My Thoughts on Friendship by Vicki K.H.

My Thoughts on Friendship

By Vicki K.H.

Friendship is the ice cream of life. It might be a sweet friendship or a rocky one. Friendship adds so much more value to one's life.

However, before you can be a good friend to anyone else, you need to practice being a good friend to yourself. If you want friends or want to be a good friend you need to try to become an interesting person. Find some interests and follow through on them. Join a club, volunteer your time to a good cause or take a class. Meet friends at a job or a support group.

For people with a mental illness opening up to others about oneself is scary. Show others that you are interested in them. Develop conversation skills and practice being friendly.

One question you may wonder is how much information you want to share. Think about a current growing friendship and see how comfortable you are, then, focus on letting the friendship grow. Remember important dates and holidays and do nice and thoughtful things like send cards and try to remember birthdays. Be a thoughtful person and take a real interest in other people.

Get to know several people. Remember, one friend may be good at one thing while another friend may be valuable for other things. People are all different and unique. Friendships are unique. Share joy, pain, laughter and sadness. Sharing with others makes our journey with life much richer.

Film Festival Fights Stigma by Dan Frey

Film Festival Fights Stigma

By Dan Frey

The 10^th Annual Mental Health Film Festival ran its course this past weekend, May 17 and 18, tackling stigma with positive depictions of the mental health community. Co-sponsored by Community Access and the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS), the festival's theme this year was hospitalization and its alternatives. In the wake of New York State's plans to reduce psychiatric hospital beds and better fund community-based alternatives, it's a subject with wide implications for our society as a whole.

Said festival organizer Carla Rabinowitz of Community Access, “Hospital stays are not a panacea. They often traumatize mental health recipients and are exorbitantly expensive. Proven alternatives including supportive housing, therapy, crisis respite care and the support of family and friends are all more effective responses to psychiatric symptoms.”

This one-of-a-kind event featured films, filmmaker panels and live audience discussions. Among the films presented were:

Kings Park: Thirty years after her commitment to the violent ward of Kings Park State Hospital, filmmaker Lucy Winer returns to the now-abandoned institution that once held her captive;

Technically Crazy: A comedy about the power of friendship between a teen struggling with his mental health condition and a grieving former police officer;

Coming Off Psych Drugs: A group of mental health leaders discuss how they have successfully tapered off of psychiatric medications through peer support and focusing on their mental health in a holistic manner;

A Sister's Call: One woman struggles to balance her marital family unit with efforts to keep her adult brother at home with her despite his disabilities.

For more information on future Film Festivals, please contact Carla Rabinowitz at crabinowitz@communityaccess.org

ECT and My Secret Setback by Kurt Sass

ECT and My Secret Setback

By Kurt Sass

The Hidden Side Effect of Shock Treatment

During the years of 1999 to 2000 I had a total of 22 ECT (electro convulsive therapy) treatments—also known as “shock” treatments. These treatments literally saved my life. At the time I started the treatments, I had been in such a deep depression for the previous 11 months I could not even eat or get to the bathroom without assistance, and suicide was a constant thought.

While these treatments did indeed give me my life back, unfortunately they have caused a severe side effect which I have not revealed to a single person (except for my doctors) for all these many years until this article. This side effect is one of an acute short term memory loss.

Fortunately, I do not have the type of severe long-term memory loss suffered by about 10% of ECT users in which one can permanently forget family members, friends and events. With my memory loss, if you tell me something in the present, there is a somewhat decent chance I might forget it, at least for a brief time. I might remember it the next day, but not 10 minutes after you told me.

To be honest, at first I wasn’t even aware of the memory loss. In fact, when I went back to work a few months after the ECT treatments, my employers would constantly praise me for always being on top of things and never forgetting. My secret was that I had developed a skill of writing everything down on index cards, even the smallest of tasks. I also incorporated this system into my home life. I now had lists for everything. For the longest of time, I just thought I had become a very, very organized person. Slowly, however, it started to dawn on me that since I had never kept lists before in my previous 43 years of existence, so maybe there was a reason behind it.

