Blog #12 Impact of Mental Illness

My mother suffered from Depression most of my life. She did admit to it enough to get prescriptions from doctor's for anti-depressants, however that was as far as she was willing to go. She was from a family of 11 children, 5 of whom were mentally retarded. This colored her perception on mental illness. She was afraid that if she admitted to any form of mental illness, everyone would assume she was mentally retarded like her brother and sisters. She also grew up in a time where they locked you up for mental illness, even her mentally retarded brother and sisters were placed in "State Schools".

What my mother really needed was a professional to help her work through her Depression and other coping difficulties. The medications helped off and on, but without knowing exactly what was behind the Depression, it was hard for the doctor's to prescribe the proper drugs in proper amounts. Her Depression led to a prescription drug addiction for the last 50 years of her life, and those drugs often counteracted the anti-depressants.

My mother's drug addiction and Depression effected our entire family. For me, I became the enabler who would do anything in my power to protect my mother from friends and families disapproval. I took on the responsibility for her happiness, and since there is no way to really be successful in making others happy, my self esteem was as low as it could get. I was 45 years old before I finally realized that my mom was sick, but she had chosen to stay that way. She was not my responsibility and she wasn't sick because I failed her in some way. Since coming to this realization, my self esteem has grown exponentially over the past 7 years, but only because I made the conscious decision to have a high self esteem and a high confidence level.

Blog #11 "With Our Future In Mind"

Our culture is geared to instant gratification. If everyone lived "with our future in mind" I think we would actually be happy and healthier. The first thing I can see changing would be our spending versus savings habits. I think more people would have large retirement accounts because if they were thinking about the future they would have started them when they were very young when compound interest would really make a difference.

I also think people would be healthier, because they would consider how their eating and exercise, or lack thereof, would affect their bodies today, tomorrow, next year, 20 years from now.... This would probably lower the rate of all the chronic diseases we have been studying. For example, if we all ate healthy from the time we were young and lived active lives, the obesity rate would be gone and therefore so many would not have ever developed cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

Just changing these two things, our finances and our health, how much happier we would all be. So many people today are worried about whether they have enough money to make it from pay day to pay day and are miserable because they are overweight. Think of all the time and energy we waste, that we could spend on more positive things. We all need to commit to live "with our future in mind".

Blog #10 Health Risk Preventions

One of the first behaviors that I think we need to change as women is putting everybody else so far above ourselves that we ignore our own needs. For example, we will always find money to make sure our kids and husbands see the doctor when needed, but we always put off our own physicals because we can't afford them. If we are lucky enough to have health insurance, we still have large deductibles, so we put it off so long we never go. Yearly physicals, mammograms, and PAP smears are all important for preventative health. What we don't realize is that this is learned behavior. How many of us that always put off that yearly physical had mothers that always put off their yearly physicals? What are our daughters learning from us?

Next thing women to learn is how to cook and prepare healthy meals for themselves and thier families. I think women have had so many responsibilities on their plate that one thing they have delegated is meal preparations. Unfortunatley we have delegated that to fast food chains that have cost us and our families our health. Instead of continuing to add more to our day, I think we need to start simplifying, slowing down enough to prepare a meal and eat together as a family.

So many of us are so busy running around making sure our kids are involved in every possible activity that all we do is sit in the car, dropping one child at soccer while running the next to dance and by the time we get the third to band we have to go back to the soccer field to pick up child number 1 and on and on we go driving in circles. Again, I think it's time to simplify our lifes. Why can't we go outside with our kids and play soccer with them or have a family dance in the living room after dark? If we want to improve our health we must get moving again.

The biggest benefit that I see in simplifying our lives is that so much of our stress will disappear. Stress is a necessary part of life, but I think we have gotten so out of control that the levels of stress we are under are actually causing our heart problems and even cancer. If we want to be healthier and have healthier families we are going to have to be active in our health and quit being the passive spectators we have been.

Blog #9 Diet and Exercise Challenges

I could be the poster child for diet and exercise. Over the past 30+ years I have tried everything that has come on the market with even an inkling of credibility. The problem was that I never tried to find out why I had gotten so out of control as to gain over 100 lbs of fat. Six months ago I was ready to try one more time to loose the weight. I watched an episode of Oprah when she had guests on that had gone through gastric bypass. Many people believe that gastric bypass is the easy way to loose weight, but Oprah's guests pointed out that it is still a long hard journey. Everyone of them said that when they had to give up their addiction to food, they found they had adopted a new addiction, some to alcohol, some to sex, some to shopping. The new addictions may have varied, but the fact that they all replaced one addiction with another was across the board. This is when I decided that before I started another program I would have to find out why I was addicted to food. For me it was a spiritual journey through Bible study that I learned some deep truths about myself. Once I knew why, I then began to work on healing those issues before I ever started dieting (no I didn't do gastric bypass, it wasn't a healthy choice for me). Six months later and 60 lbs lighter I am over half way through my weight loss journey. I no longer feel like I'm on a diet, because I simply eat to live now. I no longer crave any food of any kind and I can also tell you that I have not become addicted to anything else to replace the food.

I knew from the beginning of this journey that I would have to add exercise into my program, and I will confess I have been avoiding it like the plague! I simply hate exercise! Well, 2 weeks ago things changed. The owner of my company has come up with a program to reward and encourage healthy living. We get points for things like loosing weight, exercising, yearly checkups with our doctors, and participating in events like "Walk for Life". At the end of each year we turn in all our points for either cash or paid time off! I can remember saying years ago, I could exercise if someone would pay me. Well, the time has come to act on those words. Two weeks ago I began my exercise program. I started by briskly walking 30 minutes per day either on my lunch hour or when I first get home in the evenings.

Of course the owner of my company wants to make living a healthy lifestyle as easy for each of us as possible, so yesterday I signed up on the company program for a gym membership. A large group go to the gym together at lunch time, and when I hinted that I needed to add weight training to my week, they all jumped in and asked me to join them. Monday will be my first day, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Of course if my blog is super short next week, it may be because I'm too sore to type!

Let me encourage all of you as you graduate and head into the work force to find companies with great benefits like mine. Benefits like good health insurance, healthy lifestyle encouragement, gym memberships, can be much more beneficial in the long run that just a high salary, because with these benefits, you'll feel like enjoying that high salary!