Written By Niodhi Joshi, Volunteer Blog Writer for ACI
Therese Borchard, founder of an online community for people who struggle with depression and anxiety; and the website has many things to offer for the friends and family of the patients with mental illness. The website address is community.projecthopeandbeyond.com and Project Hope and Beyond is a program of Psych Central Community Connection.
A resource like this is valuable to the ones that struggle to find a good fit in order to cure themselves from the mental illness. Many attempts are made by the mentally ill to get better in terms of mental health. I am talking about this from my personal experience as a patient of Rutgers University Behavioral Health Center. Sudden ups and downs in the treatment make the patients go through frustration which negatively affects the current treatment. A program like PHB can help those patients figure out their symptoms and find necessary coping skills that would help to make the treatment work wonders with a possibility of no relapse after completion of the treatment or therapy.
There are many therapies associated with the treatment for complete cure of mental health, however, a program like PHB is very rare to find on right time for a perfect treatment result. The fact that it has resources to offer for the friends and family of the patient is super perfect for a patient to get cent percent all round treatment for good mental health. A vital factor that often gets neglected in mental health treatment is the behavior of friends and family towards the patient while coping with mental illness. Once this is addressed the only thing the patient needs to do is focus on being regular with meds and obtain therapies in a timely manner. I was transferred to outpatient which is a lower level of care in no time because my family was thoroughly involved in my treatmentincluding receiving therapies and attending support group meetings while I was being treated for depression and anxiety.
I wish I would have found such a source while I was receiving acute and partial care for mental health. However, I was lucky enough to find an opportunity through an art class to become an artist. My art work got published for NAMI in order to reduce stigma related to mental illness and raise awareness for the county of Middlesex, NJ. I even got an opportunity to become a writer. My article on Environmental Wellness got published in the first newsletter of Acute Psychiatry Hospital of Rutgers University Behavioral and Health Center. I am a prospective trainee of NAMI where I will be appointed to share my experience with the community on Mental Health as a patient. Currently I am an outpatient of Rutgers UBHC in Edison. I attend support groups every once in a while and I regularly attend the doctor visits and therapies.
Since I can relate to this experience of finding an opportunity at the right time to get treated for mental illness, I would like to mention the fact that hope is the key to get you out of a particular state of health especially that relates to mind or brain function. The more you keep yourself involved in activities or community the more you will receive back from it. And whenever in doubt always give it a try. You will never know until you actually do it. The more independent you are when doing such things the more experienced you will become in learning and sharing those experiences with others. And one day you might find yourself giving back to the community which is something that you can never imagine with a state of mental illness.
