Saying Goodbye to Mental Health Services

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. October 10 is World Mental Health Day. In honor of this, many bloggers are writing about mental health this week. As a person with serious mental health challenges, I think I need to offer up my contribution too. However, mine will be a bit different, in that just last Tuesday I had my for now final appointment with a professional from a mental health service.

I did not usually share details of my less than stellar experiences with my psychiatric nurse practitioner on the blog, but let me say that my appointments, except for those concerning medication, over the past three years, have for the most part been useless. Maybe my expectations of an assertive community treatment team were too high. For those who don’t know, an assertive community treatment team is an outreach-based team that treats the most severely mentally ill, usually care-avoidant patients. As a result, a lot of the care they do is more like support and steering towards services than actual therapy. They do have a psychologist on the team, but the majority of clinicians are actually community psychiatric nurses.

Back when I got kicked out of the psych hospital in 2017, I did need such a team, as I needed lots of support in my daily life. However, once I’d moved into long-term care, maybe an assertive community treatment team wasn’t the most logical choice of treatment teams. And yet that’s where I ended up.

Not to say it’s all my or my referring agency’s fault. My nurse practitioner did flat out refuse to refer me anywhere else even when he should have realized he couldn’t provide the kind of treatment I needed. He also claimed we were doing “trauma treatment” by merely talking over my mental health struggles, which happen to be trauma-related, occasionally. In my opinion, it was neither specifically trauma-focused nor treatment.

Now I know that my staff and the behavior specialist at the care home are probably as capable as my mental health professionals were at helping me deal with my everyday instability. Neither can provide trauma-focused therapy, while both can provide a listening ear (my staff at my old care home at least often better than my nurse practitioner, in fact).

I did, of course, start my topiramate and pregabalin while in treatment with my now former mental health team. This I do credit the team’s psychiatrist hugely for. I don’t honestly think an intellectual disability physician would’ve been able to come up with this idea and I’m not sure a consulting psychiatrist would’ve gotten the idea either. Then again, now that I’m on a stable dose of both meds and only wanting to slowly decrease my aripiprazole, my agency’s intellectual disability physician can manage that.

All this combined got me to conclude that I don’t think I want mental health services anymore. If I or any of my current professionals ever change our minds, I can always get referred back to a mental health agency.

Gratitude List (May 6, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Friday of May. My husband and I always count the days from May 4 till May 8 as special days. May 6 is only special because Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician, was murdered on this day in 2002. Not really a cause to celebrate. Nonetheless, I’m doing a gratitude list today anyway. As usual, I’m linking up with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good talk with the behavior specialist on Tuesday. She was really understanding of my wish to eventually find a more suitable care home.

2. I am grateful I finally had a face-to-face meeting with my community psychiatric nurse again after several months. She’d been off work for a while and, before that, I had COVID and had to talk to her on the phone. I am so glad she’s back!

3. I am grateful my nurse practitioner called me on Tuesday, after I’d E-mailed him on Monday evening because I’d been in crisis. We will soon be planning a meeting with the behavior specialist too so that my nurse practitioner can get a more complete picture of my mental health.

4. I am grateful my husband’s car didn’t need replacing or repairing after all. The financial setback I mentioned last week, was related to his car. It made a weird sound, which could be the oil level, but could be a lot of other things, likely to be very expensive to repair. My husband was considering trading in the car if it wasn’t the oil level. Thankfully, that’s what it turned out to be.

5. I am grateful the store I bought the headphones at (the ones that stopped working after two weeks) finally sent off the headphones to the manufacturer. It took my staff making a phone call on Monday for them to send them out and another phone call for them to confirm they’d actually been sent out, but now I’m hoping they’ll be fixed soon.

6. I am grateful I am still allowed to borrow the headphones the Care Lab loaned us before I even originally ordered the ones that stopped working. You normally get to only keep products on loan for like a month or so, but the staff said they’d contact the Care Lab.

7. I am grateful I was allowed to go into the nearby care home’s garden to photograph their tulips yesterday. They are beautiful! I had been wanting to photograph them all week, but hadn’t been able to find the right time of day either sunshine-wise or with respect to being able to ask the staff whether I could enter their garden.

8. I am grateful for home-cooked macaroni this evening. It was delicious! Yesterday, I also had some leftover macaroni that we still had in the freezer from the last time we’d cooked it.

9. I am grateful for some crafty inspiration again. I finally did a little crafting today.

10. I am also grateful I finally seem to be in a reading groove again. I have truly been enjoying my young adult novel, Thrive. This is the final installment in the Overthrow trilogy and it’s been out for a year already, but because its prequel was a bit disappointing, I didn’t get to reading this one.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Sharing this post with Flower of the Day too because of the tulip picture.

