Bruni in the City: Madonna Mia! I Turn 50 Soon!

Bruni in the City: Madonna Mia I Turn 50 Soon!
A Column by Christina Bruni
Make a Fresh Start in Your Forties
Has anyone seen my eyeglasses? I'm reading the book Style Evolution, about how a woman can dress herself at 40 and beyond. The author, Kendall Farr, a fashion stylist, shoots down Madonna and Demi Moore as unrealistic role models for women whose bodies are no longer pointy and perky.
Everything goes south at 40, honey. Trying to emulate women whose sole mission in life is to sculpt or scalpel themselves into perfect form is fruitless and unhealthy. Better to buy the Spanx and let nature take its course. Sure, do an exercise routine and watch what you eat. The Spanx couldn't hurt while you're at it.
Yet 40 and beyond, as a woman reaches this prime age, is not the time to still be in agony over your body or your life.
I urge every young woman reading this column to understand that 40 is the start of a new and wonderful phase of your life, and not the end of the best times. It can get better and better if you have the hope that you can live a good life into and through your sunset years.
I'm about to give a talk to senior citizens and I'm excited about this because I turn 50 in April of 2015. This seems unreal, given how I appear in my photo, yet that's how it goes: I'm soon to be in the target market for AARP.
Laughing about this is the only way to go. The kind of precious thing about it is that when you come to this age, you're no longer asked for proof of ID when you go into a liquor store. This charms me for some reason, that I can buy a bottle of Barefoot Pinot Grigio and the shopkeeper doesn't bat an eyelash.
Of course, when I was 21 and I looked like I was 14 I didn't get carded either in my neighborhood. When I was 14, I went to Butterfly, the shop on 8th Street in the Village, and bought a fake ID to get me into clubs. The ID looked fake but the bouncers didn't care.
The old drivers' licenses in New York State didn't have photos when I came of age so you could report your license lost, get a new one, and forget the old license with a birth date that allowed you to buy beer and enter bars.
What I did when the new licenses with the photos came out, I acted like a makeup artist and added blush over my photo so that it looked better than a mug shot. Strange, but true.
No. I don't think 40 is the time when a woman should give up on herself.
A woman should never give up on doing things to feel beautiful, even if she doesn't look like Madonna or Demi Moore. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you should be the one beholding your own beauty, and admiring yourself when you get older.
The cruelest word in the dictionary is menopause. I don't even know if it's in the dictionary. I will see what happens in two years when it's bye, bye babies and hello hot flashes.
You need to have a sense of humor about getting older. Only the Grim Reaper should be grim, not you or me.
If you turn 40 and you still don't like yourself, continuing to agonize over every imagined flaw, that's not good when you have 30 more years to live. We all need to get over our jiggles and make peace with the fact that we're not Hey Nineteen anymore.
Where did those years fly? I don't know, but they're gone and they're not coming back. So I'm going to end here with this indisputable fact: if life isn’t over when you're 22 and diagnosed with schizophrenia, it certainly isn’t over at 40. You'll live to be 40, and then 40 will be a memory. So your life isn't over at 22 — it's only just begun. As hard as it is to imagine at 22, life gets better, whether you’re 40 or 50, and so on.
For most people, recovery is possible. You might think the last call has sounded on the only life you've ever known. Not so. A new life beckons, and it can be better than you ever expected.
I'll leave you with this thought: you can have a good life.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must go look for my eyeglasses. I know they're here somewhere.

Through the Fire

Through the Fire

By Angelica

The flaming started with my husband’s suicide. His father had been bipolar and we knew it was a possibility for John. But we never expected to be diagnosed simultaneously. We had the same doctors, but I was hospitalized for what was supposed to be one year.

I was drugged almost to death. I’m very sensitive to medication. My mother and husband waited two weeks for me to recognize and speak to them. My thoughts kept flying away, but I managed to say “Hi.” Mom got me out AMA (against medical advice).

At this point John wanted a divorce. I dove into fear mode. We had three kids to raise and I only had one semester of college. What kind of job could I get? At this point, I could barely go to the grocery store. By then, I was in and out of three hospitals. Medications ruled again.

John racked up $122,000 in debts in two months. The judge did not grant him custody of one of the boys. His lawyers were exasperated with him. He quit his job. He had essentially no friends. The kids and I got the house. Thus, the suicide. Ironically, he received a job offer that same afternoon.

