Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Being Authentic

Who are you?
What do you stand for?
Are you authentic?


I began blogging by default. I felt grateful for the good things which existed in my life, which was a bit of an epiphany for me against a year of perceived negatives.


I felt a need to share that gratitude, that no matter what life throws at you, "it 'aint all that bad!"


My journey was one through ante-natal and post-natal depression, my husband finding a suitable replacement 2 weeks after the birth of our second child, taking on a job that was really designed for three people and the realisation that my whole world was out of balance.


I resigned from that job and reduced my hours until a replacement could be found. I worked on being the best person I could knowing that it would pay off in the end. I worked on being a better mother, I worked on doing things for myself - that I have never done before.


I connected with buddhism, meditation, the church, my friends new and old. I discarded time wasters and energy sappers.


I felt empowered I felt good, but I couldn't work out why; my life was still far from settled.


I was being authentic to my own strengths.


How could you not love life with these two?





Your Top Character Strength
Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your life in a genuine and authentic way. You are down to earth and without pretense; you are a "real" person.
Your Second Character Strength
Perspective (wisdom)
Although you may not think of yourself as wise, your friends hold this view of you. They value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to yourself.
Your Third Character Strength
Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.
Your Fourth Character Strength
Fairness, equity, and justice
Treating all people fairly is one of your abiding principles. You do not let your personal feelings bias your decisions about other people. You give everyone a chance.
Your Fifth Character Strength
Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

I have to say I totally agree with these strengths. They are me to a tee!
I have decided to blog on authenticity rather than gratitude today after reading a blog which rang alarm bells for me. It is someone I know. I read with interest the blogs and the old links and am dismayed at the actions and thoughts of this person. They always played the game, the good guy, cultured person, ambitious and worldly.
How wrong was I!
What I have discovered is a person who is so lost in the world that they don the skin of a chameleon. They fit to the circumstance and the people they are with. That is sad for them and those they deceive by not being themselves. It is sad for their children and cost a man his marriage and family. This person married because it was part of their plan in life, not for love. It is no more than a form of entrapment. What is sad is that two little people have been affected by this and in a negative way. Their main carer is still lost and this affects children raised in environments where there is disequilibrium.
So how do you know if you are being true to yourself?
Take the test and see.
https://www.viame.org/www/en-us/getyourviameprofile.aspx
I undertook this survey as part of a book group I am in. It was a great realisation for me and others in the group.
So go on take the test, you have nothing to loose and everything to gain.
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Thursday, 13 October 2011

IT's MENTAL HEALTH WEEK

Happy Mental Health Week everyone. If ever there was an intentional pun, that sentence was one.

Seriously wouldn't it be great if for one week all of those afflicted with mental illness just had it lifted for the week. So that the cloud of medication, behaviours, substance abuse, physical, emotional or other abuse and the ignorance of society at large was just magically erased and they could live and function as any other person.

I could give you all the stats on suicide, illness, depression, substance abuse, PTSD and so on. But I won't, I don't need to. I know as you do that the problem exists, so I am not intending to statistically verify it in this post, I just wish to share some stories.

Mental Health afflicts so many in society, across all classes, ages, genders and cultures. Yet it remains one of our biggest taboo subjects. I know many who snigger at another's misfortunes of depression or other mental illness and yet I KNOW they silently battle their own. It is these cases of glasshouses and stone throwing that make me not want to help some when the glasshouse eventually caves in on them. But that is not my nature and I help anyway.

It is also the people who should know better that grate my bones when it comes to this topic. My lovely friend and her husband very tragically lost one of their twin girls when she was 6 weeks old. 8 Years on we are all still crying over this event. No we are not pathetic and we are not wallowing in sorrow, we celebrate her strength that she showed in her 6 week battle - she was after all only 30 weeks old in total. It was my friends dad though who I feel said one of the most hurtful things. He is a mental health nurse. It was maybe 6 months down the track, could have been more and my dear friend was still hurting, depressed, grief stricken. I believe rightly so, there is no time limit on grief and she was functioning in life raising her other twin now home from hospital and her little boy. Her babies had arrived at 24 weeks that alone is hard to cope with, to see them have surgery several times and then loose one, no one should have been questioning her illness. Her dad basically told her to get over it, he couldn't understand why she was so upset, still.

