Tag: Mental Illness

UPDATED! Pandemic Diary, May 6th, 2021: Dumpster Fire

Among the news which my Twitter feed offers up today is this raging dumpster fire in the Osborne Village neighbourhood of my home city of Winnipeg:

Dumpster Fire, Osborne Village

Somehow, a dumpster fire is an apt metaphor for the state of my life lately, on Day 417 since I began working from home in self-isolation for my university library system.

Manitoba now has the third highest per-capita rate of COVID-19 infections in Canada (after Alberta and Ontario), and experts are saying that we will soon have to implement a third lockdown to avoid overwhelming the healthcare system here.

Personal visits to other private households, indoors or outdoors, have already been forbidden. I only leave my apartment to go to work at my closed library on Mondays, to do some collection weeding, and to pick up the groceries I have ordered via the Walmart website every 2 to 3 weeks. I am weary of the restrictions, but it looks like it’s going to be this way for at least another 3 to 6 months. I am not due for my second shot of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine until July.

I have not had a hug for fourteen months, people. It is starting to really wear on me.

The medications I am taking to control my blood sugar are no longer working as well as they used to, so my family doctor has put me on injectable insulin for the first time. It has been extremely frustrating to try and figure out what the optimal dosage of insulin should be, and we are still trying to figure that out. My blood sugar has been consistently high this past month, and it worries me greatly. I know I need to lose weight, but it just feels so impossible what with everything else going on.

On top of all this, my psychiatrist is considering leaving Winnipeg to accept a position in British Columbia, and neither she nor my family doctor know if they can find a new psychiatrist to take me on as a patient. The current pandemic has led to a extreme shortage of mental health professionals in Manitoba, at a time when so many people are struggling with anxiety and depression. It is, quite simply, the worst possible time to lose my psychiatrist.

Because of these and other worries, I must confess that my productivity has taken a nosedive. I’m having trouble getting anything done. I tell myself that things aren’t normal, that it’s normal to feel this way in the middle of a pandemic. But somehow today it doesn’t really help.

Today is just a dumpster fire, and I wish I had a few more buckets of water to put it out.

UPDATE May 7th, 2021: This evening, Manitoba’s chief public health officer ordered, among other things, that all galleries, museums, and libraries must close. So I won’t be going in to work on Monday after all. Given the sharp increase in COVID-19 infections in Manitoba this week, this is not a surprise to me.

Peer Support in Second Life for Those with Mental Health Issues: Survivors of Suicide is Hosting a Mental Health May Festival

You may also be interested in this blogpost: KiraListens: A Professional Active Listening Service in Second Life

Although it might seem like it at first glance, Second Life is not all fun and games (and fashionista/club/relationship-related intrigue, backstabbing, gossip, and drama, although there is certainly no shortage of that!).

Second Life also has its serious, service-oriented side, and it is home to many organizations such as Survivors of Suicide, which this month is hosting a Mental Health May Festival, with a full calendar of live musical artists, discussion groups, and many other events. Here is more information about the Mental Health May Festival, including the line-up of performers.

Here’s the SLURL to the festival, where you can also find an upcoming events calendar posted near the main stage, as well as some background information about the Survivors of Suicide group in SL.

A poster in the display states:

Survivors of Suicide was established in December of 2008 as a peer support group for suicide survivors and their families, and to both help educate people on suicide prevention and fight to end the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health.

We have grown considerably in the past 11 years, and have branched out to encompass all sorts of mental health issues, not just those relating directly to suicide. This growth, along with our longevity, has Survivors of Suicide become both the largest—and the longest running—mental health peer support group in Second Life.

With a pool of trained peer mentors, several weekly peer support group meetings, various activities, and a very active group chat, you can be sure to find someone to talk to at Survivors of Suicide when you are going through a rough time. We are not doctors or mental health professionals, but peers with a really wide and diverse set of skills and experiences, who are always happy to listen to you and to offer emotional support and practical advice based on our own experiences.

There are two levels, an Event Level, which has the main stage located at one end, and contains a pavilion lined with information posters about various aspects of mental health, for you to peruse:

A teleporter sign takes you down to the Main Level, where the Survivors of Suicide House is located:

Inside the house is an extensive library or resources, as well as a cozy area for group discussions:

If you want more information about Survivors of Suicide, here is their website, and their calendar of events (there are support group meetings almost every day).

If you are currently experiencing a mental health or addictions related crisis:

If you are not in crisis, but still need help, here are some other good places to get started:

When you absolutely need someone to talk to online, one of the best places to try is The KindVoice subReddit and Discord channel, both of which are staffed by volunteers:

“Sometimes we need to hear a human voice on the other end of the line telling us that everything’s going to be ok. This subreddit is for people that aren’t in a suicidal crisis, but feel depressed, alone, or want someone to talk to.”

A similar service is called The Haven, another Discord channel for people who need someone to talk to. Both Kind Voice and The Haven are free, volunteer-run services.

UPDATED! Clip and Save: Mental Health Resources During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Stressed out? Anxious? Depressed? You’re not alone…
Photo by Fernando @dearferdo on Unsplash

I know that I am not alone in struggling with anxiety and depression during the recent deluge of bad news relating to the coronavirus pandemic (see here and here for a couple of recent blogposts I have written). As a librarian, I wanted to share with you some information resources that you might also find helpful as you try to cope with this unprecedented public health crisis as it unfolds.

