Summer Read

I just finished reading a book called The Quiet Room – A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness. This book gives you a very intimate look in to the life of Lori Schiller who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in her late 20’s and spent a total of four years in the hospital. Lori has been through cocaine addiction, suicide attempts, and multiple medication changes. Her symptoms began to surface during college at Tufts University.

The Quiet Room was different from other books of an individual’s account of mental illness because it had writings from Lori’s parents, brothers, former roommates, and doctors that treated Lori in the hospital. As a sibling of a mentally ill individual, it was important for me to read about other family members experiences. Lori’s younger brother was constantly scared that someday he too may be in the same place Lori was, that someday his mind might become sick. I know that these are feelings that I have had before and that my younger brother has experienced or will experience.

The book also gives you a patient’s perspective of her relationship with her parents. While in the hospital Lori struggled with having her parents visit. Lori says:
“much as I loved my parents, I felt like I was on stage for them too. I fought so hard to seem normal before them. I didn’t want them to know how sick I was. I didn’t want them to see me out of control. From the moment they arrived my struggle to keep control battled with my fear of losing control. I knew how much my illness hurt them. I knew how much they suffered for me. As much as I could, I wanted to keep the worst of it from them. I wanted them to be proud of me. I didn’t want to cause them heartache.”
I can imagine that other patients feel this way too. This passage reiterates to me the need for strong family support and letting the patient know that as a mother, father, sister, or brother you will be there for them no matter what.

Lori’s parents offer another perspective when they were struggling with separating drug addiction from illness. Lori’s mom Nancy writes:
“We couldn’t separate out her illness from anything else that might be affecting her. Lori’s moods were so unstable that she had initially been diagnosed as manic-depressive. She slept so little that her eyes were often bloodshot. And she was taking so much prescription medicine that there was hardly a time when her hands didn’t shake.”

Finally, Lori’s doctor who helped get her stabilized gives the reader a good description of schizophrenia, a disease that can be difficult to understand. “Schizophrenia is like a persons brain breaking. For the thing that has broken is the person’s ability to relate to another person. The thing that breaks is whatever it is that connects people to their environment, that allows them to recognize another person as someone outside of themselves.”

“People with schziophrenia are locked out of the outside world, and locked inside their heads with nothing but these wild, out-of-control thoughts emotion and thoughts. In people with schizophrenia the normal emotions – or push back into the recesses of our minds – run amok. Emotions that would normally be comfortably catalogued as unacceptable take on a life of their own as voices that seem more real than the real world outside.”
Throughout The Quite Room Lori struggles to accept the fact that she is sick. She also struggles to realize that she will never be the same person she was before her illness began. Doctors work with her not to get her back to where she was but to get her to a place where she can function.

I will not spoil the book and reveal what the quite room actually is but I encourage anyone looking for a summer read to get this book.

You Give Me Peace Love

While I was avoiding studying last week and reading Yoga Journal magazine I stumbled upon an ad for Peace Love Studios. The ad featured a watch and said PeaceLove Changing The Face Of Mental Illness. I immediately went to the website to learn more about PeaceLove. PeaceLove is “a growing community of mental health advocates and artists creating conversations of acceptance, understanding, and hope.” Everyone at PeaceLove has “found common purpose in spreading understanding around mental illness.” PeaceLove uses creative expression to spread understanding of mental illness. They are using art to build a symbol of hope and acceptance. Founder of PeaceLove, Jeff Sparr,and artist does not put a face on his paintings because he says “that is mental illness, it has no face, it could happen to anyone.”

Find your own peace!

This video is very moving and tells a lot of different stories. I encourage all readers to check it out and share with your family and friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JikRdUefms&feature=player_embedded

A Goat

Hi Readers
Sorry our posts have been so sporadic lately. School and work have been very busy for me and Becca.
Wanted to share a new campaign with all of you called Dear World and the Story of Beatrice Biira from Uganda. Dear world is a platform for individuals no matter what race or background to write our future. You are in charge of your own future and we can all help write the future of this world. Supporting Our Siblings is going to take part in writing the future of mental illness.

Beatrice Biira credits a goat her family received when she was 9 years old to the reason she was able attend school and Uganda, earn a highschool scholarship, and to come to the U.S. for college. Although a goat might not have gotten you where you are today, you are here. Now you can continue to mold the future and change our world. Check out the websites, read Beatrice's story, and take inspiration from her goat.

Dear World: WE WORK TO FIGHT THE STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS.

