poverty

Poverty is a stark reality for many, many people who are challenged by severe and persistent mental illness. If your illness is debilitating to such a degree that you cannot work, what do you do? What are your options? I learned first-hand in 2007 what having a mental illness can do to one’s livelihood.

In 2007 I had my worst breakdown. I stopped being able to function at work and to some degree at home. I could no longer work 45-50 hours a week and earn the only income my young son and I had. Our household was devastated. But even in that devastation I was luckier than most. I was making a good salary and had outstanding benefits. So when the symptoms of my mental illness became unmanageable, I had short term disability to fall back on. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing at all. It was a third of my biweekly salary, which kept food on the table, but I still had to borrow from family to pay the rent and other expenses. Most of which I was never able to pay back.

I was also fortunate that I was given social security disability on the first try. Most people apply three or four times before they get it and it can take sometimes years. For me it was different, by the time my short term disability ran out, the SSDI had kicked in. Most SSDI recipients receive less than $1k per month to live on. The amount is based in part on how much you are earning at the time you become disabled. How anyone is expected to live on this is beyond me. For those who are only eligible for SSI, the amount is about $700 per month. This drastically limits where they can live, how well they can eat and the general quality of their lives. So for those who think relying on the government when you are sick is a walk in the park, think again.

These limitations make it extremely easy for some ill-intentioned predators to take advantage of us. If we have be designated a payee, someone who controls how our benefits are spent, then we are at their mercy. They decide how much food we can buy, where we live (usually a group home or rooming house), and what we do with whatever is leftover when the bills are paid-if there is anything left over. They decide how many packs of cigarettes we can have for the month, if we will have access to public transportation and if we will have enough toiletries to make it to the end of the month. Mental illness or not, we are still adults and should be treated with respect and dignity. We should be afforded choice, not treated like children just because we need support managing our lives.

As I’ve said, I’ve been extremely fortunate. My payee was my sister who afforded me choice and never made a decision about me without me. As soon as I was able and she supported me in managing my money and my affairs. She encouraged me to make my own decisions and be self-sufficient. Her encouragement gave me the confidence to continue taking care of myself and my son.

But everyone’s experience is different. We who live with mental illness and are disabled or limited in how much income we can earn, have difficult choices to make. We often choose between meds and paying the bills. Amenities that many take for granted like access to the internet, personal vehicles, personal computers, or cell phones are often out of reach. I’m really talking about the quality of one’s life on a day to day basis.  Just being able to go to the movies or take a day trip or get your nails done are more than some of us can afford.

This life of lack, where sometimes even the basic life necessities are absent certainly has an effect on our mood, our symptoms, out stress levels and our ability to cope. Add to that the never ending hoops we have to jump through to maintain our cash and medical benefits from SSI and SSDI. Random reviews of our medical conditions to make sure we are still sick enough to receive benefits. Limitations on the amount of income we can earn when we finally get to a point that we want to try to work again (that’s not an option for everyone.)

Then there is the convoluted process of trying to pull oneself out of poverty and get off of SSI or SSDI. Do you write a letter to the government agency that has been supporting you for years or do you call them? What if they don’t stop payments when you request them to stop? Are you liable for the overpayment? If you are liable, what’s the likelihood that you can pay it back? It’s a never ending cycle that can cause hopelessness and dependence and despair.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I can tell you first hand that the system that is in place isn’t working. Too many of us are suffering unnecessarily in silence and alone. There needs to be stricter penalties for payees that abuse their power and landlords who overcharge for rooming houses. And there needs to be a more universal process for starting and stopping benefits (you can call the SSA three times with the same question and get three different answers.)

Maybe the answer is greater self-advocacy by those living with mental illness. Maybe the answer lies in mass letter writing and petition campaigns for dramatic change to occur. Maybe change will come when our supporters stand up and let their voices be heard. Or, maybe it will take a revolution of individuals quietly and consistently respecting the dignity of every person challenges by mental illness.

walking the talk

Self-talk is a common theme for those of us in recovery from severe and persistent mental illness. But what does it really mean in the day to day life of someone living with a mental illness? It can be the difference between a life of misery and a life of hope.

Self-talk are those automatic thoughts or statements we make about ourselves. They are based on our past experiences, beliefs about ourselves and even our fears. The most dangerous kind of self-talk is negative and comes from a lack of self-awareness. We think or say these unflattering things about ourselves before we have had a chance to even consider the reality of our circumstances.

