Author: kwetoday

How did I do it?

Change, Family, Suicide Leave a comment

The title for this post is a question that I have been asked on repeated occasions, especially within the past two weeks.

The question is relating to me having a desire to live, and not wanting to party anymore (and by not party anymore, I mean days on end partying and essentially doing this on the daily), and not wanting to do drugs and to just essentially get better. Of course my desire to change came well before this post and well before going into university, but real change and its progress happened with these key events.

I wouldn’t say that there is only one thing that made me want to change, or that there is a magic pill or potion out there. There was an array of factors, events, happenings in my life that made me want to change. And by change, I don’t mean over night and I don’t mean the easiest change either.

Part of this change started when I was at the hospital, after a suicide attempt, and I saw an old friend there. I tried to avoid her because I felt embarrassed. A week later, I found out she was there for the same thing, attempted suicide, but I only found out after she hung herself and her funeral was being arranged. It hurt me because I didn’t say “Hi” and it scared me because I thought, “That could have been me.” I decided right then and there, I wanted to live.

I still struggled with thoughts of not wanting to die, but wanting to escape pain. That’s what strange about me and my attempts, I never really wanted to die; I just wanted my pain to stop. Someone might consider me weak for taking that route, but I don’t think I am weak given my experiences and the fact that I am still here.

I then went onto to really look at the people I chose to let into my life. I began to change my friends completely. I literally changed my number, and stopped talking to people I didn’t think were necessarily good for the changes I wanted to make. And someone might think “well, that is rude thing to do.” No, it’s not rude, especially when certain types of people are toxic. (ugh, toxic… what an ugly word to use).

But even that, wasn’t all. I had an academic counsellor ask me “What do you want to do when you are done school.” My answer literally was nothing. I got into university, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with it when I was done. So I started setting goals for myself, and I started telling people about them when they asked me, “So what is it that you want to do when you are done school?” I proudly tell them what my dreams are. Trust me, the most inexpensive way to make yourself feel better about life is to have dreams and share your dreams with others (And also let others share their own dreams with you too!)

I also decided I wanted to eat healthy and start exercising again. Two things that naturally can make anyone feel good.

But that is not even everything that contributes to my desire to live. The number one major change in my life is this little fella.

Now, I am not saying go out and ask your sister or brother or someone else close to you to go and have a baby. I am just saying, find someone who you love dearly, and just think for a second, what their life would be like if they didn’t have you. I thought about my nephew many times, especially when I thought about how much I wanted my pain to end. I thought about how I wouldn’t see him walk, or how I wouldn’t hear him say my name (or his attempts to say my name…Auntie Momi, Auntie Nomi, Auntie Noni) or thought how he wouldn’t be able to make me smile by just being him.

I thought about how if I wasn’t there, he would only hear stories about me doing silly things and he would only see pictures of me doing even sillier things. I wouldn’t be able to be silly for him, or I wouldn’t be able to make him smile and laugh.

We wouldn’t be able to make our own memories of each other together.

So in a nutshell, I decided who I wanted to keep in my life (people who weren’t “toxic”); decided to have dreams and share those dreams whenever I can (and let other people share their own dreams with me, and really listen to what they are saying); decided I wanted to live healthy and be healthy; and most importantly, decided I wanted to be there in the future of my new nephew.

Some advice to people who want to change their lives: Find people who are good for you and your life; dream and dream big; and find someone you love and think about what his/her future would be like without the good person that you want to be, then ask yourself: How do you want to be remembered?

Karen Nisbet

Artist, Karen Nisbit, Teachers Leave a comment

Well, I found another amazing site! This site belongs to my art teacher from high school in Sault Ste Marie.

I really enjoyed doing art, and wish I had more time and the resources to do more of it 🙂

Here is a link to the site:

Hummingbird Studio

.

Here is the portrait she did. It’s titled “Naomi” and it’s quite big (I remember when I first saw it, it was surreal–looking at a painting of me).

I hope my readers check out the rest of her work and her biography.

Great teacher. Great artist.

Mental Health and Substance Use

LFpress, Mental Health, Substance abuse, Substance use, University, UWO Leave a comment

Today after reading an article titled University Faces Mental Health Crisis.

I was more inclined to write this article especially after having met with an out-patient psychiatric nurse this week. I saw her because of a referral I received…last year (summer 2011). I completely forgot about the referral, and besides, by the time I went to see her, I believe that I didn’t need to see a psychiatrist.

