no space ace!

i know you’re not my responsibility, but i am your friend

i hope the friend who sent this email is ok with me doing this. got back from a walk to the shore to watch the sunset, take some photos, found this email waiting for me:

i know you’re not my responsibility, but i am your friend and i care about you and if there is ever anything i can do to help, i would like to do it. i don’t know exactly what you are going through, but I do know what it is like to be on (or over) the edge of sanity and to feel pain so bad that you would consider doing anything to relieve it. i just want you to know that i am here if you want to talk or hang or im or just not be alone. i am especially good at hanging out without the need to interact with my company ;)

i am posting this because, if you happen to have a friend who is feeling suicidal or feeling very on edge, mentally, psychiatric-ly, and you’re unsure what to say, the above email is a pretty darn good way to phrase your offer of help.

I’ve also been reminded about the power of kindness

i’m always in awe at the level of care this mother provides for her autistic son. but this post is beyond perfect and wow-ness.

It may seem like a small thing, until you realize that Bud has never really been interested in having a friend before. We refer to the other kids at school as his friends. They call him a friend. But he’s never really been interested in having a friend. He’s refused the idea of playdates and, when asked, he’s named his friends as Mom, Dad, Nana, and Papa. Until now. Now he has Dierks. And Chris. And Rod, and Tim, and Robbie, and Steve. Now, he calls people friends. Now he knows how cool it is to have friends. And, my hunch is, now he is probably on track to want more of them.

I’ve thought a lot over the past weeks and months about the transformative power of friendship. I’ve thought about the kind of friendship that Dierks and Bud developed – the kind of camaraderie that’s created when two strangers “click.” I’ve thought about the kind of friendship I have with Cassidy – the same kind that I have with so many of you, who I know only through my computer screen, but to whom I feel connected at the heart. And I’ve thought about how those friendships affect us, anchor us, empower us, change us.

I’ve also been reminded about the power of kindness – about the power of doing something not because we must, but simply because we can – about how when that kind of kindness goes out into the universe, it doesn’t just add up; it doesn’t just multiply. It compounds exponentially. It transforms.

http://momnos.blogspot.com/2009/11/every-smile-memory-cassidy-dierks-and.html

impact crash

errant thoughts

so much in this life is forgotten.
so much is abandoned.
fumbled body tumbles on the crumpled plane
spirals down and spirals up and all is vexed betwain

skin lays flat, we forget that
a scintillating brilliance remains
the untouched thought, the untouched mind
the human who would be a proper sovereign

so much is random, so much is chance
i try to find the proper words but everything is lost and i don’t know if i make sense and these are errant thoughts.

Has my being honest helped the situation at all?

posted today, in 140 character bits. makes more sense if read bottom to top:

the fact that i just found out in the past half hour that definitely 2 of my brothers have died, and possibly my mother (unsure)… a normal person, i think, would be feeling something.

i feel like i am having a complete mental/nervous breakdown. we had the whole business where i wound up in the emergency psychiatric clinic last thursday, coming on the heels of me slicing myself up while insanely drunk, and, well, just all stressed out. had told the frustrating PT design client that i had things to do, would get back to them monday. checked email late monday to find way too emails in a row, posted the entire weekend, ALL IN CAPS!!! WITH EXCLAMATIONS POINTS!!! PLEASE CALL ME!!! WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED ME/!!! I HAVE MONEY FOR YOU, IN CASH, WILL THAT GET YOU TO CALL ME?!!!!

what was bothersome was that the reason he wanted me to call him was for no important reason, he just wanted to find out how i was progressing on the design job that wasn’t due for another week.

so, given the amount of stress i was dealing with, i sent an email, which i thought i phrased nicely, but saying, look, there’s a certain way projects have to go when you’re working with a freelance designer, which is that we meet, discuss the terms of the project, set up a production schedule, and i give you a set date by which i’ll have the next phase of the project to you, then we meet again, etc. but if you are, on a 24/7 basis, sending me emails IN ALL CAPS!!! CALL ME!!! WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED ME?!!!!, it makes it difficult for me to do my job.

i then promptly set my inbox so that any emails from that client would go into a subfolder, bypassing the inbox, with the intention of looking in it friday (yesterday). as friday, yesterday, was the day when i said i’d have the rough draft of their design piece ready.

of course, yesterday i had a complete emotional breakdown, soaking wet, breaking down crying in a psychiatric community outreach office, and had to take a huge hit of ativan to stop me from cracking completely… i just never contacted the client.

and woke up at 1pm today, and should’ve gotten it to them today, by 6pm, latest.

instead, i am fumbling with basic math, and i have their indesign file open, and i am moving the mouse around, moving things, and it’s getting ugly, just worse and worse, cannot pull this design piece together, creatively i am useless, and i’m supposed to be pulling copy from their website, but none of the words are making sense.

a recent episode of ugly betty had the wealthy son character being taught a lesson, that in order to achieve healing, he needed to learn how to be honest with people, not hide in subterfuge.

