Mentally STRONG with Dr. B

Dr. B here with our series on demystifying the DSM. The next six videos will be specifically on psychotic disorders, so that's the second cluster in the DSM and I'm just going to go in order, not in order of how often we see them. But just in order of the DSM, so that if you are following along and trying to learn. We're just going chapter by chapter. So, in the first part of this. Psychotic disorders. It mentions schizotypal, but that's a personality disorder. And I'll cover it more when we get to the personality disorder chapter. And then it goes into delusional disorders. So, delusions are just by definition, false beliefs. Delusions can be a symptom, but it can be a disorder all by itself, delusions are a symptom of psychosis. But delusional disorder is probably the least likely to see it in a psychiatric environment, because typically if they're coming in for treatment, their delusions are associated with bipolar or they're associated with another type of psychotic disorder, so remember that. The main thing in delusional disorder is that there's no other symptoms that it's just an isolated delusion, so the first type is the erotomaniac, and this is the individual who thinks somebody else is in love with them, right? You know you kind of see it on the news, somebody stalking a celebrity. Oh no this person loves me. That is a romantic delusion. The next one is a grandiose delusion. I think we use this word as an adjective a lot. We'll talk about a celebrity or a public figure being grandiose. Or, you know, even narcissistic in their presentation, narcissistic is a personality disorder. Grandiose is a delusion or a false belief. So, you believe that you're grander than you are. Next is the jealous type. This is where you are constantly believing your significant other is having an affair or having another relationship, but it's not true. So, this can be hard to prove, right? But it is this kind of jealous delusion past the jealous personality. Persecutory type is when you think that others are persecuting you. Remember delusions are a false belief, right? And very rigid and seems abnormal when you have delusional disorder. Somatic type, now there's a whole section on somatic disorders, but a somatic delusion is when you think that something very specific is bigger than it is. You know, I had this mark on my face and I think it's Melanoma and I'm going to die, right? And then you can have mixed types and subtypes. Again, remembering that delusions are a symptom of psychosis, delusional disorder is when there's this isolated fixed delusion and we rarely see it in the psychiatric environment isolated, right? We often see it as a as a symptom of schizophrenia or bipolar and we'll talk about that, in some of the other videos, so thank you for watching. 

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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