Gratitude List (October 22, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this mixed-bag Friday weather-wise. It’s cloudy with some rain, but the sun tries to peek through here and there too. I seem to have given up on the blogging challenges entirely, but I’m still attempting to write as often as I comfortably can. Today, I’m doing a gratitude list. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) as usual. Here goes.

1. I am grateful my staff, the one who is on sick leave, was happy with her presents. Like I mentioned before, I gifted her a handmade soap, hand cream and bracelet. Another staff delivered it to her house as to allow me to save money on postage. The staff who is on sick leave, later texted the other staff an audio recorded message for me. It was so sweet!

2. I am grateful for my nurse practitioner and community psychiatric nurse. On Sunday, I landed in a bit of a crisis and E-mailed them, along with my assigned day activities staff and my support coordinator. My nurse practitioner responded on Monday. Though I felt like he was downplaying my crisis a little, my CPN later said that she at least felt that I was doing well because I asked for help.

3. I am grateful my GP takes me seriously. This really could’ve been a grateful for last week, but I forgot to mention it then. As regular readers of this blog might know, I’ve suffered with what doctors think is irritable bowel syndrome with constipation for years, but it’s gotten worse and somewhat different over the past nine months or so. I saw my GP about it a few weeks ago and he initially sent me home with orders for the staff to fill out a rating scale on my bowel movements. Boy, was it embarrassing having to ask the staff to look at my poop! Thankfully, it did show that I hadn’t been misguided about my symptoms. Last week, we went back with the rating scale and the doc examined me again. After discussing me with the gastroenterologist, he decided to refer me for an abdominal X-ray. It’s been scheduled for this coming Tuesday.

4. I am grateful for my husband’s ability to put things into perspective. I have been worried sick (no pun intended) about the possible outcome of said abdominal X-ray. My husband though said that, since I’ve been having symptoms for as long as he knows me, it’s not likely to be anything serious.

5. I am still grateful for topiramate. The increased dosage does seem to do something in the end. Last night, I had dreams about leaving the care facility, but they do not seem to affect me as much as they used to. I call that a win!

6. I am so grateful for one-on-one support. I cannot say this often enough. I am so very grateful my staff aren’t leaving me when I’m in crisis.

7. I am grateful the chili con carne I had for dinner yesterday was better than I expected. I hadn’t had meal delivery company chili in a while since it’s part of their fall/winter menu. However, I’d remembered it as dry rice with dry beans and a tiny bit of mince thrown in. To my surprise, they’d actually added some sauce and there was more mince in it than I expected.

8. I am grateful that the people who were installing blinds on my side of the building, are finally done doing so. Originally, only the other side of the building had blinds on the outside, but some of my fellow clients suffered badly from the sun shining through their windows during the day especially in summer. It took the company several weeks of installing the blinds and they had to be in each room to program them too. Thankfully, they programmed mine to manual, not automatic. Otherwise, if it’s sunny, the blinds will go down, then if a bit of wind blows they will go up, then down again, up again, etc. I’d rather keep them up and just draw the curtains when it’s sunny.

9. I am grateful that, when they were working on my blinds this afternoon, my one-on-one took me to the snoezelen® room at the day center. After all, the noise was quite unbearable. I loved lying on the waterbed while there was no-one in the adjacent room. So nice!

10. I am grateful I had the energy to go on the elliptical for over 30 minutes this afternoon. When I first stepped onto it, it felt as though I’d hardly manage 15 minutes, but I did pretty well.

What are you grateful for?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 17, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m rather late joining #WeekendCoffeeShare this week and I’m afraid there’s no coffee left. You can help yourself to a soft drink or a glass of water though. I also have chips in my cupboard. After yesterday’s crying fit over there only being the wrong flavor left, I decided to buy some myself. I did ask the staff to put them into a cupboard which they only have the keys to, but I’m pretty sure they’ll love to open it for you. Let’s have a drink and a handful of chips and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee (or a soft drink and chips), I’d share that this week is still quite meh. Early in the week, I was feeling a little more optimistic at the prospect of starting my increased dosage of topiramate soon. I started it on Friday and so far, unfortunately, no change. I am grateful though for no side effects either.

