Recovery Michigan

....people with SMI are actually at higher risk of being victims of violence than perpetrators. Teplin et al found that those with SMI are 11 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population.ⁱⁱ

The most common form of violence associated with mental illness is not against others, but rather, against oneself. In 2007, the most recent year for which we have statistics, there were almost 35,000 suicides, nearly twice the rate of homicides. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.ⁱⁱⁱ Although it is not possible to know what prompted every suicide, it is safe to say that unrecognized, untreated mental illness is a leading culprit.

The concept for the Valkee sounds like the worst kind of snake-oil: it’s a little box that combats the dark blues of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) with bright lights. Nothing new there, except it shines the lights into your head through your ears.

Winter depression, in the form of SAD, has been treated with bright lights since forever. Researchers at the University of Oulu, Finland, say that it’s not the eyes that need the light, it’s the brain. The ear-canal is a convenient hole in the head through which to shine light, so the Valkee uses a pair of earbuds to light up the inside of your head, and stimulate photo-sensitive parts of the gray matter.

That’s the theory at least. Tests run at the University of Oulu confirm its efficacy, offering relief to nine out of ten subjects with a daily 8-12 minute dose for four weeks. And not everyone is as skeptical as me. Valkee has received angel investment from such smart people as Esther Dyson and ex-Nokia boss Anssi Vanjoki.

Two things really rocked me today. One is the suicide letter from Bill Zeller. The other is the shooting in Arizona.

First, Bill Zeller. I am not going to reprint the suicide letter here. He killed himself,  and he left a 4000 –line note.  He asked that people do not reprint excerpts, but he would like a wide range of people to read the letter. So, here is a link to the letter in full. I really recommend reading it.

Zeller wrote a lucid account of what happens to one’s insides after sexual abuse. It’s the best account I’ve ever read, actually. And, having my own history of sexual abuse , I can say that his feelings are very familiar to me.

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Ritsaert Lieverse, M.D., of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues randomized 89 outpatients, 60 years of age or older, with MDD to three weeks of one-hour early morning BLT or placebo. The investigators found that BLT improved mood, enhanced sleep efficiency, and increased the upslope melatonin level gradient. In addition, the beneficial effects of BLT continued after discontinuation of treatment.

"There is evidence that if we can train people to be more psychologically resilient -that is, less catastrophic in their thinking and more optimistic and more hopeful - then they function better when they encounter traumatic situations," said Schaubroeck, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of psychology and management. "They may be less likely to experience symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder down the line, although we don't know that for sure."

The relevancy of an individual's subjective experience in determining what constitutes a traumatic event has been a source of debate among PTSD specialists for years. The study concludes that both objective and subjective factors are relevant and that current PTSD criteria are missing several reactions that many trauma survivors experience.

Help your staff access the EITC and free VITA sites by sharing the following Earn, Keep, Save MORE outreach materials.

Paycheck Stuffer

Because early outreach is important to steer people away from expensive, paid tax preparers, we have paycheck stuffers that are intended to go out through mid-December.

Download the Michigan EITC Paycheck Stuffer (pdf)

Please check back in January, when we will have new paycheck stuffers to use throughout tax season.

Fact Sheet

To provide staff with more information on EITC and VITA, hand out this fact sheet during staff meetings or put in staff mailboxes.

Download the Michigan EITC Fact Sheet (pdf)

Stay Informed

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Thanks and a hat tip to Patty Dudek.

The mental-health parity law passed in 2008, which disallowed employers from charging higher co-pays for mental-health and substance-abuse benefits, is prompting a small number of employers and unions to eliminate the benefits entirely, the WSJ reports. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 5% of firms with more than 50 workers have eliminated coverage for mental-health benefits to avoid meeting the requirements.

At a conference on an idyllic island off the coast of Georgia last summer, Kathy Muscari had a momentary panic when she realized she forgot her power-point presentation for a keynote address on gratitude. With little choice, and as a seasoned speaker, Muscari forged ahead. She joked and referred to what she could do, not what she could not do.