Thanks Anna

Danger of a Single Story

A few weeks ago, Bring Change 2 Mind blogger Marc Peters posted a video from TED talks by Chimamanda Adichie. I wanted to share this video and more importantly the message the video presents to our readers. Chimamanda Adichia is a novelist and MacArthur Fellow. Her work is inspired by events in her native Nigeria. In the TED talk Chimamanda discusses the danger of the single story. Her discussion of the single story relates very closely to the experiences of the mentally ill. Chimamanda’s messages is that a single story about a person or culture creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is NOT that they are untrue but that they are incomplete and make one story the ONLY story. A single story shows a group of people as only one thing over and over again and that in turn is what they become. We risk a critical misunderstanding when we only hear a single story about a person or a culture.
So when we only have a single story about mental illness that is what the mentally ill become. If we only know mental illness as violence than every mentally ill individual is perceived as violent. This in turn leads to more stigma associated with mental illness. This is why we also must share our stories about mental illness. Please share your story on our blog. Or if you don’t feel comfortable sharing on the blog then email Becca and I at sosiblings@gmail.com. Keep Reading. Keep Learning. Keep Advocating.

Talk Therapy

Jacob Berelowitz  a graduate of NYU Master of Social Work and created a TV network called Talk Therapy Television.  “Talk Therapy Television was created to disseminate information about mental illness and its treatment options to the public through media and thereby promote the treatment of mental illness.”  Talk therapy television is working to promote the treatment of mental illness.  Everyone at Supporting Our Siblings, Becca, readers, our followers, and myself are all working towards decreasing the stigma associated with mental illness and educating the public about mental illness.  Talk Therapy Television is just one example of an amazing effort being made to enhance the lives of those suffering form a mental illness.

Talk Therapy Television is not the only thing Berelowitz has created.  He also came up with the idea to put mental health facts on the back of grocery receipts, a Mental Health Quick Facts Campaign.  This idea then emerged into a Quick Facts website.  The facts about mental illness are now on receipts in major grocery stores in New York City.  “An average of 25,000 shoppers every day are handed receipts with Quick Facts printed on them.”

The New York Daily News then wrote an article about the quick facts campaign.  The online article has a pole that asks individuals if people are undereducated on mental health issues.  So go online and VOTE!

Berelowitz came up with the idea about Quick Facts campaign while shopping at the grocery store.  He is an example and inspiration to both Becca and me.  He shows us that if you have an idea don’t hesitate to act on that idea.  Thank you all for following our blog.  This blog started with an idea.  And our ideas continue to grow and we both hope some day to have careers and working with the mentally ill daily.

Camouflaged or Not, There's No Hiding

Hi readers, it's Becca. I'm ashamed to even admit how long it has been since I have written a post. Unfortunately work has been keeping me busy and exhausted - sigh - albeit still not good enough reasons to keep from keeping up with SOS!

I am back and I have an interesting article to share with you! My good friend Leslie gave me the most wonderful Christmas gift this year, a subscription to New York Magazine! I have anxiously been awaiting my weekly magazines to show up and three weeks ago I received my first one. NY Mag turns over some fabulous material, no doubt about that. In my most recent issue there was a particular story that struck me titled "Soldiers."

The article gives a quick review of the mental health system as it applies to our military troops. This is something I'm fairly educated on given my Mom works in the mental health system as a contractor for the government. One thing she has addressed, and the article does as well, is the stigma that still exists in their community. (That of course, is not to say that a stigma does not still exist in a greater community.) I suppose I am more astonished that it exists in the military community given the degree of trauma these folks are put through that may be deployed, may have a deployed family member or may even be coping with issues at a base here in the US. We've been in battle for ten years. Ten. Years. Granted, we see a lot of coverage on our nightly news segments, those of us that have not been to the Middle East during this turmoil can not begin to imagine what these brave men and women go through.

With this said, I want to share with you this passage from the article: The author of the article speaks to a five-star general named Chiarelli. Chiarelli recalls, "When I was growing up in the Army, if anyone wanted to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist they'd have to go to the fifth floor. So nobody wanted to go to in the elevator and press five. So now we have behavioral-health people in the primary-care clinics. You don't have to go to the fifth floor. But I know the stigma's still there." When I read this passage, I thought to myself, "Really? You just got home from war - from seeing things that other couldn't dream of and you're worried you might need something for anxiety?" Obviously, I could never understand but that doesn't mean it didn't make me feel for every soldier that has had to address a mental health issue in such an environment.

What DOES happen when a soldier comes home to return to "normal" life and attempts to deal with anxiety, depression or PTSD? Well, the article sites the "normal" life of a 24 year old in the Army. A footnote on a page in the Army's suicide report describes the following, "At 24 years of age, a Soldier, on average, has moved from home, family and friends ad resided in two other states; has traveled the world (deployed); been promoted four times; bought a car and wrecked it; married and had children; has had relationship and financial problems; seen death; is responsible for dozens of Soldiers; maintains millions of dollars' worth of equipment; and gets paid less than $40,000 a year." I'll be honest, just reading that gave me anxiety.

