A Blog and a Poem For Brian and the Work He Does

This is basically the busiest place in North Western Canada.  Calgary to the South and Vancouver to the South-West may rival it, but this is the Alpha and the Omega of what happens in the North.

     Good morning dear readers.  Just to let you know early, for those of you who like my poems, I have written one today and will be posting just under the last photo in today’s blog.  Kind of a funny thing, I thought I did a pretty good job of writing a blog yesterday, but I didn’t get too many views.  I don’t know if I am getting boring or if I am just not using the most optimal tags.  There is also the fact that the weather has been gorgeous and sunny over a lot of the places I get hits.

So today is going to be a bit of a lukewarm blog.  It is just past 4:00am and I can’t sleep so I decided this might be a good time to foster up some creativity.  Oh, before I forget, anyone who likes is totally free to email me about this blog or anything else at: viking3082000@yahoo.com I hope you do whenever you get the chance.

So yesterday I was involved in a music festival right in my neighborhood at a small park in what we call little Italy.  Some of the music was really amazing and I was given the opportunity to go up on stage and read my poetry.  I often wonder where poetry will take me, I love to write it but I seem to lapse into the same kind of style a lot.  I will leave you my dear readers to judge and let you know that I would appreciate any honest feedback I can get.

The outdoor festival was amazing, I had a table set up with books and though I didn’t sell too many, I was interviewed by a TV station and I ran into the candidate I am supporting for the next Federal election in Canada which happens in October.  She is an incredible, energetic, community minded, hard working and very nice young woman.  She is with a party called “The New Democratic Party” or NDP which is a left-leaning party that swept the Alberta elections just a few short weeks ago and has left a lot of people very excited at the direction things are going to go for Albertans.  It is my personal hope that more will be done for the mentally ill in the way of funding for hospital facilities and possibly even disability pensions, though I have to admit that I already get kind of a generous one.

So what does a person do when they can’t sleep?  I hear the dyslexic insomniac stays up all night wondering if there really is a dog.  Okay, that was pretty sick, but you snickered a bit didn’t you?  I heard another pretty good one from my good friend James Derksen.  He has this book that publishes contest winners who are asked to write in with their absolute worst novel beginnings.  In one of them there was a paragraph:  “Mr. Van Gogh, I suggest you consider painting as a career because you clearly have no ear for music!”  Okay, I will stop there.

Saturday night I decided to do some more serious reading and I picked up a book I had received in the mail from amazon a few days ago.  It is called “The Depression Workbook” and it is giving me a lot of interesting ideas.  It is written by the woman who founded the course that I am taking which is called WRAP, or Wellness Recovery Action Plan.  I have been reading about a lot of interesting new ideas, some that I support, some I have a hard time swallowing.  One of them is a statement that I would have been very reluctant to accept ten years ago which states that only you can be an expert on your condition.  Doctors can help, but they don’t know which medication really makes you feel better or worse, you have to do your part.  Another thing that I already know but really want to look into is having tests to see if my moods go up and down as a result of hormone deficiencies.  I seriously doubt my Doctor has been wrong about me having Bipolar all these years but I think it might be a good idea.

It is funny to think back to some of my first days in the mental hospital when I was still a teenager.  They doped me up like crazy and my mind was all over the place.  It didn’t help that I hated everything about Psychiatry including the Psychiatrists even though a lot of these people were doing everything they could to help me.  One of the reasons I think I felt this way had to do with how the initial staff that I encountered in going to the hospital treated me.  The people on the lock-down ward I went to first were brutal.  There was this one male nurse who once slammed my face into a hard floor and put me into a wrestling hold while someone arbitrarily decided I could use a shot of some evil tranquilizer that made my muscles lock up.  By the time I got to see the Psychiatrist, I had very little faith in anything he had to say.  The funny thing is that my Doctor in that locked ward right on the first time I went into the mental hospital is my Doctor to this day, now 25 years later.

I am learning a lot from this Wellness Recovery Action Plan.  Little things like making sure people know which Doctors you don’t want to deal with and which hospital you want to go to.  I had kind of thought that I would never need to go back in the hospital, but a lot of circumstances could put me in there.  Having a plan, and possibly even having a bag packed could help a lot.  Last time I was in the hospital I had to wear the same clothes for months and had nothing from home.  I went through the humiliation of swapping blue jeans with a guy because they wouldn’t give me a belt and my pants were literally falling off me (I wasn’t eating much either).  It seemed the cruelty and inhuman treatment was constant.  I have to say though that the mental hospital I was in was really a beautiful place.  No matter where I went, no matter how sick I got, no matter what happened to me, somehow I would end up back there and I would end up better.  Sometimes it felt really awful in there, but it had more to do with me being very mentally ill.

