Joy in Life

I would submit that the goal is to take joy in life.

That can seem like a person is setting the bar low. Yet if you ask me taking joy in life is a lofty goal to aspire to when you get older.

Giving up on yourself isn’t an option in your fifties.

A positive outlook really can lift your spirits and also heal your body.

My only secret is to exercise consistently each week and to watch what I eat. I eat only chicken and turkey–not any kind of meat. I realize this isn’t a vegan diet yet that’s how I eat. Mostly fish and seafood and vegetables.

It’s possible to live a long life even though you have a mental health challenge. It helps to be able to afford great healthcare and to live where there’s access to great healthcare.

Forget the studies that claim everyone with SZ dies 25 years earlier. My good friend is 72 and he’s alive and kicking and hasn’t keeled over yet.

Besides what matters is the life in your years not the years in your life. I would be a happy camper if I lived to be only 70 and had a full life with cherished memories.

Perception is everything. A positive outlook really does help you improve your life.

Getting Older

I doubt I have to say more about this than the quote above boldly declares.

At the end of April I’ll be 52. I’ve learned this and other things so far:

There’s no safety in playing it safe. There’s no safety in numbers.

You absolutely must get comfortable with being uncomfortable at some point in your life.

Taking the path of least resistance might be easier yet you might wind up wasting your life doing nothing.

I advocate for getting uncomfortable. I advocate for taking risks. I advocate for doing what you know in your heart is the right thing.

Boy, I’m getting older. I’ll talk more about living in my fifties next weekend.

99 Red Balloons

red balloons

I’m reminded of the song “99 Red Balloons” from the 1980s.

The lyrics talked about how this is it and this is war. The leader singer then let 99 red balloons loose to fly up in the sky.

It was a song about promoting peace on earth.

A lot of twisted individuals with sick minds are ruling countries in the world.

America is undoubtedly going to be forced into another near-endless war. A war whose funding will come by diverting the landmark mental health funding into the war chest.

This is it. This is war.

Won’t you join me in speaking about against any kind of war and warfare?

Optimal mental health is all too uncommon in the leaders pulling the triggers and authorizing chemical and nuclear attacks.

What’s next?

Mental Health and Snow Boots

I see in the ballad of the snow boots below a metaphor for mental health.

A woman told me she always detested using the word consumer to describe recipients of mental health treatment.

“No kidding,” I told her. You consume soft drinks. You don’t consume healthcare.”

She told me that for those with developmental disabilities the term is now individual. As in individuals who have developmental disabilities.

Imagine that–individual.

Consumers are a mass market. They’re a homogeneous demographic used to sell products. Do we really need to buy what marketers are selling? Buying products should not be the reason for our existence.

I paid $125 for these boots because I wasn’t going to spend $200 on an abominable pair of even uglier fur trapper boots.

A woman told me she liked these boots because they’re trendy, modern. I say: dare to be different. Call yourself an individual.

Buy a different boot instead of UGGs.

People who don’t think and act alike are unpredictable. They can’t be controlled. So in reality consumerism is a form of submission.

Thinking and acting the same as everyone else is a form of submission.

That’s ultimately why I don’t like using the word consumer: it insinuates that we’re all the same and have the same needs.

I say: be an individual. Get on yr boots and walk all over conformity.

sdc10464

Night of the 7 Fishes

2016-lobster

Un Buon Natale Con Italiani!

This photo was shot with my digital camera on Christmas Eve–the Night of the 7 Fishes in coastal Italian families.

You can read about this tradition in my memoir Left of the Dial.

We are from a town near Naples so we are Neapolitan thus we celebrate the holiday with 7 fish–the lobster is the big attraction.

Years ago when I was the Health Guide at the HealthCentral website I researched via a simple Google search the impact of culture on a person’s recovery from a mental health challenge.

Trust me I couldn’t find any studies that corroborated the link between culture and recovery. I couldn’t find this for Italians, Hispanics, African Americans, or any other ethnic folk.

You can read more about Italian American Mental Health in the book Benessere Psicologico: Contemporary Thought on Italian American Mental Health. The book costs $20 and is well worth the splurge.

It was published in November 2013. To this book I contributed a 10-page chapter titled “Recovery is Within Reach.”

Years ago at HealthCentral I did write about the impact of culture on my recovery. I wrote about finding a female Italian American therapist to talk to.

I do think that ethnic identity can have a positive role in helping a person recover.

I stand firm in my assertion that I recovered because of my mother. I recovered because I had the love and support of my close-knit Italian American family.

It’s time to stop judging people. It’s time to stop stereotyping people. We each of us need to see the person first. Not attribute to them a characteristic you think they have just because they’re from a certain ethnic identity.

Which is to say that not all Italians are bigots. A friend of mine who was Sicilian had a woman tell him she couldn’t hang out with him because he was Italian and she was African American. She had always been told to have nothing to do with Italians.

Can you imagine that?

I say: come on over and have some lobster!

Come on over and have some lobster!

Insieme.

We’ll treat you like family.

Winter in New York

The tourists are now out clogging the streets of our fair city. I’ve always loved the tourists even though others joke about them.

Whenever you go there Times Square is as crowded as if it’s noon. With the fluorescent lights it’s like an eternal noontime on 42nd Street. Even at nine o’clock in the evening it’s bustling and bright with people and lights.

I dipped into Sephora and bought Fresh Sugar lip scrub. This beauty emporium played alternative holiday music. You’ve got to love Sephora.

Ten of us took our seats in the theater. The words quickly popped out of my mouth as I eyed the women in the seats in back of us.

“We’re the opening act.” I laughed as my family coordinated where to sit. You need to have a sense of humor about things.

