Mental Health Mondays #4

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The American Psychiatric Association defines "panic disorder" as:

Panic disorder affects about 2.4 million adult Americans and is twice as common in women as in men. A panic attack is a feeling of sudden terror that often occurs with a pounding heart, sweating, nausea, chest pain or smothering sensations and feelings of faintness or dizziness. Panic disorder frequently occurs in addition to other serious conditions like depression, drug abuse, or alcoholism. If left untreated, it may lead to a pattern of avoidance of places or situations where panic attacks have occurred. In about a third of cases, the threat of a panic attack becomes so overwhelming that a person may become isolated or housebound—a condition known as agoraphobia. Panic disorder is one of the most treatable of the anxiety disorders through medications or psychotherapy. Early treatment of panic disorder can help prevent agoraphobia.

Think of panic disorder as a series of panic attacks and fear of having a panic attack that leads you to change your routine or activities in order to avoid having a panic attack.

As with a lot of conditions, there are times when it is normal and even healthy to feel fear.  The problem arises when the fear leads you to avoid certain situations because you are afraid of having a panic attack.  Say you are in a bank and it gets robbed.  Fear.  Completely natural in this situation.  Panic attack?  Not beyond the page.  If you never go into a bank again because you feel none of them are safe ... it might be time to seek help.

All this being said, let me admit I do not like going shopping at WalMart with my husband and children when our shopping list is long.  For one thing, it is usually on a weekend day when the place is packed.  When I see things pile up in the cart, I add up the money being spent in my head and worry about having enough to get us through the rest of the month.  I get really quiet.  I try to split the list to speed up the whole process.  My kids start asking me if I'm ok.

Do I still go with my family to Wally World?  Sure do.  Do I still wish the overall experience was more pleasant?  SURE do.

I am not a medical professional.  I am not qualified either to diagnose or treat mental illness.  But I can relate my experiences, encourage others to seek help if they feel they need it and state that there is no shame in doing so.  There are resources out there to get the help patients need and deserve.

Come back next week when I cover various treatments which may be prescribed for panic disorder.

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RULES:

1.  Please snag the button code from above and place it in your post.

2.  If you are a "hater", I'm sure there are places you can go to get what you want, but this link-up is not one  of them.  If you will not play nice with others, you will go home before milk and cookies on the Porch.

3.  A social media follow or two and/or a subscription would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, but not required.

4.  Posts should have some sort of relation to a mental health topic, but other than that it's wide open.

5.  Spreading the news about this new meme would be greatly appreciated!

Have a great week, leave a comment and join us again next Monday.  Ooooh, and tell your friends!

MENTAL HEALTH MONDAYS #3

One of the misfortunes of suffering from a mental illness is that people think you are not capable of accomplishing much, or improving yourself, or achieving as much as "normal" people.

Quite a number of celebrities and outstanding members of society have gone public with the fact that they suffer from mental illness(es).  Among them are:

Catherine Zeta-Jones - ACTRESS
Mel Gibson - ACTOR
Brooke Shields - ACTRESS
John Nash - NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR ECONOMICS 1994
Carrie Fischer - ACTRESS
Emma Thompson - ACTRESS
Herschel Walker - HEISMANN TROPHY WINNER
Michael Phelps - OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST - SWIMMING
Howard Hughes - MOVIE PRODUCER AND AVIATOR
Paula Deen - CULINARY ENTREPRENEUR
Elton John - MUSICIAN
Craig Ferguson - TALK SHOW HOST
Margot Kidder - ACTRESS
Sinead O'Connor - MUSICIAN
Kurt Cobain - MUSICIAN
Sir Isaac Newton - MATHEMATICIAN
George III - KING OF ENGLAND
Ludwig von Beethoven - COMPOSER
Abraham Lincoln - 16 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Leo Tolstoy - AUTHOR
Camille Claudel - SCULPTOR/GRAPHIC ARTIST
Vincent van Gogh - PAINTER/ARTIST
Winston Churchill - PRIME MINISTER

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Quote of the Week:

“When you go to the hospital with a physical illness, people send flowers,” writes Elyn Saks. “When you go to a mental hospital with a mental illness, they don’t," Elyn Saks, legal scholar and professor at USC; author of "The Center Cannot Hold".


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RULES
1.  Please place this button in your post:

<a href="http://www.backporchervations.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKl-EbqRPUF1FhpX52rRshecj-04cE68yNkj-0Bbw6wOd9LB57zLygpvNR6MVDXu4Ika2TiD0BMVpxTMNIFkZsYfBu68MhvZ0-lPkP-Uownc1Xw73i6oWH2RBOZJ0F_ChYE0CZZIFQWO8/s1600/Mental+Health+Mondays.jpg" width="125" height="125" alt="Back Porchervations"/></a>

2.  If you are a "hater", I'm sure there are places you can go to get what you want, but this link-up is not one of them.  If you will not play nice with others, you will go home before milk and cookies on the Porch. 3.  A social media follow or two and/or a subscription would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, but not required. 4.  Posts should have some sort of relation to a mental health topic, but other than that it's wide open. 5.  Spreading the news about this new meme would be greatly appreciated!

Have a great week, leave a comment and join us again next Monday.  Ooooh, and tell your friends!

Mental Health Mondays #2

In one of the most stunning moments of self-awareness in my (then) young life, I told my Mother that I thought my inability to keep my room orderly was a reflection of the way I felt inside.  She begrudgingly took me to see an LCSW (Licensed Clinical  Social Worker), whom my Mother would regularly call demanding to know the content of our sessions.  Thank goodness the woman refused.

