surlyben actually saw his Coreyness wandering Capitol Hill yesterday, of all things. Blessed stars and stones, I was spared. *evil grin*This gets to be a non-
corporal_joy post because I think there's a wider audience interested. Can't tell the rest of you to hit the "d" key anymore, but I will throw in an I don't know if I feel safer, per se (new psych jargon for stable, as far as I can tell) but I did learn some more stuff, including the existence of a new type of therapy that may be more helpful with the long-term, recurrent suicidal ideation I suffer from. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy it is called, and I haven't had a chance (read: the energy) to do much energy in researching it. But it comes well recommended and was pioneered by Marsha Lenahan out of University of Washington. [*] Dr. Noll (my pshrink) tells me it has a holistic emphasis, draws some on things like meditation for coping skills, and has been shown to be very effective in reducing suicidal thoughts/behaviors. So I'm more than ready to give it a try, given the circumstances[**].
Now for what I find to be the embarrassing piece: the alcoholism treatment. (Mental illness a stigma as a diagnosis for me? More like a relief.) Apparently the Chemical Dependency (CD)[***] evaluation they conducted indicated an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) rather than an inpatient/residential program. So I'm looking at A Positive Alternative (to which I provide the link although I haven't looked at it closely yet - have I whined yet about how much energy a second degree burn takes out of you? Consider it whined.) Not only does their philosophy dovetail with my counselor Cheza's therapeutic take on things (according to when I spoke with her yesterday) they are in Wallingford. Unlike damn near every other non I-am-powerless-based program, which appear to be based on the East side of the lakes. (The snide part of my brain likes to go Hmm about that, and guesses $$ over percentage need in the population when forced to become unsnide.)
Ok, that about covers it, I'm sure bits will continue to come up but that's where I've been for the last week. I'll take questions under the caveat that I reserve the right not to answer... but that's nothing new, so I'm sure y'all are used to it by now.
[*] Cool aside: one of the student nurses from UW who worked with me is also a student of Patch Dellinger, my GBS surgeon, so we got to express our worshipful admiration of him to each other. The man saved my physical life, and he truly is regarded as top of his field. She was telling me the program has greatly expanded in the six intervening years, and I can consider myself and my early successful response to the surgery part of the reason the program was able to do so. Kind of nice to hear.
[**] Short version: black-out drunk, second-degree burn on back of leg, vicodin ingestion. Therefore, Fairfax stay. QED, if I'm not misusing that. (If I am, I expect someone will correct me. *smile*)
[***] This post is getting worse than my thesis wrt defining acronyms, *snort*.
