Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 38

 HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY to this little goober:

Yes friends and neighbors, it was ten years ago today on Easter Sunday 2012 that my miniature dachshund Tammy was born!  She was one of a litter of five - two boys and three girls - and she was also the runt.  I think it's safe to say that she has ended up with a more interesting life than most dogs get to have.  That she rode in my lap for a year spent driving across America, alone puts a lot of character on those stubby little legs.  She has been my sweetest companion, my bark of conscience, my life saver (at least once), the person I can trust to understand me when nobody else on earth does.

Happiest of birthdays, Tammy.  And here is to many more :-)

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 37

Today's blog post sort of suggested itself, in the wake of events during the past three days.  Maybe what I'm about to say will help others who are finding themselves in the grip of depression, or some other mental health situation.

You see, this week my path has crossed those of two people who I care about: one in my personal life and another who I know from my work as a professional peer support specialist.  Each of them is having an emotional crisis.  Much like the ones I have had at various times over the course of the last twenty-some years.

In each case, I have suggested that inpatient care at a behavioral health facility should be considered.  Checking one's self into a specialized hospital for a few days or a week or so.  Letting trained doctors and staff work with a patient toward reigning in their depressive or schizophrenic episode.  Sometimes - as happened with me several months ago - it's because medication needs balancing out and I had to be monitored for any side effects.  The reasons vary.

One thing that it is NOT, is an "insane asylum".  I have never been inside a real asylum (apart from a haunted one I visited when I was younger).  People are not caged like animals in a behavioral health center.  It is not like The Snake Pit or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.  It is almost like a vacation away from it all.  The food tends to be quite good.  I would recommend bringing along a book to read (my most recent stay in inpatient found me reading Bitter Blood, a book that has sucked me in at least half a dozen times over the years).

If you or someone you know is in a mental crisis situation, there is NO shame whatsoever in asking for help.  Including checking yourself in to a behavioral health center.  Sometimes a little help is needed to get back on even keel, and that’s okay.  That’s more than fine. I’ve been in such places no less than five or six times and I’ve always come back out on top.

It’s NOT like it used to be on TV and movies.  Those days of mental health medicine in the western world are gone.  Apart from one place waking me up at 5 every morning to ask if I’d had a bowel movement (I blame the nurse), the care was always with dignity and compassion.

It can be nervous-inducing to think about checking yourself into inpatient care.  But I’d rather “nip it in the bud” (to quote Barney Fife) than let something run amok and out of control.  I know the darkness of which I speak, and I would rather no one else have to go through anything as I have had to endure.

 

 

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 36

At the moment I am posting this from a hospital.  Work has obligated me to focus on other matters this evening.  So there won't be a regular blog post, not like I would have wanted it to be anyway.  Just the nature of things.  Maybe there'll be something more to write tomorrow.  Until then, take care and God bless.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 35

Not too much to report this evening.  It was a fairly busy day on the job.  Peer support certainly does not lack for drama!

I didn't know what to post tonight until I read some sad news.  Bill Fries passed away a few days ago at the age of 94.  He was an ad executive who started acting in his own commercials as the character he created, C.W. McCall. Then he decided to have his fictional character become a singer and he sang about life as a trucker.

So he was an executive pretending to be an actor who was pretending to be a singer who was pretending to be a trucker. That's a lot of mileage out of one character!

In memory of Bill Fries aka C.W. McCall, and in honor of all the one-hit wonders of the Seventies, here is "Convoy":

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 34

I know what I want to write.  And it is wonderful.  The problem is that I'm not quite "all there" tonight.  Blame seasonal allergies and Yours Truly trying some exotic antihistamines yesterday that kept me up all night.  I worked through the day (and drove almost seventy miles in the course of duties) with barely a break.  And I'm still hoping to catch tonight's championship game...

(For this occasion alone, I will root for University of North Carolina.  Gotta cheer for the home team.)

But I'll give it a shot.

I have known all along about surrendering to God.  At least, that's the head knowledge.  The heart of the matter however, that is something else.  It takes almost a supreme effort to lay down our hopes and dreams, giving them to God, and letting Him make of them what He will.

