Meditation for this week

When anger is encountered, I hope that more people can step in, together, and lessen anger's dangers.

When someone is dealing with anger, I pray that positive intervention steps in to be able to lessen that person's pain.  I pray that the pain is recognized, understood and not minimized with condescension. 

When someone is dealing with anger, I pray that they recognize it as anger and are led to healthier ways of dealing with it.

When anger develops into hatred for strangers whom they do not know, I pray that triggers are overcome by a sense of internal divine peace.  That may sound like an incredibly hippie dippie prayer, but it's my prayer and I can pray how I want to.

I have dealt with other people's anger all my life, and I have seen its cataclysmic effects in so many incidents throughout my life.  It's time for more sensitivity to others' anger, and figuring out strategies to help them channel and work through tough issues so that THE MADNESS OF ANGER can stop.

"When the company goes public....

"....you've got to learn to love what you own."

I think about 'going public' with mental health stuff all the time, but due to judgment passed upon me at several differrent workplaces over the course of the last 12 years in the Chicago area, I keep it to myself.  For now.

I am doing the NAMI Walk in Chicago this weekend.  I have two brave souls walking with me on my team, both of whom have personal connections to mental health issues.  And both of their experiences have been sad and tragic.

There's hope, you know.

God and Goddess knows there's enough bullshit to sift through as we navigate our ways through corporate pharmaceutical greed and finding a psychiatrist who BELIEVES in YOU as a human being and not a commodity is a big part of the process.  When my psychiatrist told me he inherited a lot of patients who he feels were unnecessarily medicated with two of the same type of drug I was like HALLELUJAH!  I'm sticking with this doctor!  I know I make him nervous with my questions about Seroquel and its link to breast cancer (do I need to remind everyone I had a mastectomy March 30, 2015?) but I'm still fighting the good fight.  And I know a little bit more about whom I can trust in mental health.

Anyway, here's the song I was quoting in the title of this post.  I'm not sure which version I like better:

Life versus illness

I've struggled with how much 'space' to give this stinking bipolar disorder.  There have been times in my life when it has absolutely consumed me.  Those times were usually peppered with erratic emotions revolving around certain med cocktails, and it was hard to not allow the illness to take over my life when panic attacks were occurring regularly and many nights were spent alone hurling in the bathroom from feelings of some kind of poisoning.

I know that the medication is necessary and I will not fight that.  But I still stand firm that I don't think every bipolar patient  always will require 4-6 different bipolar meds at one time.  Perhaps during an episode, but not for years after a hospitalization.

Resuming a normal life after a psych med stay is one of the most difficult parts of managing this illness.  I know that stability is certainly possible, but that shifts in brain chemistry are also possible, and being in tune with those changes and having the ability to nip them in the bud before things go too far is HUGE.  

And sometimes a med can just stop working.  

Focusing on living one's life is healthy.  Focusing on the limitations this illness brings is devastating, and I think the professionals need to focus on the Hope rather than the negativity of these illnesses.

Well, I signed up

....to do the walk, that is.  I may end up walking all by myself because I really don't have support from too many people.  I'll remain hopeful that someone can join me.  An old coworker who now has returned to a career in mental health is checking her schedule and may join up with me.  That would be nice.

I realized this past year how people will crawl out of the woodwork to shower you with love and cards and surprises from all around when you have cancer.  But if you tell them about mental illness, more than half the people I know still think it's all bullshit.

Another realization hits me as I have to gather more strength again to get through this life.  Everyone deserves support, and there's only so much support one can give to thine self.

Boundaries and Support

I've slowly been immersing myself in areas of community mental health.  It's been a slow process, as I have to work a full-time retail management job and sometimes plans fall through the cracks in order to take care of that primary business.  But I'm participating slowly where I can....getting my feet wet.

Support groups can be wonderfully amazing tools, but when it comes to mental health, one must be WISE and SAFE.  It would be a shiny, happy people sort of thing if one could just instantly become FRIENDS with others attending these sorts of groups but you need to posess a sort of whip-smart mentality of whom you may include in your sharing of information.  This is a very delicate process for me and I'm developing strong skills, but there is still so, so much work to be done.

For example, I'd love to participate in an upcoming NAMI walk, but I can't really think of any friends locally to ask.  Mental health is still one of those 'Shove It Under a Rug and Don't Talk About It' kind of thing.  I'm working on changing that, but I'm not there yet.  And so I'd be willing to talk with some members from a support group or two, but I'm not comfortable giving anyone my contact info just yet.  I dream of a day where I won't have to walk around on mounds and mounds of eggshells going about my journey to speak UP and speak OUT about mental illness.  But that day is not here just yet.

I still feel divided.  The part of me that is stable and strong and wise and a strong leader.......

And then the other part of me that is still traumatized by incidents during hospitalizations and fearful of controlling professionals reminding me of just how "SICK" I am.

I've been thinking about my acquaintance some more...the one I previously mentioned in a posting...and thinking about how mean and cruel the world can be when it comes to matters of the mind.  I'm not going to elaborate anymore on that at this very moment, but he is in my thoughts and prayers as I navigate these really fucking choppy waters of mental health and wellness.