Quality of Life

The following is an email exchange about smoking and people who experience mental health conditions. The final section was written by MHA's Compeer Coordinator, Kristen Frame.

A daughter who grew up with a mentally ill parent:

I have understood for some time that tobacco helps reduce the  incidences and frequency of hallucinations and delusion of a person suffering from debilitating mental illnesses like schizophrenia.  If is does, then quality of life should be in the equation.   There is no cure for many of our mental illness, only control of symptoms.  I  ask, if you had to choose, which would you pick.

I do not at all advocate tobacco use, but  I feel for the mentally ill patient, there should be  some exception to the general rule here. 

My understanding is that it is nicotine, rather than tobacco, that positively impacts some schizophrenia symptoms and drug side effects. Does someone in the group have some other information about positive effects from tobacco smoke or other tobacco components for patients struggling with psychosis, etc.? Certainly the negative health effects of tobacco smoke causes other immediate mental and physical issues for people with chronic mental conditions, so eliminating tobacco smoke would be helpful. 

A suggestion is to reach out to the facility to do training for their staff about smoking and mental illness, harm reduction, and how to support patients in reducing or eliminating smoking.  An intermediate step for these particular patients would be to use NRT - lozenge or gum - with these patients rather than chewing tobacco which can lead to oral cancers. And then work with them on use reduction of the NRT.

As you have said, the “positive” effects of tobacco usage are not a justification for not counseling individuals who experience persistent mental illness about the overwhelming evidence that tobacco usage is a significant health hazard and the leading cause of death for individuals with persistent mental illness. There is a short term alleviation of symptoms but like the elusive high of other drugs, it is very short-term and does decrease over time.

This mythology has been perpetuated by outdated “studies” that were funded by the tobacco industry, and debunked by recent more scrupulous current research. A significant portion of individuals who experience mental illness are addicted to tobacco and remain untreated because it is economically advantageous to keep them that way.

Diane writes: “I have understood for some time that tobacco helps reduce the incidences and frequency of hallucinations and delusion of a person suffering from debilitating mental illnesses like schizophrenia.  If is does, then quality of life should be in the equation.   There is no cure for many of our mental illness, only control of symptoms.  I ask, if you had to choose, which would you pick.”

There may currently be no “cure,” but there is recovery and the opportunity for a fully enriched life on one’s own terms. Quality of life is the most important aspect of the equation. Informed decision making is not possible for those who are given inaccurate or misleading information about tobacco addiction. As an advocate, and individual who experiences persistent mental illness, I pick independence and a life constructed of my own informed choices, not reduced to passively accepting a significantly shortened and physically and economically dependent life. We do not accept the notion that alcoholics or other addicts should be supported in the state of addiction because, poor souls, their life is so terrible, we will permit them this vice. Not giving individuals who experience mental illness the up-to-date and appropriate medical treatment that we expect for their peers is not only disabling, it is criminal. Individuals with disabilities do not need to be treated as exceptions, but as equal human beings.

I appreciate your genuine empathy and concern for individuals who experience mental illness. We need equal treatment under the law, not sympathy.

MHA thanks the 20th Century Club, Kiwanis, & Licking Memorial Hospital

Thousands of Licking County families have benefited from the generosity of the women of the 20^th Century Club. Since 1977 these women have provided the money to send newsletters to new parents with the goal of helping families raise mentally healthy children. The women’s service club also provides volunteers to mail the letters to new parents for the first 5 years of the child’s life. That is 34 years of supporting Mental Health America of Licking County in the agency’s ongoing efforts to promote good mental health and wellness.

A few years ago, Newark Kiwanis Club also supported this effort by providing some additional funding to help pay for rising costs of mailing the newsletters. Licking Memorial Hospital is to be commended for gathering the names of the new borns and distributing the first issue of ParenTalk in the hospital.

In 1977, the newsletter was called Pierre the Pelican but it became outdated and ParenTalk replaced Pierre. ParenTalk is written by Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Mental Health America of Franklin County. All first-time Licking County families are eligible to receive the 20 issues by letting us know the date of birth plus name and address of the parent/guardian. Our phone number is 740-522-1341 or email us at mhalc@alink.com.  The age appropriate letters are sent out monthly. We do ask you to let us know if you move, so you will not miss an issue.

