Serendipity

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I tried to enter therapy in the summer of 1996 with a guy who saw patients on Staten Island on the weekends.

The health insurance plan authorized only five visits because I had a preexisting condition: I was diagnosed with schizophrenia so the health plan wouldn’t allow me to see a therapist.

At the second visit I told Dr. B that I was in danger of losing yet another job in the insurance field. Miraculously, he told me he was a career counselor to upper level executives in Manhattan Monday to Friday. He told me he would do vocational assessment with me so that I could find a better job.

Dr. B gave me the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and gave me vocational quizzes to answer. By the fifth and last session he gave me career options to consider. That’s how I decided to go back to school to get a Masters in Library and Information Science.

Accepted at all three library schools I chose Pratt Institute and graduated in June 2000 with an M.S.

I’ll always be grateful for this random accident in meeting a therapist who turned out to be a career counselor.

This experience has influenced me to champion that a person diagnosed with a mental illness gets practical career counseling right from the start of their recovery.

Square pegs shouldn’t be forced into round holes:  This happened when the OVR state agency counselor in 1989 shunted me into training to become a secretary because I was female. No useful vocational assessment was given to me.

Imagine that: the health insurance plan told a person diagnosed with an emotional illness that she couldn’t see a therapist. You must remember that the Affordable Care Act guarantees that everyone can buy insurance even those of us with preexisting conditions.

I kid you not. I was denied therapy. And like I said miraculously I was able to get career counseling instead of therapy.

Ever since I started looking for my first job in 1990 I’ve had an unusual interest in creating resumes to help people get jobs. One guy I helped got a job as a dentist. A woman got a supervisor job. Another woman got a job as a secretary.

You should absolutely check in with your local neighborhood library to see if a librarian at a branch in their system helps people create resumes.. This is a free service that doesn’t cost you a dime. Check it out.

I would like to send a letter or e-mail to Dr. B telling him I’m eternally grateful that he was the catalyst in speeding up my route to having a better life outcome.

I will talk in future blog entries about finding the work you love and would be good at.

Added Attraction – Extra Blog Entry

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I wanted to publish an extra blog entry today after having read an Atlantic magazine news article on Twitter. It quoted research that 70 to 80 percent of individuals living with schizophrenia want to work and think they’re capable of working.

The Atlantic article said it’s their doctors who tell their patients they can’t work. I have in these various incarnations of my blog for the last nine years railed against the mental health staff who have a dim view of what patients diagnosed with schizophrenia can do in their lives.

I have always championed that in my own life I recovered BECAUSE I found the jobs I love and that I’m good at. I wasn’t able to do these jobs because I had recovered. I will always claim that it is the other way around: I recovered only after I found the careers I loved.

In New York City: Baltic Street AEH, Inc. provides advocacy employment and housing for individuals with mental illnesses. Baltic Street has an employment agency with two locations in Brooklyn. The staff there help people get and keep jobs they like and would be good at too.

The day is here. Today is the day when not only it’s possible to recover it’s possible to have a full and robust life equal to people in society who don’t have mental illnesses.

If you are a mental health staff person I urge you to take the long view and consider that your clients can indeed work at some kind of job. It might not always be a JD or MD. It might be a job in Rite Aid. It could be as the CEO of a corporation like my friend was able to do.

I urge readers to consider doing what I do. My first thought is NOT “This is impossible” or “I won’t be able to do this.” My automatic thought is “How can I make this happen?”

If you have a goal of any kind–to get a job, to live in your own apartment, whatever–I’ll be the first to tell you that you have right inside yourself what you need to succeed.

And if you want to get a job you can go to your local neighborhood library and ask if at a branch in their system a librarian helps people create resumes. Resume help is available at libraries in Brooklyn, NY.

Turn over every stone. Be creative. If a solution isn’t immediately available, see what you can do differently using your own strengths and your external support system.

Remember: I’m confident when I tell readers that I recovered BECAUSE I found the jobs I love.

If you want to work, you deserve to try. I will devote more blog entries here to this topic in the future.

To Dare Greatly

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This is my all-time favorite quote. It’s a famous Theodore Roosevelt quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Gym Member Success Story

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I have some cheerful news:

Though I was not chosen for a member success story at the gym:

My story is going to be featured for the gym’s other upcoming social media and website promotions.

The review team responded to me thus:

“Your story was incredibly compelling and special” so the gym is saving my success story essay and photos for other upcoming social media and website promotions.

I’m sent a $25/gift card as a reward.

It’s not ever too late to change your life for the better.

I was 46 when I started to work out at the gym like a madwoman in training for the prizefight of her life. Before I was 46, I hadn’t lifted one single weight. Four years later when I was 50 I could dead lift 205 pounds.

This story I hope uplifts and inspires readers to make positive changes in your lives at any point in your recovery and your life.

The goal as ever is not for everyone to be able to do what I do.

