Holidays in NZ

Holiday Beach Bach.  Families come back to the same beach/holiday home for 5 plus generations.

Proud of the fish and Rock Lobster caught on holiday

Launching a boat by tractor at the beach

Kids playing with family at a skate park during school holidays.

Sushi making over the holiday with Jack and Dad/Scott

Kids on  holiday, enjoying a chat!

Holidays in New Zealand are like stepping back in time and grabbing onto the traditional values of family time and relaxing together.  The schools have three two week breaks from school, where families plan short vacations or visits to their holiday baches.  The break over the Christmas holidays, summer, is about 6 weeks, in which many parents take off of work, stores limit hours, and it seems that the country just slows down for family time and holiday.  Many people own these holiday homes/baches and often have had the bach passed down for many generations.  I was able to go on a long Labour Day weekend with the Lees’ who have been coming to the same beach for 5 generations.  They have only shifted homes once, and couldn’t imagine not spending the summer vacation here.  Many barbeques occur, along with the fish frys and sausage sizzles that are so popular.  I am so thankful that some of my family will be coming to join me in this wonderful tradition of sharing quality time together, just relaxing and enjoying each other.

Suicide

Disclaimer:  Contains hard information.  Today, I wanted to put down a few words about suicide.  This week, I experienced  the first professional/work related suicide of a young girl that I was working with.  I had only briefly visited with this young 24 yr old, who had just moved to Palmy 6 months earlier.  She had only experienced one episode of drug induced psychosis four years ago, but he just recently sought out help, because she was feeling some of those feelings and wanted some help.  In the four days that she had been on the ward, she had shown improvement, but had still had enough risks that the doctor wanted to only let her have day leave for a few hours.  She went out on leave from the ward, and was found shortly after from her one friend in town, dead by hanging.  I received the word at work on arrival on Tuesday, after the long holiday.  It was a shock for me, and difficult for me to hear the psychiatrist say that she didn't see it coming, and then we moved onto the next report, just like that.

I have seen suicide profoundly affect the lives of some dear friends and seen the many years of aftermath of fallout from that experience.  Even 40 years after my friends' event, the ramifications are still resounding in the lives of the children and former spouse of the one who died.  The ones who are left behind are tasked to make sense or not of it, and use this to shape their perception, perspective and lens on life and the world.

Hopefully many of my faculty will not be reading this, because there is not one reference in this, just gut reaction and reflection.  I have seen that many times the suicide may be caused by impulsivity.  This could be caused by a previous head injury and the damage to the frontal lobe, or a bad decision, or an accident or by altered judgement by substance abuse or a zillion other things.

In the end, we have a responsibility to let people know that we love them and that we care.  We have the responsibility to let people know the resources available to them, and give them access to those resources.  In the end, the individual has the responsibility to use these resources, choose to live with supports available and to not use anyone else for an excuse or scapegoat or reason.

I hope I don't get in trouble for this, without adding the numerous links to supports and help available, but I just needed to talk.  The debriefing or "resiliency training" that we had as an opportunity to share as involved staff was also a wonderful way to process the experience, and what it means to each of us.  It was humbling to hear the psychiatrist and the numerous psychiatric nurses also question their role and if they missed something or could have done something different.  There are so many people who care, and are interested in helping in whatever way available.  Sometimes it just doesn't seem fair.  It is important to know that there is hope.  Thanks for listening.

What is Wellness?

This past week has really made me do quite a bit of reflecting and thinking about what is wellness, and what is mental health and what is mental illness, and where is the line between them?  What gives some people the training and skills to diagnose and discern the difference and determine a change from one state to another.  I am working daily with about 11 Psychiatrists (which includes the Junior Doctors at this teaching hospital) many Psychiatric Registered Nurses, many "Key Workers"-Clinicians in the Community and one Social Worker, besides myself.  Each person has been specifically trained to identify, assess, diagnose and be a part of the treatment of the individual who is presenting to them.

In the past five weeks, I have worked or met with over 100 different people who have passed through Ward 21, each have a very difficult experiences, and have ended up in the Acute Mental Health Inpatient Unit.  Many have stories that include difficult childhoods, or tragic experiences; others have significant losses or unbelievable histories or present situations.  I have seen doctors adjust and juggle the medications, nurses balance out the time for the individual in leave, seclusion, protection checks, and behavior modification.  I have seen (and been) the social worker negotiating benefits with Work and Income, trying to find accommodations for someone who is at risk for self harm, or needs supported services, but none are available in the community of choice.  Sometimes the best thing for the individual is just not attainable with the current resources, so we settle on second or third best.

Today, I completed a day training in Mental Status Examination, which reinforced the teachings at UAA and University of Wyoming, to take a snapshot of the person at that point in time, and cover the various items to include in this report.  It was interesting to see the video presentation of the interview, and also the amateur assessment that the three groups came up with, as well as the video critique from the Psychiatrist of the Junior Doctor who did the interview.  Many of these assessments were different and that is because each person comes into the interview with their own education and experiences, and prejudices, etc, and the professional really needs to know what is their stuff, and what is the person, who is being interviewed, stuff.

I still don't know what is wellness or what is un-wellness, but I do know that people are doing the best that they can to make an assessment with the information that they have, keeping the wellness and involvement of the individual as the priority.  I also know that many of us are only one incident or crisis away from being unwell for a period.  Life is precious and short, and I am committed to contribute what I can to this world, and to the health and "wellness" of all of us.  I guess that most professionals are just trying to do the best that they can to assist others to wellness and health.  It just makes me more mindful and thoughtful about the assessment and the discernment that is needed when working with others, and importance of assisting and empowering these individuals to find and hold onto the strengths that they hold inside call upon that resiliency to grow or even just survive.

Big week, and hoping everyone has a healthy and good week.