Tag: mental-health

Disability Pride Pearls

July is Disability Pride Month. We commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) anniversary (becoming law July 26, 1990). The ADA civil-rights goal is to prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. One might ask how often the law is working for the 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. who live with a disability. Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are especially challenged in finding jobs — 85% are unemployed.

Self-acceptance and pride are themes every year, but the 2024 theme for the month-long celebration is “We Want a Life Like Yours.” Being inclusive and supporting everyone is part of our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Yes, dear weekly readers, I included these words in my blog about July 4th — on the topic of immigrants who were granted citizenship over that holiday week. There seems to be a need for shoring up our memories about what our country stands for.

Boston has the distinction of being first to celebrate Disability Pride in 1990, while Chicago is first in sponsoring a Disability Pride Parade (beginning in 2004). A Disability Pride flag was created with various colors to represent different types of disabilities: green for sensory disabilities, blue for mental illnesses, white for invisible or undiagnosed disabilities, yellow for neurodivergence, and red to represent physical disabilities. One wheel-chair-bound participant looks forward to the annual parade, calling it “a family reunion.”

The idea of any parade is to celebrate something, to take notice of something important, and to pause our busy lives for a period of focus. Too often, those with disabilities are not noticed — or are noticed but then overlooked when it comes to inclusive actions. Some individuals with disabilities have to cope with ableism issues every day.

July also is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month or BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Mental Health Month. We need more open dialogues about mental health in America.  

Happily, in my hometown community I watched our local high school’s summer musical with pride. The cast was extensive with a chorus line that was three-deep for many songs! Among the singer/dancer chorus were high schools students with disabilities. When I realized this, I had goose bumps. Someone at the high school notices these students. I was on the faculty of this school as a school psychologist in the 1980’s, working with troubled students who were referred to as “Behavior Disordered,” a label that I reject. Acceptance from non-special-education staff was withering.

Perhaps times are changing in a good direction. Let’s speed up progress in acceptance for everyone and their particular needs. 

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

309. Do you personally know someone with a disability?

310. If so, how does their disability affect you?   

Wear Orange: Hunt for Peace

Hostility is a trainload of energy that can go off-track. Wear Orange Weekend (June 7-9) commemorated victims and families of gun violence, which can derail entire communities. One estimate is that 120 individuals are shot and killed every day in America (with twice as many suffering wounds from gunfire).

The U.S. movement of Wear Orange began in 2013 after the tragic killing of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a student at King College Prep High School. She was shot in the back while standing with friends on a Chicago playground only one week after marching in President Obama’s inaugural parade. The 18-year-old gunman was sentenced to 84 years in prison, admitting that Hadiya was not the intended “target.”

Hadiya’s friends began honoring her life by wearing orange, the vibrant color worn by hunters to alert other hunters that they share space in the woods. It seems unbelievable but guns lead as the cause of death among American children and teens.

Prominent psychologist Abraham Maslow was asked a question in a 1968 magazine interview for Psychology Today: “If a …young psychologist came to you today and said, ‘What’s the most important thing I can do in this time of crisis?’ what advice would you give?”  Maslow replied: “I’d say: Get to work on aggression and hostility. And we need it now…time is running out. A key to understanding the evil which can destroy our society lies in this understanding.” 50+ years later we still are not addressing aggression and hostility with enough urgency.

While June 7th, Hadiya’s birth date, was the 10th National Gun Violence Awareness Day, June 8th was named National Best Friends Day by the U.S. Congress in 1935. Enthusiasm for the day has waned, but we need affirming friendships more than ever. I wonder if those who take another’s life have any best friends.

According to National Today’s survey of 1000 adults (https://nationaltoday.com/national-best-friends-day/), 19% named their dog as their best friend and 9% named their cat. When asked if they had a best friend, 15% answered no. Happily, many reported that they do not have only one best friend!

Primary-care physician and poet Jeremy Nobel authored Project UnLonely: Healing our Crisis of Disconnection (2023). His words might apply to individuals who shoot people: “When we are too lonely for too long, the way we make sense of the world changes, leaving us increasingly at risk for even greater loneliness. We fail to thrive and flourish, we get sick, we spread the affliction to others, and we die before our time.”

What signals violence ahead? There are many tracks that can lead to gun violence, but the most powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior according to the American Psychological Association. We must “get to work” on prevention.  Let’s address the needs of young children and their parents. Let’s hunt for peace.    

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

297. Is your best friend an animal?

298. Do you know anyone who seems disconnected and needs friendship?  

Seasonal Pearls

What color are your pearls? Hint: my interest is in your figurative pearls.

Perhaps Sister Joan Sauro’s words will explain: “There is a pearl in every season. Find it. Then give all you have to claim it” (Whole Earth Meditation: Ecology for the Spirit).

