By Paige Zuckerman, Clinical Director

Pandemic, Earthquakes, Wildfires Oh My!

One of the wildest of years is coming to an exhausting close, with slight glimmers of hope on the precipice of 2021. Most of us know by now how strained our mental health and general tolerances have been of late, and resources feel all the more scarce for many.  

Access to already limited support has been more complicated during the pandemic, and what is available is often heaving with waitlists. 

Turn Scarcity Into Abundance

So what can we do to self-support while  we seek professional and personal allies for our mental and behavioral health?  How can we shore-up our stability for what will hopefully be a somehow better year to come?  Although self-help is a limited resource and is not a substitute for therapy, we can also invest additionally in building our own set of sustainable resources.

Resources at your Disposal

Fortunately, a handful are right here on the site.  Navigate to the Library under the Resources tab and you’ll find recommended podcasts, TedTalks, books, and articles by topic. 

Furthermore, we’ve recently added our collection of tests, scales, and questionnaires to the library.  These can actually be difficult to find on the internet (we’ve looked) and can be insightful brief assessment tools.

Bear in mind – these are not to be used for self-diagnoses (we all know any time you google your stomach ache it comes back as cancer) and are best used as clarification with your therapist or psychiatric med prescriber. 

Some are simple enough, like the Beck Depression & Anxiety Inventories. Others will require interpretation with your licensed mental health professional.

No matter what, we can all use a few more tools in the kit as we navigate life this winter and beyond!

By Vee Floros

What Makes a Home?

For so much of my life, home was my childhood house in my hometown of New England. Last week my mom put our house on the market, and it has made me think a lot about the concept of home. Do I no longer have a home?  What is a home?  What makes a home?

Being Untethered from Home

These are my thoughts so far.  Since college home has been an elusive place for me to find.  In my mid 20’s I worked as a seasonal ranger for the National Park Service and found myself moving every 6 months.  For me, having a mailing address and a residence did not make these places my home.  I lacked a feeling of connection to the places I was living and did not relax into my surroundings knowing my time there was limited.  I was untethered from home.

Home is More Than a House

During my first year of graduate school, the apartment I rented never gave me the sense of comfort that being home does.  I felt tentative to make the space my own knowing that it did belong to me and was not permanent. I did, however, begin referring to Utah as home. Home was the place that held my community.

As I am writing this, I am sitting next to my 7-year-old, 56-pound rescue pup who has been home with me now for 2 months, I am her home. Home just in these past few months has become my dog, my friends, Utah, and my living space which I have furnished with touches reminiscent of my home in New England which, too, will always be home.

Home is so much more than a house. What is your home?

*Note this is my subjective experience, I understand that for many, home may be accompanied by negative memories, experiences, and emotions.

Supplemental
Spring 2020

By Paige Zuckerman, Clinical Director

It’s been several weeks since our cities went into a state of emergency ‘lockdown.’ Our lives seem to have become restrained and constricted as well. Many of us are feeling increasing states of depression, loneliness, numbness and loss of motivation on top of the already reverberating anxiety.

I’ve had to remind myself several times that this is a pervasive, acute stress response-inducing event. This likely means that all of us on some level are in a state of traumatic stress that’s slow and unrelenting. We navigate through shifting states of uncertainty, cautiously proceeding through brambles of doubt, confusion, loneliness and despair. Our lack of clarity about what the ‘end’ of this pandemic will or should look like; or what a realistic timeframe is for adequate relief, causes further anxiety and compounds our current mental and emotional duress.

Living in Uncertainty

During an event of this nature, it is common that elevated stress responses lead to troubling personal, interpersonal and social outcomes. Increases in depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide, domestic violence and hate crimes increase. Many have lost jobs or been furloughed indefinitely, those who retain work have made massive adjustments, often working unpaid overtime or even losing pay yet working more. Additionally, although ‘staying home’ is the socially responsible action now, home is not necessarily a safe place for everyone. In fact, staying home may be a larger life crisis for some than falling physically ill with COVID-19. 

How can we Stabilize Ourselves?

At this juncture of our experience, it makes sense to focus on stabilization and safety planning so that we can continue to ride out an unknown stressor of such severity. The first step to trauma treatment is stability. What does that look like? It begins with ‘resourcing,’ or another word for gathering and solidifying the needed things to feel a sense of basic control and maintenance of daily life. No, this doesn’t mean more toilet paper rolls. This means emotional and psychological resources.

Where are we in our brain?

During crisis’, our brains can become debilitated alongside our social lives. When we feel that there is a legitimate and ongoing threat to our way of life, access to our ‘executive functioning’ brain – aka the area of the brain responsible for critical thinking, rationale and managing complexity, can become limited. A much more primal, intuitive, and reflexive part of the brain becomes dominant and pervasive. This is a slow, silent battle that’s wearing on us, progressively. It is imperative to view resourcing as a guidepost for managing this experience.

Some Successful Strategies

 – Look to ‘clone’ beloved and healthy coping strategies (find a Zoom yoga class or home workout Youtube tutorial, pop some popcorn and have a more specifically fun ‘movie night’ rather than just binge watching, order takeout or delivery from a local favorite restaurant and sit outside for a picnic.)

 – Search for meaning-making. Find new ways to create a sense of purpose or ‘mission’ through this hardship. Locate the ways in which this experience is filled with lessons and wisdoms. Therapy can be a big help with this! (Shameless plug)

– Prepare for post-traumatic growth. When we resource well and make meaning of our traumas, we have the opportunity to develop skills, strengths and resiliencies afterward. Set your actions and intentions towards your potential for becoming bettered in the post-pandemic life picture. Imagine your ‘healing image’ now, in your mind, as you ride through this event. What do you want healing to look like?