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Dr. B here doing our demystifying the DSM of neurodevelopmental disorders and I'm ending with adult ADD ADHD. Confession, I have ADD but I also choose not to treat it with medications, so I'm going to go through why and the pros and cons and how to know if you truly have ADD or ADHD. If you were diagnosed as a child, then likely it has followed you into adulthood and that diagnosis is a little easier. With myself, I'm almost 50, and so I grew up in the age where my mom did not want to put me on Ritalin. It was over diagnosed and really wasn't ever talked about. I functioned average or I felt below average, but to my parents, I could bring home C’s and that was good enough. I grew up believing that I was not smart. I realized now as I had to get a couple degrees to prove it to myself that I am smart and that I have a high intelligence in areas that don't require attention.  I don't think that not treating my ADHD was the problem. It was more of if I knew that my problem was just inattention, I could have made accommodations to feel smarter at a younger age. It wasn't an inability to learn, it was an inability to read and pay attention to what I'm reading and comprehend what I'm reading.  But on the other hand, what I'm seeing in our culture now is adults coming and they're saying, I think I have ADHD I want to start medication. I think I've had it my whole life. I want to caution you in that direction because there's so many things that can cause inattention. Anxiety causes inattention. If you are worried non-stop, you can't pay attention. If you're depressed, you can't pay attention. So again, inattention by itself is not a diagnosis of ADHD, so it's important to get that full evaluation. If you come into mentally strong to be evaluated for adult ADHD or ADD, come in with an open mind that maybe it's not that. Maybe it's something else. Let's see how we can treat the whole problem. If we think about the theory of ADHD of an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, you're not getting enough dopamine. Well, the prefrontal cortex is your highest level of functioning. Your executive function, your ability to take in all the information. And make decisions, right? But it also has to do with the brainstem and the reticular activating system, which is your filter, right? Can you turn it off? Can you turn off the noise in the background? Are you easily distracted by things that pull away from your attention? So those are the two areas of the brain that are affected by inattention. But those areas of the brain can be affected by depression and anxiety and other types of mood disorders or even psychotic disorders. So again, coming in with an open mind, we will ask lots of questions, do assessments. We do a cognitive assessment to see you know how you are functioning, not just in attention, but in in other cognitive areas, and especially in late adult. Can we improve your anxiety? And your inattention. Some of those things because those things can be treated with the Mentally STRONG Method. This strong cognitive behavioral approach. Yes, get treatment, but don't think everybody with ADD needs to be on stimulant medications. There's lots of other ways that we can treat it, and we can often treat it with the Mentally STRONG Method. Remember that you are Mentally STRONG.
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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.
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Dr. B here and we are demystifying the DSM and we are going through neurodevelopmental disorders and today I'm going to talk about ADHD which is the most commonly diagnosed in children. It's very important that we don't just take a child and say, oh he's hyper, he won't pay attention. And I say “he” because ADHD is most commonly diagnosed in boys. And you know, slap that label on a child, put them on Ritalin. And I think that there's a lot of controversy around this.  When a mother or parent brings a child in, and there's some concerns of ADHD, there's a time component and a lot of assessment components, so one of the first things that I don't think that the layperson understands is that ADHD symptoms, to be diagnosed, must be in more than one setting. If the school is complaining about behaviors, but the parent says they can sit, and they can read a book at home, they can do their homework without getting up for 20-30 minutes, then then it's not in two locations. So, then we must assess what's going on at home or what's going on at school that's different. So maybe just starting with, changing the supporting environment.  ADD, attention deficit disorder, or ADHD is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The H just means there's an additional hyperactivity component. ADD, which is more common in girls, doesn't have that hyperactivity component, and unfortunately oftentimes is not diagnosed.  But if somebody truly has ADD or ADHD and we do not treat it, research shows that we are decreasing their IQ points by 10 to 20, which means someone who may have been successful going to college and having a great career may not be able to do that. Just imagine if some someone without ADHD, their homework takes them 20 minutes with someone with ADHD and all the accommodations they can do it, but it takes them two hours, are we really evening the playing field?  Yes, I understand they could do it if you just make them do it right, but it's taking them two hours when the person without ADD. It only takes them 20 minutes. Is that really fair? Do they really have the same opportunities in life? So that's where I want people to think when they think of, should I treat this or should I not? And these are personal decisions and it's very individualized. It depends on how much support family can give sometimes. I'm not saying I'm pro medication or against medication. If you have a child who you believe has ADD, ADHD, just start the research. Get them an assessment. We have some basic criteria and then here at Mentally STRONG we will often get a full neuro psych testing to make sure there's no other things going on, right? Maybe they can't pay attention because everything is in words and they have dyslexia, right? Maybe it has nothing to do with their ability to pay attention, but their ability to learn, and so those are some of the other neurodevelopmental disorders that we see in children. And that's why it's important when we have any kind of symptoms in children and we get kind of that full neuro psych eval, making sure there's not learning disabilities, communication disorders, motor disorders. Then it is a process of elimination. So just remember that you are Mentally STRONG
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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

https://www.facebook.com/Mentallystronginc
https://www.mentallystrong.com
mentally_strong_
@MentallySTRONG4
https://www.youtube.com/c/drbmentallystrong
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mentallystrong

