Mental Health

When Dreams Are Too Big

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I started back down the path of learning how to get my dream of building and operating a state of the art, comprehensive, revolutionary mental health facility going once again. Looking at average salaries, I added up the cost of a core staff (2 doctors, 4 counselors, 33 nurses, 42 mental health techs, 10 kitchen workers, and 10 admin) and wow.

$5,472,000 in labor costs not including benefits. That is every year!

We are not talking about occupational therapists, or janitorial staff, maintenance workers, or accounting/billing department.

Excuse me while I look up contact information for every celebrity I have ever known. I honestly don’t know how this can be done. But I know big things can happen when you start small. At least I am telling myself this.

Throw in operating costs of the facility itself, the construction, the specialized network for a lock down unit, training costs, marketing. I guess I just need to pray some endowment for $20 million falls in my lap.

I know this can happen, but I am not quite sure how. One thing I know is it can’t happen by just one person, being that of myself. I will need people of influence on my side from day one and I will have to delegate even though I would love to be in every part of it.

So if you are reading this and have those special connections to people impacted by mental illness who have the funds to support a radical way to change the healthcare system, please send them my way. I will welcome them all with open arms, and we will create the dream that was too big together!

When Dreams Are Too Big

The Cost of Happiness

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Several months ago I started a new “add-on” antidepressant medication to be taken in addition to my current medication regimen. The doctor handed me a small white paper bag containing a few months worth of pills in sample packs for me to “try before I buy.”

Much to my surprise, they worked! I had a long and disappointing track record of medications not being effective for me. The new technology in pharmaceuticals really is something! My brain fog lifted, I felt more grounded, engaged, and energetic.

The next visit followed suit like the first. I reported the great results and we adjusted the dosage slightly and I walked out with my white bag of happiness. A couple months later just before Christmas break, I phoned the doctor’s office requesting a script to be called into my pharmacy as I was running low.

My pharmacy run went smoothly, $57 for my first medication, and $32 for my new one. Despite a stressful holiday season, I made it through with a little more motivation and peace.

Last week, I needed a refill of my fancy new drug. I called up the doctor, and shortly after received a call from the pharmacy. I thought it was a bit odd because usually I just get a text notification when my scripts are ready. The pharmacy tech politely said, “We have your script here, and we already applied the manufacturer’s coupon for $400 off. But the balance for one month supply is $900, and we wanted to see if you still wanted this filled?”

*Gasp* NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS for 30 pills?? How in God’s green Earth could a tiny pill cost so much? Without the coupon, that is roughly $43 per 1mg pill. That is more than I spend to feed my whole family of three in one day, at a nice restaurant nonetheless. That is like me going out to eat a filet minion every day of the year. Apparently the last time it was filled, I had met my deductible and out of pocket max.

I smiled and thanked the pharmacy tech for the call and let her know I would pass on filling the script. Flashbacks to when I found the only effective medication was not labeled for depression and the typical administration of it was intravenous infusion, costing $500 each time. Thankfully, I was able to manage to convince the doctor to order me the oral compound version for $1,943 less each month.

What I can’t understand is how we expect society to avoid constant mental illness crisis among the poverty-stricken. To obtain my medication, I am required to visit my psychiatrist every two months, by law. If I had no insurance, this is $250 for 15 minutes, or $1,500 a year. Medication is not enough though. For my therapy every week, it costs me $70, or $150 for uninsured. That is another $7,500 a year. So sure, let’s go ahead and tack on another $15,000 for medication.

This is what I need to live. I know I quip this is the cost of “happiness” but it isn’t even that. It is the cost of functioning at a job, parenting my children, keeping myself alive. I have a terminal illness called major depression, where if untreated has a fatal prognosis.

So what can I do? What can anyone do? How does it change? I do the only thing I know… I go to my doctor and ask for another white paper bag, praying the day never comes that they stop receiving samples to give.

The Cost of Happiness

Cast Your Cares

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I perform what might be considered a ritual every time I visit the ocean. I walk up to the waterline, immerse my feet in the tide, and block out any activity around me.