I had developed some coping skills, and new techniques to help me with my anxiety or stress. I can give thanks for the student development services (specifically, to a counselor who finished her placement with me and the new one I am now seeing). I also had to give myself some credit because this year was the year that I finally decided,

I have to be honest with myself and with who ever I decided to receive help from because if I wasn’t honest…I wouldn’t get the help I actually needed

I was honest, and I also decided that I would cut back on drinking and stop doing drugs. I started noticing a pattern–less drinking and no drugs meant less anxiety attacks, less nightmares, less depression-bouts, less interrupted sleeps. It’s not that everything all of a suddenly magically stopped all together, but I noticed I was significantly feeling better. I didn’t and sometimes don’t still feel perfect. I still have my insecurities. I still have my fears. I have my flashbacks…still. I still look over my shoulder when I am walking alone. Double check, if not triple check that my door is double locked before bed. Sure, some people may call me paranoid, but I know that’s my coping method. Albeit, not a good one, but it works.

I think that is the most frustrating part about trying to get care for mental health: everything looks okay by the time the referral comes, but really…the person may have just developed new coping methods.

My new coping methods aren’t the best but they certainly are better than doing drugs and drinking every day. Even when I tried to get help when I was still using, mental health care professionals would say to me “Why not try to quit drinking and quit doing drugs and then we can make an appointment, okay?” I just want to yell out, “Can’t you see, I am doing drugs and drinking because of these mental health problems!”

I was using, and it was my coping method.

The thing with this article that I read today was that it focused on lack of resources to meet the high demand for students at the University. The article mentioned in only one instance “substance abuse.” Even the words together don’t sound nice.

You don’t have to be abusing substances in order for them to be affecting your mental health. In fact, you don’t even have to be a repeated user in order for substances to affect your mental health. In fact, you can even die on the first time you use substances. (Yes alcohol is a substance, and yes you can die from drinking too much in one sitting and not just over time)

I think the issue with University culture and mental health issues is that the two fail to acknowledge that substance use or substance abuse or substance experimentation may either further aggravate mental health issues, create new mental health issues, allow old mental health issues to resurface and even hide mental health issues–in my case, it did all that. But if I were to be honest with you, I did use a lot and I used every day. I wasn’t in school then though. I don’t think anyone who did what I used to do could ever complete first year or any year of university, and if they are… well I guess that is their coping method.

Individuals go away to school, and sometimes they are trying certain aspects of life for the first time. Everything from living on their own for the first time, having sex for the first time, being single for the first time, maybe even being drunk or high for the first time. When it comes to university, there are three aspects to it:

  1. academics
  2. social
  3. personal

Academics deals with marks and going to class and even passing or failing. Social deals with the partying, relationships (friendship or more), etc. Personal deals with finding yourself or well, losing yourself (freshman 15 anyone?).

In the article above, it states that there needs to be more resources. Yes, I completely agree. But what also needs to be is more awareness and education, not just on mental health but perhaps things that might hid, might exacerbate, or might even create mental health issues. Yes, I am kind of biased when it comes to speaking about mental health and substance use/abuse, but I’ve been there. Nobody ever told me, drinking might be the cause or doing drugs might be making it worse, because drinking and doing drugs was my coping method.

I’d like to make a further point or connection. Earlier today, an LFpress article was posted titled Growing number of schoolgirls using painkillers.

The interesting thing about this article is highlighted a statement by an officer, and the officer statement reads:

“The schools aren’t doing enough to educate parents on the subject…Their kids are taking the pills right out of their medicine cabinets, out of their purses. They’re either using them, selling them, or in many cases both.”

And here is another article that highlights the issue of young people finding drugs in their parents’ drug cabinets. Dated 2007: Student use of painkillers on the rise.

How many years later and kids getting drugs out of their parents drug cabinets is still a problem? That’s four years.

In four years, I moved to London, earned a college degree, and was accepted into a university and even completed first year university.

I am not blaming parents for substance abuse or substance use problems, or for their own child’s mental health issues, what I am making more apparent is the fact that sometimes in the University culture and the University experience is that some young people may want to experiment with substance use (and like I said earlier, it doesn’t have to be substance abuse; it can be even first time use) which can sometimes create, hide, or exacerbate mental health issues. Yes, as noted earlier, alcohol is considered a substance. Yes, under aged drinking happens on campus. And not that I have witnessed, but I smelt it, drug use happens also.

