Lived Experience Archives - Page 8 of 9

Men’s Health Month: Chasing Brady

As a 35-year-old man, it’s taken me awhile to accept that my body is getting older. I have been an athlete for most of my life, participating in one or two sports each season year-round until college. When I was no longer in organized sports, I had no trouble jumping right back in. If you needed an extra for flag-football, I could jog over to the field, sprint the whole game, head home to clean up, and then go out at 10pm with friends. Now, I’m still active, but I [...]

Janine Monico2021-07-31T13:03:06-04:00June 21st, 2019|Awareness, Lived Experience, Self-Help|

Addiction: A Story of Love and Loss

We met when I was 16 years old, and nearly 20 years and several serious relationships later, he remains the love of my life. His smile, his sense of humor, and his ever-giving selflessness are what I loved the most about him. Drugs took that all away. Early on, I wasn’t as concerned about his drug use because he worked full time in construction and went to community college at night. It was 2003, and I lived in the dorms at Temple University. We saw each other on weekends and [...]

Janine Monico2024-08-22T12:48:11-04:00June 5th, 2019|Addiction & Recovery, Lived Experience|

Nursing & Mental Health

Happy Nurse’s Week to all of my fellow nurses out there! I am very proud to be a nurse. It’s an amazing profession. Nursing is more than a job, though; it is a calling. It’s not just something you do, it is something you are; so it can be hard to maintain a level of separation when work is such an integral part of who you are. So how can nurses step back and make sure that they are caring for themselves in addition to the wonderful care they provide [...]

Janine Monico2021-07-31T13:03:36-04:00May 6th, 2019|Lived Experience, Self-Help, Stress, Workplace Mental Health|

How My Brother’s Mental Illness Affected Me

By Jeff Shair, Mental Health Advocate My brother Paul was diagnosed with schizophrenia, like myself. Yet because Paul was 10 years older than me, the illness was viewed quite differently when his symptoms first appeared. That was back in the early 1960’s. In those days, some psychiatrists believed that the disease was caused by the individual having a weak will. For instance, when my parents took me to Paul’s psychiatrist at 9-years-old, a time during which I was struggling emotionally, they asked the doctor in front of me “Will Jeff [...]

Janine Monico2021-07-31T13:04:09-04:00November 15th, 2017|Lived Experience, Mental Health, Training|