The goal is for you to define what a happy and healthy life looks like for you and to go do that every day or as often as possible.

It isn’t over until we’re no longer here. While we’re here we have the right and duty to use our God-given gifts to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

God didn’t want us to love our neighbors before or instead of loving ourselves. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” often only happens once we start to like and more to the point love ourselves for who we are as human beings not what we’re able to do. Character counts more than any achievements.

Doing what’s healthy that makes us feel good is the goal. My intent in telling you this good news was to help readers see that success is not out of the question and that it might come later in life.

The milestones are different for each of us. The results we obtain for ourselves are not going to be the same either.

Yet perhaps readers can take from my story the idea and the hope that you can set a goal and achieve it.

Like all things it’s the effort that counts not the result.

Always try your best to do a little better each day.

It’s not ever too late to change your life for the better.

Like the posters on the wall at a gym beckon:

Don’t give up the fight. Reinvent yourself.

50 is the beginning of a better life not the end of our lives.

That’s my point exactly:

Do what makes you happy. Live your passion.

A long life to you!

Skinny Girl Lemon Swirl

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I bought a Skinny Girl brand Lemon Swirl power bar the other day. If memory serves it has whey protein.

I checked out the ingredients label and it appears that it doesn’t contain natural flavors or any other fake chemicals.

At the library I once scanned a Betheny Frankel diet book titled Get Skinny Forever or something ludicrous like that.

The section I read berated women for the food choices we make. That’s not going to motivate your readers to lose weight. I found that Frankel’s tone of voice in the book was hardly encouraging.

The idea that everyone has to be “skinny” is a myth if you ask me. I didn’t lose any weight after strength training going on five years now. Yet I did drop one pant and one skirt size because I gained muscle. So in that regard you could say I’m skinnier even though I didn’t lose weight.

The number on the scale shouldn’t dictate how we feel about ourselves. Maintaining a healthy weight rather than an unrealistically low weight is the better option if you ask me. Kate Moss’s body is not the kind of genetic anomaly any of us should aspire to have.

I see woman at the gym. Their arms and legs are sticks and they lift puny 15 pound kettlebells. That’s their thing so be it. Yet I recommend lifting heavier weights as you go along to develop more muscle to burn fat at a greater rate.

My mantra now is “abs and arms.”

I will be on the lookout for healthier snacks like the Skinny Girl Lemon Swirl bars.

I’ll report back in here on what I find.

I bid readers peace happiness and health this summer.

Relax: you don’t have to be skinny.

Bring Strength to Life

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I want to recommend a new gym in Brooklyn: Brooklyn Health and Performance.

The owners motto is that the gym staff help members “bring strength to life.” Their website encourages us to Be Determined. Never Quit.

The trainer tailors your routines to your individual needs and uses industry standards in creating routines. Unlike other gyms that offer a cookie-cutter approach to training.

It’s well worth it to consider joining Brooklyn Health and Performance if you live in the area.

I’m not getting paid to promote this gym either so don’t be fooled into thinking I’m gaining money.

You get what you pay for when you join a gym..

The gym is one of the only places in society where effort=outcome because you’re competing against yourself and no one else. In the gym the playing field is truly level.

Elsewhere if you compete against another person you might not win. When you compete against yourself you always win.

I’ll end here by saying that the goal is to strive to do a little better each day than each of us did yesterday.

A Bone to Pick

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I recommend the Mark Bittman book A Bone to Pick that collects his columns and essays on food and agriculture.

He should win a Nobel Prize for his rigorous intelligent and rational thinking on the topic.

My contention is that a person should stay away from chemical-laden processed foods and foods with sugar and added sugars. If you do that you’re well on your way to being in better health. Plus not eating meat is also a better option for our health and for the planet.

Pesticides contaminate groundwater. They cause cancer. Industrial agriculture is far from sustainable even though Monsanto is now claiming it is in magazine and TV advertisements. Or was it DuPont or Synerga claiming industrial agriculture is sustainable. Either way those claims are false.

Kind bars I found out have “natural flavors” that are actually fake chemicals.

The equation is simple: garbage in equals garbage out. I care too much for the planet and for everyone living on it to advocate for “business as usual” in farming practices.

If you live in New York City or Philadelphia I recommend shopping online from FreshDirect because you have tons of healthful food choices like Amy’s Organic. Amy’s offers black beans and quinoa, lentil soup with low sodium, tofu and hash browns, and vegetable lasagna. All these prepackaged healthful food are perfect to heat in the oven when you come home from the gym and are too tired to cook. Or when you simply don’t have the energy to cook.

I do not recommend a “garbage in, garbage out” lifestyle or way of thinking.

At HealthCentral I will continue to write about strategies for living a full and robust life when you have a diagnosis. Stay tuned there for new news articles I have planned through January.

Start Where You Are

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I read a transcript of the Colin Powell TED Talk 2012.

