Needing Support

Since having my daughter home with her severely sprained ankle she’s back to being dependent on me, again. It’s been quite some time since she needed my support in this way. Today I had to help her wash her hair. Now that’s something I haven’t had to do in a really long time. The hardest part for her is allowing herself to ask for help. I think a lot of us are like that.

There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need some help now and then. For me a journal acts as a supporting friend. This friend will hear anything I have to say and not pass any kind of judgment. Even really well meaning friends will offer advice, even if they don’t expect you to take that advice. A journal won’t say anything, just listen. I need someone to listen to me, often. I can rant and rave in there. Weep all over the pages if necessary. I can be boring and tell all my secrets, because the journal won’t say anything back.

That is, not until I reread those pages. This is when the journal speaks back to me, in volume. If I’m boring, consistently and not sharing what’s going on in my mind, I take note and am sure to write more personal content. I review the personal content, too. Am I sticking with the same issues or am I finding solutions?

Sometimes even journal writers need support. That’s what this blog is for. There are fantastic books available on the topic, groups to join & courses you can take. So, when you feel you need some support with your journal writing ask your questions here, if you like, or seek other like-minded people in a journal writing group online. And remember; don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Heather
Photo used with permission from Morguefile

Saturday Sanity: The News Is More Important

Well, we’re, what…two weeks into November? And NaNoWriMo is not going as well as I hoped it would. Don’t get me wrong – it’s going much better than last year’s. I just thought I’d be farther along than I am right now. Still, any progress on this book is a blessing!

On to the brainy stuff:

This week at Mental Health Notes, it was business as usual. I commiserated over animal testing in new schizophrenia research, told you about two ways you can donate to help veterans receive mental health treatment, pointed you in the direction of an article about dream symbols that mean you’re stressed, and rambled on about activities that help boost brain power. Oh, and I also offered some entertainment: You can download a radio broadcast about PTSD (informative stuff!) and watch an interesting performing arts segment titled “Mental Health” (not so informative stuff).

Regarding mental health advocacy and education, director Richard M. Patricia is spreading the word about his new documentary, Strive for Happiness. The film takes a look at what it’s like growing up in a home with a loved one who suffered from mental illness. iVillage’s iLearn courses is offering Stress, Sanity, and Survival, a free course that aims to help you learn how to better manage your stress. In Buffalo, New York, a campaign is underway to get mental health providers to volunteer their time and services to make sure veterans receive the treatment – and not just the medication – they need. And, serious mental health advocate and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter offered her views on the state of America’s mental health care at a recent Magellan Health Services, Inc. conference.

Read more

Interested In Enrolling In Prescriptions 101?

Despite how you may feel about Big Pharma and, well, everything that goes along with Big Pharma, the fact remains that prescription medications will probably be around until the end of time. And, overall, that’s a damn good thing, because many prescription medications – when prescribed appropriately and taken responsibly – really help. They make us better. They save our lives.

Chances are, as a mental health consumer or loved one of a mental health consumer, you have some sort of experience with prescription medications. These may be good experiences, bad experiences, or a mix of both.

The keys to taking prescription medications (and having a good experience) is to 1) take the medicine that’s right for you, and 2) take it according to your doctor’s instructions.

iVillage’s iLearn program is currently offering the free online course Prescriptions 101: Taking Prescription Drugs Responsibly.

Prescriptions 101 promises to:

• Provide basic information about prescription drugs, including who can provide them, “common formats” for prescribing them, and how they work in your body.
• Help you get educated about prescription drugs, including drug interactions and side effects.
• Help you learn how to communicate with your healthcare providers and your pharmacist.
• Offer tips to consider when taking prescription medication, as well as “dos” and don’ts.”

Now, in my very humble and unprofessional opinion, if you aren’t sure how to take your prescription medication responsibly, you and your doctor aren’t communicating properly (i.e. you haven’t voiced your questions, and/or he hasn’t made sure you understand the medicine and the prescription). However, I think the points this course covers are points both consumers and caregivers can stand to learn.

The course ends November 14, 2008, but you still have until November 6 to enroll. If you do, be sure to check back here and let me know how it was.

Image: SXC

Water safety for children – is learning to swim enough?

When Alicia of Mental Health Notes showed me this video of a 6-year old saving a drowning friend, I realized how important it really is to teach our children water survival techniques. The American Red Cross wrote a comprehensive list of water safety tips for children, from pools, lakes and rivers, ocean, water parks, scuba diving and many other venues and activities. I’ll summarize some of them here.

Keeping Children Safe In, On, and Around the Water

Maintain constant supervision. Watch children around any water environment (pool, stream, lake, tub, toilet, bucket of water), no matter what skills your child has acquired and no matter how shallow the water. For younger children, practice “Reach Supervision” by staying within an arm’s length reach.

