Pantheacon anyone?

2 more weeks til Pantheacon. If anyone is going or interested in going - I have a room at a nearby hotel since the DoubleTree (where the con is held) was booked in October!
I'm going to continue to call the DoubleTree just in case there are cancellations. I'd rather stay there and cancel my room elsewhere. Soooo, any of you peeps out there are going and need a room or a roommate, I could use the shared space and money.

Gimme a call or email me!

XO,

Jacquie

Pantheacon anyone?

If anyone needs a roomie for Pantheacon - I need a place to lay my head Feb 15th-17th at the Doubletree in San Jose. Rooms are all booked up :-(
I did book a room at a nearby hotel just in case...but I'd rather sleep on the floor in my sleeping bag than 3 miles away!

XO,

Jacquie

Self Determination & Health

When it comes to mental, physical and behavioral health...

Empower yourself - take control of your own destiny - ask for help by asking others to show you how to help yourself. Don't asked to be "fixed" or healed - it's within yourself, with the help of doctors and medical staff. Get 2nd opinions, educate yourself on medications, but know not all educational materials are truth. Find out what's true for you. What works for one, may not work for another. Get out and move your body! If you don't feel like getting out of bed- do some some stretches in bed!
You know your body - if something is wrong - keep going back. If they think you're crazy (making it up) too fucking bad - switch doctors until someone believes you. Try alternative therapies...Or see a mental health professional or 2 or 3. I've been through many different counselors, psychologists and shrinks in 18 years. I know that sometimes you grow "out" of a particular health care professional.
Chronic pain and discomfort will eat away at you body and soul. Chronic pain and discomfort is difficult to treat. There are some symptoms I have that don't ever go away and I've given up on present day treatments. But I will still actively look for my own cures and ways to promote healing. Anyways- enough of my pep talk caffeine induced rant... here's some more professional advice I feel I must share:

Reposted without permission from www.peersupport.org/ which is a off shoot of DBSA.org.

Self-Determination

"Many of us who have used mental health services have been told what we 'have,' how 'it' will be treated and how we must think about arranging our lives around this thing.

"We have then begun to see our lives as a series of problems or 'symptoms' and we have forgotten that there might be other ways to interpret our experiences."

- Shery Mead, as quoted in Emerging New Practices in Organized Peer Support, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), 2003

When you are faced with a mental illness, life is often confusing, and it can be difficult to focus on the idea of recovery. When we hear these are chronic illnesses, we begin to think only of our deficits and losses. Thoughts of recovery can seem far away or even impossible to us, those who treat us, and those who care about us.

But there's a different way of looking at mental illnesses now, a vision focusing on recovery and self-determination, emphasizing the importance of peer support and focusing on the person with the mental illness, supporting and building on their dreams and desires. There's a growing recognition, supported by increasing amounts of research, that recovery is possible when consumers are an integral part of their own treatment and support systems.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health validated this trend when it pointed to a vision of Mental Health Care as Consumer-Driven. The Commission's Executive Summary states, "The goal of a transformed system is recovery."

In a transformed mental health service delivery system, the Commission says, "Care must focus on increasing consumers' ability to successfully cope with life's challenges, on facilitating recovery, and on building resilience, not just on managing symptoms." Their report goes on to say that this system must be "built around consumers' needs," and that it must be "seamless and convenient."

More and more people are calling for a transition from a medical model of mental health service delivery to a recovery model.
Adopting the recovery model means a fundamental shift to a system where consumers change the way they participate in treatment, where they become active – not passive – participants in their own journey toward wellness. You and the people supporting your recovery (this may include health care professionals, other consumers, family, and friends) are partners in this process. Sometimes you may need more help from your partners, other times less.

"Relate to a person's potential and you call forth greatness."

- Ike Powell

Key to recovery is the concept of self-determination. Simply put, people succeed when they become empowered to determine their own destiny. People will be more committed to a treatment plan that they have chosen, versus one that is imposed on them, even by those who are well-meaning. When the person with a mental illness takes center stage in working toward his/her own wellness, success will follow.

"Nothing about us, without us."

- South African disability motto, adopted by the U.S. mental health consumer movement

"The increasing proliferation of peer support services and the evolution of the recovery movement may represent the brightest stars in the future of mental health treatment systems. The lived experience of people with mental illnesses is having a major impact on the shape of contemporary mental health services."

Manifesting my Dream...

This was an email to a couple of friends, and then I thought, why don't I just put it out there to the world? Or at least the MySpace/Tribe.net world...

I have a dream...of owning or co-owning a studio...somewhere where I can have a production office for my art (film/documentary video) and rent out studio space to dancers, dance instruction, yoga, pilates, marshal arts, spirit based classes, etc...
Plus retail like branded merchandise, dance wear, gifts?

I'm searching for a business partner or partners...
Ah, think about it...downtown perhaps? convert a loft? somewhere in North Park? Or Escondido?
Contact me if you are interested!

I'm working on a business plan...

Friday Night

I'm bored and need to get out tonight. What's going on? anything?

Fire

Here we go again...So Cal is on fire again. As soon as I saw the smoke this afternoon I called my mother, who lives in Ramona in the San Diego Country Estates. I urged her to drop everything and get ready to evacuate. I'm soooo f-ing glad she listened and got out since her street is apparently in the fire's path. Now the entire town has a mandatory evacuation.
I pray her home is safe but know it is only material goods...and the animals and my grandmother and mother are safe at my sisters.
The winds are crazy...just crazy...
I pray everyone gets out safely.