This guy is a genius. I thought I always remembered that Powell said he used to be a janitor and that even today he could mop floors with the best of them.

This story might be apocryphal yet I seem to remember it’s true and that’s why I was always impressed with this great leader.

In his TED talk he laughs about getting a “straight C everywhere” in school. It wasn’t until he joined the ROTC in college that his life took off and he found his true calling.

Take this from Colin Powell:

“And I say to young kids everywhere, as you’re growing up and as this structure is being developed inside of you, always be looking for that which you do well and that which you love doing, and when you find those two things together, man, you’ve got it. (my italics) That’s what’s going on. And that’s what I found. I tell young people everywhere, it ain’t where you start in life, it’s what you do with life that determines where you end up in life. (my italics)”

No kidding. You could most likely watch Colin Powell’s TED talk on YouTube.

Truer words couldn’t have been spoken. This is the real deal: that it doesn’t matter if you’re diagnosed with schizophrenia when you’re 22. The future can be better.

Indeed 30-year long-term studies show that individuals diagnosed with this illness are often productive members of society living, loving, working, and playing well alongside people who don’t have mental illnesses.

I’m confident when I say that no one who’s 22 thinks about what their life is going to be like when they’re 50.

Hey: I’m 50 now. And I can honestly tell you: the view from here is beautiful.

I’m also confident when I tell you not to give up and not to quit. My life took a detour early on yet I had the courage to go back to school to try something different.

You might not find your true calling until you’re 35 like I did and that’s OK.

The view from here is beautiful.

Healthy Habits

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The term is “laundry list” if memory serves for a long list of items that a person must have or that they require another person to have.

In the coming weeks in my companion Left of the Dial blog I will talk about stigma in detail and why I think it’s a mistake to value only jobs that contribute to the economic stream in society.

I have a short laundry list of what I require to be happy: books and writing, art, music, my apartment, and the gym routines.

Years ago I read a book whose author told readers to list their 5 Commitments in life and why they were the focus of your life.

Cut out the extraneous busywork that doesn’t mesh with your life values. Refrain from getting caught up in doing whatever everyone asks of you at the expense of doing the things that please your soul.

In recovery as in life the secret to success is developing a routine and streamlining the things you need to do. My motto years ago was: “If it doesn’t fit, I can’t commit.”

Julie Morgenstern–the organization and time management expert–uses the analogy of a closet. She likens the available time in a person’s week to the space in a closet: it’s only able to fit a certain amount of activities like a closet fits only certain clothes.

The corollary to getting the things done that you absolutely must get done is that developing habits to get you going helps you succeed. Twyla Tharp–the esteemed dancer–wrote a book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.

She recounted getting dressed to go the gym; hailing a taxi to go there; counting out the money and paying the driver; and entering the gym.

I find that employing habits that make it easier to do certain things is indeed the secret to success.

The rituals we engage in before taking action can help us do the things we have to do.

This is one strategy I wanted to write about. I’ll write about other strategies in the coming weeks.

Goal-Setting

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The first goal I ever had was to achieve a perfect score in gym class when I was a freshman in high school.

I could barely do 10 sit-ups in one minute. The highest possible score was to do 50 sit-ups in one minute. Shortly after, I could do 50 sit-ups in one minute.

I make the case for engaging in goal-directed behavior when you’re newly-diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar or another mental illness.

No one should have to languish for years and years in mental distress and emotional hell before they get better.

Hell-and-heartache doesn’t have to be the norm for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. You don’t have to keep revolving in and out of hospitals. You don’t have to spend your life on back wards.

Setting goals is the secret to getting your life back on track without any unnecessary delay.

I’m a fan of resilience: moving quickly into having as normal a life as you possibly can. To have a life where you can go to school or have a job and live in your own apartment. Not a life where you’re strung along for years and years in a day program with no progress in sight.

Indeed, time-sensitive rehabilitation has always been thought to be the better option. You don’t want to lose hope because there are endless hoops that you have to jump through higher and higher just to get halfway to where others are.

I’m grateful to the person who reviewed my memoir Left of the Dial for the NAMI Advocate newsletter that arrived in this month to members.

The reviewer noted I had “ambition.” As true as that statement was, I find though that if I didn’t have a mental illness, wanting to have a full-time job and live in my own apartment would be seen as ordinary not ambitious.

I hope that one day achieving our goals as individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses is seen as natural, ordinary, and possible. Not as an impossible feat.

I urge everyone reading this blog to shoot for the stars and settle for the moon if you must. Sometimes, getting to the moon is perfectly fine.

It’s 2015: high time-and the tide has come in high-for individuals with mental illnesses to take risks to do whatever it is we want to achieve in life.

Traveling to the South of France? Publishing a book? Becoming a tax accountant? Having a gallery showing in SoHo?

Yes. Yes. And Yes to all that.

I dream a day when all of this is hardly unusual.