When I finally did become cognizant than I suffered from short-term memory loss, I was devastated. To prove to myself that I did indeed suffer from it, I tried to go through my daily routine without writing notes. I didn’t make it to the afternoon. For example, I went to the store, which was only 4 blocks away, to purchase a number of items, but by the time I got there, I could only remember one. I know for a fact I had intended to buy many more items, because I had over one hundred dollars in my wallet.

Unfortunately, this memory loss is permanent. I have learned to cope in many ways. I still have my lists, of course. When an assignment is given to me at work, I usually send a confirmation e-mail to make sure all the details are covered. If the assignment is given over the phone or in person, I will no doubt ask a second time so I can write it down. Even the smallest of items has to go on my list. People will sometimes question me as to why I write everything down, but a quick joke about my “getting on in years” satisfies their curiosity.

The reason I haven’t told anyone about the memory loss before is that I didn’t want them to treat me differently because of it. I am certainly not ashamed of it, just as I am certainly not ashamed of my mental illness. I just don’t want people to feel that they must speak slowly or have to remind me of things, because there really isn’t any need. I have developed the skills and mechanisms to cope and overcome.

As to the reason why I have decided to finally open up about my memory loss? Well, just like with any other secret, the longer you keep it inside you, the more it festers inside you until you set it free. I learned this many years ago when I decided to tell people about my mental illness, so it is only natural that it should carry over with my memory loss.

Well, that’s it for now. Time to write a note to remind myself to edit this story tomorrow.

A Life Stifled by Donald

A Life Stifled

By Donald

I was about six months old when my sister and oldest brother had to babysit me. They did not want to, and so stuck me in an opening in the pillar under the Shickshinney Bridge. I still don’t know how long I remained there in that pillar. All I remember is that when I came out of it, I was sitting on a sofa chair and my sister was dangling a pair of baby blue plastic toy baby shoes. I guess she was probably testing me to see if I was conscious. I believe that I must have appeared to be retarded. Later on in my life, I started to understand what was going on and what people were saying. Because of my mental condition, I would misinterpret a lot of things going on around me. I still do, and because of that, my caseworker calls my attention to it.

When I was 39 years old, my wife left me and I had to go to court for a child support hearing to decide how my support payments would be made. I had no idea how to go about making child support payments. I never knew enough to let anyone know about that. To tell you the truth, I am not sure if it would’ve made that much of a difference anyway. They put me in prison for 90 days. It was my first offense, and I should have gotten only 30 days. But I guess that did not make any difference either. While there, I was put into solitary confinement for 24 hours. I could hear another prisoner being raped. I felt totally helpless and sad that there was nothing I could do about it, even though I was not locked in my cell. I can still hear that prisoner scream in my mind. I was scared to death the whole time I was in there, especially when they made me take a shower. Ever since then, I have been scared to death, especially when any man stands too close behind me.