I went to support groups and endeavored to stay out of hospitals. I never went to a grief support group, but we all should have. I was off medication and did alright for one year. I met Chris in that time frame through a computer dating service. I told him I was bipolar and had three children, none of which seemed to bother him. We married six weeks later.

Unbelievably, Chris was diagnosed with bipolar several years later. He forged through his job until he was 59, then went on disability. We graciously allowed for each other’s shortcomings. We didn’t worry so much about money as much as we demonstrated our love for each other. It wasn’t all roses, but the love grew and grew. We have been married for twenty-seven years.

I painted, wrote, crocheted and did needlepoint through the mood swings. I adore colors and am fascinated by words. When I painted, I focused on colors, shapes, shadows and light. Words were invisible to me. One night, I was painting a piano and flowers when a big storm stirred up. I paused. Then I decided if it were my time to go, I would go with a smile. I kept on painting with a quiet joy.

Whenever I was writing my book, all worries and concerns were gone. In a way it was traumatic, yet in another way it was cathartic and left me drained. I was still happy to finish it twenty years later.

Two years after meeting Chris, I found my guru. Jesus had been my first teacher, but I wanted a physically embodied teacher. Baba’s teachings were a lot like Jesus’ only phrased differently. Instead of the Golden Rule, Baba said, “Help ever, hurt never.” I was so happy that I trucked off to India to see him. I spent two months there. It was heaven. I saw Baba in darshan (the seeing of an avatar) over 100 times. He didn’t speak to me there, but he did later in Canada.

When He saw my finished book, He said there were a lot of Vedic truths in that, and how could I sell the truth? So, I promised to only gift them in the future. It was a big test. I always wanted to be an author and sell my books to raise my level of living. I guess God decided differently. So, I accepted that with just a whimper.

Around the same time I met Baba, I also lucked out with a great psychiatrist. His vote was out on the God issue, but he was so caring, I knew God loved him. After several medication cocktails, he hit on the right one. He was surprised how the low dosages were so effective for me. Gratefully, the sparks went out and I stabilized. I haven’t been hospitalized in eight consecutive years. Thank God.

One morning, Dr. T leaned forward and said, “I learned something.” I was all ears. “I learned that you don’t need so much medicine.”

“I told you so…”

“No, I learned that all my patients can have less medication.”

Amen.

Now, one son has bipolarity, and the beat goes on.

The Right Perspective is Everything

The Right Perspective is Everything

By Allan

I Enjoy My Senior Years By Helping Others

At the age of forty, job related stress brought on my first episode of major depression. Since 1980, I had been diagnosed with bipolar 1 and have had seven breakdowns requiring electro-convulsive therapy.

My last event was four years ago, and today I am in full recovery, not cured, but able to fully function. I attend support group meetings at NAMI and Recovery International. I believe my acquired coping skills and new positive attitude allows me to not dwell on the past, which is subject to interpretation, nor the future, which is unknown, and to focus on the present.

For thirty years, I was able to work on Wall Street. I've been married 51 years, have two grown children and four grandchildren, despite my recurrent illness. Bipolar has made me sensitive to the plight of others, more understanding and appreciative of the people in my life.

When I am well, I think back to the darkest days of my life, and when I am ill, I remember how I overcame the nightmare that is mental illness seven times. If my dark days return, I know that with treatment I can survive.

My recovery has been reinforced by my advocacy efforts. As a member of JAC NYC (Jails Action Coalition), I fight to end solitary confinement, especially for those with mental illness, and I am active with RIPPD (Rights for Imprisoned People With Psychiatric Disabilities), which fights for Community Crisis Intervention Teams.

In 1990, after 30 years of employment at a major firm, I was downsized and told that my position was being eliminated due to the recession in the economy. When I responded that I had seniority and they were keeping younger people on the job with less seniority than I, they said seniority only applies to union workers. So much for loyalty in the capitalistic system. I sued under the Employment Disability Laws and was eventually given long term disability and Social Security Disability.

Not working was a shock for me. Having a schedule each day, putting on a nice suit, white shirt and tie, working alongside fellow workers, engaging them in conversation about sports, current events , their children involved in Little League baseball, was no longer available. I had to find other dreams and outlets that provided me with involvement.