It’s a weird thing but it almost seemed like the staff and others could see right in my eyes whether I was delusional or not.  What bugs me the most is that while I was there the people on the staff made me out to be some kind of monster.  Quite often other patients had picked fights with me and I did the bare minimum I had to do to defend myself and then I heard later that the nurses were trying to convince those people to have me charged.  There were a lot of stories like that, one of them had to do with this female nurse who said she would pick me up a cassette walkman for me and she kept coming back to me and asking for more money for it.  They would seize my property and give it to others, and one time they actually tried to force an end to a friendship I had made in the hospital.  And this didn’t come from the top, this was a decision made by some random nurse, not even the head nurse.  “I have already told her to stay away from you.” she told me.  Then others would get angry when I joked around with people and act appalled that I wasn’t making friends with other people.  It really is something I wish on no one and sometimes I think I would like to blow that place up and build a proper place for people who have illnesses to be treated like human beings.

Anyhow, that is how it goes, I have been trying so hard to redirect my thoughts when I get into rants or dredge up old memories.  I have been using a relaxation video from YouTube, one I posted a few days ago and it seems to be helping.  I think what I really need to do is to take a proper meditation class and learn how to be more mindful of my surroundings and less mindful of things in the past that I can’t change and only make me upset.  Enjoy the poem Dear Readers, write soon!

Leif Gregersen

Construction has always fascinated me, the very idea of building something that will mean so much to the inhabitants or employees in it, the idea of creating something solid and permanent.  The other day I worked building a local hockey rink and I am hoping the puck boards I set up will last through many a fun game played by local kids.

 

Hope Mission

 

Today I saw a sight that broke my heart

So many downtrodden men with lives all torn apart

As I saw them around me tears welled up in my eyes

For once I didn’t want to wear my tough guy disguise

 

These homeless men were lining up to sleep upon a floor

A guard was checking for weapons or booze right at the door

One poor soul had neither socks or shoes

Someone was saying Jesus dying was good news

 

I how I wish I knew a way to really help these men

Without putting myself in their very situation once again

Yes, a few years ago I had no place to call home

Sick and lost and wandering the streets alone

 

By love and luck and friendship I somehow overcame

Oh my sweet God in heaven let these men somehow do the same

And let me be your instrument to help them in some way

I don’t want to think I couldn’t even stop to pray

 

So many came here when we put out the call

That there was money here and plenty of jobs for all

For a time here things did look pretty good

But things never seem to change in this neighborhood

 

Though now a sweeping change is bringing hope

Of giving those who have nothing enough to cope

I wish with all my spirit one day these men have much much more

Than getting just a little bit of money and then being shown the door

 

As well as stomachs, these men need to fill their souls hearts and mind

With the hope of dignity and self-reliance they themselves find

Some of the wisest words I know of would be a perfect start

“Every one of us has a God-shaped hole inside our heart.”

 

Leif Gregersen

June 8, 2015

Where Does Inspiration Come From?

One of the things I love about Edmonton so much is that it is home to such wildlife as this furry little critter, even right in the downtown core

     Hello dear readers.  I want to start off by apologizing for posting such a lame post previously.  I suppose the story wasn’t bad, but I feel I was letting down people who wanted to learn about writing or mental health issues.  Let’s see what I can come up with for all of you today.

