mental health

  • Justice and Mental Health

    Justice and Mental Health

    I’ve completed the health screening for my new part time renal care job. I have latent TB and completed a course of rifampin to ensure I never develop an infection and that always raises eyebrows when you do patient care, so I had to bring all my documentation for that and hope they don’t make

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  • Sleepless

    Sleepless

    From Sunday to Tuesday, I slept two hours. This was shocking to the group in IOP on Monday. Today I finally got some real sleep but only after a couple hours of laying there, my mind going a million miles an hour. I was so tired, sleepy even, working myself to exhaustion and intentionally staying

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 8, Distress Tolerance

    I’m already at my two month mark for IOP. I can’t believe it. Today started the module I’ve been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to the most – distress tolerance. As Dr Black and the therapist in IOP explain it – emotion regulation is for day to day life and utilizing coping skills. Distress tolerance

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  • Suicide Bill

    Suicide Bill

    I had a good laugh yesterday when a letter from the mental hospital came. I was curious at first, wondering what on earth they could have to write me about, as opposed to email or call. A survey? I did one of those at discharge. A follow up to see how I’m doing? No, it

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 7, Wise Mind, Gratitude

    I can’t believe it, but I finished week seven of intensive outpatient DBT therapy today. The focus is mindfulness for the next few weeks, peppered with shorter concepts to bolster the much larger concept of mindfulness. Today that was gratitude and the “wise mind.” Our minds exist on spectrums. On one end is the strictly

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 7, Mindfulness

    I had to duck out of IOP early today – my lack of a need for sleep finally seemed to be catching up with me. I worked two extra shifts Friday and Saturday nights, trying to expend the energy in a productive manner, and only slept a few hours Sunday before coming back in for

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  • Hypomania, IOP assessment

    Hypomania, IOP assessment

    Trying to sum up the last few days is difficult. My mind has been all over the place, my energy high, my libido even higher. We closed out emotion regulation in IOP, the end of week six for me. Riley the therapist wanted to see me after. I’m at roughly the one-month mark and it

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 6, Emotion Regulation, Cope Ahead

    I can hardly believe it, but I am nearly half completed with IOP. That comes with a lot of feelings – I’m worried I have not learned and properly incorporated the material enough or as well as the others, and I’m scared at the thought of being cut loose. I have to do this, I

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  • “Knock knock…nursing!”

    “Knock knock…nursing!”

    I am exhausted! But I am also damn good at what I do. I didn’t mean to be, it just happened organically. I’ve been at my local VA hospital as a lowly CNA for ten years, with the help of supported employment and a case manager. I started working for an agency back in January

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  • Opposite of Emotion

    Opposite of Emotion

    Opposite of emotion – when feeling distressing emotions, practice a behavior that is opposite to that emotion or feeling. When depressed, force yourself to distract, go for a walk, listen to music, talk to someone (damn near impossible for me but I’m working on it). That was today’s IOP DBT skill. I felt overwhelmed in

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