8 Feb

From the desk of the disabled

Posted by DOGKISSES in depression, health, invisible illnesses, Mental healthcare, mental illness. Tagged: , , , .

the disabled=

Dan was funny and talented.  He wrote poems, songs, played the guitar and sang, sometimes performing  for various coffee houses or one of the locally somewhat underground etched out gathering places downtown.

Even with a few beers in him he remained smart enough to help  my teenage son with his algebra homework–- something I was not equipped to do.   He was also tall and handsome.  Everyone liked him.  They called him, simply, Big Dan.  He made us all laugh.  He was single and so was I.  We were the same age.  Needless to say, Dan and I had a passionate, though short-lived love affair.  He passion to party didn’t mix well with my responsibilities raising a teenager.

Dan and I often met in the center of downtown where the local teenagers, tourists and foot-travelers were having fun or stopping for a rest.  This was the downtown Asheville we knew before the 100 year lease on the Vance Monument ran out, leaving its reasons for existing to be annihilated by the local powers that be.

Our cultural downtown oasis would soon be over but that summer, before it all changed, Dan and I were wonderful lovers.

I often sat in the sun warmed grass around the monument while Dan played his guitar, an action he would later purposefully get himself a city citation for, due to his not having a license to play an instrument downtown.  He thought this was funny and looked forward to his court date.

“Have you applied for disability benefits?” he asked me one day.

I was taken aback.  “What for?” I responded.  The word disabled conjured up the image of my father.  He had been disabled. I wasn’t like my father I thought.

“How long have you been out of work?”  he continued.  Dan worked at a group home and was educated on the subject of disability.

“It’s been about three years,” I answered.  Hearing myself say three years did sound like a long time.

Looking surprised he said, “Depression is a disability and you can get help because of it.”

I remember that day.  I remember the grass.  I can still remember how it felt to sit there with Dan.  It felt really good.

I would slowly begin to realize many things about my life; the history of it; how and why it played out the way it had — and myself — I would in some ways meet myself for the first time in my mid-thirties.

It would be six months after that sunny warm day with Dan that I walked into the Social Security Administration’s local office.

“I have an appointment,” I said to the clerk.

“What are you here for today Mam?” she asked.

I leaned forward a little, self-consciously lowering my voice.  “I’m here to apply for disability benefits.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Thank you for visiting my blog.

5 Feb

The love of a dog

Posted by DOGKISSES in Canine companions, dogs, gratitude. Tagged: , , , .

dogs make great nurses and caretakers

whose there?

Okay, my first day using my left hand and it is slow going.  Today, after a long day with medical professionals, I come home and realize how blessed I am to have two of the dearest, most loving beings on the planet right here with me!  ME!

Whew… done with left hand now.

I look into their eyes.  I know I’m lucky.  I’m honored to have them in my life and am truly humbled by their presence.  I believe they are straight from heaven.

My luck doesn’t seem so great in many ways lately, but in doggie land and up in doggie heaven somebody must really like me!

I wish everyone could see in dogs what I see.  I wish everyone loved dogs.

I’m glad I know, the love of a dog.

she's a beauty and she loves me

Egyptian BeautyHound

7 Jan

I wish I had time to tell you.

Posted by DOGKISSES in Canine companions, dogs. Tagged: , , , , , , .

I wish I had time to tell you about Free.  She was a beautiful lab mixed with some Border Collie so of course she was not only beautiful she was highly intelligent!  Smarter than most folks, four-legged or two-legged that I ever knew.

Free was the greatest teacher I’ve ever had.  She left her mark upon this earth and a good one it was!

My Greatest Teacher and most beloved 4legged, Free

Anyone who ever met Free instantly loved her.  “She sure looks like a happy dog,” many people would say.  I always thought it interesting that this is what most people saw when they looked at Free — happiness.

Free was happy when doctors said she ought not be.  “She’s wagging her tail and eating well,” they said with surprise when she had a cancerous tumor on her leg, which I will not talk about.

I can only talk about the happy memories.  The other part is too sad.

In Free’s last days on this earth, she showed me everything.  She showed me a place where things are okay.  A place where everything that happens can, in the end, be okay.  She showed me that the guilt I felt was not needed, even though my heart does still break.

My doctors said I needed antidepressants but I,  instead spent time with Free, lying close to her body, looking into her eyes and listening.  I cried the entire time.   Free showed me everything.  Everything that is beautiful.