Bruni in the City: Love and Arrows By Christina Bruni

Bruni in the City: Love and Arrows
By Christina Bruni
I Struck Out on OKCupid
I've had a wackadoodle time online. I don't recommend any of the Internet matchmakers.  OKCupid is only for hook-ups. The six foot tall guy I contacted there responded by telling me since I was only five feet tall he couldn't have sex with me, so he wasn't interested.
Imagine that: I was too short and too skinny for a guy even though I'm beautiful: go figure.
With OKCupid you take a quiz. If it rates you as less kinky and less adventurous, no guy will contact you. The service is rigged for sluts and gigolos.
I had no great experiences with chemistry.com and eHarmony as well. eHarmony caters to conservative Christians. If you write in your profile that you like to attend and perform at poetry readings no eHarmony match will contact you. They're looking for church-going hausfraus, not left-of-the-dial indie girls.
The matches on chemistry.com were incompatible too. One guy wrote the love of his life must love animals. I detest dogs, and cats creep me out. Dog hair sheds all over and dirties your clothes. Take your animals, Jack, and open up a zoo. Or find a woman who's willing to vacuum the couch and de-lint your suits; she isn't me.
You can see why I'm skeptical of Internet dating services; they promise so much and deliver so little. The alleged matches aren't compatible if you're looking for the right person, not just an almost-perfect person. I don't think like the author of that book who proposes you should settle for Mr. Good Enough. I think you should aspire to meet and date a great guy.
No guys on OKCupid were reliable. I could tell they weren't on the level. Guys would send this message: “hi.”  Just “hi.” That doesn't bode well for their conversational skills on a date. Guys, you respond to a woman online. Refer to something she wrote in her profile. You say “hi,” and I'll say “goodbye!”
I took a dating break this winter in the polar vortex. As I write this, it's March 2nd and a snowstorm is on the way, even though there's only three weeks until spring. My goal is to resurrect the love search in June when the weather is warmer.
Any woman who is desperate to meet a guy because she doesn't want to be alone will only attract Mr. Wrong, a guy who's going to use her, or worse. My hardship is that I have other more pressing goals and it wasn't ever my number-one goal to be in relationship. Meeting my soul match would be the icing on a tasty cake. I already have the cake; it's time to frost it.
I wanted to bet my friend a wager that I'd meet Mr. Right-For-Me in the summer. “D” turned me down even though I offered him a free meal, not a monetary prize. So, I'm going to bet the readers of New York City Voices a friendly wager: If I meet the guy this summer, I get to tell you I told you so. If I don't meet a guy, you can smirk at me.
To the victor go the spoils. To the heartbroken go the Kleenex. I've stocked up on the tissues just in case.

Pullout: “Imagine that: I was too short and too skinny for a guy even though I'm beautiful: go figure.”

Book Ends: Silent Screams by D. Cross

Book Ends: Silent Screams by D. Cross

Reviewed by Columnist Kurt Sass

Silent Screams is a brutally honest, well-written account of the life of a woman who has endured a myriad of hardships most of us could barely imagine.

Although the first four chapters are devoted exclusively to her experiences with (and failures of) the mental healthcare system, the remainder of the book is a biography of a life full of setbacks, and more importantly, uncaring people.

The book is full of countless example of how people in all facets of life had failed her. For example, growing up, many doctors would dismiss her many symptoms until her condition grew worse and worse. This neglect continued until she finally got diagnosed with tuberculosis, far later than necessary. In addition, the nuns refused to believe her when she said she had difficulty walking up stairs.

Years later, while in a psychiatric hospital for six weeks, she was never told her diagnosis, participated in completely silent group therapy and psychiatry sessions and was discharged even though told that she had no home to go to.

Ms. Cross also reveals later in the book about an illness later in her life and the many many delays in getting a proper diagnosis and treatment, all the time while in constant pain.

If all this wasn’t enough, throw in some uncaring relatives and three “predators” and you can see what a brutal existence this women had to deal with.

The major point I got from this book, unfortunately, is that no matter where you turn, especially the ones in whose hands you put your life, they will disappoint you. Ms. Cross’s viewpoint, as stated in the end pages of the book, has been one of acceptance.

While I recommend this book to most people, there are some that definitely should not be reading this. To most people, this book is a good example of how, in some cases, the medical/mental health care system, in the regard to how they treat people, has not changed (in some cases) over the years. Great strides have been made, and patients for the most part, have been treated with more dignity, but this book will show as evidence that much more needs to be done. For this reason, I recommend this book, especially for mental health and medical healthcare advocates. While I am glad Ms. Cross has found peace in acceptance, I wish she had an advocate during her times of need to help get the proper care and treatment she needed.

On the other hand, this book should not be read by anyone who is currently undecided about their opinion of mental health or healthcare professionals in general or anyone who is contemplating seeing a therapist or healthcare professional for the first time. It does not give a full representation of healthcare professionals. This is just one person’s experience and is not typical. It is also a very depressing book.

