Places of Isolation

Somedays its hard for me to believe that the best and most innovative way we have come up with to address the most serious mental health crises in many places in America is to isolate people from communities in hospitals.  I have voluntarily gone to a hospital to access medication and get it together, but the truth is if a person has a safe environment, like a house, hotel, or respite available- why can't the hospital come to the person. 

Segregating people in hospitals away from thier families sets us up for failure at times.  During 2011, I was released with a discharge plan that I created.  When I went home to the community, the plan didn't work and I went right back to another hospital.  I was so upset, I called the police on myself (a point that I had not remembered until my husband and I started talking about the 60 minutes Gus Deeds Family tragedy). 

On the one hand I understand that hospitals are needed to keep people safe at times and on the other hand I don't understand why hospitals are so heavily used for so many situations in our country.  If you hospitalize an adult, like myself, in the US against thier will- usually this is a very painful experience.  Don't get me wrong, some people love the hospital.  Others of us hate to see our civil rights taken away to get access to medication.  I guess I need to tell part of my story to get to the point.

Its 2011, I am in the hospital, voluntarily.  I thought that my coworkers were trying to poison me with nuclear waste and I had escaped.  I was terrified and so I welcomed the opportunity to get help.  In fact I drove straight to the ER at Children's Hospital in Decatur. My son, they assured me, didn't have radiation damage and they were so kind as to even demonstrate this.  They had him peel stickers from a paper and told me that this skill indicated that he didn't have any nerve damage.  The hospital discharged my son to my husband.  We didn't live nearby, so my husband drove 4 hours away to be with my family.  He would drive for 4 hours to visit me in the weeks following. 

In the isolation of the hospital, I always insist on independent planning of my care.  So, my discharge plan was written by me alone.  I named the doctor I would see, the place I would go, and that I would move to Atlanta.  Well, all this didn't work in real life at discharge.  In fact, the hospital discharged me to a friend's care.  Something that was shocking to my family to find out, as they thought the hospital would just hold me till my family arrived.

But the fact that my discharge plan didn't include a stable place to live caused my plan to fail and I landed right back in the hospital.  I finally ended up 4 hours away from all the resources named in my discharge plan with my husband and family.  After another hospitalization, I just gave up on the whole healing process among my closest friends idea and went home to Nebraska.  At least there I had a therapist, a home, and a job.  What a waste of time, resource, and money came from the near month I spend in isolation in the hospitals.

What if:
The Hospital wrote a discharge plan and that that wasn't the end of thier responsibility.

What if:
The Hospital wrote a discharge plan that included input from people you can trust, like close family allies.  What if connections were encouraged.  Then the independent types, like myself, might be  motivated to add another person's perspective to understanding if the discharge plan will fit.

What if:
There were a nurse that can prescribe and peer specialist to follow up on the fit of the discharge plan at 6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours after a crisis or discharge.  And then a peer could follow up with you every 3 days.
This type of home care or simple availability at a center might even replacethe necessity for a hospital in so many situations in our country with a dramatic reduction in costs.

What if:
Discharge plans incorporated notions like, you won't be able to drive on your medication until such and such time.  Then real world accomodations could be worked out.

What if:
Now this may sound unrealistic, but its in my heart.  What if the hospital was more like a spa.  What if there was a celebration of giving you access to life saving medications versus a struggle to lock you inside a building and force you to take them by taking away your civil rights indefinitely?  Wouldn't everyone feel better?

Including Yourself in a Breath

It’s easy to buy into the pace of our culture and feel that you have been reduced to another automated system.  It’s harder to remember that we are not here simply do as others would like that we have a purpose- claiming that purpose can be as simple as claiming a breath.  We can lose our purpose in intense conversations or just going through the ordinary activities of living.  My preferred style of work for years was to come to my desk and sit till the job was finished no matter what.  Some of us tune out, everyday, in front of TV’s and sit in front of the TV until it’s time to sleep.  Remembering that we have a place in the ebb and flow of life is harder. 

There is so much negativity in the media and in even the expressions people use in popular culture, it’s easy to feel defeated before we even claim the first word of a sentence.  Language that demeans us to certain roles and ways of being can really get a person down or lead to unexpressed anger and outrage.  We can take that anger out on ourselves by feeling powerless and like there is nothing that we can do.  Of course buying into that feeling of powerless is just another way that we reduce ourselves to another automated system.

Breathing isn’t easy as trauma survivors or people living with behavioral health conditions, the breath gets stifled when we tune out.  Breathing can be a tremendous ally, particularly when working with challenging situations.  A simple good breath, while you tell others how you feel can assist you in staying calm and centered as you stake a claim in the world of humanity.  Remembering to get a good breath in, can be a tipping point not only for new conversations with others about who you are, but also a tipping point into remembering the relationship that you have with yourself.

We can ask our body to tune out the simplest messages.  Messages like, I have a headache forming or I need to go the restroom or I am getting upset.  In a breath we can accept and love our body for having needs and take can of them.  We can listen and give ourselves the things that we need.  In claiming a breath, we might find the power to tell a person we feel judged by them and how.  We can write into news media and share with them a better way to converse.  We can remember what it means to live a life of purpose versus automating ourselves to the demands of the TV or work.

Of course there are lots of wellness skills we can practice, but I think the simplest is just to remember to breathe into claiming our lives as human.  Try it -  just straighten you posture a bit or raise your hands over your head so you can get a slow full breath that expands your belly. 