I wish I had time to tell you all about it.  I wish I had time, and one day I will.  I’ll tell you about how her spirit came back to visit several times.  I do not believe what people say about dogs not having a spirit.  I just don’t!

Free’s spirit is awesome.  In the darkest moments after she passed she came.  She brought me messages.  The last time I saw her she reminded me of our agreement, which was that I would be okay and that one day I would get another dog.

It feels funny calling Free a dog.

Free’s spirit spoke and moved a woman in my life who is mostly responsible I think for me having the dog I have now.

I know they are dogs.  I know they are canines.  I do not think they are human.  Dogs are however living beings with feelings.  Dogs do actually rule!

I wish I had time to tell you how my good insect hunter I have now came and how Free had her earth angel helping her to help me.

Her earth angel’s name is Tiffany.  I wish I had time too to tell of her.

I don’t usually speak of spirits and angels.  I don’t pretend to understand how life works.  I just know what I’ve experienced.

So one day, when I have time, I will tell you.

I’ll tell you how my dogs save my life pretty much all the time and how it’s just fine for now.  I’ll tell you about how it is a dog that can make me feel needed and how important feeling needed is.

‘kisses

4 Jan

Antidepressants don’t always come in a pill

Posted by DOGKISSES in depression, healing, health, mental and emotional health. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Her name is Candy and if you met her you would know why.  With strength, a racer’s spirit and her graceful great power, mostly what you notice about her is how very sweet she is.  She sure gave me a healthy dose of an antidepressant!

her spirit comforts mine

Depression is something I’ve struggled with for most of my adult life.  I’ve never been able to tolerate the side-effects of antidepressants.  I’ve turned to more traditional medicine for my symptoms.  I did once promise myself if depression zaps me to the point of not being able to get out of bed that I would take medication but the older I got the more sensitive I’ve become to the side-effects.

Acupuncture helped me when I had access to treatments.  Gardening helps me a great deal too.  When I last had a garden, my favorite part of every day was going outside first thing in the mornings and checking to see if anything had happened during the night.  Often times since I was living in the mountains, things did happen.  Little things that amazed me.  Personally, I think getting closer to nature is good treatment for depression.

The mental and psychological benefits I feel during and after riding a horse came as a surprise to me.   I don’t own a horse but I sure wish I did.

My grandpa used to buy and sell horses.  The thing about that was that he sold them way too soon for me to get to know one.

I got a taste of equine-assisted therapy by volunteering at a riding center in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina for people with disabilities.  She was about six years old.  She was amazing.  She helped me put the saddle on the horse and when we made it to the ring she stopped.

“Why did you come here today?” she asked me.

I had to think for a second.  “I came to help you ride,” I answered, which appeared to satisfy her.  She complimented me on my hair band.  I’d bought it in Texas at a cowgirl craft show.  It was my favorite.  “It’s very pretty,” she said.

Then she looked at me in the eyes and so sincerely she said, “This is the best day of my life.”

I understand better now what she may have referred to.   After having the opportunity to get to know Candy, discovering the antidepressant benefits along the way, I can relate to the feeling of having the best day of my life.

Several years after meeting the girl I started thinking of riding horses again.  One day while driving through the country I saw a sign.

“Horse lessons and Trail rides“ — I jotted down the number.

Not long after that day I was driving up the steep gravel drive on the small farm in a rural area near where I grew up.  The land was familiar.

Candy was gorgeous Appaloosa.  She was obviously sweet but I had no clue how spunky she was and wouldn’t find out until later when we took her to the forest on an equestrian trail.

Candy gave me good medicine.   I would come home so tired I had to go straight to bed but it felt good.

I would rest and remember how it felt being with her.  Every little turn in the trail had stuck in my mind.  I couldn’t wait ’til the next time I could ride.

I think riding a horse makes my brain produce all those wonderful chemicals depressed brains need.

I felt good when Candy listened to me too.  She certainly didn’t have to but she did.   She really wanted to do something else, which was fly as fast as she could alongside her competitive friend but she did what I asked her to do instead.  I learned to trust her.  I wanted her to trust me too.

I couldn’t believe the power she had.  She begged me to let her show off her racing skills, but I was not at all ready.  I knew I was too weak to handle her if she took off running and I could feel how fast it would be if I let her go.  I felt like we became friends in a way.  She was disappointed that she couldn’t fly but her loyalty seemed to be to me, as long as I let her know what I needed and wanted her to do.  I was sad for days that she didn’t get to run in that forest.  I felt like I had disappointed her.

