Blog For Mental Health 2015 Launch!

Due to my health, I will no longer be able to curate this site. If Blog For Mental Health has served its true purpose, you don’t need me here anymore anyway. The 2015 Blogroll is up-to-date as of this writing, and you can use the wonderful community of bloggers listed there to make connections, and to find kindred spirits dealing with similar challenges. That’s always been the most important role of Blog For Mental Health, to connect individuals in a positive way to support one another.

That’s right, it’s finally on! Blog For Mental Health 2015 is here!

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Mental Health Exclusion

I am in Australia and feel very fortunate when it comes to public health services. When we opt for Private Health Insurance in Australia, it is so that we can get additional cash back on selected services and also more easily afford non-Government medical practitioners and hospitals. Private Health Insurance is also priced around age and services you would like covered, not around your medical history or risk (even though there are eligibility periods for certain claims). But you don’t need Health Insurance to get good medical care in Australia, as is the case in other countries. For that I am grateful.

Protect Your Words, Your Work, And Yourself

This post is a bit of a deviation from the theme of mental health, but it’s something I like to write about annually, as I feel too few people are aware of how widespread this issue is, what their rights are, and how they can help to keep their work safeguarded.

As you may or may not be know, content theft is one of my hot button issues when it comes to blogging.  Copyrights and licenses are displayed everywhere on this blog, as well as a Copyscape banner (and yes, I actually do use this service). Additionally, each author has a unique copyright for their work on Canvas.  I have personally been to the mat many times with sites that insisted on violating intellectual property rights, and I have won every fight.

You Can’t Win at the Insurance Game

I am extraordinarily lucky: I have complete coverage health insurance. That means all therapy, lab tests, prescriptions, and other services – even chiropractic – are covered 100%. It sounds too good to be true, right?

It is.

The catch is that it’s a high deductible plan, and while my husband’s employer pays the bulk of the $11K deductible, we pay about $2K.

Lines and Colours

In my mind, I am normal. This is because I live with me twenty-four seven (OK, not always twenty-four seven because some of those hours I am asleep).

I have BPD. In the past, I never realised that I feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than others do. I thought the intensity of my emotions was normal. Turns out, it’s not. I read somewhere that in non-BPD people an emotion typically fires for 12 seconds. In BPD’ers it can last up to 20 percent longer. BPD’ers emotions also repeatedly re-fire, or re-live, or recur, however you want to say it, so emotional reactions occur for even longer. I do. I go over and over and over the emotions, pinging from one to another like a steel ball in a pinball machine.

Writing a Safety Plan

When I started creating a Wellness Journal awhile back, I found I didn’t have some of the “required” ingredients on hand, including a Safety Plan and a Wellness Plan. Fortunately, plans can be developed as needed, right?

I started with a little research and quickly learned that there are a number of different contracts and plans meant to improve accountability and interventions in mental health crisis situations.

Willkommen!

Hi there!  Well, gosh, what on earth can I say to all of you?  First things first, for those who don’t know me, my name is Ruby, and I’m the admin of A Canvas Of The Minds.  Before I get into the finer points of the setup here, though, I’d like to offer a proper greeting.  I guess as each of you fall into one of three distinct groups, with a little overlap (you’ll see what I mean in a sec), I need to say three distinct things.

Disabled, or Handicapped? What’s the Difference?

One of my medical school guest professors, let’s call him Dr. X, came to class in a wheelchair.  He had not used it all of his life.  In fact, he had only begun to use it in the past couple of years.

Dr. X was a normally functioning medical student with a wife and two children when one day he woke up, got out of bed, and fell on the floor.  His right side was completely paralyzed.  He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance; tests were done; and he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.