Practice Updates:

Have you ever felt that there is no way forward that doesn’t sell out your heart and soul?

I believe the clinic I have worked for over the last fifteen years is fixing to be shut down. I am facing a crossroads. I have spent years developing skills that seek to reconstruct a culture of psychosis amid people who are institutionalized. I believe I have good therapy skills and want to branch out an be more independent from the bloody system.

I may have a number of job interviews coming up yet, wonder if can I get hired self-identifying with lived experience with psychosis? Furthermore, most paths forward seem to include insurance panels and group practices that seek people who can work with depression and anxiety. It feels like a niche of psychosis is only for pioneers.Without belonging to a group practice or focusing on brief interventions, it may be hard to get on insurance panels.

One thing I have never wanted to do was leave behind people who suffer from psychosis. It has never seemed fair that people train and fail to acculturate to people with psychosis and then move on to a paying class. Unless I open up a private practice, it seems unlikely that I will be able to develop my niche. That means paying for health insurance and taking a blind leap of faith and perhaps a per diem job. Gulp!

Blog Updates:

Currently the dilemma of finding work has interrupted my efforts on the blog this month. I have only written three blogs and had one podcast interview since my last update. That said, I did manage to get published on Mad in America.

In the process of getting that post edited, I was given a perspective that may affect my work. I realize that I have two voices. One is professional and that is what Mad in America wants me to build on. I also have an authentic and creative voice that is present in my memoir and that I seek to reserve for my narrative essays, which are more creative in nature.

For a long time, I wanted to merge those voices. I wanted to write a therapy book that was full of one-line zingers and maintain a snappy outsider perspective. I’d find myself quoting rappers to teach my concepts rather than other therapists.

When the Mad in America editor suggested that my voice was me becoming retraumatized when I refused to stop letting it rip, it let me know a little more about my audience when it comes to speaking to other providers or family members. I realize I have to develop the professional voice in order to be heard. My creative writing is where I can use my authentic voice and let out the part of me that is an artist.

I guess it is a good time to work on that professional voice as I am preparing to follow my dream and potentially open a private practice. My next projects may need to be more professional. I do have to say, I am currently writing a creative essay and am enjoying it. It will show up on my blog in future months. Perhaps I may try to publish it in journals first.

Speaking Updates:

I also have some upcoming opportunities to present my training.to a local clinic over the next two weeks.

Additionally, I will be co-facilitating the Hearing Voices Network family group starting on Monday this week.

Finally, in February I will have the opportunity to do a reading of my memoir and other writing at a book store. So, I hope there will be more opportunities to connect with you very soon!!!

So, I am hoping my followers will stay close over the next months as I transition to marketing efforts for the potential of a private practice. Transitions are stressful!!

The post The Niche that Doesn’t Seem to Exist appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/bmorerealtalk/2019/10/18/baltimore-is-talking-live-with-clyde-dee

“Got to Keep the Devil Way Down in the Hole!”

Every week, Rev. Dr. Q and co-host, Aaron Green broadcast from the city of the hit TV series, The Wire. I was honored this week to be invited to discuss my book, story, and mental health. Click on the picture to visit their broadcast and hear our discussion.

The post Baltimore is Talking Live! appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

I learned a lesson in spontaneity some twenty years ago that I try to bring with me to each workshop I do.

At the time, I was heavily engaged in writing poetry. I explored socializing at poetry readings to meet other people who liked to write. In my notebooks and on the word processer I was obsessively rewriting. I believed I was creating some good stuff, but alas I had no one to read and affirm me.

I found a South Jersey poetry group called the Mad Poets. I took my most recent and best poem to an open reading hoping to shed the sense of invisibility that one has when no one will glance at your work.

The poem I read was a carefully constructed villanelle about being a social worker. I had spent hours and hours getting some phat one-line images. I still think I had some good ones. Lines like “Rooting through boarding home shanties, stench swept:” “Costly mansions adorn our cross-town schlep;” or, “Now my flesh freezes, colors mannequin clam.” In each line of that poem, I felt I was able to convey a complex story with a lot of movement and with colorful words. To see poem click this here!

When I took the microphone, I apologized in advance because there was one curse word in the poem that got repeated throughout. A proud suburban woman in the audience complained and asked me to read without the curse word.

It so happened there was a word of the day, spam, and all the known writers were trying to use it for points. Thus, when I came to the repeated curse, I substituted the word: “Because housing subsidy is a godspam scam!”