Don’t rely on substitutes. The use of flotation devices and inflatable toys cannot replace parental supervision. Such devices could suddenly shift position, lose air, or slip out from underneath, leaving the child in a dangerous situation.

Enroll children in a water safety course or Learn-to-Swim classes. Your decision to provide your child with an early aquatic experience is a gift that will have infinite rewards. These courses encourage safe practices. You can also purchase a Water Safety Handbook at the Red Cross Store.

Parents should take a CPR course. Knowing these skills can be important around the water and you will expand your capabilities in providing care for your child. You can contact your local Red Cross to enroll in a CPR course.

General Water Safety Tips:

Learn to swim. The best thing anyone can do to stay safe in and around the water is to learn to swim. Always swim with a buddy; never swim alone.

Swim in areas supervised by a lifeguard.

Read and obey all rules and posted signs.

Children or inexperienced swimmers should take precautions, such as wearing a U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal floatation device (PFD) when around the water.

Watch out for the dangerous “too’s” – too tired, too cold, too far from safety, too much sun, too much strenuous activity.

Set water safety rules for the whole family based on swimming abilities (for example, inexperienced swimmers should stay in water less than chest deep).

Use a feet-first entry when entering the water.

Enter headfirst only when the area is clearly marked for diving and has no obstructions.

However, reading a post of Marijke at WombWithin  – prevent drownings – made me question if learning to swim is enough. There is a difference between learning to swim and learning to survive in water. Children may panic when they fall into the water unexpectedly. Knowing what to do may just save that child’s life. There is a swimming school in Florida that teaches children and adults water survival skills, but we really need more of these programs across the nation. Marijke has a contest that gives away a DVD from the Baby Otter Swim School on just that – life-saving pool and home safety tips. Contest ended, sorry.

image: sxc

Another Reason to Love Mushrooms – Bioremediation

Bioremediation – I had heard this word before but never really understood what it meant. An article in today’s New York Times gave me a great practical example and piqued my curiosity even further.

So what is bioremediation?  This page on the Cornell University website breaks it down (pun intended):

“Remediate” means to solve a problem, and “bio-remediate” means to use biological organisms to solve an environmental problem such as contaminated soil or groundwater.

The article in today’s Times focuses on how a town in California’s Mendocino County will be the first to attempt a biological clean up of dioxin, a carcinogen leftover from a lumber mill which closed in 2002.

Read more

Overcoming Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotage is one topic I am personally acquainted with. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve made plans and then ever so subtly picked them apart until they came to nothing. How about you? I’m not sure we’re all that aware of just how guilty of sabotaging our own happiness we really are. If you think you might need some help with this aspect of your life your journal is a perfect place to work on undoing the damage from self-sabotage.

Or you could check out the course offered by Debbie Ford, author & creator of The Shadow Process. I found this info in Sandy Grason’s regular newsletter about her book Journalution. Debbie is offering this course at a very reasonable price, or you can pay what you feel it is worth. Let me know if you decide to do the course. Make any comments you like about your experience in the section below.

Heather

Back to School with b5media (September Theme Day)

My son Charlie has been back to school now for a week: He is in the fifth grade, his last year in elementary school. (Yes, middle school is coming up, and soon.) Charlie is, too, in a self-contained autism classroom in a school in our town, and, while he continues to work on learning one new word at a time and not to forget the ones he has already learned, and to remember what sound each letter of the alphabet makes, a number of more practical skills are part of the curriculum. There is laundry; there is food prep (leading me to contemplate questions like “should Charlie learn to make a sandwich even though he does not eat sandwiches or bread”—the answer has turned out to be yes); there is crossing the street.

I took Charlie to the pediatric neurologist on Tuesday for his bi-yearly visit. The doctor seemed to grow a bit more quiet when I said, for the nth visit in a row, that Charlie was working on reading sight words from flash cards, doing his best to write and starting to learn to type, not yet onto arithmetic. “Academic skills are just really hard,” I said, and ended by noting Charlie’s strengths, that he’d been taking piano lessons all year and had learned to read music, and had started to surf. “We just keep working at the reading,” I added. “However long it takes.” (And a September 13th New York Times article recounts one Minnesota autism mother’s journey from “adversity” to “opportunity” in founding a center offering educational, speech and other services for autistic children.)

In the great school of life, there is no set of curriculum. There are some things it’s helpful to learn (to read those “Men” and “Women” signs on the public restrooms) and others less so (a great novelist on women in love and men). And I’ve never been in a classroom with so many new discoveries and unexpected flashes of wisdom as in my continuing education with Charlie.

In celebration of going “back to school,” September’s Theme Day for the b5media Science and Health Channel is about education and schools.

(And while there won’t be a quiz on the posts below, I do recommend that you read with care…….)

