Endless Mutual Cycle

We blame society but we are society.

I need motivation to heal. Let's imagine... if in a few weeks I am able to move my hands again... please give me a few ideas of what to paint then. 🙏 Before the illness, I was painting hyperrealistic portraits, nature, beautiful femme fatales, and super cute animals. Now, I barely type (extra slowly, extra frustrating). But maybe... if you challenge me, I will set it as an aim to overcome. I can't promise I will succeed in painting anything, but I want to take on the challenge of creating a few of the coolest artworks that might inspire me to push the boundaries of my illness. If you want to be a part of my challenge, and maybe even a part of my potential progress - please send me the most mesmerizing idea you have! 💡❤️

I hope this inspiration will re-spark my body to get better 🙏😊

Validation

🌟 As little babies, and then toddlers, our lives depend on validation. We need others to mirror and reflect what we feel, to know that each emotion is normal. We crave an explanation and mediation of these strange new sensations inside us—feelings. 💓

But if our surroundings never provided such validation or weren't capable of giving it, our need to feel seen and know that we are normal as we are faces a significant obstacle. 😢

However, my friend, it's never too late to learn to understand and believe to your body, your sensations, and your emotions, no matter how strange or strong they might feel. Even if they seem out of control, it might be because they, and the little you, haven't been seen for too long. 🥺

Upon learning to listen to ourselves, we first encounter some intense stuff. But with a tiny flame of hope and compassion, step by step, we might find relief—which is valuable for every part of your life that follows. 🌱 Sending you soft, loving validation, and know that with all your unique and different parts, you are normal as you are. To exist is to be a normal part of this life, just as you are. 💖 🌈🌸

For those of you who like the idea of peer respites, I just want to say these are not the only alternatives to the mainstream psych system :] Here's a big ol' list, and many/most of them are peer-run. I live in America, so a lot of this is US-based, but I've tried to make it as internationally accessible as possible!

I'll start with the live-in options. So ya'll already know about peer respites, if you read my latest post about it. There's a few more similar things out there.

Soteria Houses - More long-term (months+) community homes for folks with lived experience of psychosis/similar extreme states, with peer support, that focus on a humane and person-centered approach. Much more freedom & agency than your traditional group home.

Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center - a "medication-free" (aka medication-optional) psychiatric hospital in Norway. Allows patients to choose whether to stay on or taper/remain off psychiatric drugs. Focused on healthy eating, exercise, and recreational therapy options.

Bethel House - Similar to Soteria Houses, a homelike environment in Japan for people with schizophrenia, etc. that focuses on social reintegration.

Organizations, clubs, groups, etc:

Students With Psychosis - A peer support community with programming for students with psychosis

International Map of Hearing Voices/Intervoice networks - Non=pathological support groups for people who hear voices, see visions, etc. US directory, UK directory.

Clubhouse International - Gives people with mental illness opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, educational, and medical services all in one place. Founded by a group of friends who survived a psychiatric hospital together.

Project LETS - A radical approach to peer support and healing that has a disability justice centered approach, giving people with lived experience a voice and focusing on mutual aid. They provide peer mental health advocates, self-harm prevention, and more.

The Mad Society of Canada: A grassroots community of practice that brings together folks who want to provide non-coercive, ethical, survivor-informed mental health services/policy.

Power to the Plurals: Resources and events for people who identify as plural/multiple/systems.

The Wildflower Alliance: Grassroots peer support, training, and advocacy community based in Massachusetts.

Alternatives To Suicide (Alt2Su): Peer support groups that allow people to talk about suicidal thoughts without fear of being committed to the hospital, etc

Trainings:

Intentional Peer Support = Trauma-informed peer support training

Emotional CPR - Trauma-informed mental health support training program for the layperson

Hearing Voices Curriculum: Targeted towards mental health professionals to better understand the experience of hearing voices. Warning: It's expensive!

Cities that have a particularly awesome way of dealing with folks in crisis/with mental illness/etc:

Geel - a farming community where residents welcome people suffering with severe mental illness/distress into their homes and live with them, share work, etc (Edit: apparently Geel is a small city with like 40,000 people and not a farming community lol, I was misinformed. Thanks to @roxbot for the correction!)

Trieste - a city with a community centered system of care that integrates housing and peer support

Warmlines (generally run by peers) and Crisis Lines that don't call the cops: (Most of these are taken from this post by trans-axolotl on Crisis Lines)

Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860, 24/7

BlackLine: 1 (800) 604-5841, has texting options

The Plural Warmline (No number, check the site)

THRIVE: text message line at 313-662-8209, 24/7

Promise Resource Network: (833) 390-7728, 24/7

Project Return Peer Support Network: (888) 448-9777 English or (888) 448-4055 Spanish, hours are Monday through Friday 2:30 PM to 10:00 PM PST and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line: 888-407-4515, hours are 7pm to 9pm EST Monday through Thursday and 7pm-10pm EST Friday through Sunday

Key Consumer Organization: 800-933-5397, hours are 8am - 4:30pm EST, Monday - Friday.

