Me Days

If you work in mental health services like me, or other health care settings, or hell - any job at all, does your employer offer mental health days?

Mine does.  They used to be classified as "mental health days" and now are part of our "personal days" which includes our sick days as well.

I've always thought this is a really great benefit, and makes sense since a mental health focused agency should understand that we all benefit from staff being in good mental shape.

Somehow I stopped to think about this today and realized that in my five years working here I have taken two - just 2! - mental health days.  Once was when we learned we were loosing our child care provider.  I was in a panic and needed time to focus on finding a new one.  The second was when my partner had been away for about a month on a job and had a really miserable time.  I wanted to be there for him when he got home.

So why?  Why if I value this benefit so much do I not take advantage of it?  There is guilt involved for sure.  And the dread of having more worked piled up when I return.  Plus the time consuming factor of having to rebook appointments.  Worry that I won't make my "numbers" that month if I miss a day.

I think I just like to know they are there.  That I have the option to take some me time without having to lie about being sick or something.  Maybe I'm just waiting for a really good reason to take a day.  What would that reason have to be?  I likely won't know until it hits me.

Role Reversal

Confession time.

The past couple months haven’t been my best.  In truth, the February/March time of year are usually when I struggle most with how I feel.  So this year has been no exception.

When I get depressed I have trouble focusing, lack motivation, become short-tempered with people.  I get chest pains and headache and I want to sleep all the time.  Pretty standard fare.  I usually cope with this by taking vitamin d, getting exercise, going to bed on time and generally making sure I practice self-care. 

As you might suspect (or know from your own experience) being a mental health worker does not make me immune to these things or perfect at coping with them.  It also doesn’t make me necessarily receptive to help.  Hey, I’m the one who is supposed to be doing the helping, right?

That particular kind of thinking is ironically what seems to have helped get back on the upswing recently.  So far this year I had been feeling particularly low.  It was starting to cause a lot of stress for me and my family.  My partner, who has had to deal with much harder issues than me basically sat me down and had an “understanding” talk with me.  At first I felt resentful, in all honesty because what he was saying is usually what I tell him to do.  Who is he to tell me how to feel better?  And then I had my “a-ha” moment!  I shouldn’t be resenting him for telling me what I already know – I should be using what I already know.  I had been totally lacking in self-perspective and had my defenses up so high I didn’t want to hear my own good advice. 

I’m not saying any of this to pat myself on the back.  It’s more to record and reaffirm what worked for me, because sometimes I have to work to remember.  There are challenges to being on both the giving and receiving sides of help, especially if you are more used to one than the other. 

Have you ever been a helper who needed to accept help?  Have you been able to use your experiences of being helped to pass along to others?  Leave a note in the comments.

The Mental Health Worker’s Reminders to Herself

1. When my supervisor assigns me a new client she is not trying to sabotage me. She is trying to get me to do my job.


2. When a client repeatedly cancels/misses appointments, there is likely something making it hard for them to come. It’s nothing against me.

3. When it is something against me, this is okay too. Not everybody has to like me. I will not be the best match for everyone. Learn from it.

4. Doctors are people too. They are likely rolling their eyes right back at me.

5. A client’s goals for themselves need to come before my goals for them.

6. When clients are skeptical because “you look too young to help me” remember – you’re a lot less young than when they were saying this to you 5 years ago!

7. Caring for myself will help me to care for others.

8. People will come and go, but paperwork is forever.

9. It’s okay to drown your sorrows with pizza and a half bottle of Shiraz on Friday night.

Tell me Going Mental readers - what reminders do you need to keep yourself going?

Friday the 13th resolutions*

So I realize I'm a little late to the game, but I've decided it's time to make some resolutions for 2012.  Not for my personal life which is practically perfect in every way (or not, whatever) but for my professional life. 

It actually makes more sense to do this now that on January 1st. 

On January 1st I was in full-blown vacation mode.  Driving along country roads gazing at the snow dusted fields, fresh from enjoying a cozy night with some friends in an old farm house.  Pleased with myself for downing enough water and eating half a loaf of olive bread to soak up the booze so I didn't feel too hung over.  Spending the rest of the day snuggling on the couch....ahem, what was I talking about again?  Oh yeah, resolutions. 

So anyway, things were rosy at New Years giving me no impetus to change.  By now I've been back to work for a week, and admittedly it's made me a bit of a grumpy bear (that's what AM would call me in his most mock-caring voice).  This attitude sucks.  For me, and everyone around me.  I'm sure this doesn't exlude my clients.  I care about them, I really do, and I don't like to feel that this doesn't come through in my work.

