Tag Archives: Mental health

very Inspiring Blogger Award

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http://licensedmentalhealthcounselor.wordpress.com

has nominated me for this award.very-inspiring-blogger-award

Here is some information about this blog.

  1. I am a lousy dancer. I can’t dance. That always seems to amaze people and I am always amazed that they thought I could dance in the first place! After all, I don’t think I even look coordinated or graceful enough to dance.
  2. I love animals of all kind. I have a dog and a cat, but have had ducks, chickens, turtles, hamsters, parakeets and iguanas as a child. I’ve been bitten by many different animals, including a snake (I had socks on my hands for protection lol) and even a mole!
  3. I have a hard time letting go of things, including items, relationships and even jobs, which often keeps me holding on to things far too long.
  4. I’ve been known to cry during emotional movies, speeches and music although I typically hide it because I am usually the only one tearing up, but I get that from my mother.
  5. I am very unorganized in everything I do, including thinking! It’s the artist in me, I know it. I live in chaos which is usually okay and helps sparks creativity,  except when people around me expect me to be organized.
  6. I fell in love with books during the 8th grade when I was harassing a girl I liked and took her book. I meant to give it back, but never did. I got bored one day and started reading it and that was it! I became an avid reader from that day forward even when reading books that weren’t assigned to you wasn’t considered cool for boys.
  7. I got into psychology through my writing. I love to write, especially fiction and I used to go to the bookstore and read psychology books to try to create better, more dynamic characters, and I took my first psychology courses in college for the same reason. I was planning on being an English major, but I ended up falling in love with psychology

About Me

Torey Richards, LMHC

Hi, thanks for taking the time to get to know me!

I am a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) in the state of Florida currently specializing in substance abuse, mental disorders and adolescent mental health.

I’ve been working in the area of substance abuse since 2006 and assessment and diagnosis since 2007.

I received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Central Florida in 2002, and a M.S. in Counseling & Psychology from Troy State University in 2007.

I spent a year working in both an inpatient and outpatient substance abuse facility and three years working in a psychiatric hospital.

I currently work in an inner-city high school providing individual, group and family counseling. I also work in private practice dealing mostly with adolescents and their families dealing with various challenges.

My theoretical orientation is eclectic with strong influences from cognitive behavioral, existential, rational behavioral, motivational interviewing, and acceptance & commitment therapy.

I am an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction books. I also enjoy working out, writing, photography and drawing in my spare time.

Thank- you so much Torey.

Nominations are for;

Harold Green
throughharoldslens.wordpress.com

virginiaplantation
virginiaplantation.wordpress.com

angelswhisper2011
angelswhisper2011.wordpress.com

whatwereyathinkin
deepthinker52.wordpress.com

Daily Prompt; In A Crisis/ The Daily Post

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English: Bryn Mel Manor Bryn Mel (=honey hill)...

Honestly evaluate the way you respond to crisis situations. Are you happy with the way you react?

http://dailypost.wordpress.com

The Daily Prompt

Oh brother, what a topic for me to have to write on. I bet you all can’t wait to see the answer to this one, right? Anyone who knows me knows that I panic first, think later, and accept last.

I didn’t used to be like this. I remember once upon a time I  used to laugh at everything and even laugh off events in my life. Then serious things happened. Divorce, illness, death. These things started to place a thumb print on my heart and soul.

I started wondering about my own life as I sat closely to others who were in the dying process. I got to the place that I wanted to be working anywhere that death was not even standing around the corner.

All I wanted to do was be happy and laugh and care free. Like I was when I was a kid and I was speeding by on my bicycle. My pig-tails flying in the wind. The clatter of my tickers on my bike spokes and the tassels on the handle bars. Wow look at them go!

What happened though didn’t make me content. It was a pretend game where no one won. I needed to be me once again. The facts are that I do love taking care of others. I do like knowing they depend on me. I like knowing they feel secure in my hands.

But with this does come a side-effect. Too much war paint on the face. Too many scars and too many memories of loved ones gone by. I tend to be over active in my mind when something odd is facing me. I tend to worry I may lose the one I love. When I lose a patient or a client, I fall hard. I give my heart 100%.