Parents should also be made aware or educated on how substance use can affect mental health issues. I know that universities give tours during summer months to groups of parents and their child(ren). I believe universities should also give a quick workshop on substance use and mental health issues, and how sometimes the two go together, and tell the parents straight up,

Just because you think your child is an angel and you believe that they won’t drink or do drugs, doesn’t mean that they won’t. So here is some information to make you as a parent more aware and more able to help your child cope.

And yes parents, your child isn’t perfect and just because he/she says he/she is, doesn’t mean they won’t put themselves in situations where substance use occurs and he/she just wants to try it for the “first” and “only” time.

Now, I am not even going to say that one should stay away from substances completely, but what I am saying and what I do believe that more awareness needs to brought out to Universities about the issues with partying and drinking and how it can affect your mental health, and not just your physical health.

Ever hear that one saying, “These are for the nights I can’t remember with the people I won’t forget.” (Or however that over used quote goes…).

Yes parents and universities, it is referring to black out drunk. But I don’t think its cute or funny to use that quote with pictures of an individual holding a 26er of vodka. University experiences should be made to be memorable, and not just by pictures or recall through friends telling you stories the day after. Not. Cute. But that’s just my opinion.

Canada’s Vodka

Canada's vodka, Ice Caps, Polar Bears, Polar Ice Vodka Leave a comment

I took this picture about a month ago. Still no leaves on the trees, and no that’s not why I took it. I took it because this is a Polar Ice Vodka add. No, I am not promoting this alcohol/partying. I took it specifically because the advertisement says, Canada’s Vodka.

If this is Canada’s Vodka for a Polar Ice vodka advertisement, don’t you think someone would have clued into the fact that ice caps are allegedly melting away and polar bears are threatened to becoming extinct (see Polar Ice Vodka logo aka the Polar bear).

I see this add as illogical, especially since the Polar Bears who are becoming extinct because ice caps are melting.

This makes me ask only one question: Does this mean, polar ice vodka is becoming extinct, just like the ice caps and the polar bear?

"This Is Indian Land"

Garden River First Nation, This Is Indian Land Bridge View all 4 comments

this is indian land

This is a picture of a bridge that is located on my First Nation community–Garden River First Nation. Growing up, I played on the bridge, under the bridge… I can’t believe some of the things I used to do, like hunt for worms to go fishing with or play with worms (I was a kid then too)! But seriously… worms? Don’t ask, I don’t know what I was thinking either. Guess it’s a kid growing up on the rez type thing. Today, I avoid worms at all costs! *LOL*

The words on the bridge is a bold statement but it is the truth.

I once showed this picture in a presentation for an interview. I highly recommend against it, especially if you are going to be the only Aboriginal in the room.

Note: I do not know who wrote these words on the bridge, as the words were there before I was born. They have been there for quite some time.

Photo credit to Pauline Giglio.

Six Nations Press Release

Aboriginals, INAC, Six Nations, tax exemption, taxpayers Leave a comment

$1.2 billion in INAC Funding will be cut down to $750 million.

Above is a Six Nations press release dated March 2, 2011.

I like to highlight the point that Chief Montour makes at the end, and it is this:

I’ve always maintained that money appropriated by Parliament for the use and
benefit of Indians is Indian money because

our communities do contribute to the tax base of
Canada

.

I don’t know who is spreading rumours about Natives not paying taxes or that the money we receive is all “White man’s money.” This statement (Although as biased as the stereotypes of Natives not paying taxes), just supports that. I hope people start believing that Natives do not get everything for free.

What Is Beauty?

Beauty, Eating Disorder, Judge Judy, People's magazine Leave a comment

Here is a picture of a lingerie advertisement I saw while visiting Toronto last weekend. I choose to take a picture of it and choose to share it with my readers because the moment I saw this I shouted: THAT’S beauty!

Beauty isn’t about being skinny. I battled with an eating disorder for about 10 years and body image issues. Trust me, even when I was my skinniest, I didn’t think I was beautiful and I still wasn’t even the happiest being that skinny.

Beauty isn’t about being physically attractive. Even the most beautiful people can do the most ugliest things. I remember Judge Judy (yes I am quoting Judge Judy…) said this: Just because it has a pretty face, doesn’t mean it is nice.

Beauty isn’t about being the best looking. There is always someone better looking than the best looking (and if there wasn’t People’s magazine wouldn’t have a new face for the 100 Most Beautiful People issue).

Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin–no matter what size you are. Beauty is helping others no matter their situation. Beauty is living life and smiling no matter your own situation. Beauty is being humble.

That is what beauty is to me. Now tell me, what is beauty to you?