Over the weekend, I’ve really been struggling. I landed in a bit of a crisis earlier this evening, but thankfully pulled myself out of it. I did E-mail my nurse practitioner and CPN at mental health to let them know I’m worried about deteriorating. My husband said I’m not, but the fact that I keep increasing my meds, tells me otherwise

If we were having coffee, I’d moan about my orthopedic footwear after all. The shoes squeak and, though I’m still not in terrible pain, I cannot walk for more than twenty minutes on them without them feeling horribly uncomfortable. Mostly my left foot, the foot on which I wear the AFO, starts to drag. I haven’t heard back from the physical therapist, but am pretty sure she’ll just say I need to push through.

If we were having coffee, I would show you all the soap I made for my assigned staff, the one who’s on sick leave. I heard last Thursday that she’ll remain off work until the middle of November or so due to among other things her needing to use up all her days off for the year or they’ll disappear.

Like I said yesterday, the soap contains vetiver, lavandin and clary sage essential oils. I decided to use a white soap base and no colorants, because I felt the scents would speak for themselves.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that my husband came by today. We drove to Subway for lunch. I dutifully wanted to get out my CoronaCheck app, but my husband told me to wait. As he expected, they didn’t ask us for it. The taco beef wrap I chose, was rather boring and I’m pretty sure the mince they put in it was vegetarian rather than beef. Oh well, now at least I know what not to choose next time.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (October 8, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m still struggling quite a bit, but I’m determined that, if I don’t write to the 31 prompts for the 31-day writing challenge, I’ll at least write a blog post everyday. To cheer myself up, today I’m doing a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for pizza. Yes, again. Last Sunday, like I mentioned in my #WeekendCoffeeShare post, we ordered food from the local Italian restaurant. I ordered a tuna pizza and it was delicious!

2. I am grateful for my staff. As I mentioned several times over the past week, my assigned home staff is on sick leave. Thankfully though, I still do have other staff. I struggle to trust them, but am trying.

3. I am grateful for new essential oil inspiration. Last Monday, I signed up to the Using Essential Oils Safely VIP club for one month. It’s too expensive for me to remain a member longer, but I’m learning all I can while I have the membership. I did put a few new essential oils on my wishlist to buy someday.

4. I am grateful for my bed’s adjustable headrest and legrest. That way, I am able to lie in bed much more comfortably.

5. I am grateful for quetiapine (Seroquel). This is my PRN medication. I’ve needed it quite a few times over the past week and am happy it helps at least a little.

6. I am grateful for the support from my community psychiatric nurse and nurse practitioner. I had a regular appt with my CPN on Wednesday and told her how much I was struggling. She offered to ask my nurse practitioner to call me on Thursday and I reluctantly accepted the offer. He did call and we agreed to discuss possibly upping my topiramate (Topamax), which I take for PTSD symptoms, on Monday.

7. I am grateful for my husband. He is very able to put things into perspective.

8. I am grateful for St. Nicholas candy. The holiday isn’t till December 5, but the candy has been in stores since mid-August and my staff ordered it earlier this week. (Thankfully my fellow clients don’t have the awareness of time to get confused by this, as people of higher intellectual level might.) I had a large handful (well, a small bowlful) of candies this evening.

9. I am grateful I am still able to blog everyday in spite of my distress. I am also so grateful for all the engagement on my blog, particularly on my posts about the mental hospital. Thanks a bunch everyone for your support!

Well, okay, nine things of thankful this time, but it’s alright. What are you grateful for?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 25, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this cloudy but warm Saturday afternoon. We’re supposed to get temperatures to rise to as high as 25°C tomorrow. I remember once, I think it was in 1999, writing in my diary in late September that I wished for this high a temperature for once that year still. Three or four years ago, it even got to 27°C one day in mid-October.

Anyway, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. It’s 2:30PM, so I just had my afternoon coffee, but the other clients are still having theirs. Yesterday, the late shift actually came to my room with another cup of coffee at 3:15PM, because apparently the other clients had been late having theirs and she erroneously thought this meant I still needed to have coffee too. I didn’t mind, of course. Anyway, let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I managed to get my corona pass ready in time for this requirement in restaurants and indoor events today. Not that I’m likely to go eat out at a restaurant or go to the theater anytime soon. In fact, I’m feeling a bit off about this requirement, even though, as a fully vaccinated person, I’m good to go. Getting the CoronaCheck app, on which you need to create your pass, to work, was a bit of a hassle, because for some stupid reason the “Next” button to get beyond the introductory screen wasn’t easy to locate with VoiceOver. I eventually asked one of my staff to click that button for me and from there could do everything myself.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I celebrated two years in the care facility earlier this week. I made a cheesecake with my favorite large cookies, ie. stroopwafels.