if i were to follow that lesson, this is the email i’d send to this client right now:

“Hi, client. I’m very sorry that I didn’t get the rough draft of your design job to you yesterday like I said I would. I’ve been trying to work on it today, but am having trouble getting it finished. See, in between trips to the emergency psychiatric clinic, having a bipolar/mental breakdown, and the side effects I’m dealing with from the tempoary drug I’m on, and repeated trips to the food stamps office and meets with a case worker and trying to get set up with a psychiatrist and, oh, this general persistent depression, in which I haven’t changed my clothes or showered in 6 days…

Sorry, rambling there. This medication I’m on, which they gave me to help me not get violently drunk and slice myself up with knives, it’s making me very stupid, and my writing is all disjointed. I think what I’m saying is I’m sorry. I know you need help, but… Are you willing to wait 2-3 months til I get my medication stabilized and find a job so I’m not living in primordial terror of being homeless again? Can you wait til I get out of my bad space? The fact that you need this design piece to be done in time for a mailing at the end of this month… yes, that does cause a problem, I know.

Client, I really don’t know what to say. Has my being honest helped the situation at all?”

that’s one good thing

in my “about asperger’s syndrome in plain english” post, i mentioned how my emotions don’t seem like how other people experience emotions. they’re often flat, disjointed, and even if i’m crying i’m objectively looking at it, detached, analytical mind can’t feel it, this makes no sense. always questioning if it’s pretend, i’m faking, because i can’t really feel it.

the crying i’ve been doing as of late, however, last week, yesterday, just now, 2 days ago, 3 days ago, 4 days ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago… when i break down into suddenly finding my body bent over in shoulder-shaking sobs, my entire gut opens up, ragged and torn and lost and confused and scared, and i am *feeling* it.

so, whatever complete breakdown/collapse i’m going thru, that’s one good thing.

too often people in recovery face barriers to finding and maintaining a good job

Ralph Bilby, Program Director of the International Center for Clubhouse Development (ICCD), knows the critical importance of a good job for persons with persistent mental illness. He says, “I love what Ralph Aquila (Director of The Center for Reintegration) tells people, that employment isn’t the most important thing – it’s the only thing. The number one dream of people with mental illness in terms of breaking free from the bonds of their illness, the poverty associated with it, and the embarrassment and stigma of it is to be able to go to work.”

One reason, of course, is to make the money for necessities, such as a decent place to live. But the drive for work goes far deeper. For most people, a “real job” helps provide meaning to life. This is true for everyone, not just those with mental illness.

But too often people in recovery face barriers to finding and maintaining a good job – barriers created by themselves as well as others. Common feelings include:

* A serious lack of confidence
* The fear of recurring episodes of illness
* A sense of being too far behind to catch up
* A stigma regarding serious mental illness that, unfortunately, still exists in the workplace, and

While these barriers are real, they can be overcome. This is especially true with the recent advances in medications for treating schizophrenia and related conditions. Persons with mental illness can find meaningful work and form relationships with the thousands of employers who want to actively help solve social problems. These employers are natural partners for the mentally ill job seeker willing to look for them.

10 Important Ideas for Finding and Maintaining Meaningful Employment…

http://www.reintegration.com/reint/employment/meaning.asp

Take meds or breathe?

Decisions, decisions. Where is the line between beneficial effects and intolerable side effects of medicine? I suppose it is different for everybody, but I am having a hard time placing it at the moment, or at least I was until I ended up in the emergency room on Tuesday.

http://lbnuke.com/2006/03/24/take-meds-or-breathe/

employment issues for those with psychiatric disabilities

Like the song says, work is “more than a paycheck” – employment and a career commitment to participating in the labor force. Sociologists tell us that the two most important human activities are work and family. People who have been sidetracked with long years of managing illness and disability systems too often have lost the thread of connection to the ordinary life experiences of discovering what kind of work or career is best for them. The experience of a mental illness may have prevented people from completing high school, college or other vocational preparation. Furthermore, years of focus on getting well and managing disability related services and systems could also have interfered with people’s expectations about their own independence and abilities/talents.

Supported Employment Best Practices Psychiatric rehabilitation services include a variety of supports to assist people in returning to employment in the community. After years of services research, best practices in supported employment are now available. Gary Bond et al (link to free download of this article) provide us with the following critical components of best practices in supported employment:

*
Focus of supported employment services should be on assisting people in achieving competitive employment rather than day treatment or sheltered work;
*
Supportive services assist people in helping people with obtaining a job (rapid job search) rather than providing lengthy pre-vocational and pre-employment programming before they assist the person with finding a job;
*
Supportive services work with each person based on his or her individual preferences for employment;
*
Supportive services provide follow-along, long term support; and
*
Employment supports can be more effective if conducted in partnership with mental health treatment services.

http://www.upennrrtc.org/issues/view.php?id=7