ParenTalk deals with everything from post-partum blues to differences in children, to discipline and safety, bottle and breast feeding, tantrums and brain development, eating and sleeping habits, doctor checkups and difficult behaviors, self-esteem and getting along with others, early intervention and sharing, stress and family fun, communication and “telling stories”, learning and creativity, dealing with emotions and expressing anger plus a reminder that parents are a child’s first and most important teacher. Each issue is full of information, advice and resources for additional help.

Another big thank you to the 20^th Century Club for inserting into ParenTalk the Licking County Reading Foundation flyers that say Read for 20, a reminder to parents to read aloud to your child 20 minutes every day. Reading aloud to your child is the most important thing you can do from the day your child is born to prepare your child for success in school.

Mental Health America of Licking County is blessed by our Board of Trustees, donors, volunteers, clubs and organizations, a great staff of dedicated individuals and with funding provided by United Way and the Community Mental Health & Recovery Board.

--Paddy Kutz

Executive Director

The Ghosts That Haunt Me

I used to have a tabletop pre-transistor AM radio that would emit this warm orange glow through its back grill. It wasn't a very bright light, but you could make out the shapes of objects a few feet away. It was like sitting next to the embers of a dying fire.

The radio had a large yellowish tuning knob and I would run that from one end of the scale to the other listening for someone to tell me a story after my mother had left the room and turned out the lights.

There were the local stations like CFCF, CJAD, and CFOX, but on a clear winter night I could also pick up stations in Boston, Chicago and New York City. These stations would come in only after the dial had been manipulated with the delicate touch of a safecracker and even then the signal would be riding a wave of static that would routinely rise up and drown it out completely.

Between the peaks of static, I would hear about traffic on the Dan Ryan, nor'easters threatening the Cape Cod, Boston and the Maine coast. It was while listening to this radio that I was introduced to "traffic and weather together on the eights" and to "The Shadow."

On various nights at different spots around the dial, I would find rebroadcasts of old radio shows. These programs would mix sitcoms like Fibber McGee & Molly with shows like The Whistler and Inner Sanctum. These programs were once mainstays of the airwaves long before call-in shows and before computers replaced disc jockeys.

The Shadow was ideally suited to radio because only at home, in the dark, could you accept the idea that one man could convince another that he was invisible. In real life, if you saw someone talking to an invisible crime fighter then you would contact organizations like ours.

Whereas radio sitcoms tended to thrive when translated to television and the movies, the spook shows were much less successful. The camera could never show anything as vivid as the images conjured by the imagination. It's the same reason that the best ghost stories are the ones we hear around the campfire, or from our friends. We remember these stories long after the punch lines of a great joke, the phone number of that cute girl, or where we left our car keys. Our brains file them some place different, some place more primal.

***

It will come as no surprise then that my favorite Christmas story is a ghost story.

"A Christmas Carol" tells the story of a man haunted by memory, by perspective and by possibility. Though often read to children, the story of Scrooge is the story of adults and their changing perspective on the holiday.

Children don't need ghost stories to know what Christmas is all about. They learn very quickly that it's all about them.

This is such a powerful idea that the traditions of the season become like critical ingredients in a recipe that we try to follow throughout our lives in order to recreate the perfect Christmas. What we learn as we grow older is that, like in cooking, some ingredients are not always available and substitutions are inevitable.

When we were children, those ingredients seemed to be in abundant supply. With few exceptions, the tree and its decorations, the meal and its menu, the guests and their jokes didn't vary all that much from one year to the next. And that was pretty comforting. No matter what happened throughout the year, Christmas was a red and green colored constant.

After I left home, the reassuring consistency of a family Christmas became even more important, but instead of having the whole month to marinate in it I only ever seemed to have a few days.

Compressing Christmas into smaller and smaller windows seemed to make it all the more important to get home and reconnect and regenerate. The traditions that evolved over time became desperate stations that had to be checked off in the hopes that some of the old self-affirming magic would return.

It was no wonder that the holidays were exhausting and came to be anticipated with a certain amount of dread.

