Dare to Be You

sdc10465

Years ago for my birthday my dear friend gave me this card.

I wonder about the mental and physical toll of bottling up who you are–and bottling up the truth about the illness. Stuffing down your feelings can’t be healthy because one day the lid will pop off and they’ll explode.

So much has been written about how churches try to convert gay individuals to acting as heterosexuals. Yet I might be the first person to write about the folly of squelching your personality when you have a mental health diagnosis.

Pretending to be someone you’re not over the long-term only leads to illness.

Yet it’s a mistake to conflate temperament with symptoms. For a lot of people with mental health conditions though we do worry about betraying our illness to others in how we act–especially if we have jobs and degrees.

As a professional told me years ago:

“When you’re high-functioning you’re aware that you’re different so the pain is greater.”

Really, if you have anosognosia thus don’t think you’re sick why would you be ashamed to think the CIA is after you? You wouldn’t. You’d be oblivious to the slings and arrows of stigma.

As a woman put it to me: “At home and outside–with friends and family–I can be myself and don’t have a filter. Yet who am I supposed to be at work?”

I’m writing about these things because no one else is and someone has to.

In the end the ethic of my memoir Left of the Dial boils down to this:

Dare to Be You–and you’ll be happier and healthier.

 

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

 

 

 

 

Fear and Clothing

Marshall McLuhan’s book was famously titled The Medium is the Massage.

I’m reading a great guide that proves his title’s point: Fear and Clothing: Unbuckling American Style by the bellicose lettres author Cintra Wilson.

She writes in the most clear, specific, compelling way–better than I ever have or could–about the connection between our clothes and our personalities.

She understands as I always have that young people try on clothes as they go about identifying themselves.

For me how I dressed as a young woman was a way to take on the world. I was told I couldn’t get a job. I was told there was no hope for a person like me.

My fashion choices were a way to arch my brow and say: “So? I can’t get a job? Then I’ll be the best-dressed chair-warmer at the day program.”

It was true that the mental health staff didn’t know what to do with a quirky creative young person like me. I abhorred the vanilla thinking of the time that proscribed women to getting married and breeding kids living in a picket fence house.

Dressing trendy was a way to send a direct message: I wouldn’t submit to the vanilla expectations that the gatekeepers of my success had of a person like me.

Wilson calls how we style ourselves “fashion determinism” because it’s clear that we can become whoever we want to be simply by dressing in the clothes we choose.

Wilson relates: “If there is anything I have learned…life is too short to wear disguises that hide you from the world, because these choices can end up hiding you from yourself.”

Deploying your clothes in a confrontational way really won’t get a person anywhere. You see wearing Fright Night makeup won’t garner you any fans of whatever message you’re selling (unless you’re in a Goth band catering to vagabond vampires).

As I got older I understood clearly that it’s true the medium is the massage. Fashion is a medium–an art form at its highest elevation. How we compose ourselves speaks volumes–and our clothes are the loudest first expression of who we think we are or want to be.

Cintra Wilson traveled all across America to scoop what people are wearing and deconstruct their lives behind the seams.

I’ll end here with one interesting theory Wilson espouses: that people who live in cities like New York where buildings are high and vertical tend also to be built like rails–skinny. People who live in places like Iowa with wide expanses of land tend to be voluptuous.

Do I think this is true? I think it might be true insofar as city dwellers have easy access to gyms for the most part…and living in a city can be a competitive sport.

I will continue to write about fashion when it strikes my fancy to do so. I recommend buying Fear and Clothing which is why I quoted from it. Cintra Wilson’s irreverent whip-smart voice is the prime draw.

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!

Be-You-Tiful

It cost a fortune to visit a shrink in New York City : (

And that’s not accounting for the cost of the visit (and psych M.D.s don’t take insurance round here.)

What will empty your wallet is the Sephora nearby that you use to engage in retail therapy before or after (and sometimes before AND after) you see the guy or gal who’s checking out your head.

2016-artists-rouge-c211

This is Make Up Forever’s Artist’s Rouge in C211.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder all of us should be beholding and admiring our own beauty and other people’s beauty.

God hasn’t yet made one ugly person. I firmly believe everyone living on earth is beautiful.

Gorgeous makeup subtly applied can make us femmes feel beautiful too.

Lifting weights at the gym is another way to feel good. Studies reveal that people who exercise feel better about their bodies even if they haven’t lost any pounds or gotten incredibly fitter.

Go on–viva la vida–treat yourself like a king or queen.

When other people can’t be counted on to give people with MH challenges compassion it’s all the more imperative that we act kind towards ourselves and others.

Never mind how other people act. Do your own thing. Think for yourself too.

There’s no shame in living in recovery.

Yet boy am I making Sephora rich every time I sit on my guy’s couch.

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.

 

Merci – Thank You – Grazie

A mille grazie to everyone who’s posted book reviews on Amazon. A thousand thanks.

Left of the Dial is my story–I had no other story to tell.

I had long wanted to talk about other things in an SZ book–not dwell on symptoms and hell. I’m confident that it’s possible to have a hard life that is also a great life.

Plenty of bloggers talk over and over about what it’s like to be bombarded with pain. At HealthCentral years ago when I was the Health Guide there I wrote in detail about symptoms and treatment options.

A former therapist told me: “Suffering for the sake of suffering is bullshit.”

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

And my other point was to see the person in each of us first and to write characters that were original–not cardboard; not described in terms of their lack or deficits.

On the inside I will always be a rocker chic kind of girl and I wanted this passion to shine through in the memoir.

Elyn Saks was the first person with SZ to talk in her book about a career–she’s a law professor who joked that her department should have endowed her with a couch not a Chair.

I did not and would not and could not write what in the publishing industry is termed a “misery memoir.” I call these “hell-and-heartache” books.

There is often going to be some kind of hell at some point in our lives. The point is to understand how we can use that hell to transform our lives into something better.

Each day that we wake up that God has given us is the chance to do whatever we can to make our lives better.

I’ll end here by telling readers what I wrote at HealthCentral years ago:

Give yourself what I call a “lifeline” in which to achieve your goals not a deadline.

Recovery is the gift of a lifetime that we give ourselves in which to achieve self-growth.

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.