Today’s episode of Live Today from the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva featured a detailed question and answer session with mental health expert Dr. Aiysha Malik. I very strongly recommend you watch the entire video, even if you are not depressed or anxious; Aiysha is a very knowledgeable and calming speaker on the topic, and answers many mental-health-related questions submitted by viewers, some of which you may also have.

Other useful information resources I have found are:

UPDATE March 15th, 2020: Another potentially useful document is from the World Health Organization, titled Mental Health and Psychosocial Considerations During COVID-19 Outbreak, which has 31 recommendations, broken down by category:

  • General population
  • Healthcare workers
  • Healthcare team leaders and managers
  • Care providers for children
  • Older adults, care providers and people with underlying health conditions
  • People in isolation

UPDATE March 22nd, 2020: Librarianship.ca (a news website for librarians) has compiled an outstanding list of Canadian resources: COVID-19: Mental Health Resources, including a breakdown of local resources by province and territory.

UPDATE April 7th, 2020: Here’s a very good three-minute YouTube video by
Inspired Living Medical, that covers seven tips for effective mental health self-care during the coronavirus pandemic:

I will continue to add new resources to this list as I encounter them—and trust me, I am quite regularly scouring the coronavirus news feeds these days!

I leave you with an updated, more general list of mental health resources I had compiled back in 2018 when I had written an editorial about BetterHelp.com:

If you are currently experiencing a mental health or addictions related crisis:

If you are not in crisis, but still need help, here are some other good places to get started:

When you absolutely need someone to talk to online, one of the best places to try is The KindVoice subReddit and Discord channel, both of which are staffed by volunteers:

“Sometimes we need to hear a human voice on the other end of the line telling us that everything’s going to be ok. This subreddit is for people that aren’t in a suicidal crisis, but feel depressed, alone, or want someone to talk to.”

A similar service is called The Haven, another Discord channel for people who need someone to talk to. Both Kind Voice and The Haven are free, volunteer-run services.

Lucas Rizzotto Proposes That Social VR’s Power Users Are Those With Mental or Physical Illnesses: Do You Agree or Not?

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

Lucas Rizzotto, who is the founder and CEO of the VR experience Where Thoughts Go (available on Steam and the Oculus Store), has posted a thread of tweets on Twitter, suggesting that the “power users” of social VR are those who suffer from a mental or physical illness that prevents them from participating fully in real-life society:

Lucas says:

I don’t know if people know this, but the power users of social VR right now are kids and people who suffer from a mental/physical illness that stops them from socializing normally in their day-to-day life. Social VR is what gives them control over their social life.

By “power users”, I mean the people that spend the most amount of hours in-app, which are the users that are theoretically gaining the most from a product. Exceptions may apply, but it still doesn’t change the overwhelming majority.

This tells us something REALLY important: people use social VR to fill GAPS missing from their real-life interactions, not to REPLACE them. The more similar social VR interactions are to the real-world the less use they have to the general population. It fills less gaps!

And it makes sense! Social VR fills very important gaps for those 2 groups. Kids have a social life heavily constrained by their families & educational institutions, while people who suffer from certain illnesses may be stuck at home or too anxious to engage normally with others.

What this means is that the idea that the everyday men and women will simply stop hanging out in real life and just do it in VR instead is delusional. There are so many hidden nuances about in-person interactions that people won’t give up, even if they cannot verbalize them.

So the question becomes: when are people willing to give those things up?

1) When it’s overwhelmingly economically advantageous to meet in VR (i.e. you don’t have to fly somewhere)

2) When the social gathering is more about acquiring information than connecting at a human level

So if you’re a designing a social XR product, ask yourself: are you filling a gap in people’s social lives or are you just giving them another way to do what they do today? And if that’s so, are the economic benefits enough to justify them giving up the nuances of meeting in real life?

Now, the idea that social VR/virtual worlds are a haven of sorts for those with disabilities or illnesses is not exactly a new concept. In fact, Brenhard Drax (a.k.a. Second Life and Sansar videomaker Draxtor Despres) has made an award-winning documentary about this topic, called Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is Me, which you can watch below:

Lucas Rizzottos’ premise is rather intriguing. But I don’t agree with Lucas’ proposal that social VR’s power users are mostly people who do have a disability or illness of some sort. While I agree that the overall percentage of the disabled or physically/mentally ill participating in social VR/virtual worlds is certainly higher than what you would find in real-life society, it is still a clear minority of social VR users.

Most of the people who use social VR are mentally and physically healthy, non-disabled people who choose to spend a certain portion of the day inside a VR headset! They do so for a variety of reasons, not necessarily that they don’t have real-life options.

That is not to say that the differently abled, and those who have a mental or physical illness, aren’t attracted to social VR and virtual worlds. I can think of numerous examples of people I have met in Sansar, such as Shyla the Super Gecko (who is profiled in Drax’s documentary above), who successfully use Sansar as a social outlet. And I myself have shared on this blog about my struggles with severe clinical depression, so even I would fit into Lucas’ thesis. I admit that there have been days in the past, when I was depressed, when I would rather slip on my Oculus Rift headset and be social in a virtual world than go outside in the real one. And I found that the mood lift I would get from being social in VR was similar to the one I would get in real life, too.

What do you think? Do you agree with Lucas Rizzotto that social VR’s power users are those with mental or physical illnesses, or not? Please feel free to leave a comment below, or even better, join us on the RyanSchultz.com Discord server and tell us what you think there! We’d love to have you.