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Alicia at Mental Health Notes offers some basics you should know in Mental Health 101: Even If It’s Not Your Major.

Ruth at Eating Fabulous describes the key to eating fabulous in school. (Charlie brings his lunch—-he has his favorite paper-wrapped chicken, watermelon, grapes, rice all packed for today.)

Angela at Breastfeeding 1-2-3 considers whether breastfeeding education is appropriate at any or all levels of a child’s education. Read what she has to say and voice your own opinion in the poll on her post. (I nursed Charlie until he was 13 months—-I knew zero about breastfeeding before he was born; my own mother, following doctor’s advice/orders in the 60s, bottle-fed my sister and me.)

Gloria at Cancer Commentary notes that young people going back to school will benefit most in cancer prevention by adjusting to some healthy lifestyle habits – which we know already- but would not hurt to be reminded of any time we can get.

No matter what time of the day, my college students can be guaranteed to tell me “I’m tired”: Laura at CFS Squared writes about studying when you are so tired.

And, over at Baldiness, Laura also posts about what you can do if, well, as a result of sleeping through your alarm, you have no time to beautify yourself before racing out the door: Wear knitted hair!. (Rather than try this for my son, he’s getting a buzz cut today.)

Where does education end and “indoctrination” begin? Julie at Veggic Chic considers this question in Health Education or Vegan Indoctrination?. (Charlie still has this thing for cauliflower, onions, green onions, and, as of this week, gai lan—Chinese broccoli.)

Kendra at A Hearty Life ask how you feel about AED’s in schools? When you look at how many children actually die from sudden cardiac arrest a year… 7,000- it is a “no brainer” to have an AED there on the spot.

Back to school can be very stressful. Kendra at Diabetes Notes has one more thing to add to the equation: What if your little one has juvenile diabetes—-the situation could go from stressful to down right scary.

Kristen at Lively Women offers offers 6 ways to get a brain boost even if you’re not hopping on the big yellow bus this month. (But even if you do hop on one, or are a student in pre-quiz mode, a neuro-boost might still be helpful!)

Mary Emma at Alzheimer’s Notes has some compelling words on why we need to save those memories of school days and related activities when your Alzheimer’s family member drifts back in time. They’re part of your family legacy for future generations.

Penny at Genetics and Health posts about how kids need more sport—kids today live an ever increasingly sedentary lifestyle which has a major impact on increasing them being at risk of developing a disease if they hold the genes for a particular disease. Me being the mother of a sports-minded boy, I can’t agree more (Charlie is doing soccer now in his daily Adapted P.E. class).

Grace wraps it all up with some helpful back to school tips!

Love is a Chemical Addiction

“Scientists are finding that, after all, love really is down to a chemical addiction between people.”

Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. “We are literally addicted to love,” Dr Young observes.

It’s funny how love is viewed scientifically. It’s like love is now studied under a microscope. The article I came across talked about love likened to voles, breaking down emotions like lust, attraction and other romantic feelings into means explained by science. It’s quite informative, actually. None of the “blue skies and lollipops” or “happily ever after” romantic notions. It’s cold, hard facts that’s based on principles of different studies combined.

It takes away the “magic” or the concept of “you’ll know if he or she is the one”. Quite refreshing, if you’re the type who gag on romantic, tacky and mushy sentiments about love.

This is not the first time people tried a definition of love or make sense of these human emotion. I suggest a read and tell me what you think of it. Let’s talk!

Read the article

A new color toy!

I mean, serious tool and entire course in color theory, set up and hosted by Roger Mayer of Brown University. It has sections which discuss both electronic and pigment-based color.

It also has lessons in areas of color mixing and psychology that I’ve not seen elsewhere…or at least not in as readable a form! I’m adding this one to our list of great color tools on the web.

Infant and Child CPR

Remember all the stupid things you did as a kid, whether or not your parents were watching? Like climbing as high as possible in a tree, and then jumping out because it was easier and faster than climbing back down? Or that time you tried to see just how many marshmallows/hot dogs/grapes you could fit in your mouth? Okay, maybe the last one was just a few weeks ago, but you get the gist of it. My point is that you never know what kind of dangerous situations your kids may find themselves in.

Regardless of how old you or your children are, CPR and some basic first aid knowledge are invaluable life skills. When you consider that the human brain can die in as little as ten minutes without oxygen, and that it may easily take that long for EMS to arrive at the scene of an emergency, you can clearly see the value in learning CPR. My own father has resuscitated several people over the years in situations as innocuous as a high school banquet to sitting in church, so you never know when a skill like this will be required.

The American Red Cross offers local courses on infant, child and adult CPR as well as other first responder style courses. Their website has class info and a tool to locate the closest branch of the Red Cross. You may also want to check through your local hospital to see if they offer similar programs at lower or no cost. Some of these courses my be reimbursable through your health insurance provider.

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