SSI, SSD and Employment: What You Need to Know

SSI, SSD and Employment: What You Need to Know

By Tim Deal, Paralegal, MFY Legal Services, Inc.

PART ONE

The Importance of and Barriers to Employment

Entering, remaining in, or returning to the workforce is an important goal for many people experiencing mental illness. In addition to the financial benefits of earning employment income, there are many other benefits to working. For many people, employment is a vital part of the recovery process.

Unfortunately, as they seek to join the workforce, some people find themselves confronted by a variety of barriers. One serious barrier is a fear of losing their Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits. Another barrier is fear of Social Security overpayments. Overpayments occur when the Social Security Administration (Social Security) alleges they mistakenly increased a recipient’s payment and then decrease that recipient’s SSI or SSD payments until Social Security has been recouped, paid back for their supposed overpayment.

MFY’s New Employment Initiative

MFY Legal Services has provided free civil legal assistance to low-income New Yorkers for over 50 years. The Mental Health Law Project at MFY has been helping New Yorkers with mental illness with civil legal issues since 1983. At MFY, we recognize both the importance of employment for people with mental illness and the seriousness of these Social Security-related barriers to work. In response, the Mental Health Law Project started a new initiative to support the employment goals of people with mental illness. We want to encourage employment by letting people know that they can work while receiving SSI and SSD. In fact, if they do, in most cases they will end up in a better financial situation.

Additionally, our employment initiative seeks to address Social Security overpayments in two ways. First, we want to help prevent overpayments from happening in the first place by educating people on Social Security’s reporting requirements. And, for those who have already received notice of an overpayment, we want to assist them in the overpayment appeal process by helping complete the appropriate Social Security form, and when possible, helping to negotiate with Social Security and appearing at Social Security hearings.

In what follows, we hope that readers will gain an understanding of how employment affects SSI and SSD, as well as what they need to do to prevent and fight overpayments. People who receive both SSI and SSD face a more complicated situation, because they have to deal with both sets of rules; SSI rules apply to the SSI money they receive, while

SSD rules apply to the SSD money they receive.

How Employment Affects SSI and SSD

One of the most common questions we hear is, “How exactly does my work income affect my Social Security benefits?” Social Security’s rules for how employment affects SSI and SSD are very complex. However, there are some general rules to keep in mind when going back to work while receiving Social Security benefits.

Employment and SSI

For people receiving SSI, Social Security adjusts their SSI checks every month that they earn work income. Here is how it works: Social Security wants to know how much money SSI recipients receive in total from work each month before taxes. Once they know this amount, they do a few things. In general, Social Security will ignore the first $85 that an SSI recipient earns at work each month. Then they will cut what remains in half. This amount is what Social Security deducts from the SSI check. The key here is that Social Security does not deduct an SSI recipient’s work income dollar-for-dollar from their check so, if they work, they will end up bringing home more money. In 2014, most people who receive SSI can earn up to $1,700 per month and continue to be eligible for at least some money in their SSI check.

Example One: Let’s say Ms. Smith is an SSI recipient who begins earning $685 a month at work. Social Security will ignore the first $85 dollars that she earns, reducing the amount of employment income it considers from $685 to $600. Then they will cut that $600 in half, bringing it down to $300. This $300 is what they will deduct from Ms. Smith’s check. So, if she receive $808 in her SSI check before working, that amount will be lowered to $508. The important thing to remember is that, in this example, Ms. Smith is earning $685 and receiving an SSI check for $508, increasing her monthly income to $1,193.

This article has been split into two parts. In part two, we will discuss how employment earnings and SSD work together, showing in several examples how various incomes and SSD payments add up. We will also discuss preventing and fighting overpayments.

Contacting MFY

If you have any questions about how working effects SSI and SSD, or if you would like assistance appealing an existing work-related overpayment, MFY’s Mental Health Law Project is here to help. Our intake line is (212) 417-3830. That line is opened Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.