This can be a bad side-effect but it is who I am. I would rather be me and have the support of my blogger friends, than to pretend that I don’t give a hoot. I want other people to know that I care.

I will end this with sharing a vision of a patient I once had;

A female patient in her nineties. Quiet, very seldom spoke. I was filling in at a nursing home where I once worked through an agency traveling all around my home state working for short-staffed facilities.

This was a lovely lady with pure white thinning hair and big adorable blue eyes. Her skin so frail that if you touched it you could end up with torn skin. I was privileged to work with her for five days. She was dying and she knew it as well as I did. When ever I had time I would go into her room and sit with her. I would hold her hand and say nothing. Her family I didn’t know anything about. All I knew was that she was alone. In her last moments, she said in her very frail voice, “Honey, you have been my angel. You have been sent to me to keep me company until I died. Don’t ever change who you are”. With these words spoken, they were her last. I cried like a baby. Staff came in and left and commented to me about getting used to this. It happens all the time. But for me, each time is the first all over again.

I am who I am. Over reacting at times. Looking for support to you. I have good days and bad days, but one thing that will never be a crisis in my life is the lack of caring… because that is just part of who I am.

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Yesterday The Mountain, Today The Valley

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I am so angry with myself, because I can not get the change to take place from deep within me. I have had prayers. I have many friends, and yet it only takes one moment and my heart is again breaking. I am too much of a softie. My heart expands too big. I am not tough enough around the edges.

The only thing I can say is that today, I walked out of the facility with no tears. My heart was in my shoes, and I came home and played my Time Capsule I made last evening over and over.http://wp.me/p2g4Y2-46d

I had my water class this morning. I actually laughed and talked much more than I used to. The teacher asked me to bring in a poem that I have written. She wants to read it herself. I pondered on that, since she doesn’t really know me, but she says she wants the honor of reading an upcoming publisher’s work. I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I felt bad for laughing, but I know I will never become what she is suggesting.

I told her I was laughing because I was embarrassed by the nice complement, and thank goodness she believed me. I had a great time exercising and socializing. Next Thursday is when this poem will be read.

I showered and changed and went to see Al. I saw that he was sitting in the new dining room. He was upset. Not at me but at the changes. I think it is so difficult for Al to accept change like the rest of us. It takes him too long to digest, but some of it he did get.

The kitchen staff had scribbled out the breads on his menu and this upset him terribly. So now he had been moved to a different dining room, had his straws taken a way and no breads. That is a big amount of change at once. I convinced staff to let him have the garlic bread as that is his favorite bread, and they agreed.

Al was throwing a temper tantrum over the changes. His tremors were so bad that he knocked over his dining partner’s water-glass. He was crying hysterically, and then started to swear. I explained that if he was not willing to stop eating more than one snack at night, they were going to take something a way. He did understand this. He knew that he was eating more than he should have, but no one was stopping him either.

The nurse then came over and tried to explain about Al’s heart and his weight gain. I even piped in and told him to try to go back to when he was here at home and have just one snack again with his pop at night. The problem is, that by law, the staff can not tell him no on foods.

It is very possible that with the fit he threw he may get the breads back, I don’t know. He would not calm down and so the nurse pushed him back to his room. I stood in the shadows and let the nurse try to talk to him. She looked at me and I tried, but nothing worked. He went on and on about how every one wants him to drink water only.

They want him to starve. He asked the nurse to go a way and the only one he wanted to stay was me, but the nurse looked at me and said,” If he doesn’t settle down, we will be forced to call a Psyche Unit”.

Unfortunately Al heard every word and got even worse, saying no one liked him. Before I knew it I was telling her,” Please don’t do this. I have had Al at these places before and they refuse to treat him because they believe this is mostly due to side effects of Parkinson’s Disease“. She looked at me and said, “Oh I was just kidding”. I thought to myself,just kidding, just kidding! Do you realize that Al has heard every word you have just said! You now say you are kidding and now look at him. He will not settle down and probably will not eat.