MBRLC Peer Support Line:  877-733-7563, hours are 4 pm-7:45 pm EST every day. 

US Warmline Directory (unlikely to call cops, but check with the individual line first)

Misc:

CommonGround software - A software developed by Dr. Pat Deegan (an individual who was diagnosed with schizophrenia) that allows clients to communicate their needs to their doctors more efficiently to support shared-decision making with medication.

Open Dialogue- An psychosocial approach to psychiatric services that focuses shared decision-making and dialogue between client, providers, and family (if the client wants family involved), and often more minimal use of medication.

Integrative Psychiatry - A holistic form of psychiatry that focuses on nutrition, exercise, therapy, and psychosocial factors, where medication is just an aspect of treatment. US database of integrative psychiatrists here.

I will also give a somewhat honorable mention to Mobile Crisis Teams. They are a fairly new alternative to the usual "call the cops on your local mentally ill person". They are composed of nurses, therapists, social workers, occasionally peer support workers, etc. They hook the individual up with support/resources - which can often mean forced hospitalization/forced treatment FYI - but it is a step up from being killed by cops. Look up "[city] Mobile Crisis Team" to find out if there is one in your city.

A note: Something being on this list =/= it is perfect, just that it is an alternative to what we've got. So don't come at me, lmao. Feel free to add on if you know of anything else!

Grammar+fine tuning ☺️🤭🙂❤️

The Mosquito's Sting: A Tale of Boundaries Challenged

Once upon a time, in an enchanted kingdom, there was a mosquito that carried West Nile fever. This mosquito bit a wealthy man and a poor one, a Jew and an Arab, a white person and a black person, women and men, heterosexual cisgender and LGBTQ+ individuals. The story tells how people created protective barriers and divisions between themselves, but nature, in the form of the mosquito, pierced through these barriers and showed how easily something from each of them could seep into the other, revealing how arbitrary and temporary all these defenses and boundaries truly were.

The king of the kingdom ordered the mosquito to be locked in a golden cage and asked the wisest person in the kingdom, a little girl who understood the language of all animals, to talk to the mosquito. The girl listened to the mosquito's story and told the king the moral lesson that the mosquito had taught. Instead of punishing the mosquito, they made it an important minister in the kingdom. The royal physician healed the mosquito, and the kingdom's scientists transformed it into a beautiful prince.

The prince married the girl when she became old enough. She was the only one who saw the wisdom in the simple mosquito that had only come to sting. To everyone's surprise, as they did not know enough about science, it turned out that the mosquito was actually female. So, the wise girl ended up marrying a mosquito princess who loved to wear princes' clothes. The two of them lived happily ever after, a bit distanced from all other humans who were unwilling to give up the barriers and divisions that separated them.

When the people discovered that the mosquito was female and had married a woman, they wanted to punish her. However, the girl, who was once a wise child, ran away with the mosquito princess to the mountains. There, they lived happily, far from people's eyes and the fears that drove society. They listened to animals, studied life principles with them, trying to deeply understand their languages. Over the years, they published scientific papers that were meant to bring human society closer to their compassionate worldview, which looked broadly at life as one intertwined woven fabric.

Half Muslim Arab half Russian Jew on his way to the Olympics 😍

https://youtu.be/1bzJBwpvCkk?si=69IytMzL5pdMYSK4

Medical attention

About medical attention and being the first to believe to yourself.

Some of us form into ppl pleasers due to certain circumstances. Sometimes it is even hard to tell what do you feel if nobody believes you you feel this way. Than, if unfortunately you become ill, if nobody believes you... You might accidentally believe them instead of yourself. But our body is wise, and it gives emotional and physical signals to our brain with a reason! No one is living this life from your first day to your last day, in your shoes, in your skin - except YOU. You have the widest perspective on your life story. Only you live and feel the consequences of believing them and abandoning yourself. And it is not your fault, it is all you have known till that moment. Please forgive yourself, because... At any moment you have the choice to be the first human being on earth to believe you, to be by your side. I don't know if it would help, but I am alread believing you. Everything you have gone through, any emotion and sensation you have - it all makes perfect sense to me, it is important, it deserves to be seen and respected. So if you don't get the right medical attention, please don't stop searching for better options. Even if you need to pause for such long period of time to regain trust, to save money if possible... The moment you can, please keep moving forward, because YOU deserve to find those kind compassionate allies in life - who will care, who will listen, who will help without making you smaller than the equal human being you are. Because your essence is awsome and you deserve to get the help you need ❤️

(via "Anubis and the little fox " Magnet for Sale by Queueka)

i stole this from twitter