I stand there, just the waves and myself. Taking it in, the never ending, always changing constant of the waves. And in one exhale, I throw every problem and worry and sadness as far as I possibly can beyond the horizon.

And I leave them there. Allowing them to drift away further and further from where I stand. I know eventually they will return, sometimes like a message in a bottle to remind me of where I came from, sometimes smoothed down and easier to carry.

The next morning I awake to the sunrise and allow it to renew me. I rest. I absorb every ounce of strength that the ocean displays.

I am learning to live as though this ocean to let go of what hurts me is always with me, there to comfort me and tell me that I don’t have to carry the burdens of life.

I think this is what God means when He tells me to be still and know that He is with me. That he is the neverending, always changing constant waves to wash away my troubles.

So I can turn the next page in this season and see what He has for me.

Cast Your Cares

I Survived

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Last week I went to therapy without a voice.

Literally, no voice! Just faint whispers and head nods to indicate the person I was communicating with understood what I was trying to say. So, how do you think it went? I’ll tell you… it was flawless and epiphanic!

I began the session half-whispering, half-mouthing the words “I know this is less than ideal. On the way here, I quickly realized how poorly thought out this was.” But I did in fact think it through. I had a plan. Today, the therapist was going to talk to me and I would listen and take notes.

While slightly reluctant, but completely in sync with my master plan, my therapist started out saying, “I have observed a common pattern resurfacing once again. You do extremely well for a period of time, then you flip a switch and decide to exorbitantly overwhelm yourself. This continues to a degree that can bear no more, and you fall apart and spin down the spiral to despair.”

He looked into my returning stare as if to siphon out a response from my mute vocal chords. “Ah! But there is also THAT! You have the innate ability, the extreme talent, of rationalization and justification right to the very edge before you plummet. I fear you are very close to that edge right now.”

Readers, my therapist gets me. I mean, he really GETS me! Without a single syllable vocalized, he knows what I would say. “But, I actually survived this time. I came out the other side. I compartmentalized my life to a measure that prevented the world from collapsing. Sure, I didn’t eat, sleep, laugh, or live for four and a half months while my work life dominated every waking minute of my day.”

“Absolutely, I drive myself to the point of physical illness that robbed me of the very thing I needed to be successful in my job at the most critical moment, two days before the hard deadline. I had no voice. I had no energy. But I also had no emotion. So I survived.”

This is what I said without the sound waves crossing the room. This is what he already knew I would say. He agreed, although not with approval. He told me how I had practiced a new level of coping skills that had served to make the outcome of a outrageous stress level a positive one. He said, “You know, you really don’t need to come every week. Once or twice a month, maybe. You have elevated to being able to be your own therapist.”

This isn’t something I hadn’t heard before. After all, 8 years ago when I began weekly therapy with him (sometimes twice weekly those first years), I had already navigated three decades of my life with depression. There wasn’t anything new he could tell me.

I regulated my breathing, and whispered, “I know that. But this is one thing that will never change. The same day I came to terms with the solid fact I would take one or more pills every day for the rest of my life to save my life, I also knew I would enter this office once a week for as long as the door was open and the lights were on. Besides, this is my one hour a week to lay it all out there, to process, to laugh or cry or yell or rest.”

He nodded, “Yes, I will say this was likely your only act of self care these last five months.”

Yes, and because of it, I survived.

I Survived

Content in the Chaos

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Hello again! So I guess I took the summer off. Writing is an interesting thing to me. Sometimes there is nothing I can think that needs to be said, or at least nothing I think would be of interest to anyone. And other times, I can’t possibly end my day without writing everything that is bumbling up within me.

Tonight is one of those times. Looking into the window of my life right now might look like a contentious tornado has planted itself in the middle of everything and forgot to leave. Nevertheless, I think I am the most content in life than I have been in a very long time.

