A Mother's Grace Quarterly Newsletter 4th Edition September 2009

Updates and Thoughts

It has been awhile since I shared with you. My son, Joseph is doing well. We had a few moments where Joseph decided to stop his meds, but what was interesting these last two times was that Joseph knew it wasn't a good idea and tried to readjust things on his own. As most of us know, that can be very dangerous. He had to be hospitalized to come back to balance and during that stay he realized it was not a good idea to play around with such things! He took the full dose of Clozaril after being off of it for a week or so and his heart rate and breathing became erratic. Scared the living daylights out of me! Thank God, he just happened to be at his doctor appointment when it all happened. The angels are always with us! Thank you, Sweet Ones!

As a result of this incident, Joseph is talking more about what is going on inside of him and bless his heart he has such a humorous spirit. He makes us all laugh...even the hospital crew adores him! They are all rooting for him and we seem to be at a good place 5 years later into this "illness." My goodness, 5 years! There was a time with all of this that days seemed like years!
He has so much more clarity about the voices and asked me once, "Mom, do you hear voices to?" Ahhhhh he knows his mother is intuitive and is blessed with that God given gift to feel energies and such. For my son, before this illness struck he too, had such a gift. He still does, but now we are working on balancing and deciphering what is truth and what is chemical imbalance. He is starting to delve into and trying to understand what is happening. His voices he revealed to us do not tell him to hurt poeple or himself. Another misconception and stigma based belief! He told me and his social worker that he senses things about others and he sometimes thinks someone outside of himself is in toruble. Now this in and of itself doesnt sound too bad...but it can disrupt his work, his life, and sometimes pulls him so deep into it and he cannot focus. So he now knows as of today meds are needed. But alas as his Holistic Spiritual mother, we keep nurturing mind, body , and Spirit and as our goal was from the beginning of all of this is... taper off meds and continue to delve into the core of this "illness" and heal! Joseph at one point was on 6 different meds...horrible horrible meds! :( But now, we are on just one! The one that seems to be working for us right now. Here is where we could shorten this journey for others with "mental illness," let's form that supportive healing team right from the beginning, let's open healing facilities to care for them where we can diagnose thoroughly and find the right healing regime! I will not give up until the day I die and beyond on making that happen! We know how this effects every member of the family...and the Mother's heart is always on the mend! My efforts, prayers, and energies will never cease to be with all those experiencing the pain, the loss, the love, the joys, the sadness, the lessons, and the hope associated with this experience.

A Mother's Journey: Conquering Situational Depression





As someone who has experienced situational depression back in 1998, and healed it with the Grace of God and her angels, I understand a mother's pain during this illness. I believe I went through my time of deep introspection before my son got ill, so I could deal with it 4 years later and I could help others. Otherwise, I would not be here typing this heart/soul letter to you.


My beautiful Bella was born December 16, 1998. One of the happiest moments of my life! No greater gift is given than a child. I had been questioning so much in my life before I became surpisingly pregnant and wanted answers to everything...the soul gifts dancing inside of me and revealing themselves more than ever, my marriage, how different I felt from everyone, my purpose in this life...just everything! And I reached and reached for answers, praying as I always did and couldnt hear the answers. I needed God to get out the blow horn and yell them right into my ear, but alas it didnt happen that way.
The one thing that was constant was my faith...always had that inherant gift, but being on the bottom of the pit with only toothpicks to climb my way out with...the faith was certainly tested. I continued to pray and found myself more in meditation than ever! It was easy for me to go deep into my soul...but I used to hide there instead of heal. I began to choose to heal for my children, for me! This depression literally brought me to my knees and I said, "Dear God I am not getting up until this is revealed to me!"
Constant communication with God was key...it got me through it all. No formal prayers, no special trips...just in the quiet of my heart and soul...I spoke! Do not stop speaking...during dishwashing, mowing the lawn, fixing breakfast, changing diapers, brushing your teeth...all of it! Your soul begins to awaken and the magic and miracle starts to happen!! It began to happen for I made the choice to heal and all I needed came to me...the right therapist, the right food, the right exercise regime, the right vitamins, the right angel!* But I had to force myself to be in it... to be in the experience of healing! I cried more times than I can count...and soon the tears turned to peace. I began to feel snippets of peace...and I wanted more!!!! No sugar coating though...it was an ongoing struggle and challenge, but I never gave up! I am grateful to this day for that experience was my enlightenment, my rebirth, my beginning to what is now my complete journey on this earth.


