set up a picture phone area at www.mobog.com/irpac

working on various things next week... Amy's wedding pictures and video, Boy Scout website for a den leader leaving the area, and some more writing to bbs and ptsd.

Lots and lots of Halloween fun this weekend and throughout the week. : )

Was thinkin' about somethin'... I'm best for Nikki when I'm strong of mind and happy of spirit... I have been so wiped out these past few weeks and that definitely has had an effect on Nikki. I am going to do my best to take this recent strength I feel and keep it intact, no matter how upset I get at the system, no matter how afraid I get for her, no matter how any of this pans out... I've got to remember to keep my own head on straight and not allow myself to be torn apart by the games and stupidity of a system so inept it's got numerous families in the spot we are. I've also got to remember that I am not the mother of one, although I often feel that way towards each of my children... it's some kind of odd mom thing. I sometimes get so focussed on each of them as individuals, which they each are, but perhaps what I should do is consider them also in terms of a group, a society within themselves, as children who are growing up in the same environment and being influenced by the same external elements. If one child feels astray, the main group should remain strong, not weakened by the chaos, so that the child who feels mentally astray will naturally gravitate towards the strength for compassion and strength of their own to be renewed. I can see why all of us have been nervous around Nikki and her unpredictable outbursts, and I can see that the nervousness has probably made Nikki feel more helpless. It's important to keep a strong homebase, to be honest about the fears, but to also work more on the keeping of the strength. Simply put: less fear, more positive actions to keep things strong.

The system, I noticed, tends to wipe families out and exhaust them as resources and then turn around and blame that weakness for the mental health issues... this has been going on for decades. But it doesn't take much digging into the background of any family with a child who has mental health issues to see that for years and years the family unit was strong, doing its best to help a child with the mental illness and just got burnt out when the child's illness got worse and the outbursts less predictable. The more people I talk to the more I can see that the system plays more of a role in things deteriorating than they do helping it improve. It is usually at the sacrifice of entire families before any actual help is given and received. This is something else that must be changed within the system. Help has got to be more prompt and more results-oriented as the divorce rates are extraordinarily high and unneccesarily so.

I feel a new sense of hope for Nikki. But a lot of that hope comes from just forcing a positive outlook on this out of my own determination to reclaim a sense of direction in the circles of 'mental health care', which is currently neither caring or healthy. For any family that has put up with it... it's destructive, incompetent, and at some point I predict a large-scale demand by many families that things be made to function better for the patients who suffer these confusing mental health issues and the families who get pushed around by state hired bullies and paper pushers. Fucking jerks... how they can even sleep at night without pouding headaches of guilt and remorse for children and families they have failed more than helped is beyond me. I'm in the process of rounding up links to the most current statistics I can get on how much 'help' the department of mental health is... I've already got the education statistics, dismal enough, but nothing in comparison, so far, to the department of mental health's overall let down of patients and families. Combined, these two major key players, paid for with tax money so that families don't have as many choices or options financially, in a child's mental health well-being are about as capable as a one-legged dog in a sledding race.

Hey... if anybody reading this has been through the same, feel free to email me. BagOfEyebrows@gmail.com And thanks to those who already have emailed me with information and/or for just letting me know you've been there and know how I feel. I was pretty sure I wasn't alone in this... it's so good to know I'm not only not alone but in the company of other logical, rational people fed up with a system that seems to be good at making up more new names for conditions and pills with less actual success and far less positive results. Mental health issues and conditions are on the rise, autism and other serious mental health issues, which is a testament to how badly the system is failing... yet their profits go up. Explain that... ?

While I'm being all semi-political, I'd like to direct anyone reading this to a few websites I found interesting... www.lp.org and www.badnarik.org

If you're as frustrated as I am with the system, consider those links as possible alternatives. I think you'll find having your own money in your pocket to make decisions and choices outside of the realm of possibilities in the current 'system' would lead to a lot more success in helping those we love overcome the toughest battles they fight. And a private sector would be far more interested in success to back up their cost than the system currently in place which doesn't have to worry about failure much at all... they still get paid, and they don't care about their reputation as it bears no influence on their profits. Being funded by the government also has its perks.

Will be at a family Halloween gathering for most of today... have a nice weekend, everyone, and GO REDSOX!