It was the first time I ever got a major acknowledgement for reading a poem.

Usually, with poetry, I am terrified to read in front of an audience. I have learned there is dyslexia behind that phenomenon.

But at the coffee house that day, people were laughing and complimenting me. I was truly excited.

However, when I checked in with my peers nobody appreciated my phat one-liners. They just hooted and hollered and said that godspam scam was really funny

So, as usual, I walked away from the reading really distressed. I remained an isolated poet. I never sent my poetry away for publishing. My drunken roommate became a Pultzer Prize winning poet. Now I am just another isolated, award-winning writer who wants to change the way the public greets psychosis.

***

This power of spontaneity is a lesson I try to take with me into each of my workshops. Spontaneity has a way of grabbing the participants attention and engaging them. If one wants to get one’s work seen, spontaneous moments can be necessary. Maybe later, people notice the phat one-liners much as I do when I reflect on music.

In my most recent workshop which I gave to Fairmont Hospital Outpatient Psychiatric Unit in San Leandro, California, I had prepared extensively for an hour-long presentation. I was trying to shave off a lot of content out of a six-hour presentation and complete an overview in a short amount of time. However, as often happens in life, everything that could go wrong did.

My co-presenter brought his slide presentation on a Mac device that wasn’t compatible with my laptop. As a result, instead of clearing my mind and approaching the event with even nerves, I was frenetically playing around with technology before the presentation.

Then, participants started shuffling in a half hour late.

Then we futzed with the technology for ten minutes.

By the time my co-presenter was finished (barely using his slides after all that) I had at tops a half hour.

I have done my best to create slides that outline information and depend on my own muse to fill in the blanks with spontaneous examples. So, I simply targeted the first part of my presentation and went with the flow. Though I didn’t get to all the material I tried to flash forward and capture the most important points.

The result was that we got some very interesting questions. I fumbled around with a good opportunity to debate some of the most important issues that come up in when professionals fear retriggering participants by letting them tell their stories. The result is I am working on an important piece to professionals about strategies that can be utilized in group settings to avoid re-traumatization.

I was recently coached to be so structured and organized with time management in my presentations so as to complete what I say I am going to do. This was really helpful feedback to receive! And yet I am still glad to say that I am still able to adjust to circumstances and grab people attention with spontaneity.

Leading group therapy for twenty-five years has trained me to be very attentive to the energy in the room and respond accordingly. Additionally, my spontaneous effort to get people to read my poetry twenty years ago has also helped.

***

In my next training which is at Alameda County’s BEST NOW peer provider training, I plan to restructure my presentation based on the request of the instructor. But I know I can do this and maintain that sense of spontaneity that is so important to reshaping the way the public approaches people who are in emergency.

***

I now offer a shorter hour-and-a-half overview of my training delivered with flexible spontaneity in addition to a six-hour training. If you are interested in a training where you work, I will even come voluntarily.

The post Workshops with a Sense of Spontaneity: appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

I will be presenting a workshop at the annual California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies. This will be the first part of my six hour training that can be downloaded here: Training Powerpoint. CASRA is an important local resource that has supported me over the years.

 Click to view  2019 Flyer

The post Speaking Event, May 1 appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

It offered stillness

To a world

That was so active

Twirling tearfully

Like numb-chucking

Buzzards overwhelming

Peripheral horizons;

Its peace prevailed

In the dim after hours:

Dish rack in disciplined order, scant suds

Loitering around the drain, counter

Clear except for an occasional dish rag

Somehow charismatic in its grunge.

A few hours earlier

Rustle and business

Blinded us like a spotlight

From the evil

That lurks within,

My internal audience

Ablaze in idleness:

Pots on lit burners in domestic gloss,

Diced celery, grated cheese, the smell of

Taunt beans consuming simmering sauce—

Diverse was the color, taste, and shape of love.

You were the conductor

Of this orchestra,

Its inception

Beyond the realm

Of my awareness.

We worked together.

I was very good

At doing what I was told:

Steaming the broccoli,

Setting the table

Lighting the candles.

The table,

The conversation,

The delicate handling

Of utensils

Ushered in a dignity

I have never

Since known.

When dinner was done

The stillness

Returned carrying

The dominion of that shadow—

That atmospheric blur—

Fuzzy, hearkening in

Hypnotic fatigue.

At this point

The relationship

Would move

Up into

The bedroom,

Into its ceaseless storm.

I was a boy in big shoes

Unable to care for you

The way I wanted to.