I am now a speaker for MHA and last month I made a presentation at Bellevue for consumers such as myself. My biggest happiness is seeing other consumers who have struggled to cope with their new life eventually helping others in the support groups I attend. They help, not with advice, but by relating how under similar circumstances they found out that "eventually every problem has a solution."

I’ve Been Here Before

I’ve Been Here Before

By A.J. Johnson

The desire to be understood; the angst when you’re not

I'm sitting at my desk, bawling my eyes out over everything and anything going on in my life. I'm hyperventilating at all of the possible outcomes of my situation, thinking the worst. My mind is racing from here to there to everywhere and back again, trying to figure things out, and it's not getting anywhere. I've been here before.

I’d like to think I’m different. Certainly, many people I meet think I’m unique, or even special. They can’t quite put a finger on it. But I can. And so can many others around the world who live with the same issues I live with. People treat us differently, sometimes with empathy. Most of the time, it’s with contempt, hostility, anger and fear. They don’t understand what it’s like to live with a mental illness, and they probably never will. It’s difficult to get people to understand something you can barely understand or control yourself. I’ve been here before.

I ache all over from the sheer loneliness I feel, even after I've reached out to friends and family, telling them I need to talk, and no one responds. I'm usually so open and verbal about myself, that when I need a lifeline from time to time to talk privately about things, and no one responds, I feel like a shit heel because I'm bugging people too much. And no one wants to hear about my problems anymore. There's always something wrong with A.J. I've been here before.

I'm bargaining and arguing with my loved ones, bawling, weeping, sniffling, begging and pleading with them to just listen to me. They tell me to "get over it," "quit the crying," and to "go get a job." When I tell them I can't because my doctors highly recommend that I don't and I actually agree with the decision. It isn't because I want to be lazy, it's because I don't want to go to jail for killing someone. I don't want to end up on the news as my kid finds me after school one day once I’ve taken a handful of pills. They end the conversation because they don't want to hear what I have to say, because they’ve heard it before and they’ve got their own ideas about my situation. I've been here before.

I struggle with my daily grind, trying to put my best foot forward. But it's difficult at best, excruciatingly painful at the worst. I try to do things that will help me feel better about myself so I can change my mental state and attitude. Sometimes it works. For the times it doesn't work, I'm left feeling flat, hollow and cold. I've been here before.

I try to do other things to make myself feel better. Safe things. Things that I don't have to pay money for, things I can do at home, because heaven forbid I do something like get out of the house. That would be expensive and I can't afford it right now. I've been there before too.

Point is: I've been here before. I keep coming back and I don't like it here. But it's one place I know better than I know anything else. It's not a happy or fun or sunny place. But it's more familiar to me than the lines on my own face. I want to change it in the most desperate ways possible and most of the ways I can think of are morbid, sad and heartbreaking.

It makes me seem selfish, inconsiderate, conceited even. But I'm not. I honestly wonder whether or not my life in any way possible means anything to anyone other than my immediate family. Why should I care? Because I'm one of those types of people; I care about others and I do care what others think of me, to a point. I think about those people whose lives I've touched, if at all, when I try to bring myself out of these doldrums. It brings me to a place where I think I can handle this mess of mental illness swirling through my brain. It helps me calm myself and think that I can move forward, even though I know, deep down inside, I'm really not.

I've been here before.

Ward Stories A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor

Ward Stories

A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor

Jeffrey Perry, a peer advocate of many years, wrote an op-ed titled “Recovery is the Level of Happiness We Obtain” for the summer 2013 edition of NYC Voices. You can learn more about him and his work at: http://www.jeffreyvperry.com. Andrea shared her work with Voices for the first time. Her poem is darker, but from the heart, about the struggles many people have when they live with mental illness.

Stigmas Are Not Imagined

By Jeffrey Perry

Stigma is not imagined

Stigma is very true and really real.

Stigma is not just an outside force,

Stigma is something one can also feel.

Sometimes thoughtless people do mistake

And call fixation with stigma, just a fake.

Often billions are spent for the system’s sake,

For not knowing the prices stigmas do take.

We cannot account for stigma’s heartache

Or the loss love missed from stigma’s heartbreak.

In the first rule of Sociology,

You are not to blame any poor victim.