Inclusion Begins at Home

In my own experience of family, power and the sharing of power has been a major issue.  We don't always communicate well, we spent so much of our lives on silent mode- hiding shameful acts of abuse that happened to me as a child.  All the hiding made me an angry person in my youth, because who I was was not accepted and loved by my family for who I was.  This was an imbalance of power and a shunning of sorts. I found acceptance and love from other individuals who were angry with thier families also.  This only multiplied the power issues around me, because we didn't not understand that we were carrying forward abuse from our families to the relationships.

Our family went through lots of therapy, but that doesn't mean that we learned to share power better.  We learned to communicate better.  Still today, I find that when I am ill my parents want to rush me to the hospital in hopes what will pop out is a healthier child.  I have found that the hospital has been a great place to access medication, but nothing really substantive happens there for me.  Medication can be accessed in the community and a hospital isn't really required for people that are not a harm to themselves or others.  I have learned when they hospitalize me that I have to forgive them for turning to the only problem solving they understand. 

Internally, I have felt very wronged by my hospitalizations that have occured while I have been working with a medical team.  The only one that made some sense for me was the first one, because I was so very confused, afraid of everyone on the planet, and driving to anywhere and nowhere. The times hospitalization has been used to resolve my parents discomfort with my condition is an imbalance of power.  Its like saying we can't accept and love you as you are, so we are going to hospitalize you.  It is a knee jerk reaction that has been ingrained in many families for years.  This is apparent in the old  saying in Georgia, "If you don't behave, I'm going to send you to Milledgeville."

When we include people in our families that have differences and learn to sit with discomfort, we can allow our children to work with medical teams in the community and remain in the community.  Digging up hidden family secrets can feel like the rug of life has been pulled out from under a parent, but to really stay focused on love and acceptance is not easy.  If more families can understand that discomfort is a natural part of relationships, then we can move towards a more inclusive culture.

This focus on love an acceptance is a major skill in attachment building.  Attachment is the bond between a child and caregivers.  The Dalai Lama is an expert on Compassion and he says that he gained this skill from the love of his mother.  I've had to learn to love and accept my own son's differences from other children.  Just loving your children at all times, is an amazing process.  Next time your child is angry, try saying this, "I know you are angry and I love you."



  

Pushing Past Stereotypes...

Pushing past stereotypes is what I do everyday in my work, I speak out about my experience in many places and hope for the best.  Most times, I am pleasantly surprised, but not always.  I was in the DC Airport about a year ago or more and my medication fell out of my open bag.  I was at the end of the line, placing my shoes on and starting to relax.  The security woman saw the bright yellow box and quickly fired off to her colleagues, "That girl is on psych meds!".  I looked around embarrassed a bit and wondered if they would start questioning me.  Everyone seemed to ignore her, it was busy, and I went on with my life.  After starting this blog, I have been confronted with two of my own mind's stereotypes:
1) Movie Theatres are not always Dangerous...
So I was a bit anxious about taking my son to his friend's birthday at a movie theatre, because I had just read an article on mass killings and it was sticking with me.  As I approached the theatre, I thought about retreating home and disappointing my son, because police were blocking off the road in front of the theatre.  Immediately, I wondered if something unusual was happening and with some misgivings, we moved closer.  As we approached children and families outside the theatre, I learned that the police were concerned some scaffolding would collapse in the 40 mile per hour winds.  All my fear buttons had been pushed already, so learning this only mildly helped.  We pushed forward inside, because I don't believe in allowing my son's childhood to suffer all my fears.  He had a blast and I had to really let go and breathe into the experience. 
2) Girls with physical challenges are NOT Fragile...
So my son was playing soccer, leaping and jumping around like he always does.  Then two girls came rolling onto the field after the game had starting and I found my body posture not saying what I wanted it to.  My hand was covering my mouth and I was watching my son's every move praying he didn't leap too close and rip out the oxygen tube from his team mate.   Again, I breathed and relaxed.  As the game went on I realized it was me that was fragile and not the new players.  I told the coach I was inspired and she said, well every parent wants to feel proud that their child is engaged in a sport.  Don't you feel proud?

So if you meet me in a crowd and its one of those times that I am blurting out about my lived experience with a behavioral health condition and you find your mind wandering to the latest news bashing of people with mental health challenges, just breathe, relax, and remember at the end of the day we all just want to belong.

Lastly, thank-you to news sources that take the time to get the story right! 

Prevalence of Behavioral Health Conditions in Our Culture

According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 18.6 percent of all adults in the US have had an experience of a mental health challenge in the past year.  Illicit drug use is more likely among this group of people.  Suicidal thoughts were higher among people that use illicit drugs.  Also the 2012 NSDUH found 3.9% of all people, 18 years of age and older, had had suicidal thoughts. 

All these numbers, represent real people that are out there struggling and a person represented by these numbers may be working right next to you day in and day out.  Statistics indicate that people make presumptions about people living with behavioral health conditions in our culture every day.   Presumptions like that people that live with mental health conditions may be more dangerous than others.  When one looks at the real numbers, one quickly realizes such presumptions are false.  Chances are that our workplace and our extended families are not immune to the fact that real people with real challenges are among us.  So, what can we do as a culture to go against the grain of stereotypes and real discrimination that takes place everyday?

* If you see a coworker in distress take the time to talk to them.
* Remember that your casual interactions with people may impact them in ways you can't imagine.
* Make accomodations for people in the workforce that allow people to work side by side and do the same work.
* Be there for people when they share challenges whether they are a family member or coworker.
* Take time to make real connections that can assist a person in distress.
* Remember the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-TALK)

 http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

 http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k12MH_FindingsandDetTables/2K12MHF/NSDUHmhfr2012.htm#ch5