She looked at me and said ,” He needs a time-out. I suggest you go on home”. Al and I looked at each other and I told him I would be back Friday, but maybe I will go in tomorrow. I will definitely call later today.

I have always looked at myself as the one solid thing Al can count on. I am getting a little tired of being told to go home. Maybe I can say nothing, maybe I can do nothing, but I can sit there with him, and he will know that he is not alone.

Bread

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Daily Prompt;Oasis/ The Daily Post

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WordPress dashboard interface

A sanctuary is a place you can escape to, to catch your breath and remember who you are. Write about the place you go to when everything is a bit too much.

This is a difficult topic for me. I am sitting here staring at the screen, trying to think where I go to when I am stressed.

For so many years, I have kept my stress and my thoughts with me. Caring for my brother this last year, was even worse. There was no escape. He and I were under the same roof 24/7. He would go to his room and watch television; I would run to the internet.

I realize now that I am looking back. I have made a habit of writing. I write to relieve stress. I write when I am lonely, happy, want to share with my friends. I guess I sink my feelings into white empty pages.

It is good though. I have made wonderful friends. No one else could visit other countries all over the world, and never leave your seat. I have friends of all ages. I can have the television on, and when I start writing, I am able to tune out every noise, and live within my thoughts.

Many of you do not realize how you have saved me. Tears, frustrations, sadness, desperation are a few names that I have come to know. Placing Al in a facility so that he can get more help, was the hardest thing I have had to do in years. Guilt, loneliness, sorrow, regrets are all feelings I recognized.

Now he has been in his new home for a few weeks, and I have ventured outside of my four walls, and see that the world is still moving. The air is still wonderful to breath in. The squirrels are still playing in my trees.

The internet and my blog here at WordPress have become my best friend. It happened so easily, that I wasn’t even aware of what was happening. So, a big thank-you, for giving me a safe  haven. A place to run to, a place to bring me back to sanity. May the lord bless you all.

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Chewing It Over

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English: Memory Christmas tree Thickwoods Alon...

Can we control our feelings, or do our feelings control us? Can we stand in front of a man who we have proclaimed our hearts and body to, and listen to the words, that  he no longer loves me? Do we fall apart, cry in front of him, cause a scene, or do we show our wall, let him see that it doesn’t matter that he just ripped our heart out, turn around, and reaching for our purse, we walk out of the door holding our heads high?

When a loved one is dying, do we go visit, or do we stay away? Do we walk up to the bed and lean in and let the tears flow, showing them how much we care? Do we take a hold of the pale, limp hand and give it a light squeeze, whispering how much we have loved and admired them through out our time of knowing them here on earth. Or do we stand back, with our backs erected, a smile glued to our cheeks, letting the one that we love more than life itself, know that we are strong, that we can get through this, that we shall carry on with our lives just fine?

The excitement that most of us feel when we learn we are pregnant, explodes among family members, as the joy of a bundle of love, is coming into our lives. Is each of us ready for this? Is there any that wish other wise, that this would never have  happened? Do we pretend in front of familiar faces, nodding our heads, smiling at the future, agreeing with what is said, or are there others who wish they could speak up, to show the hidden fears of having a child, maybe with a father or without a father for the child. Not wanting to disappoint loved ones, but turning into our pillows in the darkness of the nights, letting tears comfort us into a restless sleep?

What is it that causes some of us to be stronger than others? Upbringing, fear of nothing, love for our own person, what makes each of us different? Do each of us deserve and also have the right to be happy with our own lives we have created? Have we followed our own paths? Have we followed our hearts? Have we listened to our inner spirit speaking, or do we do, as others wish us to do in order to keep others happy at the expense of our own souls being happy?

What are our choices in life? Who do we want to be? Who do we want to look up to us? I find own self questioning my own self in this late period of my life. Who have I really been being true to? Myself, my family, my friends? What were my goals, and how have they changed through the years? Am I the same person I was ten years ago? Am I happy with who I will be in ten years from now?