I began this year coming to a true epiphany about myself and what life is all about. All my life, I would become frustrated and overwhelmed at the reality that I could not do it all. I just couldn’t get it together. I tried to fix everything all at once and fail miserably. I tried to improve one thing and another would suffer. I might feel like a great parent one day, but be spiraling out of control in keeping my work life together. My house could be out of control, but my budget looked flawless. And the only thing I felt about myself was shame – for the parts I didn’t have it all together.

So many times my therapist gave me advice to just try to improve one thing for a while, then build and add another, and another. Tackle it “brick by brick” was a suggestion from my self help resources. I couldn’t even do that right.

So instead, I decided I would do something different. I would only concern myself with one thing, and let all the other things be what they were good or bad. I would have zero expectations about anything but that one thing. If I felt like switching to something new, then everything (including that one thing I was previously focused on) would fall into that “not my concern” bucket.

Feeling good or bad about myself was centered on that one thing. Some might say this is “celebrating the small victories.” I started with keeping my house clean. I did great, had a system, and stuck to it. For the several weeks I focused on cleaning, I felt GREAT about myself. I had other things that went well – in my career, in my friendships, parenting. But I didn’t put my basis of success on any of those things. Only on cleaning.

I took up boxing as the next “one thing” to exert effort in. And I felt really proud of myself there. I derived my joy from that, not cleaning, not budgeting, not parenting.

I focused on my career for a few months and received the best performance review of my life. Those days, whether my house was clean or my boxing was consistent, had no bearing on my self worth.

Last week, I had many stressful days at work. My house had returned to post-tornado status (my mom came to help do laundry thank God!). I hadn’t looked at my finances in weeks. And I missed every single boxing class. But my daughter had an incredible rap speech created to run for Student Council and we spent an hour one night solving a logic puzzle from her Gifted class. My son ran in his first Cross Country meet only two days after joining practice and succeeded in his two-hour acting class that week. Despite all the bad, I felt like I was a super parent. It is where my happiness sat and I often returned to it when anything bothered me.

I know I will never get it all together. And I know there is so much to be grateful for. But gratitude lists don’t help me much. What does is choosing to position my mindset in the space where I have it together, even if it is only for that hour, day, or week.

Tonight, I find my joy in a new relationship. It fuels me and gives me confidence in my life. It invaded my thoughts in the best way possible. It trumps all other worries or tasks or shortcomings.

I listened to a segment from Mel Robbins about how to practice visualization. You think about a goal, something you want to happen. You picture in your mind that thing happening. Not just that, but you know what you are wearing, what the weather is like, sounds of people around you, and the feel of what you are holding in your hands. You create a memory in your mind that never actually happened. In doing all this, you examine what emotions and thoughts you have. How you are overwhelmed with pride or joy or excitement, having accomplished this goal. In doing all this, your brain actually experiences it.

This is what I am doing, with the one thing going right. I am flooding all of my emotions, thoughts, and senses with that thing. But it is real, not imagined. There is not a place for emotions about anything else. So I can be content (or even better overjoyed) in the midst of seeming chaos. It isn’t manufactured positivity ignoring all the negativity. Because for that one thing, it is true.

Content in the Chaos

How do we prevent it?

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I have had an idea brewing for a while and it seems so very clear to me these days. Mental health advocacy is at the top of my list of life purposes. I have a very soft spot for children’s mental health, believing we as a country and world need to do a better job at raising emotionally intelligent and aware human beings.

This is not an easy feat. We as adults already have a wealth of trauma and learned behaviors that hinder our ability to maintain emotional intelligence or mental awareness. But as I see it, we must start somewhere. When education systems are failing, we start at the beginning and look at the younger grades to see how we can prevent it becoming an issue later in school years.

I think we must do the same with mental health. When I was pregnant with my first child and nearing the end of term, I was barraged with questions from my OBGYN, family, and online mother support groups. These all focused on the physical health of my child. Who would be the pediatrician on record? Would he/she be able to make a visit in the hospital prior to discharge? I was informed of the 2-day, 2-week, and 6-week well child checks and how they are all preventative healthcare visits, covered 100% by insurance.

