Night of the 7 Fishes

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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.

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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.

 

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.

Healthy Relationships

The number-one predictor of health, happiness, and a long life is creating and maintaining healthy relationships, according to a study going back to the 1930s..

Interacting and doing things with friends, family–and romantic partners if we so choose–is the secret to success in life.

It clicked when I read this week the Internet article quoting research about how having positive relationships inoculates a person from ill health.

Talking with a friend can be better than taking a happy pill.

Having social support in the form of friends, family, and romantic partners is the way to go.

The participants with rock-solid relationships had better health and a lot of them lived to be in their nineties.

Even when I was employed at HealthCentral I made the case for making friends and finding your tribe of kindred spirits.

It’s true that a friend–not a romantic partner–can be a soul mate. And who’s to say we can’t have more than one soul mate linked to different needs each person fulfills in our lives?

After reading the news article about how social support and relationships are linked to better health, happiness, and a longer life I thought: “Sign me up!”

Imagine spending six hours with a true friend and feeling incredibly happy doing so.

I say: Go for It–because emotional riches count more than money.

Beauty is in the Eye

Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

I once went on a date with a guy old enough to be my grandpa. I couldn’t get past his eyeglasses–they were cheap cut-rate eyeglasses. (There–you can whack me with a pocketbook for saying this.)

You and I can see the same person and have different reactions. One of us might like that guy and the other isn’t interested.

Readers: I met a guy in person that I’m attracted to. I like looking at his face most of all because he is kind and caring.

Now I don’t care how rich or good-looking a guy is. You might want to date a person who has a good job. I know two women who mercilessly judged guys as “dogs” and wouldn’t date a guy that wasn’t good-looking. That was their criteria.

Throw your diagnosis into the mix and it’s sketchy how a person will respond on a date.

I’m lucky I met a guy I can do things with. He’s aware of the diagnosis yet he’s okay with this. He can hold his own interacting with other people. He’s a Lefty, like I am.

Looking for love is like a numbers game at times: you have to meet a lot of guys or gals before the right one comes along.

Always be hopeful because love is worth the risk.

A roving photographer once asked me “What’s the best way to fight stigma?”

Twelve years later I stand by what I said: “Be brave, and be yourself.”

It’s true: Be brave, and be yourself–and the right person will come along.