May is a busy month for addressing important populations within the U.S. In addition to May’s Asian American, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month (see “Hula Pearls,” 5-6-24) and America Mental Health Awareness Month (see “Synergy for Mental Health,” 5-13-24), May also is Older Americans Month. Some individuals relate to all 3 of these populations.

Numbers of older adults coping with depression range from 7.7% (adults 50+) to an estimated 31% in some groups (ages 65+). Older adults’ symptoms of depression may not be recognized by their physicians. Compounding caretaking, older adults may view mental health help as a stigma, especially in non-English speaking individuals.

A population bumper crop of older adults is ripening: it is estimated that 4.1 million Americans will reach age 65 every year from 2024-2027. Reportedly, more than 11,200 Americans turn 65 every day (The Alliance for Lifetime Income). Regardless of exact numbers, depression, anxiety and loneliness plague too many older adults.

An exciting program to address this looming population, created 20 years ago at the University of Washington in Seattle, Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives (PEARLS) coaches older adults to be proactive about their wellbeing. Depression is defined in everyday examples by coaches for participants (identified in community organizations); problem-solving skills are taught to enable self-sufficiency for more active lives. The free program takes place in homes or preferred community settings. Online PEARLS began during the pandemic. One-hour sessions for 6-8 weeks (over 4-5 months) start with each person’s daily routines of “where they are.” Coaches have supervision with mental health practitioners. PEARLS coaching has reached adults across 26 states, including our Memorial Day veterans, people of all ages with disabilities, and especially those 65+.

American education is not forward-thinking regarding older adults. My doctoral program in counseling psychology had courses on childhood, adolescent development, and psychology of young adults, but no specific coursework on midlife (since identified as ages 35-64) or gerontology.  Relatively few colleges and universities offer a gerontology major, despite a growing need. Of the 5 institutions graduating the most students in gerontology, 89.9% are females. We need more compassion and creativity in our thinking about seasoned citizens.

Recently I was asked to talk about creativity enhancing aging on a podcast, “Older Women and Friends” (interviewed by host Jane Leder). Check it out:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2054889/15102414  

Seasonal growth is important at every age, but retirement age is a reminder that our true wealth consists of time, how positively we spend it, and bodymind health. Let’s meet aging with colorful pearls of creativity!

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

293. What season of your life has been your most creative time?

294. What about now?          

Synergy for Mental Health

“Cognitive Synergy” by Bill Frymire, Olympic, WA

The word synergy comes from Attic Greek sunergos meaning “working together.”

May is America’s Mental Health Awareness Month. In the UK Mental Health Awareness Week is May 13-19 with this year’s theme of “Movement: Moving More for our Mental Health.” I like this emphasis on the whole body working together in movement.

I watch flowers in my spring garden moving together in a constant tableau. It was just yesterday that Virginia Bluebells were a flowing drift of dainty blue flower blooms swaying in the breeze. We also are equipped to bloom and thankfully, most of us have a longer bloom time than spring ephemerals. Today the bluebells are wilting; soon their greenery will disappear and go dormant after flowering and dispersing seeds. Moving into bloom where my bluebells reigned are False Solomon’s Seal perennials with their tiny white stars at the top of flagpole stems.

People wilt for a variety of reasons. It is not easy to be physically and mentally healthy every season. Children especially struggle with conditions that go unnamed for years, often not finding helpful ways to cope until adulthood.                                                             

American songwriter, mixed-media artist and writer Morgan Harper Nichols only received her diagnosis of autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder at age 31. She began creating art and poetry as responses to social media messages. Nichols bloomed with her art creating “room to breathe.” She moved her talent in the direction of sharing what she believes is helpful to others:

“Inhale, exhale. Never forget the green lights, stop signs and highways that brought you here. Every single step accounted for, even though you can’t see where the road leads, what matters is that you travel not in pursuit of knowing it all, but in pursuit of boundless peace” (How Far You Have Come).

Nichols initiated a project of sending personalized letters to strangers, making a lifetime goal to compose a million poems to strangers! She invites individuals to share their story with her on her website. She replies to them sending visual art with a letter of encouragement. There are no fees. She keeps names anonymous. Her daily practice of synergistic generosity is a powerful example of her blooming and dispersing seeds of hope. Nichols is completing her MFA (in Interdisciplinary Media Arts) as she works on an online conversational-focused game.

“Art is made in hindsight,” claims Virgil Abloh, fashion designer. Or as Nichols penned, “One day, you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.”

To keep blooming go to https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health-awareness-month/toolkit and https://www.nami.org/get-involved/awareness-events/mental-health-awareness-month/ for activities in mental health synergy.

Synergy is “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” Springtime is an excellent time for all of us to move together in the growing of mental health for all.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

289. When is a time in your life when you were wilting?

290. What did you do to re-bloom?    

Pearls of Grace in the News

Why do we feed ourselves mostly on a diet of negative news? Studies suggest that the reason is physiological – the brain’s negativity bias is about survival. We simply pay more attention to negative information.