So I'm working on resolving this (ha, see what I did there?) or perhaps to put it in some more social-worky terms I'm trying to develop some strengths-based goals for myself.    In some cases I'm just renewing old goals.  Here's what I've got so far:

1. Practice positive thinking, not just for clients but for myself
2. Better self-care: always
3. Learn to say NO to things that will only drag me down (I really suck at this currently)
4. Keep up the job search, the right one WILL come along
5. Find creative ways to get involved at this job that will promote a better experience
6. Be thankful for what I have - be happy

They're not exactly SMART goals yet (10 points if you know what that is) but like I said, I'm working on it.

So what about you, any professional or personal resolutions this year?  

*I know there is some kind of joke about bad luck in here, it's just not coming to me.  TGIF

Counting My (Summer) Blessings

The amazing weather from my extended long weekend has continued so far this week. This kind of beautiful Canadian summer makes almost me wish I had taken a Child & Youth option and gone to work in a school (that’s a big almost – I have great respect for people who work with kids, cause just the thought makes me shake in my boots) so I could have the summers off.

It’s been a little hard to focus back here at work. I’ve wasted much breath trying to convince several clients to go for a walk outside on our meetings. It works with a few, but the rest are suspect when I try a little too hard to sell them on the merits of all that extra vitamin D and exercise.

The one thing that keeps me buckling down is the countdown to my next vacation period. Even though my work doesn’t pay me enough to afford any type of exotic trip this vacation, I feel grateful to have this stimulating and challenging job, and to work in a place that appreciates the efforts it takes enough to offer us substantial vacation time.

I’m really looking forward to implementing my personal self-care plan in 16.5 days.

Pill Popping

Downed some daytime cold medicine before work this morning.  "Non-drowsy" it says on the box.  So why has my head felt like it's in a cloud for the past 3 hours?  My day is full of client meetings.  This should be...interesting...

See page for author [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Really? Cuz that would seem to take all the fun out of it.

“I would die to be a 30”




Overheard at work, one of my co-workers, participating in our office’s “Biggest Loser” challenge.



I find this type of statement so disturbing, particularly from social workers. Am I wrong to think we should know better?

T.G.I.Funny.

It’s Friday (in case you hadn’t noticed) and I’m feeling a little burnt out. Being the excellent mental health worker that I am, I know this means I should try to do some “self-care”. So I figured in order to lighten things up, I’d find something funny to post to the ol’blog.

Unfortunately, my .02187345 second internet search revealed that good humour about mental health is hard to find. I decided anyway to go with this classic, borrowed from bouldertherapist.com:

Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline:

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press – no one will answer.

If you are dyslexic, press 96969696969696.

If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key until a representative come on line.

If you have amnesia press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and your mother’s maiden name.

If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.

If you have bi-polar disorder, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep. Or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.

If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you.


Hopefully in the near future, I’ll be able to check out the new Toronto Stand Up for Mental Health and hear some better material!

Pause for Thought

Check this out --> Feminist Activists Find Peace in Thailand

I wanted to link to this article for a couple of reasons.  For one, feminism and VAW (violence against women) work are very important to me.  My training background is actually in assaulted women’s counselling, not mental health, although the two have obvious intersections.  I love learning about what feminist activism looks like around the world.

The other reason is that I found as I read this, I was contrasting the “retreat” experience they describe with the professional trainings and workshops I attend here in Canada.  The focus on “self-love and self-worth as an essential part of their work in the world” sounds really in line with my philosophy, but not my practice.  I certainly haven’t had many experiences in my professional life where there is such an emphasis on this sort of thing.  The perks offered to us at trainings usually max out at a free lunch, and possibly getting to go home a bit early. 

I don’t know much about Thai society or the culture of social service work there, so I can’t really comment on whether the needs of these workers would be different than where I am, and what they might make of their retreat experience.  But as the writer says, seeing “15 women grown napping together on the floor of a conference room after a lively plenary” would be “odd” to see in the U.S. (and I’m considering the U.S. and Canada to be more or less the same in this respect). 

It sounds nice.  But would it work?  Would anyone go for it?  I can imagine the mixed reactions of my co-workers – divided between feeling uncomfortable, and griping about how they could be making phone calls or getting assessments done instead.

Is this because we really don’t value self-care?  We talk a lot about avoiding compassion fatigue, but the general consensus seems to often be that we are responsible for this on our own time. 

On the other hand, is it because sleeping or meditating would be considered a private activity, and we would be asked to let our guard down to such a degree in a very public and shared space?  A lot of what they describe would be strikingly different from our typical professional activities and behaviours, and would (I think) demand a lot of openness to the experience.  Would this cross my boundaries?

I don’t know.  But I’m curious.

Has anyone experienced something like this?