#Mental Health Treatment

[one-time-i-dreamt]

In order to live in dorms at uni and get mental health treatment I needed to give my teacher (who was also my counselor) Chorizo, but I only had Cumberland sausage slices.

My justification? “They both start with the letter c.”

[wikipediapictures]

Psychotherapy

[selectivechaos]

by the way, while self care is likely to help some symptoms of mental illness, this doesn’t mean mental illness is the result of lack of self care.

and self care can only do so much.

self care can’t remove trauma.

self care can’t remove bad situations/treatment.

self care can’t change your brain.

you can learn self worth, and you can learn to challenge cognitive distortions. but no matter how you cope, if the situation is bad then it is bad.

i mean lots of things can change your brain and i ain’t a neurologist. but my point is that some things run deeper than that.

what works for someone whose mental health struggles isn’t disabling might not work for someone whose mental health is disabling.

some things take years and years to undo. and some things require specialist treatment.

what i’m trying to say is, sometimes these people tell me to:

drink water,

take a deep breath,

be confident,

fake it till i make it,

just love myself more,

or told that i will ‘Settle In Eventually’

while for someone whose mental health is not disabling, coping == treatment, because coping = prevents it worsening = mentally healthy.

but for someone who is disabled by mental illness, coping =/= treatment, because coping = alleviates some symptoms = still mentally ill.

🌹🌹

[hyggehooligan]

Last night my wife and I attended her highschool athletic association hall of fame banquet where she was being inducted as an honoree. A very big deal as she had a very serious career as a high school athlete which continued through college and after up even until today (she is actually out playing flag football this morning!) I am so proud of her and I know how much this means to her so I'm happy she is getting recognition.

But I am trying to process my own emotions surrounding this event and sporting culture in general, as a person who used to be athletic and active and now is disabled due to chronic physical and mental illness. It's a tough spot to be in but it's made much harder by the fact that our culture elevates sporting and being active and outdoorsy activities while either ignoring people with disabilities or outright blaming them for their mobility issues. My wife has always been very supportive of me but I don't think she always gets why I feel so vulnerable and out of place in "sports culture" events and groups. I think she thinks I can just come along for fun but it's wrapped up in so much garbage for me that even just spectating is really difficult.

Last night was tough enough because I don't particularly enjoy fancy affairs where you schmooze with strangers and especially was not looking forward to being likely the only queer people there but the sports thing just made things extra hard. That's all everyone talked about. And I get that it's so important! I remember those days too. It's just hard because I feel it was taken away from me. It makes me feel jealous, resentful, frustrated, and bored and all of those are ugly feelings and I don't like it.

I have met some of my wife's sportier friends in the past and they will shake my hand and look at me and my body and say things like "wow you should play hockey/football/basketball/handball." Should I play sports? Should I move my body for fun? Should I wake up every day and use my body in the way it was designed and not be crippled by pain? One time someone said to me "if I had your size I would dominate on the rugby pitch." If you had MY SIZE???? Let me tell you that as a person about 20 years into recovering from bulimia this is absolutely not the kind of shit I want to hear.

Last night someone saw my cane and asked (jokingly, I think?) if it was a sports injury. Nope, I'm disabled. Oh. Another person asked if I had attended this highschool, I said that no I had attended another highschool in the area; they asked if I did sports there, I said I did synchronized swimming until college. "Oh why didn't you continue?" Well jesus not that it's any of your business but that's when I became disabled, actually.

I have not figured out a way to gracefully navigate these situations while still respecting my own boundaries and privacy. They shouldn't be asking these questions but it wasn't too out of place considering the situation either. I just wish I knew what to say. It's hard because I'm still processing how I feel about my body and my limitations and I don't even really like talking about it with my doctors or my therapist, all of whom are awesome, or my friends, who are also awesome, so why would I want to talk about it with this random person? And I'm so mad that all of this got ripped open last night and I felt so vulnerable and upset and it's still getting to me today.