Later,  once I was married and had two children, I went to the Women's Center of Tarrant County in Fort Worth, TX, where we lived, ostensibly for assistance in finding a job.  I wound up getting once a week sessions on the "counseling side".  Many such organizations, this one included, have fees that work on a sliding scale, so they can still help you even if you have low-income.  Once I got assigned a case-worker on the employment side, I expressed my difficulties in interviewing for a job based on my depression.  Her response was, "Well, you just have to stop."  Oh, if it were only that easy.

One barrier to a "normal" life for those of us with mental health issues is a feeling of shame associated with our diseases.  Some of this feeling is self-imposed.  Some comes from society around us.  Nearly all of it is because of a lack of knowledge or education.  

We are familiar with many so-called physical diseases.  Most people know what diabetes or cancer is and have at least a passing knowledge of their treatments and some sensitivity to changes in outward appearance for sufferers of those maladies.  There seems to be a feeling that a physical disease is something that has happened to or been done to a patient, that it must be understood and a cure must be found.  I agree.  Being ill (physically or mentally) SUCKS!  Unfortunately, for mental illnesses, the feeling is much more that this is something that the sufferer should be able to fix by themselves and they are just ... I don't know, really, lazy or something.

In order to affect a change in this inequality, I think spreading knowledge about the realities of mental health is in order.  There are many sites on the internet that can help.  Admittedly, most of these are based in the US.  I would welcome people from other countries listing resources found in their homelands.

Here is a listing of some of the larger mental health organizations in the United States:

1.  National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

2.  Mental Health America (MHA)

3.  National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

All provide a wealth of information, no matter what your particular mental health issue is.  If you feel you need assistance with a mental health concern, please to not hesitate to contact one of these organizations, or one of the numerous state or local agencies.  There is no need to suffer alone, or in silence.

"RULES"

1.  Please put this button in your post:

<a href="http://www.backporchervations.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKl-EbqRPUF1FhpX52rRshecj-04cE68yNkj-0Bbw6wOd9LB57zLygpvNR6MVDXu4Ika2TiD0BMVpxTMNIFkZsYfBu68MhvZ0-lPkP-Uownc1Xw73i6oWH2RBOZJ0F_ChYE0CZZIFQWO8/s1600/Mental+Health+Mondays.jpg" width="125" height="125" alt="Back Porchervations"/></a>

2.  If you are a "hater", I'm sure there are places you can go to get what you want, but this link-up is not one of them.  If you will not play nice with others, you will go home before milk and cookies on the Porch. 3.  A social media follow or two and/or a subscription would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, but not required. 4.  Posts should have some sort of relation to a mental health topic, but other than that it's wide open. 5.  Spreading the news about this new meme would be greatly appreciated!

Have a great week, leave a comment and join us again next Monday.  Ooooh, and tell your friends!

Mental Health Mondays #1

PURPOSE:  to reduce some of the stigma associated with mental illness by talking about it more...in public.

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Mental Health Mondays is my freshwoman foray into the world of hosting a blog link-up. Mental Health has been an interest/concern/passion of mine for most of my adult life. One of the gifts I received at the onset of puberty was a tendency towards depression.  I call it a gift, because without having dealt with depression for nearly 40 years now, I would have become a much different person.

I'm not advocating that everyone go out and get them a bottle of depression at the corner pharmacy.  It is also a very frustrating condition.  Sometimes I get angry that I will probably have to take meds for this the rest of my life.  Then I am very grateful that these medications exist and I don't have to suffer.

I am also not off my rocker, a sandwich short of a picnic or not playing with all of my marbles. I don't own a rocker (although I'd like to); my picnics are never short of food and I do not discriminate between my marbles.

But don't call me normal, either.  That is also a dirty word at our house.  Differences can be celebrated.

Many people tend to treat someone with a mental illness as "less than human".  For four years, I worked with adults who had MR/DD (mental retardation and/or developmental disabilities) in a residential/teaching facility.  Most people  out and about were at least kind, but some people's behavior was just...bad.  I've seen people move to the opposite side of an aisle in a store, get up and move to a different table in a restaurant, and make inappropriate comments.

I even heard of one hospital ER staff making a comment, "Why don't they take 'them' to the vet where they belong?"  I cannot attest the veracity of that statement, but unfortunately it would not surprise me.  And it's probably a good thing I wasn't there.  One thing that job changed in me was an increased willingness to jump into the middle of confrontational situations.  If I had been there, the so-called medical professional would have been a patient in their own ER and I would probably be online from the prison library.

And a Humongous (I spell-checked) Mental Health Mondays Hug to Michael Garcia from Houston, a waiter who refused to serve a man who was making extremely rude comments about a family whose little boy has Down's Syndrome.

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"RULES"

1.  Please put this button in your post:

<a href="http://www.backporchervations.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKl-EbqRPUF1FhpX52rRshecj-04cE68yNkj-0Bbw6wOd9LB57zLygpvNR6MVDXu4Ika2TiD0BMVpxTMNIFkZsYfBu68MhvZ0-lPkP-Uownc1Xw73i6oWH2RBOZJ0F_ChYE0CZZIFQWO8/s1600/Mental+Health+Mondays.jpg" width="125" height="125" alt="Back Porchervations"/></a>
2.  If you are a "hater", I'm sure there are places you can go to get what you want, but this link-up is not one of them.  If you will not play nice with others, you will go home before milk and cookies on the Porch.
3.  A social media follow or two and/or a subscription would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, but not required.
4.  Posts should have some sort of relation to a mental health topic, but other than that it's wide open.
5.  As this link-up is BRAND new (TODAY!), spreading the word will bring you cosmic brownie points.  Well, maybe not, but I would really appreciate it!