Years later in the fondness

Of memory

I ponder

The phylum’s

Of footsteps

I’ve left behind

Always on the run.

I steal through the kitchen.

Counters cluttered with assorted open box.

Wrappers utensils and weeks-worth of mail

Vogue in grand collage to need for Luvox

On the old kitchen tables’ disorganized jail.

Kraft macaroni and cheese,

Rests in the wok

That need only

Be paper-towel-wiped

In accordance

With instructional

Dictates

Plates and cups

Remain in

The ajar cupboard

As I select one

From out of the sink

In contraceptive effort

To avoid unwanted dishes.

I have made many

Necessary changes

To function

Alone in this world.

It has been a

Wonderful challenge

With so much

To learn about

Forgetting

The customs

Of love

The post Reflections of a Bachelor appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

You might think you know

Where he comes from

By noting the precision

Of his feet as they

Rest in sandals.

Atop the spattered glass concrete.

Looking at the charisma

Buzzing within his disposition,

You might imagine his room—

The bed sheets and blankets

Sucking on the mattress,

The ugly, throw rug

Nestling into the neatness

The slippers placed neatly,

The rubbing alcohol sink,

The meandering cockroaches

Illuminated on tile shininess—

This all may be the product of keen insight,

But you certainly wouldn’t know

Where the man comes from.

Walking the beat,

You might find him

Perched at one of the spots

That if you were to stand in,

Would bring

The world coming at you

Streaming like neon

Through the squalor

Of this dusty grime district.

You would see loving eyes

Of the curious suburban kitties

And the strawberry burns

Of co-working social service workers.

You would see

Firm handshakes

Flirtatious looks

Vibrant stage frights

You would see

The flatness of those

Who have stopped caring

For themselves

In everyone.

He will converse

With Caucazoids

Cross the street

From the court house,

Who you can see,

Savor their dainty discussions

Striding back into their day

Feeling good about themselves,

He will take

A mysterious interest

In a couple that is

In conflict

Too much near his vicinity.

His words spurt like blood

Sorting out the problem

So that the couple leaves

Feeling good about them selves.

He will speak to

The Project’s management

Sharing silent words

That cannot be seen within

The streaming of the sunlight

So that the management will walk away

Rearranged

To transmit messages

To political connections

Feeling good about itself.

Even the pimps

Walk away feeling good

About themselves;

The pimps, the small-time dealers

Think they know where the man comes from

As he is their shepherd,

And, of course, they will leave

Feeling good about themselves

Without always realizing

What might have transpired.

You imagine

That obituaries are small,

If they end up in the newspaper,

And that those lies

Almost never get read

By the residents.

When you speak to him,

He grandfathers your imagination.

He is funny,

His meaningless conversation

Is captivating

As he wallows with you

Despite his importance.

And when he asks you

To take a walk with you

You enjoy his company,

And he’s nice to you

As he angles his head

From side to side

With his opinions

And then laughs at himself,

And it’s not until later

That you realize

That he may just

Want to kill you.

And you realize

That there is nothing you can do about it.

Of course, you’ll think

You can run back

To you’re 2.4 children

And your station wagon

And your box trim hedges,

The land from which you once came,

But what you don’t realize

Is that these things

No longer

Are real for you!

Out here the only thing you can do

Is what the man wants.

The only thing to be feared

Is the very private place where the man comes from.

As time scurries by

Working down here

You will find

That it is a place

If it is even real

That scares you more than death itself.

You will come to realize

With all the good you’ve seen the man do

Since his stint in the pen

That it is a place that rests

Deep inside the recesses

Of your own heart.

One day,

You will see

Yourself in him

And you will accept this life

Without wavering.

The post Original Gangster!? appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

Dear Tim,
We had a staggering 1,023 entries in the 2018 TopShelf Indie Book Awards, and your book Fighting for Freedom in America: Memoir of a “Schizophrenia” and Mainstream Cultural Delusions has been selected as a Finalist in the category of Autobiography/Biography!

Warm Regards,

Keith Katsikas
CEO & Publisher
TopShelf Magazine

The post Another Award, hope I’ll make it to the next level appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

It has been another stressful month of intense weekend work and low levels of published output on my blog. I finally invested in a WordPress Business Plan and after two months of unsuccessful haggling on Fiver, I hired a web designer at a reasonable price to construct me a professional website.