There are many feelings that I experienced during the blessed time I was with Candy.

Fear, confidence, trust, excitement, accomplishment and love were all part of my experience.

The effects of the rides would last about ten days, maybe a little more.  That’s pretty darn good for one dose of medicine.

Healing and medicine doesn’t always come in the form of a pill.


I’m not a doctor or a medical professional.  This post is not intended as medical advice.

I’m just a person who discovered that building a relationship with a horse is healing.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

3 Jan

oops! Post deleted

Posted by DOGKISSES in Uncategorized.

Post removed by the author of this blog.

 


15 Dec

Schizophrenia and Courage

Posted by DOGKISSES in gratitude, love, mental illness. Tagged: , , , , , .

If I could stand on a cloud above, and have our Almighty God ask me what I would like to do or be on Earth, I would say I’d like to be me.

I’d say could I please be the mother of that nice little boy who turned into a fine young man!

And if our Almighty God then said to me: if you choose to be that person, you will encounter a great many challenges, some of which you will simply not know how to handle other than to accept them, some of which will make you worry through years worth of sleepless nights, and some will give you pain– I would still want to be me.

I love someone who has the diagnosis and most of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

He is so much more than any diagnosis or symptoms he suffers.

childhood art

I just watched The Soloist. What a great movie.  Hollywood usually does not impress me with movies about schizophrenia but this movie did.  It doesn’t glamorize schizophrenia nor does it promote a treatment.  We get a realistic view of how the illness effects one man’s life.

Sometimes a brain takes in too much information at once — without a filter so that anything and everything are immediately noticed and perceived.

“Try to imagine not being able to filter external stimuli,” a friend of mine who is a psychiatric nurse told me.  “Every single thing; the birds, the leaf blowing in the wind, the cars, the people on that porch next door, the smell of the bagel shop, the ant on the ground, the shadow of a tree — everything coming at you as fast as the speed of light — you don’t have a filter allowing you to choose where you put your attention.”

I imagine this would be extremely difficult and challenging, like being on the front line in a war.

I read somewhere that, we cannot know what it is like to have schizophrenia, we can only know what it is like not to have it.

Many people with schizophrenia, as with the character in The Soloist, do not like taking anti-psychotic drugs.

Most places available to help people with schizophrenia require them to take these medications to receive the help.  We have club houses, residential living facilities and other programs to help people with this type of disease — but if the people who need these services do not take anti-psychotics, then they are considered to be, non-compliant, and lose out on most assistance available that might otherwise make a huge difference in the quality of their lives.

Schizophrenia is a heart breaking disease.  It takes so much away and brings things that nobody would want.  One doctor I talked to said it is, “arguably the worst disease a person can get.”   This is a large statement to make and a complex one.  It is also one I agree with.

These are my favorite lines from The Soloist:

“His mental state and his well being is as precarious now as it was the day we met.”

“Mental Health experts say that the simple act of being someone’s friend can change a person’s brain chemistry and improve his functioning in the world.”

“I can tell you by witnessing Mr. Ayers’ courage, his humility, his faith in the power of his art;   I’ve learned the dignity of being loyal to something you believe in…holding onto it,  and above all else of believing… without question… that it will carry you on.”

Talk about a story of courage!  Carrying on in the face of this condition we label schizophrenia must be one of the most challenging quests a person must face.

This post was originally published on October 25th.

10 Dec

“Can you spare some change?” he asked a citizen!

Posted by DOGKISSES in Community, community and mental illness, family, mental illness. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

The Vancouver Province's solution to troublema...

Image by sillygwailo via Flickr

How dare he ask for change in this great place we live!  A place where we are full of higher education and very busy living our green worthy lives.  How dare he bother us!

Our bags are filled with organic locally grown produce and righteously so.  Our achievements are certainly worth noting — so how dare he ask us for change!

They say he has schizophrenia so he might well, he might kill us!  You don’t know what he might do.  Did you hear in the news about that guy who…

Dial 911!  Tell them we are being harassed by a schizophrenic who is asking for change.  Put him in jail — that will teach him!

“Can you spare some change for a cup of coffee?”  he asked a citizen near the center of the lovely town considered one of the best places in America to live.

He needed fifty-cents more for a cup of coffee.

Most of the people asking for change are kept in one place and it isn’t near that part of town.

