Stress can’t begin to describe how it feels to cope with being unemployed.

In today’s economy, with soaring unemployment rates, cut-backs, massive lay-offs and a consumerist culture shouts “buy, buy, buy,” it’s devastating to be jobless.

Furthermore, our cultural values are out of sync – how we value ourselves and our mental and emotional health versus the value of work, money and “stuff.”

(Ironically, volunteer work builds self-esteem more than a huge salary and it’s a great stress-reducing strategy while job-hunting.)

All this hit the headlines last week…

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen belittled Mitt Romney’s wife Ann and her full-time career as a housewife and stay-at-home- mom.

“Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” Rosen said on CNN.”She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.”

That comment rang alarms with everyone across the political spectrum. Especially women.

There’s a mysterious, somewhat strange-sounding convention in psychiatry, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve never imagined it would apply to me, so I’ve never bothered to investigate it.

I’ve steered far away from. It scares me.

Leaving therapy…

Here’s how it was explained to me at the Eating Disorders Outpatient program I just completed. And remember, an eating disorder is a psychiatric illness.

For a minimum of two years, I was told, I could not go back to see my social worker, dietician or any of the practitioners who helped me begin eating normally for the first time in my life.

A follow-up might be possible, but now I have a psychologist to help me.

I suspect psychiatrists work in similar ways. I don’t know…

Once you say good bye. Once you receive your psychiatric “seal of approval.” Once you have your psychotherapeutic “walking papers.” Once you leave, is that it?

Do you venture off into the world on your trembling feet, vulnerable, alone? Independent?  Do you never see your therapist again? Or at least for a minimum of two years? That never seemed to be the case with Dr. Bob. It seemed he would always be there for me.

You may be wondering where I’ve been since November 30 ~ Day Three ~ of my outpatient eating disorder treatment program.

Read the comments to that last post. You’ll see some of my progress.

Since then a few things happened…

I snapped the picture you see, this morning. It’s a tight shot of my right hand.

Note the discolouration on my thumb. Not dirt. It’s a bruise, black and blue.

Also…

I am very right-handed and not, as I have discovered ~ in the least, whatsoever, in any remote way ~ ambidextrous. The plaster cast you see goes up to my elbow. It weighs “a ton.” Feels like it, anyway.

After a stupid fall on Wednesday, December 14 ~ all falls methinks are stupid, right? ~ and an x-ray revealed that I had indeed broken my right arm above my wrist, the technician in the ER fracture clinic said I would be able to have a yellow fibreglass cast in a week. Mmmmmm. My favourite colour.

This afternoon I met with the service manager of the Canadian National Institute of the Blind ~ the CNIB.

Kids with mental illnesses and visual impairments…

She and a group of teachers, parents and professionals working with blind or visually-impaired kids had asked me to speak at an annual conference ~ about mental health

A New Challenge…

Admittedly, I have never spoken or facilitated any kind of workshop on the subject of mental and emotional health for children and youth who are visually-impaired, had never even thought about this particular demographic

The topic fascinated me, so I was anxious to continue our dialogue.

When I was about 16, I spent about nine months in a psychiatric hospital.

During that time, I was extremely ill. At one point, I became catatonic.

Following that hospitalization, I recovered at home with the help of my mother, who made two wise decisions.

My mother and my recovery…

The first, was to buy a dog for me to care for.

I was the sole family member to help her.

Finally, we settled on a Yorkshire Terrier. After accompanying my mother to dog shows and various breeders, we found our little pet. In this case a two-year-old retired show dog we named Derrier, or Derry for short.

Learning calligraphy was another recovery technique…

My mother was involved in a charity. Learning calligraphy was one of her chapter’s pet projects (no pun intended) so personalized plaques could be given to honour worthy recipients. These plaques were a form of fundraising.

I found calligraphy strangely therapeutic.

November is not a pretty month in these parts.

Today is typical. Though we have had some lovely, sunny, sweet un-November-like days, today is not one of them.