To start off, I think I am getting fairly advanced in my recovery from Bipolar.  Now, there is a hurdle I have to go over.  I have to be able to keep reminding myself that I am a person with special needs, not the least of which is medication and Psychiatric help.  I can recall a few times I was at this point, where things seemed to be going good and I got complacent.  One such time I had a few different life events happen that very nearly put me in serious danger.  I hadn’t spoken to a young woman I was once very infatuated with, who liked me as a friend but no more.  Sitting in my apartment all alone for weeks and months at a time, I tried to reach out a couple of times, but it is a sad thing to say that there are some people who you can make a mistake with, whether it be something you control or not, and they never forgive you.  One day I got the new phone book for Edmonton and looked up one of these young women and called her.  She even answered.  I said who I was and then when she answered, I replied that it was good that at least she didn’t scream and hang up on me.  I tried to explain to her that I had been going through some rough stuff but had gotten treatment and that basically I kind of needed a friend at the time.  She threw it in my face that I wrote some irrational letters to her that she had kept to use as evidence against me and also that she pretty much didn’t care if I lived or died.  That was really harsh.  I forget if that was the point I stopped taking my prozac or if I had done that earlier.  Either way, it preceded a massive depressive episode in me.  A short time later, I took an overdose of about 100 Tylenol and some Lithium and a few other drugs I had in my medicine cabinet.  For the next two days I slept and then for the two days after that I was sick and couldn’t even hold down water. (this story is paraphrased from my book, “Inching Back To Sane” by a million to one shot, my Dad had come by and slipped some money under my door and this was enough to get me to the hospital.  I was very near death and hurt my family members very badly.

As for the other situation, it was the one that preceded my worst ever stay in hospital, which was also my last stay in hospital (when I say ‘hospital’ I mean the Psychiatric Hospital, Alberta Hospital Edmonton) again I was doing well.  I had work, I had friends, I even had a car and a credit card.  Then I decided to lower the dose of my mood stabililzer.  Not eliminate, just lower.  At this point I had stopped seeing a Doctor, I was just getting one of my old Doctors to refill my prescriptions and not having my regular blood tests done that were required of me, and which could have prevented the disaster that followed.  I ended up in a state of severe psychosis and though I was on medications that had worked for me, the new Doctor assumed either I wasn’t taking my meds or the ones I was taking weren’t working, so he changed them around and I ended up much worse off.  This began a hellish nightmare of 5 long months, a large part of them spent in solitary confinement with just a plastic mattress, an uncomfortable blanket and a plastic bottle for a toilet.  Lesson learned: don’t get complacent.  Get to see your Doctor, take all of your required medications.  Talk to your mental health workers if you have them and find some if you don’t.  I am very lucky to be a part of something called ‘the Community Living Program’ or ‘clip’ where I see a nurse on a regular basis who gives me part of my medication by time-release injection and then also see a Doctor who she consults with at least once a month.  For anyone who is a family member of someone with a mental illness, I think this is something you constantly have to remind your loved one about.  I was interested to learn that Schizophrenia as an example, will get worse over time.  Even if you take your full required medication every day it is highly likely that you will need an increase in your dosage of anti-psychotic (please don’t mix psychotic up with psychopath) or you will get ill again.

Let me just say a few quick things about writing here, I feel that writing, for me, and for a lot of people in my community, is something not only that I feel everyone should do, but I also feel that it goes hand in hand with mental health.  The first thing I did as I am sure I mentioned, was to keep a journal.  If you want to keep one, but have problems getting started, think of it as a scrapbook.  My sister saves movie receipts in hers from movies she liked and my Dad used to save all kinds of things like old cigarette packages that listed a price of 10c and candy bars and all sorts of things.  My journal was like that in a way as well.  I would write about movies I saw, make my own reviews, write about books I read or was reading.  Basically, your journal is your best friend and some of the best advice I can give to start journaling is to write down what you would tell your best friend at the end of the day.  So, I hope everyone feels a bit enlightened after reading this.  Today I wrote a poem about sitting in elementary school watching the clock and watching the alley beside the school to see my dear sister coming home from the bus.  I got my inspiration from a ‘poetry workshop book’ that I bought off of amazon.com.  I get so many great writing resources from amazon, they simply have everything.  Even my local 1,000,000 book public library can’t compare to what I can find on amazon, and quite often the book is as low in price as 1 cent plus a $6.49 fee for shipping.  As an added bonus, it is really a neat feeling to come home to a package of some new goodie waiting for you.  I do this for other people as well, I sent my ex-gf who is also one of my best friends a complete set of the original twilight zone series, I sent my niece a Karaoke machine.  Credit cards can be fun.  And they can be a disaster for the mentally ill, but I will talk about that in another blog.  Perhaps tomorrow I will write a bit about my knowledge of personal finance, I am sure many of you out there could benefit from some of the books I have read and experiences I have had.

This is a statue in a special park made solely for the homeless people in Edmonton.  In this small park, there is no closing time and you can drink alcohol without fear of police intervention.  It is sad sometimes to see such symbols of suffering, but also very necessary