We saw Circ du Soleil perform Paramour and the play was exceptional. It featured the amazing acrobatics and a great story.

I recommend seeing Paramour if you’re a tourist in New York City. Even if the cost of the tickets will set you back a pretty penny.

Winter in New York IS a magical time.

Here’s to you, Verna from South Bend, Indiana!

Optimism

optimism

Years ago I wrote in a prior incarnation of this blog about the New York City subway MetroCard fare card that I saved with the word Optimism in black letters on the white back.

Two or three years ago I attended an art class and created the above collage with the word Optimism.

The significance in choosing to make a collage of letters spelling Optimism is this: At the same time I had read the book The Difference by Jean Chatzky that details what financially well-off and wealthy individuals have in common in terms of traits.

It turns out that having optimism is one of the traits shared by people who acquire great fortune in life–and I dare say it helps us emotionally as well as financially to be optimistic.

My great friend has turned around my thinking in this regard. His nonchalance about the turn of events in America has prompted me to want to focus on the positive.

Hence the reproduction of the word Optimism as the banner for this blog entry.

I still think as I’ve always thought that the government can’t solve society’s ills.

Yet each person living in America has the potential to change their lives for the better.

The hypocritical thinking and the inconsistencies in policies that plague Republicans are going to be left by the wayside in this blog even though I’m tempted to reprise exposing them.

Instead I will focus on the positive: you want to amass a ton of money for yourself?–Be an optimist. Optimists live longer too.

When the glass is half full it’s time to drink up.

We should all be so fortunate in America that our only dilemma right now is that our iPhone doesn’t send photos to our e-mail as soon as we upload them.

Thus I went with Plan B: uploading Optimism.

Christmas and Hanukkah arrive in five weeks and Kwanzaa is right around the corner too.

Time to remember those of us who are less fortunate. Time to remember that all things considered it’s still a great time to be living in America.

Time to remember those who are gone and to carry on their legacy.

I’m a big fan of the Kwanzaa principles by the way. One of them is cooperative economics.

We all should be sharing our wealth–and share the wealth of our God-given gifts and the wealth of ideas we have for making the world a better place.

Becoming wealthy in more ways than just financially starts with health: having a fit mind and a strong body.

So in this regard I will start to post on the weekends new blog entries about nutrition and fitness over at the Flourish blog.

Salut!

Seeing Things Differently

Left of the Dial is my story: it’s the only one I have to give.

I had long wanted to talk about other things not dwell on symptoms and hell in a book. The technical term for those kinds of books is “misery memoir.”

My perpetual point exactly is that getting the right help right away can halt the progression of the illness–can halt disability.

At HealthCentral I did write extensively about illness and treatment. Yet I always tried to offer a different more hopeful and empowered way of thinking about and accessing treatment.

I’ll end here by saying that using the Asset Model to treat people is the way to go: to focus on our gifts and strengths, not deficits and weaknesses.

This is certainly the way to go in providing career counseling for peers.

At HealthCentral I wrote about what I call the Triangle of Mental Health: appropriate medication, quicker individualized treatment, and practical career counseling.

Now in the Flourish blog I would like to focus on this Triangle in detail.

A fortune cookie I once cracked open revealed:

The best angle from which to approach a problem is the TRYangle.

Indeed.

Direction of Blog

I will always make the case for not stereotyping people.

The definition of stereotyping is meeting one or two people with a similar trait or characteristic and then ascribing that trait or characteristic to every other person you meet who has the same background as the original person.

I have no idea why I abhor stereotyping like I do. Yet I think it’s an intellectual crime or mental laziness to resort to stereotyping people in media accounts.

Everyone’s entitled to their perception of the world and of people in it. I don’t care what another person thinks–I just think it’s high time to keep it out of the media and instead focus on the positive things people contribute to society.

I might not ever get published in the mainstream media yet a blog is a medium. Bloggers can rebel the divide-and-conquer tactics of mainstream media and of politicians.

There’s a better way: I call it “breaking bread”–which has rarely been done historically.

Highways were built that divided rich neighborhoods from poor neighborhoods. Housing projects went up on the sides of highways nowhere near other neighborhoods–you get the picture.

Yes I have chosen to speak out about injustice as well as stigma because any kind of stigma really isn’t right.

This is because I know it’s possible to be so upset by the hate in the world that you’re moved to tears. Of course the New York Times and other media outlets won’t feature a writer like me who dares state this: that the hate can move a person to tears.

Like I said in here before, we’ll all human beings doing the best we can with what we were given. In this regard I’m not going to judge anyone–not even a racist. My chosen tactic is to simply record what goes on and to use humor to do so.

As a writer, I don’t use cardboard characters so I bristle when media pundits make cardboard characters out of human beings.

In the Flourish blog I will talk to peers about ways to manage what we feel when it’s possible we’re triggered by what we read in the news. Go over to that forum and read you can read it.

He’s Just Not That Into You

Come on, the author of He’s Just Not That Into You should’ve titled his book the truth: He Doesn’t Like You, Chica!

This last week I realized I could star as a character in that book.

Guys want a bird in the hand and two in the bush. Most guys think they’re not a man if they’re not banging a chick, so they’ll lead a woman on and keep her even if they don’t love her. All to prove they’re manly and to have their way.

I still think it’s a man’s world–a guy friend insists women have the power. Rejection is a two-way street.

Certain words should cue us that the guy or gal isn’t interested in seeing us again or in continuing. I found out the hard way that He’s Just Not Into Me. So I decided to call it quits.

Rule Number One:

The guy has your number, so if he hasn’t called, ditch him. He’s not interested.

Rule Number Two:

You can’t make a guy like you. So give up–stop trying to.

Rule Number Three:

Tattoo rules number one and two on your heart.