Mental Health

Hey everyone! I haven’t written a blog in awhile and not sure what to write. I am having a lot of fun doing Tik Tok videos! I want to share my foundation with as many people as possible. I am hoping once I make it an official 501(c)3 that people will be willing to donate so I can live my dream of having a facility for mental health with all the coping skills. I want to have art therapy, dog therapy, music, musical instruements, arts and crafts, diamond art, nutrition classes, workout classes, yoga classes, group therapies, etc. I want my foundation to be similar to NAMI (National Alliance of Mental Health) but bigger. NAMI is amazing but they only have a little house with limited space for classses and groups. They do a group on Monday nights at Hope. This group is for people with any kind of mental illness. I am not sure what time it is at but it is in the evening. A friend of mine at AA mentioned that he wished NAMI did a group for just people with Bi-Polar. I am adding that to my list of things I will do at my facility. As far as I know, NAMI does not go through insurances at all. They are all donations and grants. I want my facility to be like this also so anyone can come and you don’t need a specific kind of insurance. Years ago I took the Peer to Peer class and Peer Support Specialist class with NAMI. It was free of charge. You just have to have a year membership for a minimum of $5.00 a year. I signed up to take the Peer to Peer class again the beginning of May. It is 8 - 2 hour classes. I can then take a class to be able to teach the class and get paid. I will also have to take my Peer Support Specialist class again since it has been so many years. I would love to be able too get a part time job as a Peer Support Specialist. When I looked a few months ago though, they only had full time positions. Years ago I worked at Codac for a couple months or so and loved it! I did vision board groups and a nutrition class where I made guacamole for everyone. I had my own cute cubicle. I was triggered though by some other people’s trauma I guess and a client yelled the C word at me and slammed the door cause I asked her please not to cuss. I ended up going to the behavioral health hospital for a couple weeks and when I came back all my stuff was packed and they fired me. I was so upset, because as a Peer Support Specialist, they know you halve mental illness so you can help people from your own experiences. I am also really excited to start doing presentations with NAMI’s Ending The Silence next month. I will be going to Middle Schools and High Schools to help educate kids on mental health conditions and end the stigma and silence of mental health. I need to practice some more, but I think it will be really good! I went to the NAMI walk last Saturday and had a blast! I didn’t actually do the walk, because my body hurt from my Disneyland trip which was awesome with my best friend Julie. At the walk I wore my Stefanie’s Safe Space shirt and hat and went to all the booths with different resources and got information and swag and talked to people and gave them my stickers and business cards. I later shared some of the resources on my Tik Tok video. I will update this later to add the recourses here too. I need to go through my bag of papers and stuff. I was excited to get about 8 stress balls! Ha ha! I had a psych NP appt the other day and although my doc suggested Lamical, we are on the same page about not taking it. Mood stabilizers don’t work for me. They just rob me of my personality and make me feel crappy. I am still taking my anti depressant, anti anxiety, sleep med, and an anti psychotic. I can’t wait to get off court ordered treatment to see a psychiatrist who has more time with my Medicare plan. Unfortunately the government funded facilities with AHCCCS are so short staffed and overworked. The docs only have a few minutes to talk to patients. I have been doing really good though! I have been swimming laps and lost 9 pounds in 4 days! I have been going to the AA meetings still at 5:30pm. I love going to meetings. There are a lot of cool people and inspirational shares. I have a lot of good friends there! I am going to the 11am women’s meeting today and then am meeting my sponsor to start working on my 4th step. Hopefully it won’t be too bad and will feel good to do. Yesterday I dropped off a super cute book at my niece’s house. It is called “How to ride a dragonfly”. I saw it at the store and thought of her. I personalized it to her and wrote a cute note in the book. Nobody was home and I made sure not to get on the ring camera so set it against the garage. My sister still technically has a restraining order against me till sometime in May I believe. I don’t think she would have called the cops and put me in jail again but I wasn’t taking any chances. I still don’t know if I will ever have a good relationship with my sister. I would like to hope so but I have no idea. My nephews were watching my Tik Tok videos cause the 14 year old loved one of my videos. I may have got them in trouble by talking about it but I hope not. I hope they can still watch my videos if they want to. I miss them and my 6 year old niece so much. It is not fair of my sister to do this to her and keep her from her Aunt Steffy who she loves so much. I am really mad at my sister and as of now I think she is being a selfish A hole who lacks empathy and she can go F herself. She will never understand my mental illness. She will never acknowledge or believe my trauma. She has no idea how I feel when I am in mental crisis. Hopefully she is doing better with her therapist. I will just continue to pray for her and my niece and nephews. If she is ever ready to have a relationship with me, I may not be willing. I just wish I could see my niece and nephews. Part of me wishes my sister and I can have a close relationship again but I honestly just don’t see that happening. I think the damage has been done and it will be hard to repair it. She did this to me last October and that was a big part of the reason I tried to take my own life. And the only reason she started talking to me and being there for me is because I tried to take my own life. She didn’t want me to die, but not seeing me and not having a relationship with me is kind of like I died. I died to her and she doesn’t seem to give a shit about me anymore. All I can do is focus on myself and my mental, physical, and emotional health! I am doing so good and am surrounding myself with positive and supportive people in my life! I am so excited to keep moving forward with my foundation. Yesterday I picked up a sticker decal for my car that is so bad ass! It is black with teal writing and has my awesome owl logo and says Stefanie’s Safe Space and under that stefaniessafespace.com and under that Stopping the Stigma of Mental Illness! I also ordered some amazing new business cards with my owl logo. They are black on the front with teal writing and teal on the back with black writing. I can’t wait to pick them up next week! It is 8:15am and I am pretty hungry. I am trying to do intermittent fasting and not eat till 11am. I have a meeting at 11am tho so I am probably going to make a delicious steak salad about 10:30am. I hope everyone has a great day and please check out my Tik Tok if you haven’t already! @stefaniessafespace.