The praised area of the lovely town includes the organic market, which is the center of living green; a gathering place for locals, most of whom have a higher education.

Medical professionals, scientists, students and plenty of people with PhD’s in just about every field you can imagine patronize the market and the surrounding shops.

Students, natural healers, and many professed open-minded free-spirited folks are to be reckoned with in this great place, which is what I love about living here.

Since it isn’t illegal to ask for change then a person who asks can instead be charged with other crimes.  Harassment, trespassing and several others that will land him or her in the same jail that holds violent criminals waiting for a life sentence.  But then, I guess,  all county jails are created equal.

I had been sick and my son was not well during this time.  He was however enjoying tutoring sessions via the local literacy council.   The offices are located on the same property as the organic market.

He and his tutor were studying the Cherokee language, the learning of which is by no means an easy attempt.  The tutor didn’t know anything about the language and nobody there seemed to know about the working memory.

One thing was clear.  My son loved the class.  He absolutely loved it.  He talked about it.  He thought about it in between classes.  He was getting a lot out of the class.

He wasn’t even on the property of the market and was on a public sidewalk when he was seen asking for change, but the private security guard didn’t care.  He hadn’t cared a week earlier when I went there and asked him if we could talk.

I thought that the security guard might have some empathy for our situation if I explained to him that my son was not well and that I was trying to get him some help.  I went to see him.

He was nearly unapproachable and it was clear he wasn’t interested in talking to me.  When he did he was very rude.

“My son would like to talk to you,” I said to him.

With a look of contempt he turned towards my son who was standing by the smoking station.  Arrogantly the guard remarked,  “No he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does,” I repeated.  “He’s waiting over there because he said you told him he could not smoke anywhere else.”

“Well.  Yes he’s right.  I did tell him that.  I’m surprised he listened.”  What a jerk.

My son walked up and held out his hand to shake the guards hand.  The man stood as still as a robot with his arms behind his back.  I wondered if he had been in the military and maybe he thought he still was!  I looked him in the eyes.  A few seconds later he held out his hand to shake my son’s, but when I held mine out he refused.

I have no idea what that man thought of me.  I dress in clean clothes.  I’m pretty clean cut overall.  I mean I don’t stand out or anything.  So why, I wonder, did that man treat me with fear of contagion,  looking at me with total contempt and only staring at my hand when I held it out as I introduced myself.

Who knows what he thought of me –the mother of a son who would ask a citizen for change?

My son apologized to the guard.  He told him he wouldn’t do it again.

I wanted the guard to care.  I wanted him to care that this young man has a mother.  I wanted him to know that I am trying to get help in this community.  I wanted him to care that we are a part of the community.  He did not care about any of that.

He said if he saw my son ask for change again that he would call the police and have my son arrested.

I was having a terrible episode of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  My son was not well.  His ACT team wouldn’t help so I was doing everything for my son.

A couple of days later, my son made a very poor choice and again, ask someone for change.  I had just talked to him that day and told him I was coming to town to give him some of his money but he didn’t wait.

He was banned for one year from the entire property, which not only includes the market but the grocery store, the drug store, our favorite restaurant where we’ve dined since he was a boy, along with the place where he was being tutored.

I was very angry at him but I also knew he needed professional help and he was not getting any.  None.  No doctor visits.  Nothing.

He was dismissed from the tutoring services a couple of weeks afterward.  The director said they stopped tutoring him because he has memory problems.  I pleaded.  I nearly begged them not too dismiss my son from all services.  I tried to get them to teach him something easier to remember than the Cherokee language.   I asked if it was because of any other reason –(I suspected it was related to him having asked for change) but they said no, that it was because of his memory problems.   I believe they lied.  A memory problem is part of my son’s disability.  The literacy council receives government funding so this doesn’t make sense how they could legally dismiss my son from all services because of his disability.

Why couldn’t his ACT team act?  Why couldn’t we come together and try to solve the issue and help my son?  I asked if we could meet and perhaps go talk to the guard.  Their response was they thought it best to simply leave it alone.  Do nothing.  Not even talk about it.

Why can’t we act like a community who cares not only for people in other countries but about our very own neighbors?

How can we feel so good about living green and doing right by the land and saving all the animals and doing all the zillions of good deeds, while we turn our heads to our own neighbors in need?

We believe, without knowing that someone is helping them.  We believe, without knowing, that our community is set up with services to help people, like my son, who does things we do not find acceptable, such as asking for some spare change.  We believe our tax dollars have secured such services.