So when my son got ill and the pain creeped in again, the sorrow, the loss, the eternal tears, the heart wrenching pain... I had my spiritual tool bag filled to conquer and deal! Sleepless nights, confusion, anger, sadness, physical, emotional, and mental anguish were not going to infiltrate me again. But I did feel it all...God help me, I did!
I would not, could not, and would not give up on my child...which I now know today as meaning, love them as we do, support them, and know when to let go in a healthy way. There is so much going on inside of you during the crisis of your child's pain. For months and months I sat at this computer finding the right place, the right doctor, the right anything to help and so many disappointments at every turn, but also some beautiful revelations and healing places, but with a large cost! The road blocks seemed endless, but again nothing kept us from forging ahead. Despite the broken system, low finances, periodic noncompliance of our son, and feeling completely alone, we are now in a good place today....a day by day blessing.
I never chose to go on meds during the earlier experience of my situational depression and during my son's illness. But I do know when meds are needed...they are needed...but I wanted to share my experience to let you know there is hope, there is faith, there is healing from many different places, but most importantly it is your Spirit, your Angels, and the God you love, that will ultimately bring you out of that pit and home again!*


If you would like to share your stories, please send me an email at angelicstrands@aol.com

A Mother's Grace Quarterly Newsletter 3rd Edition January 2009

Jamieson's Story

By Phoebe

My brother Jamieson has Schizoaffective Disorder. He had a bright future ahead of him, at age
18, a full scholarship to an art school, a beautiful girlfriend, an amazing talent to succeed at anything he
applied himself to, and a brilliant, brilliant mind. After a year at art school he broke down with a psychotic episode for the first time and we had no idea what to think. My brother was not who I remembered when he came back home. He was no longer inhabiting a world that was remotely familiar to me.
For the past six years he’s been from home to hospitals, to half-way housing, in an effort to get his old life back. Although he may be irrational at times he hasn’t lost touch with reality and he knows his dreams were snatched from under his feet. He takes medications that give him horrible side-effects; he has lost his self-esteem, concentration and gained weight.
According to the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill in one year approximately 25 million
Americans are affected by mental illness and more than 7.5 million children and adolescents suffer.
Which very likely means there are kids in our school functioning with mental illness. In fact according to Public Citizen, in any given day 240,000 people with mental illness are homeless, and 283,000 are incarcerated in jails and prisons instead of getting the treatment they need. And in 2001, the Surgeon General revealed a report stating that 12 percent of American children, under the age of 18, have a diagnosable mental illness. However, only 1 in 5 children with mental illnesses are identified and receive treatment or services. Most people think schizophrenia is split-personality, or they demonize schizophrenia as psychopathic behavior; which it isn’t. It is a common brain disorder which affects 1 out of 100 people. It is far more common than AIDS- and yet people shy away from discussing this disorder in health classes across the country. What makes me angry is that our society doesn’t realize that the population suffering from depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia need as much sympathy, research, and respect as the population with other serious chronic physical illnesses like cancer or lupus. Not only the public’s judgment and ridicule upsets me, but even the insurance companies insure much less for these serious physical illnesses of the brain. Have you ever called someone ‘crazy’, ‘schitzo’, ‘insane’, ‘bipolar’? Have you ever considered how that might punch someone emotionally? You may not even notice you’re abusing the mentally ill. “It is time for society to treat the mentally ill as medically ill.” So let me explain, Depression and bipolar are disorders of the mood, and schizophrenia is a disorder of thoughts. Schizoaffective disorder is a combination of the two.
Patricia Ruocchio, a writer, with schizophrenia, describes the illness as a “prison of the mind.”
“There is agony in not being able to communicate… The unusual aloneness I feel is only made worse by the physical closeness of someone with whom I am trying so desperately to connect. This disconnection is not conscious; I cannot control what can or cannot be conveyed. I am blocked by a brain that scrambles thoughts, and a bony structure that will no let me pass beyond its boundaries.” Schizophrenics cannot escape from unreality. My brother can’t decide what are real memories or false and so his life is slipping through his brain unsure. Jamie feels an enormous amount of anxiety and insecurity, even though he cannot express these emotions he still feels the pain inside. I took a drama class last year, and I loved it for the most part; made some really good friends, we all laughed taking turns to practice fake commercials and such. Until I suppose our usual teacher got in a fight with the owner of the place and we got a replacement. He was nice at first, fun, a little obsessed with himself and how ‘great of an actor he was.’ He made us act out different tables at restaurants, and one day he started giving scenes to act out like , “Hey- this table is schitzo, this ones bipolar, and you guys act depressed.” I couldn’t contain myself especially when all of my good friends were frolicking around laughing and pretending to be two different people at the same time, ‘split-personality’, I turned to the owner who was looking on and said, “That’s not schizophrenia they’re acting out, it’s multiple personality disorder.” She looked at me ‘knowingly’ “Oh- but Phoebe, it can be that sometimes.” My feeling were welling up more and more ready to burst as I said, “NO, actually, it can’t it’s a completely different mental illness and you know absolutely nothing about it.” Ending up cracking my last words through tears. None of them understood how they had hurt me. I couldn’t even face them again. I quit that drama class.
There is stigma all around us, people with mental illness are not “bad”, or ill because of some
failure of character. They are simply ill. Ignorance is hard to deal with and I plan on breaking through boundaries of fear and convention to help my brother as I have felt the discrimination that exists. “Empathy: The intimate comprehension of another person’s thoughts and feelings, without imposing our own judgment or expectation.”
I am asking for your empathy, not toward me, but for the mentally ill in general. I think that society should be more educated, sympathetic, and caring.