The greatest gift I could give myself, is freedom this year at Christmas. Freedom to be the person I was born to be, freedom to not run when faced with fear of rejection, free to love myself first, and to realize not everyone will love me back. I say now is the time, if there are changes to be made, let me make them now, this year, allow myself the privilege  to be happy, to be accepted for what I represent. What do I want to hear if I am lying on my death-bed dying from an incurable cancer, what is it that my ears wish to hear…………….

 

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Caregiver, Take A Rest

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I woke up earlier than Al today, so I took advantage of my free time and got on the

urination: not here

urination: not here (Photo credit: maximolly)

computer and answered the question to Plinky. About the same time I finished the question, Al got up. By now it was nine am, and between that and 10am, this is what happened.

Al rang his bell announcing to me that he was ready to get up. I said that I heard him, and he proceeded to get up, as I finished up on here, which was long enough to get out of WP. I walked back in to his room to start the bed check to see if it was wet, and I see Al peeing on his table and floor and trying to wipe it off with his hanky. He just looked at me, and said he was cleaning it up. I immediately went and got the cleaners for the table top, that was flooding, and the floor, and instantly removed the items from the table that were damp.

Al and I have been in battle for a few days now about keeping things on the table top at night. I have explained to him until I am blue in the face, that it is alright to over load his bed side table during the day, but once bed time arrives, the table can only hold his lamp, kleenex box, television remote, and his bell. I have repeatedly explained as nice as I could, that if he fell out of bed, I did not want to break his items sitting on top, trying to move the table to get to him, but he refuses. He has always been a very stubborn person, in fact, I don’t think I know anyone personally, that is as stubborn as he, and this is where the peeing came in also.

I have repeatedly asked him to sit and go pee, on the commode, but he wants to stand, and then he doesn’t hold his private part, while trying to pee, because he is trying to hold onto something stable in order to stand the short time to pee. He wants everything to stay the way it was prior to Parkinson’s, and I understand this totally, but changes have to be made.

He got mad at me right away, and I believe this is because he was busted, or caught, doing the wrong thing, so he started to blame me for his peeing on the floor and table. I reminded him again, while I was cleaning up the messes, that he needed to sit and pee, not stand. This statement made him mad, and he carried his anger through breakfast, and then when breakfast was over the shower girl appeared at the door.

I let her in and she was a witness to his anger and tears. I felt bad for her as she did not ask to be a party to this. After he got through with his breakfast and rambling on about how I did not care about him, and I was trying to get rid of him by placing him, he was not concentrating on what he was doing, getting up, and he caught the leg of the kitchen chair he had been sitting at, and was dragging it with pushing his walker.

I jumped out of my chair in order to get the chair apart from the walker, so he would not fall once again, and he turned on me instantly. He started charging at me and he was telling me to go to hell, and that I was a bitch.

The shower girl came instantly and tried to get him to calm down, and told me to go back and sit down, that she would give him his shower. Al doesn’t know this but the baby monitor being on, I could hear him dogging me to death, telling her all kinds of crap, trying to win her over to his side, just like a kid that plays mom against dad. All this happened in one hour, before I brushed my teeth, or hair, or was in my day clothes, one hour!

It was awful, but only for an instant, did it sting, but instead I got angry. How dare he act so naughty, when I go out of my way.  Wasn’t I just the one who had been cleaning all the messes up in his room, get his medications ready, get his drinks ready, silverware, napkin, plates. Oh forget it I said to myself, I am not doing this for any recognition or rewards, I am doing this because I love him, and because I love him, I have decided to go forth with the placement. I need my health back and he needs more help than I can give him anymore.

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I Am Losing, You Are Winning

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My heart is sad and heavy today

self portrait of sadness

As Al did not want to play

Games with the therapist here

Instead he chose to make more tears

And sadness this did bring around

All faces forced to drop to the ground

His confusion was for all to see

Not understanding or comprehending me

The professionals did remark

That his mind was about to embark

A new era he had not been before

The cells were dying and here no more

He was hateful and no smiles today

Even his favorite therapist could not make him sway

My heart is breaking as I know

The fact that caring for him is beginning to show

That it is going to take more than one

To care for him as I had always done

I am losing my brother to this filthy crap

And all I can do is cry and sit back

And watch it take my brother’s will

And take his life it is going to steal

He wants to die, and I know this is true

For he tells me daily, and this makes me so blue

You have turned our home from happy to sad

I hate you Parkinson’s Disease, you are so bad.

