Pebble in the Road - Disaster Distress Helpline

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, known as SAMSHA has a page on their website concerning immediate disaster assistance. Usually that means droughts, floods, fires and earthquakes. But it now also includes incidents of mass shooting and violence. 

It brings only sadness when there is a helpline for human generated incidents of mass shootings and mass violence. But here we are. It doesn't matter who gets killed or how many. 

At the time of recording, this there are state legislatures that are making easier to obtain a gun and a weapons originally intended for combat.

And a man who committed murder of a protestor in Texas will probably be pardoned not even a hard week after conviction. 

I want to use the f-word, the m-f word and all permutations I can think of to express how I feel. 

I try to keep it clean. So after the venting is the question.

How can I be of service?

I can help to spread the reach of this resource to more people, including those that need it and don't know that it exist.  

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

SAMSHA Disaster Distress Hotline is 1–800–985–5990 for voice or text calls. 

For those that need American Sign Language interpretation there is a FAQ about the videophone service with a signed explainer video on the page.

SAMSHA page on Incidents of Mass Violence.

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Show 319 Clifford W. Beers and Mental Health America

The anxiety symptoms can muck up our ability to see what we've done, whether it was fair, good, or excellent. There are a lot of wonderful people that have anxiety conditions that do mighty good things.

People write, create or force a revolution into how we should treat each other as human being. In this week's episode, a look at a pioneer that helped to improve mental health care in the U.S. and a look at Mental Health America.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

George Dunnett Video I am Not Very Well

Clifford W. Beers book A Mind That Found Itself. You can find versions of the book to download at Project Gutenberg. And for those of you that prefer your reading via audio, there is a Librevox version of the book at the Internet Archive.

National Library of Medicine American Journal page on Clifford W. Beers From a Patient's Perspective: Clifford Whittingham Beers' Work to Reform Mental Health Services 

There is also a PDF version of the Voices from the Past article.

Mental Health America Resources:

• Mental Health self-screening test on a variety of conditions and disorders.
• Anxiety page with graphical map of questions, concerns and treatment process.
• Treatment information page/matrix.
• Cognitive Dissonance aka Thinking Traps Reframing Tool (AI assisted)

BrainCraft video I Tried The Vagus Nerve Hack (so you don't have to)

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Show 318 A Look at AmWell for Anxiety Treatment

As one section of America tries to move forward there are others that are determine to hold on to what didn't work in the past and certainly won't work in the future. 

In this day, do the best you can. That is the lesson to be learned across all of time and space.

I had to record this episode seven or eight times. 

I kept messing up. Mispronounced words. Forgot to explain something. Then there were the birds and the trash truck.

Together. In harmony.

You can aim for perfection, but in the meantime you do what you can.

You might muck it up but do what you can.

In this episode, a window shopping look at AmWell for anxiety treatment and mental health services.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

Discovery Magazine article about possible blood testing for anxiety.

Engadget post on Cerebral sharing data with Meta and other companies.

AmWell Mental Health Pages:

• Information page about anxiety.
• Information page about online therapy
• Information page about prescriptions

Medline Plus page on Telehealth provides information about what telehealth is and some of the pros and cons of it.

The National Institute of Mental Health has a two page brochure with basic description of what is tele-mental care and some of the pros and cons.

Anne Koller Water Meditation videos.

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Show 317 - The BetterHealth Consent Order

There are times when I find myself in unexpected territories. This is one of those times. It is why I'm trying to include more attention to the virtual mental health providers. 

If you have ever listed to a podcast or watch YouTube, you probably have heard or seen something about the company known as BetterHealth. 

You might have seen an advertorial from a social media influencer or from a podcaster. 

Yeah, this is pickle. BetterHealth presented itself as a service that helps users find and connect with behavioral health providers. Not only under the BetterHealth name but also under a number of doing business as names as:

• Faith Counseling - Christian focus therapy
• Pride Counseling - LGBTQ therapy focus
• Teen Counseling - Teens with parent approval
• Terappeutia - Spanish speaking users

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a complaint against the company BetterHealth had customers provide personal identifiable information.

BetterHealth made promises and assurances about the level of privacy and security about user data.

According to the FTC, the company shared user information with social media companies Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo and Pinterest. 

They also shared data to target former users with ads on those platforms.

There is now a consent order that BetterHealth has agreed to follow. One of those things is not to share or sell visitors or users data to third parties.