My favorite negative self-talk thought/statement is “I’m so lazy.” In my rational mind I know it’s not true. I know the truth is that I work hard everyday to do my job well, take care of myself and my family, contribute to the community, etc. However, this fallacy continues to find its way into my thoughts, conversations, etc.  It haunts me like a nagging tooth ache. And worse, it guides my actions.

One missed deadline or undone load of laundry and it rears its ugly head. So what do I in response? I beat myself up for not living up to some unrealistic expectation and then work twice as hard to live up to some unrealistic expectation. The reality is that as a single mom who works full time and has a mental illness, I’m doing pretty well and I’m not lazy. If the negative thought or statement were only that, we might be okay. However, when we start making decisions based on negative self-talk or begin to feel bad that is when we get into trouble.

What I try to do is process my negative self-talk like this. If I am feeling bad about myself or a situation, I stop and ask myself “what have I been thinking about?” If I can identify the thought that invariably precedes the negative feeling then I can do a reality check. So if for example I am feeling bad about not being able to buy my kid something, the preceding thought might be that I am a bad mother. Well a reality check shows the opposite. A reality check is the statement “I am a support system for my son, I give when I can and he has never wanted for anything he needed.” Therefore I’m a pretty good mom.

That last part is essential. I replace the negative self-talk with a statement that counters it. It takes practice and determination to fight negative self-talk. When I first started using this technique I would feel awkward, kind of like a phony because I would repeat the statements but I didn’t always believe them.   The great thing is you don’t have to believe them right off. After a while you will grow to believe them through repetition--- just like you did the negative self-talk.

Negative self-talk is a product of low self-esteem. If you listen carefully to it you can probably trace it back to a disapproving parent, unsupportive teacher, a bully, or our own deeply entrenched insecurities. But we have a choice in what we take to heart and act on. We can succumb to the thoughts and words that stunt our growth, prevent us from living a life of our choosing or we can fight it. In the midst of our mental health challenges and our life challenges we can choose to fight.

I don’t mean to suggest that severe mental illnesses like depression can be overcome by simply changing one’s thoughts. That would discount the devastating effects of the symptoms of mental illness. What I am saying is that we have more control over our mood and actions than we give ourselves credit for. To live the life we want to live we have to use our minds and our voices to bring that life into existence. I speak positivity into my life even when I’m not feeling it, even when my symptoms flare up, even when my circumstances would have me believe that things won’t go my way.

I would love to learn about other methods and strategies to counter negative self-talk. Please comment below.

stigma

Stigma is an insidious force in our world. It lies and frightens. Stigma creates division and victimizes the most vulnerable of people. Stigma at its core is ignorance. We fear what we don’t understand. It’s not just external, not just the stereotypes and misconceptions that are thrust upon those living with mental illness. It’s also internal, the untruths we grow to believe about ourselves.

The negative effects of stigma are dangerous. People with severe and persistent mental illness are not deaf to the jokes that run rampant in our society about mental illness. How many times have you heard someone joke that a person or situation was bipolar? Without knowing what these psychiatric labels really mean, we as a culture assign inaccurate attributes to people with mental illness that are far from flattering. This insensitivity to the suffering of others causes people who need help and compassion to shy away; to suffer in silence.

People struggling with mental illness often won’t get the help they need and deserve because of the fear of what others will think or say about them. If you see a therapist and psychiatrist that means you have issues or are crazy right? If you take medication to manage a chemical imbalance in your brain that means you are volatile, unstable, or dangerous right? What about the labels we get when we have a mental illness? Am I more likely to go on a shooting spree because I have been labeled schizophrenic?

The truth is people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victimized and taken advantage of than they are to victimize someone else. However, the media would have you believe that every violent attacker or perpetrator of a mass shooting had a mental illness. The first thing they say is that anyone who would commit such a heinous crime must be mentally ill. That’s just not the case. Isn’t it possible that the kind of people who commit these crimes are just criminal, bigoted, hateful and bent on the destruction of other people?

On a personal note, I have faced stigma in the work place and suffered trepidation at disclosing my diagnosis in my community. In 2007 my symptoms became unmanageable and I asked for assistance and help from my supervisor. He joked that something had better be done before I kill myself. Because everyone with a mental illness is suicidal right? I was in crisis and that flippant remark stung. If I had been a cancer patient would a joke like that have seemed appropriate to him?

So, in my mind the solution to the negative effects of stigma is education. People who have mental illness and those who support people with mental illness must take it upon themselves to educate the world one person at a time. We must resist the temptation to hide our illness and our struggles. We must be transparent and let people who have no experience with mental illness walk with us on our journey.  We need to attach a face to mental illness that can counter the one the media has put forth. This will take courage, determination and patience.