Very down, lower than the dumps

[Ninjastar]

It’s technically legal, if you call it volunteer work. Volunteers are allowed a stipend payment.

[notmoses]

@orange

I have come to realize that I am sick.

Time to take some meaningful action?

1. Get a copy of these books, read them and have your family read them, as well. (Torrey can be a bit totalistic and unwilling to see exceptions to his “rules” at times, but most of his book is really worth the effort to plough through.)
   http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856
   http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Family-Guide-Schizophrenia/dp/1593851804/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=schizophren0c-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=XKLY6NWSWJSQ3VYN&creativeASIN=1593851804

2. Get properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
   http://doctor.webmd.com/find-a-doctor/specialty/psychiatry and https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms/
   .

3. Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
   .

4. The best of the psychotherapies for that currently include…
   DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
   MBSR – Welcome to the Mindful Living Blog
   MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: theory and practice - PubMed
   ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
   10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
   .

5. the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
   MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
   SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
   SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia
   .

6. or standard CBTs, like…
   REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
   Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
   Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
   Standard CBT – Psychotherapy | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness & scroll down
   .

7. If you/she/he needs a professional intervention to get through treatment resistance, tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.
   .

8. Look into the RAISE Project at Google.
   .

9. Look for mental illness clubhouses in your area (which can be hugely helpful… but may also pose risks). Dig through the many articles at Google to locate and investigate them.

[cbbrown]

The same thing happened to my mom, she kept getting told she didn’t qualify for social security but was covered for Medicaid. She despite her many difficulties, including glaucoma and depression she still worked. It wasn’t until she was forced to quit and spent all her money did they finally approve her for SSDI and SSI. She gets about 960 a month.

I was lucky to get SSI. I didn’t qualify for SSDI. I know SSI doesn’t cover everything but it covers rent and the rest is up to my partner to pay. But because i’m on ssi i get food stamps and Medicaid. Now i’m on a new plan that lets me get my meds for free.