizophrenic son says he’ll kill… but he’s escaped from secure hospitals 7 times are just a few of dozens of similar headlines we found in a cursory internet search.  Mental illness, these stories imply, is dangerous.  And schizophrenia is the most dangerous.”  All those headlines do to me is get me mad.  We are not all like that.  When I was ill I just was trying to figure what was wrong with me.  In prison when I first was ill I just wanted to be left alone and was paranoid.

Why do the headlines always make the mental ill to be bad why don’t they put up stories about the people that are doing well? “Such reporting is unhelpful, misleading and manipulative.  But it may be even more inaccurate than it first appears.   This is because scientists are increasingly doubtful whether schizophrenia- a term invented more than a century ago by the psychiatric pioneer Eugen Bleuler – is a distinct illness at all.  This isn’t to say that individuals diagnosed with the condition don’t have genuine and serious mental health problems.  But how well the label ‘schizophrenia’ fits those problems is now a very real question.  What’s wrong with the concept of schizophrenia? For one thing, research indicates the term may simply be functioning as a catch-all for a variety of separate problems.  Six main conditions are typically caught under the umbrella of schizophrenia: paranoia: grandiosity (delusional beliefs that one has special powers or is famous); hallucinations (hearing voices, for example); thought disorder (being able to think straight); anhedonia or the inability to experience pleasure; and diminished emotional expression (essentially an emotional ‘numbness’).  But how many of these problems a person experiences, and how severely, varies enormously.  Having one doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily develop any of the others.”  I had most of them when I was ill.  Not in prison then I just had paranoia.  That was one time I did talk to a psychiatrist even though I am shy by nature.  I just wanted to figure out what was happening to me.
Well what causes it to happen to people? “Experiences like paranoia are also linked with a number of psychological traits, such as a tendency to worry, feel depressed, sleep poorly, or jump to conclusions,  These factors seem to work in what scientists call a ‘dose-response’ manner: the more of them you experience, the more likely it is that your mental health will suffer.   Genetic factors also play a part, though there’s no evidence for a single ‘schizophrenia’ gene. Instead, a multitude of genes are likely to be involved- with their effect, crucially, conditioned by environmental factors.  So the people who end up being treated for schizophrenia aren’t the unlucky few who happen to have inherited a rogue gene. The more of the relevant genes you possess, the further you are to the extreme end of the spectrum and the less of a push you’ll need from life events to become ill.”  All I did was get angry and that is the last thing I remember in prison.  I was in solitary and laid down all I remember after that is waking up in a different cell and paranoid.
The last of this article says: “This isn’t merely a theoretical issue: if we target specific problems, rather than a loosely defined illness, we’re likely to improve treatment outcomes for the many people struggling with these debilitating experiences.”  Not everyone has schizophrenia but fall into one or more categories of the illness.  Schizophrenia is the worst to have so I guess they all would not like to be diagnosed with it if they only have one of the criteria.

Social withdrawal and Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am writing about.  This article hits close to home. “A new study finds that adults with schizophrenia who keep to themselves often did so as children, but that social skills training can be an effective way to overcome any difficulties presented by socializing with others. If you’re feeling alone, you’re not alone. That’s one of the key messages that institute-supported researcher Sandra Matheson wants people to take from her meta-analysis of social withdrawal and schizophrenia that was published recently in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.  The report, which compared six studies that looked at childhood social withdrawal in adults with schizophrenia and in at-risk children aged 9-14 years, found that childhood social withdrawal in combination with three potential markers of schizophrenia risk –delay in speech or motor development, presence of psychotic-like experiences, and social, emotional or behavioral problems –was an indicator of vulnerability for schizophrenia.” I was shy as a kid and still am.  Although friends always counted me in stuff either way.  Although I did not have any other problems like the ones mentioned besides being shy.
The article also says: “That’s not to say that children who are shy, or don’t have a lot of friends or don’t play well are going to develop schizophrenia later in life, Ms Matheson points out.  What the results of the study tells us is that adults with schizophrenia who are socially withdrawn, quite likely displayed those same attributes when they were children and that not wanting to socialize with others is a common occurrence in people with schizophrenia. The study considered withdrawn children to be those who frequently refrained from joining in social activities with their friends and was measured by using the Childhood Behavioural Checklist, which is widely-used psychological questionnaire that assesses a number of behaviours and is filled out by either parents, teachers or the child themselves. I mostly read books when I was a child.  I had a few friends did not make a lot until high school.  The shyness in adult life was offset my alcohol that is why I am an alcoholic. I drank to talk to women or anybody.
The article finishes up saying: “The encouraging new from the study is that children who scored high on the Child Behaviour Checklist for social withdrawal who also received an intervention such as social skills training were able to modify or overcome their tendency to withdraw.  Helping a child to overcome any difficulties they may experience-whether it’s learning to play a sport to improve motor skills, developing better social skills or sorting out any behavioural problems- is going to be of benefit, whether the child develops schizophrenia or not, says Ms Matheson.  Children with at least one first-or second degree relative (ie. Parent, sibling, or aunt, uncle) with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were not considered by the study to be as vulnerable to developing schizophrenia as children who displayed the three risk markers mentioned earlier, but were more vulnerable than children who were considered to be typically developing. Previous studies have found that social skills competency in people with schizophrenia is associated with better functioning in the community and predicts positive vocational functioning, regardless of cognitive abilities, and or social skills training is an effective way to improve social interactions.” I know one of the questions to ask is can it help an adult.  I read and know a lot of schizophrenics would like to socialize more than they do now.  It would also help them find employment.