And then there came the years when I couldn't be home for Christmas and even that couldn't be experienced without mixed emotions: I was both disappointed and relieved.

Dickens' story does a pitch-perfect job of capturing the contrasts and the mixed emotions that Christmas evokes in me. Christmas Past haunts me, Christmas Present is unsettling and Christmas Yet to Come is always challenging me to change my ways.

As I think about Christmas today, I find myself in a kind of a neutral zone trying to figure out what is left after all of the trimmings have been packed away.

There are no default answers. I do believe that it is important to work for peace on earth and goodwill to all. I like finding the perfect present and bringing a smile to the faces of the people I care about. (In the absence of a self-affirming answer, I will settle for affirming others.) I take comfort in making time to watch "White Christmas" and "Scrooge" (the 1951 version with Alastair Sim). But, unlike Scrooge, I don't think I have yet woken up from my dream. I think I am still working on the meaning of the season.

***

When I was growing up, one of the holiday staples was the annual Christmas show of local broadcaster Paul Reid.

Each year, he would devote one night of his show to stories of his childhood growing up in Peterborough, Ontario, as one of sixteen children, interspersed with holiday readings and Christmas music.

Reid had a magnificent voice for radio. It was warm, mellow, deep and tinged with a bit of sadness. He would guide his audience through the evening on a snowy Montreal night and make us think we were seated in front of a crackling fire listening to familiar tales.

Reid's fondness for the depression-era Christmases of his childhood was as undeniable as it was removed from his position as a big city radio host. It was almost as though he was telling these stories as a way of keeping them alive for himself.

I used to look forward to this show each year because it was something to look forward to. It was a fixture and a benchmark of the approaching holiday, like opening the doors on an advent calendar. I have been thinking about it recently because I recognize and connect to Reid's need to present it as a way of sustaining himself.

In the end, maybe that's all there is. Perhaps it is in the act of creating joy and obtaining some measure of satisfaction that we are really learning from the ghosts that haunt us.

Happy holidays.

--Graham Campbell
Associate Director

Thinking About those who are Struggling, Especially Children!

For 29 years, I have been writing about holiday stress and offered strategies on coping. There now are many sources of learning how to deal with life, some in the newspaper, some on the radio, some on television, and tons on the internet. Be sure to check out our website at www.mhalc.org to Live Your Life Well using our 10 tools which will help you to cope better. Let me offer my advice and referrals if you need it by calling me at 740-522-1341 or send me an email at Paddykutz@alink.com

All year long, not just during the holidays, it is appropriate to stretch beyond your own problems and issues and think of those less fortunate, especially children and youth. One way is to consider the poem by Ina J. Hughs who is often quoted, but not given credit. As you give thanks remember to:

Give thanks for children who

sneak popsicles before supper,

erase holes in math workbooks,

never find their shoes.

And offer love and hope to those who

stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,

are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,

never go to the circus,

live in an X-rated world.

Give thanks for children who

  bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,

  hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And offer love and hope to those who

never get dessert,

have no safe blanket to drag behind them,

watch their parents watch them die,

can’t find any bread to steal,

don’t have any rooms to clean up,

whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser.

Give thanks for children who

spend all their allowance before Tuesday,

throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

like ghost stories,

shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,

get visits from the tooth fairy,

don’t like to get kissed in front of the carpool,

squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,

whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And offer love and hope to those who

will eat anything,

have never seen a dentist,

aren’t spoiled by anybody,

go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

live and move, but have no being,

whose nightmares come in the daytime.

Give thanks for and love and hope to children who

want to be carried and for those who must,

we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance,

we smother….and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer!

We are grateful for our volunteers, consumers, Board members and donors to help us keep on helping for 57 more years in Licking County. I also appreciate the author, Ina Hughs. Remember, there is no health without mental health so look after yours and when you need help let me know. I’ll be waiting for your calls and your checks. Thank you.

Mental Health America of Licking County is partially funded by United Way and the Community Mental Health & Recovery Board of Licking/Knox Co.

--by Paddy Kutz
Executive Director

Today, Father, is Father's Day

I know what the calendar says, but for me today is Father's Day.