It’s grey and damp and drizzly.

Not a day to lift one’s spirits…

I have often said that I do not suffer with clinical depression. That is not to say, however, that I am immune to situational “sadnesses” or “the blues” or “the blahs” ~ and lately, that is how I’ve been feeling.

There are some solid reasons for this.

One is a feeling of worthlessness. Right now, I am not gainfully employed for the first time in my life. I am awaiting a call from an Eating Disorders Clinic that will tell me I must report the next day. I have no idea when that call will come, thus, it is rather futile to look for any kind of job.

I am not working. I am not writing, as you well know.

My posting here has practically stopped cold.

Introduction

Unlike almost everyone in Canada, this weekend Marty and I are not gorging on turkey, stuffing and all the other traditional Thanksgiving delicacies that celebrate the annual harvest.

Marty has a terrible cold and is living on chicken soup with matzah balls. I’m walking the pooches, eating whatever we have, whenever.

In short, we’re here.

As for my protracted “break from blogging,” all I can say is I’m otherwise occupied. Concentration isn’t the greatest at the moment and I’m not in terrific shape in terms of my mental health.

Just returned from the gym and a good workout. I walked there and back. It’s a glorious day. Blue skies, spattered with feathery clouds. It’s 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit. How can one complain?

Also, it’s October. The best month of the year. I was born in this month and here in Ontario, autumn is breathtaking. Stunning. Dazzling.

The landscape is replete with all my favourite colours as the leaves change. Oranges and yellows and burnt amber and bright reds. My dogs are happy because they can walk in this weather, though it’s a bit warm for them today. They’re cold weather dogs, preferring sub-zero temperatures and snow to heat and rain.

This post is in response to Dr. Suzanne Phillips and Dianne Kane‘s fascinating Healing Together for Couples post on Hoarding Behaviour.

It began as a comment, but was so long, I decided to post about it.

Thank you for the inspiration.

It struck a chord.

Also, I’ve had personal experience with hoarding and hoarders.

Don’t you think almost all of our behaviours are as a result of some sort of “trauma” in our lives. We’re attempting to fill a void inside of us because we don’t feel good enough.

Perhaps that traumatic event or events were in vitro. Or in our infancy. In some long forgotten or “blocked” or “repressed” event? Depending upon one’s levels of sensitivity, traumatic events can happen all the time. Little psychic bumps and bruises along the way.

Through my 51 years of psycho therapy, Dr. Phillips, I’ve learned that seminar event that triggered my psychotic/manic episodes happened when I was raped in a mental hospital by an orderly in 1962. I was 14. And I repressed that memory. This was long before Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was created. That memory came back to me in 1976, when I was 28 years old.

I don’t know why I’m feeling better ~ just am.

Go figure…

Two weeks ago, I was mired in myself. My weight. My health. My life. My problems.

How boring! I was boring myself. And THAT’S boring.

For the last few months, life was challenging me. A real struggle.

Risky business…

I had a rough term at school. Then there was end of term chaos. Two weeks ago I was sifting though umpteen boxes of papers, receipts and records for my 2010 income taxes ~ late. When we moved last summer, I never filed anything. I’m a piler, not a filer. What a mess I was.

“I think I’m going to sleep on this.”

That’s my mantra, my abiding bromide when I’m grappling with a problem, a dilemma, a puzzle with no apparent solution.

Late at night, I never function well…

My natural optimism darkens. My ebullience dulls. My doubts overshadow my hopes. I begin to wonder if what I’m doing is what I should be doing. If my judgment is sound. If I’m thinking clearly. If I can trust my instincts.

So, I stop cold and turn off all the electronics and the electricity and go to bed.

Sometimes, I cannot turn my thoughts off, so I take a drug for anxiety to soothe me to sleep. That pill works, as does the rest. I awaken refreshed, with a magically transformed view of the dilemma that had driven me mad the previous night.

That’s how I feel right now…