[aribcofer]

ari b. cofer // excerpt from “we are denying your appeal for additional treatment” in Unfold: Poetry + Prose

[toointojoelmiller]

I’m doing the thing today. The thing that I swore to myself at 19, and at 24, and at 28 I wouldn’t ever get into the position of needing to do again – going on medical leave because of my major depressive disorder.

The internalized stigma for this shit is insane. I work in the mental health space as an educator, and I regularly support and advocate for patients and colleagues to do the same – prioritize their wellbeing, treat mental health challenges as seriously as physical health issues. It is something that I believe in full stop. But for some reason, even though I know so much better, it’s still so fucking hard to apply that to myself.

In June I was seeing a trauma therapist who was pushing me hard to go on medical leave, and I just resisted it. The biggest thing at that time was 1) I *promised* myself I wouldn’t get into this state again, and admitting that I had felt like a defeat I didn’t want to face, and 2) the list of “fallout” that would happen at work – people needing to cover me from presentations and hosting and training, staff not having access to the support they deserve, not being able to be present to give staff a voice during some big leadership events, committees and working groups that I am a pretty instrumental part of that will grind to a halt. And now I look back at that and think, 5, 6ish months of my life lost to this shit… declining more and more as life kept throwing shit at me … mounting health and relationship and financial problems, and some were just because I was so fucking stubborn and refused to do what I needed to.

I feel embarrassed. Guilty. Ashamed. Weak, childish, blah blah. The automatic self-talk is pretty relentless. And I wish I had an answer.

I have vivid memories of periods of remission from my depression, and I remember on multiple occasions thinking to myself, I’m better now. How did I ever forget why life is worth living? At the time, the depressed me seemed like an absolutely stranger. I remember what that felt like. To watch myself oscillate between what feels like completely different versions of myself as the years have passed has been so distressing, and it’s affected my self image and concept and worth in really painful ways.

Anyway… excuse the rant. I just wanted to share, because mental health shit is so complicated, and it sucks when it’s chronic, and if someone who has had as much education in this space and literally does this stuff for my career struggles with this, I think that’s pretty telling. If you are one of the 1 in 4 (definitely more, this shit is so underreported) who is impacted by mental illness, I see you. And even though I’ve brainwashed myself to the point where I can’t seem to apply it to myself, doing whatever you need to do to be healthy is valid.

[beautifulbookishdisaster]

...the problem with dropping out of the world is that the world moves on without you

Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

[wormyorchids]

The trilogy!!! All three are listed on Etsy 🍥

[papermint-airplane]

Something I've learned recently through therapy and just generally trying to be a better person: self care and self love aren't always what you think. Self care can be a bubble bath or a bowl of ice cream and a movie you like, but it can also be deep-cleaning your depression nest. Self love can be accepting yourself as you are, but it can also be confronting an ugly, uncomfortable truth about yourself and taking steps to change it.

Sometimes self care is cleaning a tiny corner of your kitchen at 2am knowing you have so much more to do but being happy with the tiny victory of just doing something.

Sometimes self love is going to therapy on your birthday and showing your therapist photographic evidence of the mess you've let accumulate in your house over the past three years that you've never shown anyone else because you need someone to hold you accountable and also share in your victory as you fight through it with garbage bags and a dust rag in hand.

Give yourself grace. Give yourself a break. And then get back to work. That's what I'm telling myself, because I know that what's waiting for me on the other side of this is a much more relaxed, happier me. I love myself so I'm pushing myself because I know I'm stronger than I've allowed myself to be. I love myself so I'm working the problem.

Tl; dr: I might not be around much this week because I'm cleaning my depression nest. Don't worry, I'm not in crisis. This is part of my mental health treatment that is absolutely necessary and I'm very ready for it. Sims will have to take the back-burner for a few days. Love y'all!

[theduckopera]

Sometimes mental health treatment looks like spending months building a house of cards just to remind yourself how fast it can get knocked down...

...and then to sit in the wreckage and recognise that you still know more about building houses of cards than you ever did before.

[krsonmar]

This is a question for people who have been treated for OCD. It's behind a cut so you can choose whether or not to engage with it, but basically I'm asking about potential treatments for my own case.