The odd phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads,” runs rampant in today’s news coverage. One study showed that on a “good news day” there was a 66% decrease in readership in an online Russian newspaper! However, news guru Arianna Huffington (founder of Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global), claims that readers want more positive news. She describes a journalist’s job as providing the “full picture” of what happens every day. She advocates for news that tells “…how people are…coming together, even in the midst of violence, poverty and loss…[and] all the other stories of innovation, creativity, ingenuity, compassion and grace.”

Perhaps others caught these pieces of positive news items from 2023, but I missed many of them and I watch a fair amount of TV news broadcasting.

  •   Malaria vaccine – The World Health Organization approved a new vaccine for malaria; a pilot program shows that it reduces deaths among children by 13%. Every year nearly half a million children die from malaria.
  •        Medical firsts – Bahrain, U.K. and the U.S. have all approved Casgevy, a therapy for the blood diseases sickle cell and beta thalassaemia. It is a gene-editing treatment which merited the Nobel Prize (2020). The first vaccine for RSV, a respiratory virus serious for children and elders, rolled out (I received this vaccine, thanks to researchers) and was instrumental in finding a new class of antibiotics.
  •        LGBTQ+ rights – Same-sex couples in Taiwan can adopt children now. Same-sex marriage is newly instated or about to become legal in Nepal, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Poland. Japan’s Supreme Court addressed transgender rights; surgical sterilization is no longer a prerequisite to change one’s gender.
  •        Criminal justice reform – The death penalty was abolished in Ghana (the 124th country to take this action). While the U.S. still maintains the death penalty, it is used with less frequency and there is a trend toward decarceration with no corresponding rise in crime.
  •        Some reduction of weapons of mass destruction – Peru, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa destroyed their final cluster munition stockpiles, the last countries of 112 that had agreed to do so in 2008. The U.S. is one of 191 countries committed to destroying chemical weapon stockpiles; a final rocket with sarin nerve agent was destroyed in Kentucky.
  •        Global wealth equality is increasing and poverty is decreasing – Global median wealth increased by 3%; the Swiss bank UBS’s reporting predicts that global wealth will grow 38% in the next 5 years due to middle-income countries like India.
  •        Climate advancements – Electric vehicles are more present. Deforestation in the Amazon is on a decline.

Like my bumper sticker says, “Grace happens.” Let’s inch closer and notice.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

253. How might you increase conversation about positive news?

254. What steps can you take to problem-solve negatives in your community?

Pearls of Engagement

Why do “rules of engagement” or ROE have a military definition? The “rules” in ROE refer to guidelines for the ways in which the use of military force is deemed “acceptable.” Often, these rules breakdown in combat with terrifying consequences.

The word engagement simply means “an arrangement to do something or go somewhere at a fixed time.” A popular use of “engagement” refers to a loving agreement to marry another, not wipe them out. However, relationships sometimes are at war. We need rules for engagement.

Psychologist John Gottman’s research on couples can predict a divorce or breakup-in-the-making if the “Four Horsemen” are present – criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. The #1 piece of advice from the Gottman Institute for sustaining a romantic relationship applies to other relationships too — turn toward (connect with) another’s bids successfully to pay attention; care about even small stuff that another person finds important in the moment. Make bids a practice. If needed, it is OK to prompt someone verbally: “I’m making a bid for attention now.”

We are creatures of belongingness or social connections, but loneliness is on the rise in the U.S. According to the Surgeon General, Dr. Dr. Vivek Murthy, loneliness tops other major health issues in the U.S. In a New York Times guest essay, Murthy reports alarming circumstances with a breakdown of engagement with others: “Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling. When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29%), dementia (50%), and stroke (32%). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily — and may be even greater than the risk associated with obesity.”       

Playwright Tennessee Williams challenged loneliness (Camino Real): “When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”

Murthy challenged Americans to a “5-for-5 Connection Challenge” between December 4th-15th.

Step 1 – Commit to connect (by choosing 5 actions and 5 days in a row to connect with people;

Step 2 – Connect each of the 5 days (through choosing an action each day such as expressing gratitude, offering support, or asking for help);

Step 3 – Reflect and share (by first asking yourself, “How did connecting make me feel?” Let others know about your experience and invite them to join the challenge). How did connecting make you feel?  

Here are my reflections after I took up the Surgeon General’s exercise. I enjoy connecting with others, so this “challenge” was not difficult on the surface. I found that offering support is ingrained in my training and experience; it is a natural practice. I do offer gratitude frequently, but I plan to increase this one. Asking for help is not my general practice (except in technology snafus). I found pearls of engagement in Murthy’s challenge. Let’s extend his 5-day challenge for engagement.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

247. Where might you need practice in offering gratitude or support?

248. When do you connect with others by asking for help?