For more than 2 decades, mid-November can be counted on for two things:  cold, biting rain and a flood of memories about the complicated man who was my father.  Like the bracing sting of a cold rain that makes you put your head down and your collar up, memories of my father give me chills and remind me that I should have been better prepared.

Now before anyone jumps ahead and makes any assumptions, I use the word chills because his quick death from cancer abruptly punctuated our relationship and left me with lots of unresolved questions and feelings.  I can't think of him without wondering how he would think about what's happened to me, my brother and sister and the world in general.  I keep thinking that he and my wife's father would have liked one another and wish I could be certain.  I want to ask his advice about all manner of things and I can't,  I would like to take one more trip with him.

My father was a funny man.  He liked to laugh.  He liked to make people laugh.  And yet my clearest memories were of a quiet man who seemed to be happiest in his workshop or in the woods with his chainsaw.

He had an astonishing social network in the days when that was measured by handshakes and first names and not numbers on a monitor.  Whatever the issue, it seemed that he always knew who to call and if he didn't, he would find out.

One of the traits my father had in spades was that he was genuinely interested in people.

When I was in high school, my dad took me to England.  After spending a few days in London, he rented a car and we drove south toward Brighton.  We stopped for lunch at a place called the Ship Inn.  I will never forget my father's advice upon entering this pub.  He said you should always sit at the bar because then you'll really find out what's going on.

On this occasion, he broke that rule--I think it may have had something to do with me being under age--and we sat at a table next to the window.  As we were eating our lunch, my father became distracted.  There was something going on at the bar.  As it would turn out, the previous Saturday, the pub had run out of lager and had had to borrow a keg from a pub down the street.  We had arrived on their regular delivery day and now they were trying to figure out how to get the replacement keg delivered to the other establishment.

My father left me at the table to finish my sandwich and fizzy lemon and he went to the bar.  In no time at all he had volunteered to wedge the keg into the back of our car and deliver it himself.

And like that, he had transformed himself from a tourist to a local.  Suddenly he was a celebrated customer and surely he would have another glass to celebrate his new celebrity.

After the toasting, came the packing, or rather the repacking of the car.  Suitcases had to be moved into the back seat so that the keg could be loaded into the trunk.  A guide was assigned to ride with us to the other pub and see that the keg was safely delivered.

At the new pub--I don't remember the name, but I do recall it had something to do with birds--my father was again a celebrity:  the great problem solver from Canada who had volunteered to deliver the beer.  Such a noble act had to be toasted and so we spent another hour at another pub.

The barman took us on a tour and we were shown the owl that was the pub's mascot.  It lived in a cage in the courtyard behind the building.  I don't know much about owls, but to my eye it seemed like a pretty big bird.

While we were sitting there, celebrating the completion of our mission, my father's ears again perked up.  A group of French schoolgirls had come into the bar and were engaged in an animated conversation.  Always ready to be helpful, my father, in his absolutely fearless French, volunteered that there was an owl in the back of the bar.

Perhaps it was a question of cultural competency, perhaps it was because he had had one too many celebratory toasts, but whatever the reason, the schoolgirls were not at all interested in what my father was trying to tell them.  There was a brief pause and then they went back to talking amongst themselves as though nothing had happened.

Like that story, there were episodes in my father's life where he experienced tremendous success and others where communication was a barrier to understanding.  But also like that story, which he told for a long time after we got home, the takeaway is the story.  Dad loved to tell stories.  He liked best the ones in which he was the hero, but so long as it was funny, that didn't always matter.

That's what I have are stories, many of which I was present for and some where I was not, but that have been elevated in the retelling to the level of myth.  They are a comfort and a guide, like the fractured fairy tales from the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show:  they have a lesson, but perhaps not always a helpful one.

And then there is the story that began in the summer of 1989 when he learned he was sick and ended on November 16th at a pay phone in Toronto's Pearson Airport when I learned I had waited too long to make the trip home.

My father was not always an easy man to love, but, as I grow older, neither am I.

I miss him and have felt his loss more keenly as the years have passed.

Happy Fathers Day

Graham Campbell
--Associate Director