I have since made sure that my son has money for coffee, but I do not want to go to that market and shop anymore.

I guess if it was an area where tolerance was not so widely professed then it would be easier to accept the kind of intolerance that seeps out of the pores of the people with power, such as that security guard.

He ought to be keeping his eye out for thieves.  But then, I guess, we often associate a person asking for some change with thieves.  I had told the guard and a friend of his had told him as well that my son is a good guy.  He didn’t care.

I have turned my head plenty times when asked if I could spare some change.  I have judged without knowing anything about the person asking.

I believe this year, in the spirit of Christmas, I will spare some change.

10 Dec

What is right?

Posted by DOGKISSES in health, Mental healthcare, mental illness, schizophrenia. Tagged: , , , , , , .

My heart beats too fast and my hands shake when I think back remembering all the hospital admissions, the doctors, the pills, God… the pills!  As I write, my gut feels like it’s being ripped apart.  What if I made a mistake?

What if I made such a huge mistake that my only beloved son shall never forgive me?  And if he does forgive me, has my mistake(s) ruined some of his life already?  Has it already carved out part of who he is?

I just don’t know what is right.  I don’t know what to do.

Join a group?  There’s pretty much only one to choose from, which is through NAMI.

“Forget his liver,” I remember the young psychiatrist telling me.  Was she suggesting that I’m neglecting my son by not neglecting his liver, I wondered.  Sometimes psychiatrists think in strange ways.

“We can treat liver disease, diabetes and Tardive Dyskenesia,” the young psychiatrist said, “but we can’t treat schizophrenia without antipsychotics.”

That part about treating liver disease, well, I don’t think so.

My son’s liver panel always changes when he takes the type of medications recommended by psychiatrists.  His family physician told him, once in front of me, “never take antipsychotics again.”  He told us that they would damage his liver.  

In response, my son’s ACT team social worker and a psychiatric intern at the hospital told me that we should get a new family doctor.

“You must go against your gut,” I’ve been told by professionals in the psychiatric community.  “You must abandon everything you understand as a mother in making decisions to advocate for treatment,” a well-respected social worker once said to me. 

“Treatment,” ultimately can mean forced injections.   The social worker added that if she was a parent in my shoes, that she truly didn’t know what she would do.

“We’ll commit him for not taking medicine and keep him there until he gets so tired of it he will do anything to get out, even accept regular injections of anti-psychotics.  We’ve had to do this many times with patients like your son — who are consistently non-compliant in taking their meds,” his psychiatrist has suggested.

“He wouldn’t have rehabilitation there,” I told the psychiatrist after she threatened to send him there if he, “made one wrong move.”  My son is not a criminal.  He gets sad and lonely and out of sorts.  He isn’t out breaking the law. 

The doctor had a bad attitude and let her personal feelings get too involved.  She was angry because the day before my son had gotten out of a car in town, instead of going to his apartment, while riding with one of the team’s social workers.  He’s an adult and can get out if he wants to whether anyone likes it or not.

“The only thing he would be able to do up there since the psychiatric rehabilitation unit is full would be sit in their community room all day, watching television with patients who are much worse than he is,” I told her.  She reminded me again that this was an effective technique to get some patients to decide to take medication.

I feel like I’ve had to give my son over to the enemy.  I feel like I agreed to join them too — but never with my whole heart or without the ongoing feeling that there must be a better way to do things than the way our modern-day psychiatry does them.

I stopped going to the support groups because there is a collective attitude that supports denying another person’s human and civil rights.

I once told my son’s psychiatrist about research suggesting that people with diagnoses, such as schizophrenia, can recover.  She hadn’t heard about the studies nor had she ever read anything about treating schizophrenia in ways outside of antipsychotic medication.   Personally, I find it disturbing that she’s been a psychiatrist for more than twenty years, yet hasn’t taken time to read about other forms of treatment. 

We need an alternative.  My son and I, and possibly many other families, need people to join an exploration in healthy ways to treat “mental illness” and we need to start a conversation about recovery.

“What causes schizophrenia?” someone asked a famous psychiatrist who was speaking at a meeting I attended.

“Nothing,” the doctor replied.  “Nothing and everything causes it.”

I don’t have the answers.  I do believe that if we had places where we can find what a former professor of mine called, “The Three Ms’,” that healing could happen.  “Meaning, Mastery, and Membership,” he called them.  “People will go crazy without these things,” he said to our class one day.


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