Well, investing in a business plan proved to be an act of faith I should have taken many moons ago, but I did not know exactly what I wanted from a web designer and did a poor job of communication and a lot of praying for a good outcome. This I would not advise.

I learned that an author website and platform is a very personal thing. What I received for two hundred dollars did not in any way artistically represent my platform, values and purpose. With intense stress, I had to part with two hundred dollars I could have invested in advertising and learn to use plugins and set up a professional website on my own using models from other platforms to teach me.

For this reason, I want to take a minute and say thank you to some other writers who significantly helped me in this process. These are some effective platforms that helped me realize what I could accomplish from making a better first impression. Many of them are connected to my niche and offer writing that readers or other authors might enjoy:

https://www.yourwriterplatform.com/ with Canadian Kimberly Grabas

https://www.esmewang.com writes about schizophrenia

https://rachaelintheoc.com writes about sexual abuse

https://zackmcdermott.com great marketing for his memoir on madness

I have managed to start a few posts and, those readers who are on my author email list, will get a sneak peak of an article I have written specifically for the new social worker magazine. If you are not on my official email list, what are you waiting for? Click! Here! Now!

The post I provided as a sneak peak last month about demystifying complex trauma and my history of sex abuse has yet to be picked up by any media outlets. And I am going to reach out to some new publishers, but I have also learned to research publishers to some extent and write specifically for them

Finally, as my press release suggests, I have spent the month going back and forth trying to decide what to do about my pseudonym, Clyde Dee. After reading about other memoir writers who have struggled with the same issues, I have decided not to retreat into my shell and publish under Clyde Dee anymore.

My memoir has significantly offended some family members which was what I feared; however, some have been supportive. Most of what I said about people was written from the perspective of me in madness and I think that helps. And although I ultimately tried to be harder on myself than I was on any of them, I understand that my perspective on life is offensive to some and I have decided to accept painful pushback as gracefully as I can with as much compassion for them as I have for myself.

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The post Website Launch appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

“Wow, I just took a shit and it was this big!” John Bulushi

I feel sorry for my English professor who wanted to put my essay up for an award! The glare I gave him and the lack of response: it was, at its best, very rude.

The fact is, I only learned it bothered him because my best friend who was fifteen years older than me got an invite to the professor’s house for dinner. My friend who had a lifetime of experience using and dealing drugs reported that the professor had called his cute, sleeping hound a beast repeatedly throughout the night and talked about how alcohol was his drug of choice while toasting his guest’s sobriety. However, my friend reported, when it came to me, the professor admitted that he just didn’t know what to say.

“I think I know what that kid’s problem is,” the professor had conceded.

I gave my favorite sociology professor the same look when he announced that my paper was one of the few 100% papers he’d ever given out.

Okay, so I am the sort who spends a lot of time trying to understand my own warped behavior. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I have taken to writing in the first place.

Ready to Break into the Social Media Market?

But, oh-me, oh-my, the sudden dilemmas of a writer like me who has squandered away his life, sitting on his work without sending it out to be published. What does it mean to suddenly be exposed to a social media market when you are just poking your head out after all these years?

Sure, I have a life-sustaining professional guise, but I have no kids, make no friends and tolerate no dinner parties. I have always worked more than full-time to stay out of the mental hospital and off the streets. I write to survive instead of dealing with my domestic responsibilities!

And suddenly I am looking out on a landscape that requires a blog and a brand. There is the implied presumption on the web that you have friends and loved ones who will become fans. Suddenly, I must make friends—lots of them—in order to sell them a book that took me seven years to write. Now I must write blogs that people want to read or there is no point. I wonder if write-to-live authors I love, like Salinger or Bukowski, would even be welcome anymore!

Voices Who Only Live-to-Write?

Maybe you’ve heard what I have: “most writers are voracious readers!” To me that sets up the expectation that writers are supposed to live to write! That’s what many of the publishing outlets want us to do. “Get to know our audience and then write for them,” they imply. Sometimes I wonder if the whole idea of journalism operates in this way. Outsiders go and learn about the lives of others, write, and so the public who has privilege can have their little tyrannical judgments validated.

My question: is when we live to write in this manner and then write to publish, what happens to the reality of the rest of us? How does the masses of stories that I hear at the urban psychiatric ward where I work become so invisible? How do the shootings in the inner-city pass on without being mourned by the mobs of traffic that siphon into the city to work?

I want to write-to-live. I want to extend my truth. I am a psychotherapist who works in the inner-city. Why can’t I write about that? In eeking out an existence, I want to strengthen what I experience and live a truer life.