He understands now, he sees how we all still feel and support this couple. I am sure if he could take those words back he would. No matter what the cause of a persons mental illness, they have a basic human right to dignity and respect.

A client of mine was sexually abused over a prolonged period as a child. It was violent and her mother the person who should have protected her, shunned her and hid the abuse as many did back then. It has had an untold impact on this woman.

 She has a borderline personality disorder, eating disorder, has been incarcerated for solicitation and theft; she has compulsive thoughts and behaviours, self harming and sexually projects a lot of behaviours and tries to masculinise her appearance, not because she is gender confused, but because she does not want to attract men; she does and they are always the kind that repeat the pattern of abuse. They rape her without full consent, but she won't report as they sometimes give her gifts or money or more than likely drugs. They physically assault her and now we suspect she has an STD, I am surprised she hasn't had one or more before.

Her primary case worker has a practice of disengagement with her and does not want to participate in trying to re-engage this client with mental health services. He thinks it is futile and time wasting. I think he does not care and is not fulfilling his professional duty.

It is our role in healthcare to do no harm, to protect and respect the choices also that our clients make. We are not saying this client can not have sex with men or engage in any of her harmful behaviours but I believe that we have a duty of care to protect this client from herself. Sexualised brutality is all she has ever known. It is like those who were institutionalised and then put out into the community. They floundered because they knew nothing of how to function in the everyday world. Nor does this client, her world is one of use and abuse, self punishment and harm. She needs to be shown the way out, she needs someone to help her navigate her way out of that maze in her mind. She will never be cured, but she is young and has a lot to offer.

My uncle was 40 years old when he gassed himself with carbon monoxide in his treasured ute in front of his treasured pet "Princess". Princess had to be put down, she could not be rehabilitated to re-home with anyone else. My uncle was a worksite union representative and his depression came on the back of some very strong workplace bullying and harassment in a male dominated industry. There was sufficient evidence so that when my tenacious grandmother took the international giant to court, they quickly settled the sum. Money won't replace his lost life. He never was able to get married or have children or finish renovating his house. All because his workplace did not take his mental health and the causative factors contributing to it, seriously.

So Happy Mental Health Week, buy the Big Issue if you are in Australia and support those vendors.
Here are some other resources too as provided by Women's and Children's Health Network, Child and Youth Health, South Australian Government.



  • Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family
    Mental Health Association (AICAFMHA)
    Promotes mental health and wellbeing of Australian infants, children,
    adolescents and their families/carers.
    http://www.aicafmha.net.au
  • Black Dog Institute
    The Black Dog Institute is an educational, research, clinical and community-oriented facility dedicated to improving understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders.
    http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/
  • Men's Line Australia 
    Mensline Australia is a dedicated service for men with relationship and family concerns.(relationships, work, fathering, separation, stress) 24 hour, 7 day a week telephone helpline.
    http://www.menslineaus.org.au/
  • Reach Out!
    An Internet site providing information to young people experiencing distressing
    or complicated situations.
    http://au.reachout.com/ 
  • Reach Out ProProvides access and advice for health care professionals on a range of technologies and online resources for psychosocial support and mental health care provided to young people.
    http://reachoutpro.com.au/  
  • SANE AustraliaA National Charity helping people affected by mental illness. They have a large number of publications for sale.
    http://www.sane.org
Let me know if you know of or have tried others. The MOODGYM was also another good self help site for CBT. It can be found at moodgym.anu.edu.au/.


I am grateful for my inner strength and mental health and wish you all the best with yours. Remember if you need any help or know of someone who does there is always help out there just ask. 