Mental health is a chief priority,

Not to be treated any less for some.

Symptoms too, are real and take their toll,

On those who know their continuous hold.

One needs more than clout to stay in the door,

While witnessing the pain one may endure.

Do not be deceived by what you work for.

Forget not this clouded vale none adore.

Remember through hurt, we open that store.

Our products are on the shelves at our core.

With all stigmas and symptoms that prevail,

Recovery is still a bright light that shines well.

Where Do I Go From Here?

By Andrea

Where do I go from here?

That’s always the question

My heart, my soul, my life

The fear just keeps coming

Where do I go from here?

I’m lost, forever floating

The love I should feel for myself

It does not exist, and it will never surface

Where do I go from here?

Others think they know

They’re so high and mighty

But their wisdom cannot match my demons

Where do I go from here?

The answer is inevitable

Hell on earth is waiting

I will suffer to live…I will suffer to die

Where do I go from here?

WORK: What’s It Worth When You’re On SSDI or SSI by Carl Blumenthal

WORK: What’s It Worth When You’re On SSDI or SSI
By Carl Blumenthal
Why work? Obviously, to make money for the basics and little luxuries of life. In addition, gainful employment defines social acceptance.

Fortunately, even if you receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), you can earn more with a job because the Social Security Administration (SSA) allows you to work within some limits, to help with the transition to self-sufficiency. Thus, you can add to the average SSDI monthly payment nationally of $1,130 (2013) or $808 (2014) for a New York SSI recipient living alone.

For those on SSDI, nine Trial Work Periods (TWP's) of a month each are allowed over five years, to get your feet wet if you haven't worked in a long time. During those TWP's, you can gain as much income as possible without losing your full benefits. (So, if you become a car salesman, you can keep all those juicy commissions.)

For 2014, a TWP consists of more than $770 per month. Less than that, you don't use up any of the nine TWP's you're allowed. And, you can still make up to $1,070 per month, what's called Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA), and get your full benefits for up to three years, after you've completed the nine TWP's.

For folks on SSI, the Social Security Administration (SSA) basically subtracts $1 from your check for every $2 in extra income. This is a simplification because SSA excludes the first $85 of your earnings when calculating your change in benefits. 

Say your monthly benefit is $808 and you get $1,085 a month at a new job. Your benefit would be reduced by $500 for that period ($1,085-$85=$1,000/2=$500), but given the extra $1,085, that's still a total of $1,393 ($808-$500=$308+$1,085=$1,393), so you come out way ahead.

To be on the safe side, if you want to continue SOME benefits, don't earn more than twice your monthly SSI level. Certainly, that's not as good a deal as SSDI recipients get. But, you'll do better in the in the long run through employment.
Why do the two programs treat people differently?

Because SSDI is based on the amount of on-the-books past employment. To be eligible, you must have earned at least $4,800 for each of 10 recent years. Like Medicare, which SSDI recipients also receive, SSDI is a government-run insurance program, supported mainly by deductions from workers’ paychecks.

SSI is an income supplement for disabled people with little or no money, which automatically qualifies you for Medicaid. Usually, SSI recipients have not worked enough to qualify for SSDI. Because the program is supported by general tax revenues, not Social Security taxes withheld from wages, Congress made the rules less generous for people who work on SSI.
However, money isn't the only reason to work: That's why the federal government's Eight Dimensions of Wellness (for people with mental health or substance abuse challenges) include one dimension for finances and one for employment. You get satisfaction and self-confidence from being employed.

As Sigmund Freud famously said, "Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness." Plus, the boredom and frustration of doing nothing can lead to all kinds of mischief, not only in your head but also in your home and on the street. So, one of the best ways to get and stay busy is to work, whether for pay or volunteer.

Finally, here are two notes of warning: Report your earnings regularly to your local SSA office to avoid overpayments you might be obligated to return and also inform SSA of an improvement in your medical condition such that you no longer qualify as disabled. In the latter case, enrollment in a Ticket-to-Work or other rehabilitation program could postpone a required SSA medical re-evaluation.

(For information about Ticket-to-Work and other Social Security work incentives, including how to maintain Medicare or Medicaid, see the Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies’ newly-revised WORKbook: A Guide to New York City’s Mental Health Employment Programs. Call 212-742-1600 for a free copy or see the guide at www.coalitionny.org.)