We are vigilant to care for all the externally noticed issues relating to proper eating, sleeping, and physical immune system. But we have missed a critical organ, the brain.

So this is where my idea comes in. I feel at the same frequency, a child should have a “mental health general physician” designated at birth, just like their pediatrician.

Prior to the child’s ability to talk, the MHGP would establish a mental health medical history with the parents. Screening would be performed for post partum disorders of both parents, and referrals made if needed. As often as a well check pediatrician appointment is made, a mental well check appointment would be made.

As the child reaches speaking age, the mental well check would be more inclusive of the child in the form of play therapy along with input from parents. Records would be kept. Issues would be addressed. Once a year, the child would meet their MHGP for an hour of therapy as preventative medicine.

When the child approaches adolescence and adulthood, a recommendation to a MHGP who specializes in an older age range would be made. Records would transfer and care would be continued with one visit each year considered preventative care. Additional sessions could be scheduled through this established physician/therapist if the need arises.

It is long past due for mental healthcare to be equal to physical healthcare in the insurance world. When we are always looking back at tragic events wondering how to prevent it, why do we not consider the possibility of “preventative” mental healthcare. And treat it the same as physical care and cover preventative care 100%.

Therapy is not just to fix the past. It is to educate the patient on proper coping mechanisms and emotional awareness. Just like a medical doctor should see you when you are well and when you are sick.

So, maybe this is the change we fight for. Maybe we can all agree to start at the beginning and provide the next generation the tools and support they need and 20 years from now, we won’t miss the signs of imminent tragedy.

How do we prevent it?

Thoughts and Prayers

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My thoughts..

How horrific it is to imagine single-digit aged children witnessing real life blood and gore in a place they once ran and laughed and learned.

How awful it must be for 36 parents to end this day not knowing how their child’s day was because they didn’t have a chance to ask.

How implausible it is for so many to be arguing on social platforms at this time of mourning, putting all their anger in the wrong places.

How immensely grateful I am that my children’s school year ended a week ago and I don’t have to face the anxiety of an unknown tomorrow at school tomorrow.

How not every parent is blessed and must decide if school tomorrow or the next day or the next is important enough to send them off.

How empty it must feel for grieving families who do not know Jesus.

How empty it must feel for grieving families who do know Jesus.

How empty it feels….

My prayers…

That change would come quickly not just in the policies of the country but the hearts of every person.

That all would see the grace of God at work and find their part in being the grace of God to others.

That every child directly affected by today’s tragedy can rest and have peace.

That I can rest tonight and have peace.

That more beds and more hospitals and more doctors and more research can help the mental health crisis in our country.

That people can ask for help.

That people would notice the world around them and practice kindness.

That I can offer more than thoughts and prayers as it will never be enough.

Thoughts and Prayers

Beach Therapy

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I bring something different every time I come to the ocean. Sometimes I am weighed down by depression. Sometimes I am uneasy with anxiety. There is also the occasional peaceful time in life.

But every time the ocean is the same. The muffled roar of waves reminding me of what is constant in life.

My favorite time to come to the ocean is nighttime or early morning hours. When I am there to sit alone with the reflecting moon and stars and miles of sand without a soul around.

It is a continual practice of calming my spirit, the absolute feeling of being alone but never feeling lonely. I try my hardest to capture this feeling, to take back a semblance of this peace in my life.

The ocean and I relate. Like old friends. When it is just the two of us, I am reminded of how my emotions are always there, crashing to the surface. Meeting the boundaries of the shore, the waves of feeling know their limits.

I leave changed. The problems dragging me down somehow feel smaller. The worries don’t matter anymore. All my emotions know their place. Balance is restored.

Beach Therapy

Summer Vacation

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Did I jump the gun? Is it too early?

I guess I might have taken an abrupt hiatus from blogging. It wasn’t intentional, but also wasn’t aimlessly forgotten.