Alright Dr. B here with demystifying the DSM and we are in the neurodevelopmental chapter of the DSM and I would like to talk about autism today. Unfortunately, this is a diagnosis that we are continuing to see a rise in. Lots of young children are being diagnosed with autism. 
What that is from is not what this video is about, but it's something that every practitioner and even parents and should all know what autism is. If you have a child with autism, what you should be trying to do and. If you're if you have young children, they probably have someone in their classes that has a diagnosis of autism, so it is important that kind of everybody knows what autism is and what it is not. It is not an intellectual disability, and this is important to kind of clarify. One of the things that you often hear is that, or people assume that individuals with autism also have a low IQ or an intellectual disability. Someone can have both, but not all of them. So, an autism diagnosis by itself does not mean an intellectual disability, and that's super important. 
The other important piece of this, it is a communication social disorder and it's possible even those who have a dual diagnosis of an intellectual disability and an autism diagnosis. 
This it may just be the way in which we're testing their intelligence that shows that they are at low IQ. Because we're you know that the way that we test is socially what's appropriate for us, right? 
If you have a social and communication disorder, you may not test well on this kind of intellectual type disability testing so very clearly that these are two separate disorders. 
And in autism there is a social and in communication. It's on this huge spectrum to where you can have someone who I love to use Sheldon on The Big Bang theory as an example, and I don't know if the character was supposed to be, you know, presenting as the kind of this Asperger's. 
High functioning autism, but this is the social disconnect. 
You know social when people are talking or when there's something going on in a large group, or even in one-to-one conversations. They may be missing what the rest of us pick up naturally, and we don't typically teach these things in our educational system, right? Because we if you don't have autism, you pick these things up naturally, right? You assimilate to your culture. 
And the the best-known therapy for children with severe autism moderate to severe autism. 
Is ABA applied behavioral analysis. 
Which is just It's the behavioral piece of cognitive behavioral, but only the behavioral piece where it's all about rewarding the behaviors that. 
Autism in a twofold we should have an applied behavioral analysis assessment. 
Not all children will benefit from it, but a lot of them will. 
It is the strong standard of care and early intervention for a diagnosis of autism is to get that applied behavioral analysis type therapy 
So be nice to parents of children with autism.
You have no idea that the stress and the struggle and the ​judgment that they get when their child is having a meltdown in public. 
It is not easy to find the balance between therapy ​environment and medication, but there is a possibility to do that and so finding help and getting these kids into the appropriate treatment is a community. 
--
Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

Dr. B here starting my series on demystifying the DSM. So, the DSM is a book that we use to diagnose mental health conditions and there are several versions. 
We're on version 5 right now. It changes a little bit each time 
a new version comes out. I'm going to spend this year literally going through this and talking about how we treat these things here at Mentally STRONG 
And how to use cognitive behavioral thinking to grasp these disorders, right? 
Mental health is very different than other medical disorders in that there is a strong 
biological thing going on as well as a psychological 
thing going on when and psychological is influenced by your environment, your choices, and so it makes it unique in the way that we treat it. 
Because we really need you or the person who is struggling with these things to be on board in helping themselves, and that's what we do here at Mentally STRONG as we really try to empower you to help yourself. 
So, the 1st Chapter in the DSM is called neurodevelopmental disorders. 
These are evident in children. 
And it includes even things like intellectual disability 
Which can be mild, moderate, severe. 
I personally have two children with intellectual disability, and they had a disorder that was progressive, so they started off with a mild intellectual disability and towards the end of their life had their last IQ scores were 
In the 40s and 50s and so anything less than 70 is considered intellectual disability, so the average person has about 100 on the score of your intellectual capacity, so not everybody has taken this test. Usually if you have a child who you think is maybe a little slow. 
And you're concerned that their IQ is low. 
Uhm, usually somewhere around four or five. 
When they start school, the teachers or the pediatrician might notice and order what we call a neuro psych test and in that neuro psych test, they will do an IQ test to see you know. 
Is this child average in their ability to learn? 
So that's what IQ is. We don't need to know what everyone's IQ is. We know that the average is around 100. Anything lower than 70 is considered intellectually disabled, and they're going to need additional help to learn. 
It doesn't mean they can't learn, right? 
So how do we treat that here at Mentally STRONG? 
Well, there's not a specific treatment for intellectual disability. 
It's just modifying education and bringing that person up to their full potential. 
So if Intellectual disability is their only diagnosis. There's no other mood components. There's not behavioral components. Then likely they would not need to see a psychiatrist. 
They would just need, you know, help in school, accommodations with work as they become an adult. 
But oftentimes we see what we call comorbid when I use the word comorbid, I'm talking about there's more than one diagnosis. 
So here at Mentally STRONG we do treat people with intellectual disability, but they often have 
Comorbid mood disorders or 
Other things that we are treating. 
Depending on their level, sometimes cognitive behavioral therapy is very difficult because cognitive assumes that there is some 
Level of ability to abstract think and so we would have to assess if they really could do the complete 
Mentally STRONG method. 
But they still could do the behavioral part of the Mentally STRONG method, right? 
Anyone can learn new skills and so we do treat intellectual disability here. And you know, we want these individuals to come to their full potential. 
And so that is our 
Kind of roundabout. 
A way of talking about intellectual disability, but it is always in conjunction when we're treating it in the mental health setting. 
It's likely in conjunction