Note: Carl Blumenthal is a former employment specialist with NetWORK plus, Baltic Street AEH’s assisted competitive employment (ACE) program. He receives SSDI and works part-time at the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (www.cet.org).

Empty Spaces: Pushing Back the Boundaries by Virginia A. Tobin

Empty Spaces: Pushing Back the Boundaries

By Virginia A. Tobin

Reclaiming My Consciousness

Anything or anyone who demands your attention on a daily basis becomes personal to you. Before I became mentally ill, my personal identity was common place to myself and to the rest of society. Since then, my paranoid schizophrenia has demanded my attention generally speaking for approximately 19 years, and has demanded my attention at every level of my life for most of those years. My mental illness has occupied the empty spaces and has pushed back the boundaries so that the gaps of emptiness are much wider than that of a mentally healthy person. I have come to see that being passive about this invites the mental illness to become a parasite larger than the host. The time has come for me to push back the boundaries of emptiness and to allow little room for the uncommon demand.

My symptoms began in 1995, unbeknownst to me, creeping up on me with peculiar occurrences, all culminating in 2007 when I was hearing and seeing ghosts. The onset of my disability seemed to coincide with my one and only marriage to a man I had dated in high school. I only know this in retrospect because I had no clue I was mentally ill until being diagnosed in 2004. My suffering really commenced when my husband left me, without much explanation, after six months of living together as husband and wife. I had a profound feeling of not understanding, which stayed with me, growing for years to come. This feeling of not understanding eventually became about everything that I experienced on a daily basis and thus became MY personal definition of the self.

I would not say that I was lost. I wasn’t. It’s just that this feeling of not understanding became accompanied by beliefs that I adopted to explain the feeling itself. This is where I split from the common understanding of the truth. I began believing that everyone around me was talking indirectly about me or indirectly to me. Following this, I began believing that I knew things that the public did not know about local and world events. Everything I heard, and everything and everyone I met, soon seemed to be a part of a perfect world in which every last detail and generality was previously planned from the license plates of the cars around me to the changing names of countries on the world map. Putting it simply, I recognized everything in the world. It was like experiencing the awesome power of God from a demonic perspective.

One cannot imagine what this felt like, nor understand how demanding this was on my attention. I was in a continuous state of shock and not understanding. This is where my paranoia steps in. I believed that strangers around me knew who I was and that they were all in on some kind of great conspiracy concerning me. I believed that spies from all over the world were watching, listening and following me, that micro-cams were in my bathroom and a tracking device was inside my watch. I don’t know when I started to believe there was an implant in my thumb. This now all seems so gratuitous, of course, since whoever planned the world’s goings on was so advanced.

I was eventually caught be the authorities as only mentally ill people will truly understand. In desperation, I went to the police while I was delusional and traveling around the country thinking now that I was being chased and harassed by the mob. The police sent me to the public psychiatrist where I was officially diagnosed. I immediately noticed that I was now in a different class of people because I was institutionalized. I had just relinquished control of my entire life, as a prisoner would relinquish control to the authorities by being incarcerated. My instincts were correct. This was only to be the beginning of a long span of time spent in and out of the mental institution. It seemed that everyone viewed me as a mentally ill person whose sudden civic duty it was to control and detain. This is how my life crashed.

My paranoid schizophrenia voided my daily experience of true living and settled in with voices from the spirit world. My disability took on a new dimension as voices only came from people in the material world before this. These new voices took my time and my attention so that I was unable to measure my life and at some points unable to measure time. Life events were seemingly non-existent. The value and the meaning of life became shabby. Emptiness was my master and I was its slave.

During the time period directly following my life crashing, I began to finally gain a feeling of understanding through the spirit world voices. They explained a whole new domain of delusion to me which justified everything that I had previously believed. Finally, I began to relax because I no longer felt the desperation of not comprehending.

Currently, I have a more developed understanding and realistic relationship with my disability. The goal is to close the gap of emptiness with a hobby or interest that I can share with others and hopefully earn some money with. The concept that I am pursuing is to teach myself how to make wedding gowns and eventually to design originals. Of course, I will take this very personally as it will redefine who I am by what I think about and do routinely. My attention will be mine again.