Collaborative Efforts Help Mental Health Patients Quit Smoking

That is the title of this article and blog.  It is not worth it to smoke anymore.  I am glad that I quit fifteen years ago. “Persons with mental illness account for more than one-third of adult smokers in the United States and despite a decline in tobacco use during the past five decades, there has been no change in the smoking rate for patients with poor mental health.  To combat reliance on tobacco in mental health populations, experts agree that mental health services and government-sponsored tobacco control programs must work together to improve education and access to smoking cessation programs.”  It is time to quit that is what I felt when I decided to quit.  I could not have done it before than because I enjoyed it too much.  I always carried cigarettes on me.  When I quit I had four packs on me that I gave to a friend besides the two cartons.

I cannot say that I quit with smoke aid.  The wellbutrin I took to stop smoking just made me so upset that I quit in a month.  I just did not want to take it anymore and I wasn’t craving so I quit. “Historically, mental health care has operated separately from general medical practices where collaborations exist to strongly encourage smoking cessation in typical patient populations, said Jill M. Williams, MD, professor of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.  The result of this disconnect, according to Dr. Williams, has left smokers with disparities to become dominant group of smokers in the United States. This includes smokers with mental illness, as well as other addictions and the very poor. Disparities research indicates we need tailored strategies to effect these remaining populations of smokers, she said.”  I had to ask my doctor when I wanted to quit.  A lot of people with mental illness do not have PCP’s.  I believe you have to have a reason to quit.  It was not that I would die young that made me quit.  It was the reason of having my granddaughter in a smoke free house.  I was not even supposed to quit that was supposed to my ex-wife.  She did not quit.
The article says: “Williams said partnerships between mental health providers and state or county tobacco control programs benefit patients, providers and programs.  For patients, smoking cessation improves their health be reducing the impact of smoking-related illnesses.  This in turn lowers costs in treating those illnesses.  The paradox is that we still pay for the heart disease and cancer that these smokers develop so it makes more sense to help them stop smoking, explained Williams. Likewise, tobacco control programs, already leaders in advocacy, can emphasize the need for smoking cessation programs and policies that focus specifically on underserved populations, including individuals with mental health illness. Ultimately, coordinated efforts can strengthen and expand treatment programs, control healthcare costs, and improve the well-being of individuals with mental illness and other disparate populations, which have limited access to smoking cessation options, said Williams.”  If you can quit why not if it means you will be here longer with your loved ones, I enjoyed every minute I had with my granddaughter when she was a baby that I would not trade to this day for a cigarette.

Hope & Recovery

I am writing about hope and recovery again it has been awhile since I addressed this subject.  I hardly get down in the dumps.  I will for a while then I realize that things will always get better that you just have to keep trudging along.  You have to help things move along in the right way also you cannot just sit back and think things are go to get better on their own.  I have a hard habit since I was young of forcing things to work.  Sometimes they do not like my ex-mother in law said you cannot force things.  She was right about my marriage.  Although I still keep trying and if I did not when I was in the state hospital, I might still be there.
When I received a pass to visit my family I not only visited them but I also registered for college hoping I would go and change my life.  I was released two months before college started to a boarding home for dual diagnosis.  Life has a funny way of happening.  I have faced a lot of obstacles in my life where the worse could have happened and I would not be here writing this if it all happened.  Sometimes you just have to believe no matter how bad things seem to be that it will get better and it always does.  I once face twenty four years and did not make a deal and if the judge would have gave me the law the way it was written I would only been found guilty of a misdemeanor.  Instead of doing two years until my appeal was approved.

I knew I would get out.  It keeps getting better as time goes along.  That is the same with recovery.  You just have to keep pushing forward.  There are going to be relapses along the way although you find out what is going wrong and you fix it.  Just like when they first put me on Geodon it kept making my fall asleep during the day until I switched it to night time.  I take it when I want to fall asleep now.  My life I believe is going on the greatest time it ever has. I write it in hopes it will rub off on other people.  I do get down but not overnight or anything.  I usually just get angry that things are not going right.  Although even if I do not wish things to get better they do.I believe it is rubbing off on my daughter usually when things go wrong she will be upset I noticed this last time she did not.  She weathered the storm and now things are a little bit better for her.  I only hope that my grandkids see things as I usually do not preach to them but show them through my actions.  They would not understand now anyway that life is a trip.  Things are not perfect but I cannot complain.  I am free and that is what I wanted most of my life as I was always locked up. Just keep pushing forward and know that hope & recovery can and will happen.