Today I read a post of someone who said she disappears a lot and she talked about how that was okay. I agree with her. It is okay sometimes to not have anything to share, to take in the world, to absorb what others give, and hold onto it for yourself.

I have held onto a lot in the last week or two. And really asked myself a lot of questions. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, along with several more specific “Weeks” and “Days” sprinkled throughout. In the past I would pour my heart out in FB posts and urge awareness and stigma-destruction. This year, I needed to absorb it all.

I needed to see if the world was catching on. I wanted to believe that all our speaking out really meant something. And it is hard. It is not easy to see the impact of it all in the midst of growing mental illness crisis in our communities.

I ask myself, is this blog just here for me to produce mental health awareness? Or do I talk about the trivial things too, like the fact I joined a dating challenge this week? Does either mean anything?

I don’t intend to sound negative. I know there is meaning in any attempt to connect and relate with the world around me. It is just difficult for me to talk about seemingly menial things when there is so much to be said about the things that truly matter.

So when I get done with this mental vacation, we’ll see where I land. Til next time!

**oh and also, if you want to send me potential men to date, my DM’s are open LOL #challengehomework

Summer Vacation

Lull After the Storm

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It is severe weather season in Oklahoma where I live. Every year around this time, the daily weather report comes out and usually contains a heads-up warning of when to be weather-aware for impending storms that may produce dangerous conditions.

The days leading up to the storms are filled with anticipation, mostly from the meteorologists and storm chasers. They are amped and ready to go. Eventually, the conditions develop and the minute-to-minute coverage begins.

As the storms start to spark up to my southwest, I take the tv off of mute and watch, listening for any signs danger is heading my way. I stop scrolling Facebook and instead jump back and forth between the national Mesonet radar and news channel radars on my phone. Rarely does “the” storm come through my neighborhood. In fact, it hasn’t happened yet.

But the activity and hype certainly dominates my time. Family group text and random texts from friends are filled with check-ins and commentary on the weather reporting. All is a buzz for the few hours leading up to the storm front blowing through. Coverage lasts until the storms pass the viewing area and move on to the next news station and the next set of people who are just starting the process I am finishing up.

And then there is the lull after the storm. It is an eerie quietness – the tv is put back on mute, the texts die down almost from exhaustion, and I suddenly realize it is 11pm and I haven’t had dinner.

This happens in the course of our lives too, and I am not talking about weather. We start to see the signs of burnout, mental stress, and circumstances all pointing to the conditions needed for a potentially dangerous situation (PDS as our weathermen like to call it). Sometimes it hits us out of the blue but as we get wiser to the symptoms and we keep our eye on the radar of our lives, we can prepare that safe spot to go to and ride out the storm.

Last week was a PDS for me. Days prior, I received a new assignment for cleaning up a work project that was in addition to my 8 other projects, knowing 3 of them were needing to be finished by the end of the week. It was the final week of public accounting busy season. All the indicators of stress and mental struggle were showing in the disarray of my house and building up laundry and dishes. Friends and family were reaching out about impending crisis and wanting my input.

I weathered the storm. I shifted my energy into writing and produced five days of content that had been held inside for a long time. I stayed focus on my work tasks and gave myself grace on the housework. I kept going to therapy to offload everything that was happening. My mental health safe spot was ready and equipped with everything I needed.

You may have noticed I didn’t post anything this week. And I think there is a good reason for that. I think the lull after the storm is just as necessary as all the activity that happens when the storm is raging. We use it to pick up the pieces and process. And that is exactly what I did.

I have refocused and reorganized my work to do list. I have adjusted to the decrease in hours that will remain until the next busy season. I pulled out the trash bags and the vacuum cleaner, loaded the dishwasher and gathered the laundry. I checked my mailbox and opened my daily planner again.

I am not sure when the next round of storms is coming but I am ready. What I do know is out of every storm comes inspiration to do more and do better the next time. I truly hope I keep the motivation to fulfill those inspired thoughts. “Stay weather-aware” has taken on a whole new meaning for me now.

Lull After the Storm