Stroopwafel Cheesecake

I did worry at first whether the other clients could eat it, as most are at higher risk of choking. However, apparently the staff were able to sufficiently blend the cake so that it was edible by everyone.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that this week was quite a good one in the walking department. I got in over 10K steps almost everyday. That one day that I didn’t reach my goal, I really should have looked at my Fitbit, since I needed only like 100 more steps to reach it.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, at the recommendation of one of the community psychiatric nurses at the mental health team, I’ve been taking my phone with me whenever I go on walks. We were discussing my grief about my vision loss and the wonders of technology and she suggested I take more pictures on my walks. Last Tuesday, I took a picture of the cows in a nearby field.

Cows in a Field

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that I sadly haven’t been too creative lately. I tried to create a necklace this morning, but found out midway through it that I didn’t have enough of a certain kind of beads that I needed for it. I didn’t want to start redesigning it all over again, so will do that at some later point.

Overall, this week wasn’t too intense, other than Wednesday. It was a pretty good week.

How have you been?

An Eventful Wednesday

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Wednesday evening. The weather was beautiful today. It was cold in the morning, but sunny and about 21°C in the afternoon.

This morning, I had an appointment with my community psychiatric nurse. I hadn’t seen her in four weeks, as two weeks ago she had had to cancel due to a crisis situation. This time, I was able to talk through some of my struggles. I vented some of my grief with respect to my blindness. I ended on a positive note though, sharing the wonders of VoiceOver Recognition.

At 1PM, I had a quick dental check-up. The dentist comes to our day center four times a year for these, so I didn’t have to travel. Thankfully, all was well and I was literally gone within minutes.

Then I had a talk with my support coordinator about my upcoming care plan review. We had to discuss my risk inventory. This is a long list of possible risks someone can experience, such as of choking, falling, epileptic seizures, aggression, etc. With each box, the staff have to tick of “Yes” or “No” and if yes, elaborate on the risk. I disagreed with several “No” answers, but then my support coordinator explained that this is within the current care situation. For example, there is no risk to my personal hygiene because my staff are there to help me with this.

I did get my coordinator to add a “Yes” to risks re social media use because my Internet use can often trigger me and lead to meltdowns. I did ascertain that these risk assessments are not necessarily associated with restrictive measures. In other words, just because there’s a risk associated with my Internet use, doesn’t mean they need to restrict my online activity.

Later, I realized there really needs to be a “Yes” in the box on risks associated with overweight too. I had said this at the meeting but my coordinator had said that since I don’t suffer with sores due to fat or the like, there’s no risk. I do feel there is, given that my BMI is above 30 and I need support in maintaining a healthy’ish diet.

I went on three walks this afternoon and evening. On my way back from one of them, my one-on-one asked me whether I wanted to photograph the chickens near the day center. A client at another care home here has always wanted to have chickens and he finally got his wish granted a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, only one of them lays eggs so far. The guy whose chickens these are says the other one’s crest needs to get redder before she will lay eggs. My husband said it might actually be a rooster though. I hope not.

Gratitude List (August 27, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Can you believe August is almost over with already? I certainly can’t. Today I thought I’d do a gratitude list. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT), as well as Thankful Thursday (a day late) again.

1. I am grateful for French fries. On Sunday, the staff decided to get those delivered to the care home. Of course, I had a very spicy snack called mexicano with it.

2. I am grateful the volunteer handymen came over to my room on Monday to put together the new desk I bought at Ikea two weeks ago. At first, it was a little too high (the legs are adjustable in length), but the handymen had been struggling to get the legs to cooperate. For this reason, I was hesitant to ask them to adjust them. However, once they’d figured out how to work the mechanism, it was pretty easy. I am so grateful to have my new desk now.

3. I am grateful both my assigned day activities staff and home staff are back from vacation as of this week.

4. I am grateful my CPN is back from vacation. I am glad I had a good discussion with her on Wednesday.

5. I am grateful to be making progress in my creative endeavors. I am quite perfectionistic, so have thrown a few of my polymer clay pieces in the bin, but without failing, one doesn’t learn, right? I am also grateful for all the constructive feedback I receiv in Facebook groups.

6. I am grateful my polymer clay alphabet stamping set arrived. I had had it on my wishlist for a while, ordered it on Monday and it arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, a part of it was missing. One of my staff went after it and the store just replied that they’ll send the part that is missing.

7. I am grateful for summer fruit. My day activities staff, who lives near the supermarket my care facility normally buys from, was asked to get some stuff (buttermilk, I think, yikes!) on Thursday and she asked me what else I wanted her to buy now that she was going to go get groceries for us anyway. She bought peaches and strawberries and they were delicious!