This simple act of asking was what the recently successful national RUOK day was all about. See it here at www.ruokday.com.au/

Thoughts are with all of those afflicted with mental illness, who are homeless and isolated due to this, one day I hope we make progress.  

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Tuesday, 20 September 2011

First Do No Harm!


This is the pivotal underpinning of all health care profession learning. We are there to cure, to nurture, and to heal. We are not there to cause pain, harm or suffering and as a nurse, who entered the profession to cause any of the latter? Not me!

By fate I fell into nursing. However, I had always wanted to be a nurse and had a well-developed sense of empathy from a young age. Now however I am struggling: watching the disenfranchised nurses and other healthcare professionals fail in a failing system. I wonder has everyone given up hope and if so why bother coming to work?

We have all dealt with “difficult” patients. The types that don’t conform, don’t comply, don’t fit the boxes and they don’t make our day easy. They challenge us on many levels, exhaust us, insult us and physically and verbally abuse us. They then end up on a merry go round of hospital admissions, sometimes inappropriately and hospital discharges, also sometimes inappropriate. No one wants to draw the short straw to work with “these” people.

However, there is one team that is working with this group of clients. The team operates out of an interface between acute and community and encompasses the complex clients who frequently and inappropriately present to the acute care hospitals. Through pulling a collaborative and client-focused team around each individual they are demonstrating a reduction in inappropriate hospital admissions and emergency department presentations.

In saying inappropriate admissions clients are not excluded from accessing the acute setting, as everyone has a basic right to access healthcare. What is instead focused on is where the best place is to provide the various forms of care required for each individual, and how and who is best placed to manage the client in accessing the care. The traditional silos of various services and health entities operating in isolation is being navigated and permeated, to create an environment of support for the client and for the health care workers.

It is a young team; it is an evolving team and one that is dedicated and passionate. Based originally on the UK Community Matron Model the program also has extended beyond that model to encompass Social Workers in the team to further address the complexity that many in the client group present with. 

Clients come from a hugely diverse background and age range, from those in their 30’s and 40’s right through to octogenarians. 

The system is being challenged on many levels in health and not all are positive, that is the nature of health. However, this small team of which I am privileged to be a part of is challenging it to make a positive impact on many levels, client, systemic, financial and attitudes.

Of all the impacts the team seeks to make, I fear the latter is the hardest one to shift. I watched staff today personalize the acting out behaviors of a chronically ill patient who is dying a slow and difficult death. Their eyes rolled, noses screwed up, sighs were audibly louder than usual, the “not again” comments bounced of the walls. However, in the bed I saw an endearing character that is chronically ill and has had a long-standing history of mental health issues and physical ailments. I saw someone who needed care, compassion and nurturing and unfortunately after an extended period of managing them at home, the right place for their care was a hospital. It is the only place we will be able to facilitate a dignified approach to the end of life care that will be needed to encompass the complex needs that they have.

I fear that the apathy, the cynicism, the disenfranchised are becoming endemic in health care. If workers just stepped back and viewed the situation from a different angle, took a new or novel approach, could they achieve the minutest but most monumental of breakthroughs? Why do they feel infecting everyone around them with the judgmental and detrimental attitudes to these “difficult” clients is productive, beneficial or required? Why do they naively personalize the attacks that the chronically medically and mentally impaired and unwell perpetuate towards them? I don’t have the answers for those questions, but I do set the standard to provide care with a level playing field. In my team everyone deserves a chance to be treated with dignity, to have their situation viewed outside the box that healthcare and professionals have locked them into. It won’t make my day eaiser by taking the path of least resistance and joining the judgment train, I will advocate, I will strive, I will challenge and I will survive long after many of these clients have passed on, hopefully with a dignified death, hopefully with some respect from professionals. I hope; I live, I work another day. These “difficult” clients and the wonderful, dedicated professionals that I am working with inspire me. I am lucky to be me and fall willingly each day into working with complexity.
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