In this episode, I go over a bit more details but this is the gist of what happened with the company.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

Associated Press news story BetterHelp shared users’ sensitive health data, FTC says

There is a page on the Federal Trade Commissions website where you can obtain the original complaints, and the consent order. 

BetterHealth response to the consent order via their website.

The National Law Review article about the FTC’s One-Two Punch on Data Tracking and Health Privacy

FTC Enforcement Action to Bar GoodRx from Sharing Consumers’ Sensitive Health Info for Advertising

Alternate Browsers, Search Engines and Add-Ons

• Brave Search Engine
• Duck Duck Go Search Engine
• Firefox Focus for mobile devices
• Privacy Badger from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Vivaldi Browser

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Show 316 Proposed Virtual Prescription Changes

A few years ago in an episode I said:

Anxiety is so much more than the typical stress reaction. 

For some of us, we gag, we choke, we have heart pains, we have chest pains, we have diarrhea, we have gastric distress, we have excessive sweating.

We can't leave our homes. These are not the kind of things you're going to be thinking your way through if your symptoms are that extreme.

 

 And there was a point where my symptoms got that extreme.  I decided to take medication.

I am now on team make informed decisions about taking medication. And once you have made that decision there can be other obstacles. 

Like getting the prescription filled. There is a proposal from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about applying changes to how prescriptions can be filled via telemedicine. 

This is just a brief overview of how they and other interested parties want to handle this process.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

From the Stanford Medicine Scope Blog,  Cyclic sighing can help breathe away anxiety.

Associated Press news story about restrictions on opiate medication treatment via telehealth providers.

February 24, 2023 U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency press release about proposed rules for issuing medication via telehealth providers. 

Proposed Telemedicine Rules Summary from the DEA

From Very Well Mind, a long post on what are benzodiazepines and the DEA schedule list.

Consumer Version of Merck Manual Drugs Used to Treat Anxiety Disorders

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Show 315 A Look at The Anxiety First Aid Kit Book

I freely admit that I mentioned can soda too many times in this episode. But it had a profound effect on my body and parts of my brain. 

There are folks that use other substances in excess to deal with their symptoms or whatever else is going on with them. For me, it was sugar drinks and pastries. 

Almost never met a donut I didn't like.

I no longer beat myself up on wanting to scarf up a sweet treat. 

I do get pissed at myself when I do eat a problem food. There are repercussions.  

Messed myself up on a piece of pie. 

There are always repercussions when you do something you should not do. 

It is important to understand that we as human beings tend to look for relief when we are in discomfort. 

It is what we do.

In this episode, a look at a book from New Harbinger Publications on just in time help for anxiety.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

The Anxiety First Aid Kit, Quick Tools for Extreme, Uncertain Times by Rick Hansen, et al. 

New Harbinger Publications search results for Anxiety Books.

Dr. Ali Mattu has a YouTube video on 10 quick anxiety relief techniques. Dr. Mattu has a bunch of videos on a variety of mental health and psychology topics on his channel.

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

ARP Pebble in the Road Health Definitions

Some providers of services use the term behavioral health. Some use mental health.  I have spent hours trying to get a concise meaning of both terms. 

It ain't easy.

The American Psychological Association defines behavioral as:

...an interdisciplinary subspecialty of behavioral medicine that promotes a philosophy emphasizing individual responsibility in the maintenance of one’s own health and in the prevention of illness and dysfunction by means of self-initiated activities (jogging, exercising, healthy eating, not smoking, etc.). [proposed by U.S. psychologist Joseph D. Matarazzo (1925–  )]

Mental Health.gov defines it as:

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Here is the thing. There are jerk face doctors and corporations that employ doctors that sometimes hurt people with mental health conditions and disorders.

Or provide a gut punch when a doctor states that all you need is a bit of rest. 

Or insist that medication is the only way to treat your problem (they mean anxiety problems, can't speak for the other stuff.)

Or are told buck the hell up this is life, deal with it. 

There are some of us that do buck the hell up, give the presentation, go back to the hotel room and have a major meltdown of symptoms. 

Dude, we vomit hard and steady and then go back to do it again and again.

Screw you doc, we are doing the best we can and then some. (Directed to the asshole docs, not the good ones.)

This is a pebble in the road on a functional but not perfect definition of health, physical health and behavioral health. With a side order of mental health.

If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.

Resources Mentioned: 

APA Dictionary of Psychology definition of Behavioral Health.

Mental Health.gov definition of the term Mental Health

World Health Organization definition of Health.

Disclaimer: 

Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. 

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health disorder.

This blog and podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this program is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.