I had to let go of some things that I wanted.  And instead, I had to make do with the things that I already have.  But in making an inventory of that, I found that I was very blessed indeed.  I have my dog Tammy.  We have shelter and food to eat.  I have a car (it's got over 200,000 miles on it but still going fine).

My mind is my own again.  And I think that this exercise of blogging for Lent has been wildly productive.  It has brought me back into the realm of writing on a regular basis.  In the past few weeks I've written my first short story in almost four years.

I have a job that I love, that lets me help people on a daily basis.  As of this week I've been at it for three years.  Once upon a time that would have been impossible.

It's a really neat trick: start making yourself thankful for what you have, no matter how little it may seem.  Don't even think about what you lack.  Just be happy, knowing that you have been cared for by God.  And I have to believe that this applies to any living situation, no matter how dire.

I had to shut up and appreciate what I have, in order for God to get to work.

And lately, He has been doing a work in my life that I could not believe, though it be told me (to paraphrase Habakkuk 1:5).

It only took me two and a half decades to understand.  I suppose better late than never though, aye?

I may have something more to share in the coming days, along this line of thought.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 33

So, Duke fell to North Carolina last night.  I now have no one to cheer for in this tournament.  Kansas always seemed too overhyped to me, and they beat Villanova yesterday.  Or maybe I'll root for UNC tomorrow night just because they're still from my neck of the woods.

Mike Krzyzewski made a mistake in announcing his retirement well before the season.  He should have waited until after the tournament.  Instead he made this entire season about himself and his ego.  When it should have been about the players and the program in general.  He fell victim to hubris, and I really thought more of him.

Even so, let's never forget that he contributed a lot to the game. Mock him all one wants, but the man deserves respect.

Okay, that's everything substantive I have to say today.  Currently I'm enduring hay fever and all kinds of exotic antihistamines are floating around inside my biochemistry, working hard to keep the mast cells from unloading their allergy-induced contents.  So I'm feeling pretty hopped-up at the moment.

So since it's Sunday, and I haven't posted a Sesame Street sketch in a WAY long time, here is a timeless classic: Bert and Ernie in "Water Dripping"...

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Lenten Bloging 2022: Day 32

For the past six days we've been watching it like a hurricane, churning ever closer and gaining strength along the way.  It has become the perfect storm: nothing like this has happened before and nothing like it will ever happen again.  We are bracing for a collision of gargantuan proportions and no matter who wins it will be a battle for the ages.

Tonight, Duke plays North Carolina in the NCAA Basketball Tournament semifinal.

The two teams have never played each other in an NCAA tourney.  The last time Duke played Carolina was on their home court in Durham.  Coach Mike Krzyzewski's final home game and Carolina beat them by double digits.

Tonight could be Krzyzewski's final game ever.

I hope not.

I want to see him in the final on Monday night, playing against either Kansas or Villanova.

I want to see the Duke team giving their coach one last thrill.

Is there any other way to put it?

GO DUKE!!! :-)

 

 

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 31

So much that could be said.  Today was one of extremes.  In the midst of my joys there was a time of sadness, and I was reminded of just how very different things could have been, had the circumstances of my life been a little altered.

When my dog Tammy and I were traveling west across America, we spent a few months in San Diego.  I figured that we had gone as far west as we could, might as well try to stay.  So we were there from Thanksgiving until March.

I'll never forget all of the homeless people that I saw there.  And very nearly all of them obviously with mental illness of some kind or another.

I suppose I was homeless too, although I still had a car loaded with the essentials, waiting to be unpacked wherever our new home was going to be.  I had a warm hotel room to return to.  I was never close to being on the street, not knowing where the next meal was coming from.

But had things gone different, it could have been me.  Alone.  Driven mad from a lack of counseling and medication.  Far from where I started in an alien city.

"There but for the grace of God..."

I had to say goodbye to my most longtime client today.  He was the first person I started working with as a peer support specialist.  He is in a place where he'll most likely be at for the rest of his life.  He can't take care of himself.  He has no family or friends to help him.  He's getting psychiatric services there, so he doesn't need me or my team anymore.

I had to tell a 69 year old man today that I couldn't see him anymore and he broke down crying and it's been haunting me all day.

Amid this, there is the other end of the spectrum:

I think God may have led me to someone very special.

And I am looking forward to watching how things go between us.

More soon. 

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