Does the social media era support the practice of just telling people more of what they want to hear? Is it all only about reading the kinds of facts that make us feel good about ourselves?

Writing-to-Live:

When I think about how I discovered writing in high school. it was not about loving books and reading. I loved music, not books. I had no rhythm on the guitar, loved the words I was singing, and had to write a lot a lot of papers to graduate. Somehow, I tired of grading on people’s ears and found the art of word expression satisfying.

I particularly started to work on writing once I suspected that my mother who was on the faculty of our private school, outed all my inpatient antics to her faculty friends. When I finally got discharged from hospitals for male anorexia, it had seemed that news had spread like wildfire straight back to my bully peers. Now the truth about me was distorted, potentially distorted by my parents. Since this was my reality, I wrote creatively to own my life.

Writing became a reason to keep on living. I was at the word processor an awful lot.

I returned to school living at a friend’s house and now my greatest efforts did not even bring me the grades I wanted let alone the awards that I fantasized about. In fact my best essay was turned into the school psychologist and I was formally confronted. I saw it as them threatening to kick me out of school. I still sent the essay out to colleges. I got into some decent ones, but I didn’t want to enter more phony life where grapevines were lies. Instead, I would get together with an older woman and enter a commuter college in the inner-city.

It’s true, due to unrecognized ADD and dyslexia, teachers always found my spelling mistakes menacing. Perhaps they just presumed I wasn’t putting in the effort. Perhaps with my father as their manager and my mother as their reading specialist, no teacher ever knew what to do with me.

I did graduate cum laude, but I graduated believing the concept of grades was more political than based on merit. Research shows this to be a true presumption, but students aren’t supposed to think like that.

You to Go Fuck Yourself!

So clearly my biggest concern in attending college was to send almost all the people I knew the biggest, “fuck you,” I could muster. And, so, the fuck-the-awards, creative writer was born.

There I was three-years later at the kind of school that was not the type that drew out future academics or writers. The career development computer program I took recommended a career in law enforcement. I had too many neighborhood friends at the Korean Deli where I worked insulting the vice squad behind their backs to take the consideration very seriously. As per other students, most couldn’t relate to a clearly anorectic male who would go to no parties and drink no beer.

I’d lived in the library where I diligently outlined everything I read so I could pay attention to it.

I logged so many hours, reading just wasn’t something I was going to keep up with for fun. So much for being the voracious reader and writing about writings of others!

Supporting myself through a master’s program did not give me much time to read for pleasure either. I was faking my way through master’s level work on the social work job and remember looking at the full-time students who even had time to read the paper and thinking they were entitled. The locks to my car were broken and because I had no money or time to fix them, I just entered my car through the back and crawled my way up to the driver seat. I didn’t care what the full-time students said when they laughed and tried to insult me.

While I was, by no means the only one who worked my way through at the school I went to, I was the only one who entered my car in this manner. I missed graduation because I never did get the paperwork in on time.

So, when school was out, I was done with books. I returned to a creative poetry habit and kept my internal buzz alive; but couldn’t find anyone else’s work that I appreciated. I did occasionally frequent poetry readings; but couldn’t read my poetry without quivering.

“I think writing is good for you,” said my shrink of seven years when I brought up the issue, “but that’s it! You are always so disappointed when you share your work, I think there is no need for that.”

I often found my obsessive re-writing hard to stop.

Consider the Reader?

I know people are supposed to be humble about themselves and not bore the reader with irrelevant info. But I write to live. I write to share the truth about other people who are condemned and lied on. I started with an award-winning memoir; but blogging to get recognized in social media markets is a different pickle.

So, I am faced with the same questions we all face. Do I join writer’s groups and start sharing my work and getting feedback, so I can swap likes on Facebook to look popular and loved? Do I spend hours playing with social media, so others will read your posts? Do I start making friends with people who went to school at elite universities and have large twitter following so you can access their readers? Is this even possible when the very reason I write is because people have always rejected me! Is there really time for any of this when you work and commit to ten hours of writing a week.

So, here I am writing another essay for an audience of people who I don’t even know to be out there for sure on social media.

I’ll keep giving myself assignments to try to get published somewhere besides just my blog. I think an audience of working people exists out there, who might respond to my efforts to relate the things I observe. I spend my time living and that’s what I write about. But I guess I can keep going with my write-to-live attitude on social media till I find people who can relate. Nobody’s stopping me.

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