If you have a case and were treated for it in some way...exposure therapy, CBT, anything:

What treatments were you given? Did they work? How well? Was there something that worked but only one element of it did? Or did something unexpected happen? Did it just not work and completely suck?

I know treatment for OCD is supposed to be uncomfortable--they're getting you used to doing a thing you very much don't want to do--but I'm reading up on exposure therapy and so much of it seems to be about showing nOtHiNg BaD iS hApPeNiNg which...yes, duh, I know that, I know full well this is an irrationality and nothing is going to happen, that's a major factor in why it is driving me crazy. Reading some of this is making me wonder if the people writing these articles actually understand OCD. So I want to ask other people who have it.

Basically, my case eased up significantly at one point in my life that I've always just attributed to finding the right combo of meds (although in perfect honesty I'm wondering these days if other factors might have been at play. Regardless, it's barely noticeable now). The few compulsions that have persisted, I've just basically tolerated and I've been able to work around them for years. It's getting old, though, because they hold me back from a lot of things I'd like to try and fixing them or reducing them would make following several of my passions so, so much easier. I want to know what treatment options are out there, what they're like, and how they've gone for different people.

Honestly, I'm also worried that trying an incompatible method or trying it the wrong way could make things worse--that's happened to me before--and while I do expect it to be difficult and unpleasant, I'm basically trying to avoid additional trauma that could just cement these compulsions or give me new ones on top of them. I'm good at knowing my own mind and what is likely to work for me and what isn't, but I need to know what's out there and I want to hear from others how your experiences went.

If you're comfortable replying, I appreciate it, and feel free to use the notes or tags or PM me if you want. If you don't have anything you want to add, please reblog so more people see and have the opportunity to chime in...but also PLEASE consider potential triggers and sensitivities of anyone reading this further along and try your best to tag accordingly!! OCD takes so many weird forms, and in mental health spaces, everyone's experiences are so individualized that it's impossible to predict everything that will trigger anyone or aggravate anyone's symptoms, so please don't kick yourself or agonize about it, but I want to try to do my best due diligence in being considerate. And likewise, check the tags for yourself too so you don't accidentally stumble onto something that's going to cause problems for you, I don't want to do that to anybody, intentionally or not.

Thank you for reading this, and responding--or not--as you see fit!

[edrecoveryprobs]

When someone finally visits you in residential/inpatient

[reasonsforhope]

“Mufti Mohammad Farhan juggles numerous responsibilities at the Islamic Center of Long Island in New York. On a Friday afternoon, he finishes leading prayers and departs for a funeral at the mosque. Since the pandemic, however, he has taken on a new role: identifying those in the Muslim community who need mental health support and referring them to clinical experts and therapists.

Across the United States, Muslim attitudes toward mental illness are changing, as is the role of the mosque. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Muslims have been more willing to engage in public conversations regarding mental health issues, including the taboo subject of suicide. Imams and religious leaders have responded to worsening mental health problems in a variety of ways, including by taking mental health training. Although limited, such training can be a first step toward imams becoming a crucial part of the solution to their community’s mental health needs.

“We are often the first responders to mental health crises, because there is a trust factor that was built over time, and because of the huge stigma within our community,” explains Mufti Farhan, a soft-spoken religious leader who grew up in New York...

Culturally Competent Care

Sarah Murad, a counselor at the Islamic Circle of North America’s humanitarian arm, has been providing culturally competent care to immigrant communities in Illinois, a state with the highest per-capita population of American Muslims in the U.S., many of whom are religious conservatives or recent immigrants. “By the time people come to seek our help, it is already too late because of the stigma [around mental health], so the first thing they ask for is a religious counselor,” Murad says. In such instances, she refers cases to Shaykh Omer Haqqani, who works at the Islamic Center of Wheaton and provides culturally relevant therapy and khutbahs, or sermons, about mental health across Illinois.

“Our faith tells us that it’s OK to be sad and express our emotions,” says Haqqani. He often cites the following story to those who seek his help: “When our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lost his infant child—he was weeping, he was mourning, he was crying to the point where the companions came and asked him, ‘Even you, the prophet of God?’”...