8. I am grateful to be able to put a smile onto people’s face with my handmade gifts. Like I may have mentioned, my day activities staff got a present from me. So did a fellow client, who had his birthday on Wednesday. He had the hugest smile on his face when I gave him his hand cream.

9. I am grateful to live in a free, developed country. All the news about the Taliban having taken over Afghanistan makes me so grateful that I’m not and have never been in a war zone.

10. I am grateful the government are so far not putting the country into lockdown or tightening any measures despite COVID case numbers being on the rise again.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (July 30, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all, happy Friday! I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) today with a gratitude post. Let’s get started.

1. I am so grateful my benefits arrived. Oh well, I spent a significant amount of money already on crafting supplies and my yearly premium subscription to Day One, a diary app. I have once again resolved not to make unnecessary expenses for at least a week. I am however grateful that, even if I do end up spending some money, I won’t go broke anytime within the foreseeable future.

2. I am grateful my staff try to find me things I need or want for free or at a heavily discounted price. For example, one staff was able to get a music pillow for just €1. Another staff gave me some cookie cutters and ziploc bags she didn’t use and her daughter’s old duvet cover. Oh, it feels off to say this right after I’ve told you about my spending my benefits money on crafting supplies.

3. I am grateful to retain my creative mojo. I have really been loving doing some crafts lately, particularly polymer clay and some jewelry-making too.

4. I am grateful that my creative juices flowing means I have something else to talk about online besides my disabilities and health conditions. I am truly loving perseverating on polymer clay in particular.

5. I am grateful for organized storage shelves. Okay, I think I decluttered them a month or so ago already, but with my new crafting supplies, I had to do it again. I’m really satisfied with the space I created without even too much throwing out.

6. I am grateful for pasta salad. My day activities staff and I made this for lunch on Tuesday and there was still some left on Wednesday.

7. I am grateful I haven’t gained any weight in the past week despite not walking as much and despite the pasta salad and other treats. In fact, I lost 200 grams.

8. I am grateful for a nice fill-in community psychiatric nurse. My regular CPN will be on vacation when I was originally next supposed to see her in two weeks, so the other one will fill in. She joined me and my regular CPN for our appointment on Wednesday and she seems nice.

9. I am grateful for a nice new student staff. She is already older, so it’s easier for me to trust her than the young interns.

10. I am grateful my husband is now fully vaccinated. He got his second shot yesterday and he seems to be doing okay.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (May 28, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s really been forever since I last did a gratitude post. I’m not too happy at the moment, but maybe doing one will cheer me up. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT.

1. I am grateful for a sunny and warm day today. After weeks and weeks of cold and rainy weather, the sun is finally shining and the temperature rose to 18°C this afternoon. The weekend and next week are supposed to be even better.

2. I am grateful my Braille display will be fixed and hopeful the company won’t claim it’s my fault that it’s broken yet again. Like I said before, they originally claimed I had caused my original Braille display water damage, but they couldn’t prove it, since it’d been lying in their storage for a year. Now this one has similar issues to the other one, but again I have no recollection of ever getting water on it. For now, they are saying there is no reason to think it’s water damage this time around. The problem if it were wouldn’t even have been the one-time expense of getting it fixed (€1500), but the precise fact that I have no recollection of ever getting water on my Braille display and so I can’t prevent the same problem happening again. For now though, I am thankful it will be fixed.

3. I am grateful for my staff, who help me through the hard times I’m going through lately. I experience a lot of triggers and resulting flashbacks. Thankfully, my staff keep reassuring me and all my inner parts, that we’re safe now.

4. I am grateful for my nurse practitioner and community psychiatric nurse. They both help me too.

5. I am grateful for wraps for lunch today.

6. I am grateful for a shopping trip to get some candy and fruit this afternoon.

7. I am grateful for a private WordPress site that I can use as my diary. I still like the iPhone app Day One too, but prefer to type my entries on my computer.

8. I am grateful for horses. Yesterday, some other care facility clients apparently went riding in some type of carriage. While the woman guiding the horses was preparing the wagon, my day activities staff asked whether I could pet the horses and I could! The littles had so much fun!

9. I am grateful for beautiful and nice-smelling flowers.

10. I am grateful for the myNoise and Spotify apps on my iPhone and the ability to listen to beautiful soundscapes and all kinds of music using my AirPods.

Okay, this was easier than I thought it would be. Thank you for reading.

What are you grateful for?