Celebrating a New Year with Gratitude!

There were so many New Year's in my past that I celebrated with friends the promise of champagne for a New Year's celebration.  The truth is it always seemed rather dull.  I found myself wishing for things I didn't have and hoping for more from life.  Since I no longer drink, I have to meet life on life's terms. That means facing each moment as myself and not as someone made to feel someway-else with the assistance of a substance.  I appreciate the sharpness of my focus in each moment.  I appreciate my enhanced alertness and creativity.  And appreciation is where I would like to turn my focus on this New Year's Eve!  I am simply grateful for the small things.  It's 2° and I appreciate that our house is so tiny because it is absolutely toasty.  I appreciate that my son husband and myself are healthy.  Having lost my health in psychiatric hospitalizations, I know what it's like not to feel the ground under your feet.  Health is huge in feeling grounded.  I had to take small steps in gaining my health.  Walking down the path of health is a daily challenge.  A mere shower can feel overwhelming.  Cleaning the house can feel impossible.  Sometimes eating is not what I want to do.  Taking medication can feel like a juggling act.  Getting to the gym can feel good, once you get over the anxiety of all people.  It's not easy to suit up and show up to work always.  There are little steps that I push forward each day to carve out my health.  Sometimes I feel like taking those steps and sometimes I don't.  I push forward regardless, because I realize that if I can do the small things that feel like climbing a mountain on certain days- I will have health.  I am grateful that I've been able to take this journey this year.  And I am grateful for the opportunity to challenge myself on taking these steps into 2015!

Crisis Response

Crisis response is an important topic in recovery. It's the intersection between wellness and needing assistance many times. I think recognizing the need for assistance is especially challenging with behavioral health conditions. I recently assisted a woman whose daughter was having trouble breathing, we called 911 together. What was so striking to me was that the mother wasn't sure what to do even though her daughter was having trouble breathing. She wasn't sure whether or not she should call 911. Her comment was I simply don't know what's going on. Imagine if this had been a psychological crisis. Would the mother know what to do?  Would responders even know how to respond even?  And in my experience this has been an extremely questionable. I've got an appropriate responses maybe one out of five times. And by appropriate I mean someone responded with care, even poor care is better than ignoring and not responding in my humble opinion. Crisis services need to grow in the United States to where we have adequate responses for people in crisis with behavioral health conditions. We need more crisis respites that are peer run with access to ERs. We need to interact with the clinical community in these peer run facilities when medical responses are appropriate. We need to be talking to our communities about our supports so that people aren't blindsided with what do I do in a crisis.