The article goes on to share statistics about the increased number of suicides, the use of anti-depressants and other mood altering drugs and the different types of treatment options available. It was important for me to share this story with you all because it continues to show that no one is immune to mental health issues. It is also important to note that even while troops are being pulled from the Middle East and front-line battle is fewer and further between, there are still many, many suffering from war. I encourage you to donate to mental health research in hopes that we can find the right balance of therapy, medicines and care that will serve the troops just as they have served our country.

Glad to be back and writing! As always, comments, notes and post ideas are always welcomed! Visit NYMag.com to read the whole story!

Failure of Our System

Becca and I have yet to comment on the Arizona Tragedy and its relationship to the failed mental health system in America. We are both deeply sorry for what has occurred in Arizona and our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, the victim’s families, and the Loughner family.

Since the tragedy occurred almost two weeks ago I have watched, listened to, and read countless stories and reports on the incidents. Almost all of these reports touch on mental illness. I wanted to share with our readers two reports that I found very informative. One is a television program on CNN called State of the Union another is a radio program on NPR called the Diana Rehm show featuring Pete Earley, a NAMI father and author of Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness; Lisa Dixon, M.D., leading researcher and NAMI scientific advisory council member; E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., of the Treatment Advocacy Center and Dr. Ken Duckworth, NAMI Medical Director. Candy Crowley also spoke with Pete Earley on Sunday December 16 on her State of the Union Show on CNN along with two members of congress.

I encourage all of our readers to watch/listen to both of these programs but I would like to give you all a summary of the important highlights and points made by these professionals.

Pete Earley is an individual that has inspired and continues to inspire Becca and me on a daily basis. Earley’s son has schizophrenia. Earley points out that as a parent you are faced with some very specific challenges. Earley says: “We cannot sit back in the face of a tragedy like the one in Arizona and say ‘what is wrong with those parents?’ or ‘why didn’t they help their son?’ The truth is that the parents often do not have a lot of options with the mental health system currently in place in the United States.” We are in a state of profound public health crisis. It is difficult and sometimes nearly impossible to access mental health care in this country. We do not have a culture where it is accepted for people to get mental health care and we are closing hospitals and treatment facilities. In our country we are weak on prevention aspects of mental health but we know that treatment does work. However, we do not make treatment readily available to individuals who need it most.

Individuals who develop serious mental illnesses are often not aware that they have a biological process going on. A psychotic person does not know they are psychotic and he or she does not see their delusions as delusions at all but as reality. When you have a person that is not aware that they are becoming ill the family and the community must step in to help.

Pete Earley has been faced with many difficult experiences as the father of a child with schizophrenia. He has had to tell his son that if he won’t take his medications than he will not live in his house. His son decided he would rather be homeless than take medication. In another incident, Earley was forced to call the police when his son became violent. The police tazored his son and Earley was left with a son who blamed his father for the events. Earley points out that psychosis isn’t acting out in the way Jared Loughner acted. In fact, only 1% of individuals with a serious mental illness are violent. Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depression are illnesses and there should be no shame in having these illnesses. The real shame should come from not treating these illnesses.

Dr. Lisa Dixon points out that we are unable to prove that a person is dangerous before they commit a dangerous act. However, we must look for risk factors that could cause a person to commit an act. Substance abuse is a huge risk factor and should be taken very seriously. Judgment is impaired with psychotic illnesses. Parents must follow their gut instincts and if they are waking up early in the morning feeling anxious about their child’s behavior then they should first speak with their general practitioner.

Dr. Torrey, President of treatment advocacy center, pointed out that the system has failed completely, we are dealing with a broken system and the tragedy that we saw in Arizona is the result of a broken system. The vast majority of people with severe mental illness are not violent or dangerous, only about 1% of individuals with serious mental illness are dangerous and these are often the people that need involuntary commitment. I feel that this cannot be said enough.

Dr. Torrey gave a plan for parents: First call your state mental health agency and research commitment laws in your state.
Next, look at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association website. Finally, research the National Alliance on Mental Illness and more specifically see how your state compares on their grading the states.

Finally remember: Mental Health is part of health, the brain gets sick and it is part of the process of health.
Become a partner to those with mental illness. It is an illness so it can happy to you. Listen to your loved ones and learn as much as possible about their illness.

You can watch the CNN State of the Union clips by clicking on the following link: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/state.of.the.union/

And listen to the NPR program by clicking on the following link: http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=13570