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The Waiting

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Al refused to go to bed last night. He instead wanted to sit in his recliner with his glasses

 

prayer..

 

off, and his open Bible on his lap. It was midnight then, and I don’t feel comfortable with me going to bed, at least knowing he is safely in bed.

 

I waited until about one am and then went in and asked him if we could please get into bed, that I was so tired. He still refused. I got his bed all ready for him and walked out here and turned all the lights off and sat here at the computer, playing a silly quiet game, and then within about a ten minute range, he did get into bed by himself, and turned his television on and his lights off.

 

Wow, I thought, was this to show me he was still independent or what? I had a half-smile on my face, as I shut the game off and went to my room. Prayers and God covered me up and after six hours of uninterrupted sleep, I awoke this morning, feeling brighter and refreshed.

 

I started my coffee being ever so much like a sneaky mouse as Al was still sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him. I went to my room again and placed the much-needed call to the local family doctor. I explained how yesterday went and taking him to the mental health hospital, and what the doctor did by coming in to actually talk to me and Al. I explained that I was in agreement with this doctor, that the goal was to have Al in comfort care from now on and as pain-free as possible. I even explained about Al’s thought process on dying and how he planned to make it happen.

 

I told the nurse all that was on my mind and I was firm about what I was saying, and she said, I will give the message to the doctor, what is your phone number, and he is not in today, so you will maybe hear from us late today or tomorrow. I said thank-you, have a great day, and we hung up. Now, we, Alvin and I are doing the waiting game of the phone to ring.

 

Al got up this morning, and came out to the kitchen and said his toes were hurting so bad. He asked me to look at them, and of course, I can see nothing with the naked eye. Then he smiled and said he had prayed the hardest he had ever prayed, and he got an answer. I said what was the answer. He stated that God told him this morning when he got up, that his wait was over. He could go to heaven now. I said, well we shall just have to wait and see won’t we bud, and he shook his head with a big grin.

 

The therapist came over later, and he told her all about his big answer and he was grinning from ear to ear. She started crying and I joined in, and Al asked us both, why are you crying, this is good news!

 

Now we are both waiting for the phone to ring, and to see if God is speaking to Al or if Al is wishing so hard.

 

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Faith And Friendship

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Does Anyone Ever Listen?

Are faith and friendships similar? I believe they can be quite close in relationships. I am sure many of you have more friends here on WP, than even in real life. Where else can we turn, when we are in need of someone to listen, to be encouraging, and to care.

How can we draw so near to someone we have never met? How can the heart become attached to a stranger. It is actually not a stranger, because we have used our senses to feel, to laugh, to learn and to love through the words and hidden messages of sentences.

For me, I have found several friends on here, expanding to Pinterest, Linked In, and other web sites. Our words touch each other. The reason I have even touched on this subject today, is because I have been touched, through reading one of my emails.

I have without realizing it cried over someone’s loss of loved ones, prayed for others who are in a place they do not know how to escape from. Laughed with others, and learned that others lives are not that much different from my own. It is only the uniqueness of each day that makes it seem bigger than it really is. I have learned that I am not alone, that others are willing to listen, to offer compassion, and advice.

Just for this day, I want to thank all of you, but I want to thank a few who have said Mother May I and have advanced more into my personal life. I know that I have talked on this topic before, but with my heart aching for one of my friend’s losses recently, I am once again reminded that faith and friendships are very similar.

We will believe where there is no sight. We will love when there is no touch, and we will cry although we have not seen their tears. When I leave this good earth, to never return, I will have left my own personal mark on these grounds. I will have left a piece of me in each of your hearts that have opened up to me. Thank you……………..