For religious leaders, like Haqqani in Illinois and Farhan on Long Island, the shift toward seeking mental health care is happening at Islamic centers and mosques. Both men cite an expansion of the role Islamic centers play in the lives of community members. “For Muslims, one of the most important and effective venues to get information about mental health is at the mosque, and topics such as suicide and depression are now openly being addressed in khutbahs,” Haqqani shares...

Prevention, Not Reaction

[Dr. Rania] Awaad noticed how religious leaders tend to ask for intervention only after a crisis has occurred, and together with her team at Stanford University, she launched a campaign to train 500 Muslim leaders on suicide response.

Amara Kamara, a 53-year-old first-generation immigrant from Liberia, attended Awaad’s training in his capacity as a mental health advocate and administrator at Masjid Al-Ansar in Minnesota. He saw it as a “new experience” that allows him to “see how we can use community resources to have an open discussion about a difficult topic and tell the victims that it is OK to talk about it.”” -via Yes! Magazine, 12/28/22

[robertseanleonardthinker]

one rlly fond memory i have of residential is that, when the unit got rlly chaotic (aka ppl were fighting) i could ask staff to take me off unit to a classroom to watch videos abt daredevil. i was rlly heavily hyperfixated on dd, and those moments rlly helped me get through some hard days. the staff with me would sometimes talk with me abt daredevil, too. something as simple as that rlly helped me. i sat on a beanbag chair and watched videos i had already seen dozens of times before residential, and everything was okay for a few minutes. i was not hundreds of miles from home. people weren't yelling and hitting each other just down the hall. big fuckin shoutout to makayla and alicia for taking me i fuckin love u guys

also one time i watched a video with chip zdarsky and he mentioned his series sex criminals a few times and i was rlly rlly curious what it was so alicia let me look it up on the smartboard thing i was watching on. i couldn't remove it from the history after i was done tho and that was a big problem bc this was in the younger kid's room 😭

[hyggehooligan]

It would be better if I didn't put all my happiness in the care of someone else. Because after all that happened yesterday, no one has checked in with me, not a text or email. I don't even know whether I would be expecting an apology or to be yelled at some more, but it hurts that they haven't even reached out. I could be in the hospital right now for all they know. This is an ongoing issue in our family. My mom is sorry but she doesn't know what to do. Everyone agrees my brother overreacted and something us wring but no one knows what to do about it. And I'm expected to just figure it out myself. At least no one openly mocked me for crying this time. I hate myself that in the single moment I felt the panic attack coming on, my thought was not to stop it to protect myself, but so that no one would see my tears. What the fuck.

My SIL (brother's wife) has been sending the typical texts to the family chat about the nieces. It makes me feel crazy. She wasn't there last night. I don't even know how my brother got home, or when, he was still screaming when we left. I don't know what I want out of this situation. It's not that I want to unpack it, because what the fuck do you even say. But it makes me feel like I'm losing my mind that she's acting "normal" and my parents, but not reaching out otherwise, so appear to just be moving on. I am making assumptions, I know these are probably not accurate thoughts, but what else am I supposed to think in this situation.

I am trying not to let these particular thoughts get me down because I cannot realists check them and they are not particularly helpful. If nothing else, I have my weekly s heduled phone call with my parents on Wednesday, so I guess we will talk about it then.

I think I was in shock when I got home last night, just so tired and I didn't know what to think except for basic analytical stuff. But today I am feeling really stuck in the "Why." Why did this happen. Why did he say that. Why didn't I pick up on it sooner. I know the why's don't matter but how can you not ask these questions.

I am blaming myself and I don't know why. It doesn't feel right to say I didn't do anything wrong; in the past people have blamed me for these things even if it wasn't my fault. I am accustomed to taking the blame. But I know there was more at play here. And I am very mad that no one is acknowledging it. We don't have to fix it today. I don't even care about an apology. I just need everyone to agree that this is NOT NORMAL and then we need to work together to make sure it doesn't happen again.

My goal is always respect and understanding, and if this happened on my watch then I must have fucked up big time. It is very important that I do not do that again. But I don't even know what I did wrong. So I don't know what to do.