This is our YouTube video right before Christmas, and I've been talking about Christmas with your kids and raising mentally strong kids and finding the joy in Christmas. Well, if you're anything like me this year, it's hard, and it's been hard honestly since I lost my son Reggie in 2016. Christmas is always important to me and it's a reminder of the loss. If you're listening today and you have lost somebody. Yes, feel that grief. Feel that pain but find joy. Today I want to talk about, how do you do that when you're struggling with depression? How do you find joy when you really don't feel like it? And this is the choices we talk about, and we talk about it all the time in the Mentally STRONG Method. The Power of Choice. I'm not saying fake it and pretend like you're not depressed, but we can find things in our life to be grateful for and still acknowledge the pain. We can still acknowledge the depression. I want you for right now if you are feeling depressed coming into the holidays and you're worried about finding the joy. I want you to for a second just in your mind to tell yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, where is that depression? And 10 being the absolute worst, maybe even wanting to hurt yourself. If you are above 5 or 7, please seek help, maybe even an antidepressant, that it is OK. That's the other thing here, Mentally STRONG is that balanced thinking. It is the right time to treat yourself and allow yourself to take some antidepressants. Medication is not bad. We have to acknowledge if our depression is at a point where we need treatment. And I have struggled with depression on and off my whole life, the older I get, the more mature I get, the more I work on myself. I feel like I can choose joy. It’s still not easy and this is what I need to tell people. This is why I'm trying to get people to follow me on my journey because it's still a journey, you know, yes, I want you to learn the Mentally STRONG Method, but it is not a drive through you are not going to be healed or cured of your journey, this is part of who you are and there's treatment for depression. I want you to seek that, but it's still something that we have to work through every day. Sometimes it's really hard at the holidays. Sometimes it's really hard to find that joy when you just feel like the world is pretending. But sometimes in that way it feels like pretending we can find that gratitude. I want you to make a list of things that you are grateful for, at least 10 things that you are grateful for and maybe even at least half of those specifically about the holidays. If you were watching the last video or listening to the last video you, you know I started to choke up when I talked about my grandma's cookies but that could be a gratitude. Oh, my grandmother made Christmas a beautiful thing and she passed away when I was in my early 20s. Instead of feeling sad about that that we're coming into the holidays and grandma's not here, we're coming into the holidays and Reggie is not here, part of my gratitude list could be that I had a grandmother that thought Christmas was the best day ever and made sure the rest of us did. It's OK to choke up for that, but it's also OK to say that's part of my gratitude. That's part of my history. That's part of who I am. That's part of my story and I'm grateful for that. I am grateful that Reggie absolutely loved Christmas. So if you're struggling with depression going into Christmas, and especially if you have young kids you have to show up. You have to show up for them. Find the gratitude and have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays and whatever your Spiritual Relationship is look at your traditions, look at that, and have a wonderful holiday season because you are Mentally STRONG.

Dr. B here! Talking about kids and the holidays. Last time I talked about expectations and today I want to talk about traditions. When we are trying to raise Mentally STRONG Kids and we are coming into the holidays, we might have family traditions, spiritual traditions, or things around the holidays that you want to instill in your children as important. I just want to share my story. Honestly, it took me until my late forties to really have balanced thinking around my whole life and I look back now at how I raised my kids. My youngest is 21, so I'm officially done, but when I was raising my kids, I really wasn't teaching them balanced thinking. I practiced a lot of All-or-Nothing thinking, for example: you will obey, or you get things taken away. I have some funny stories about tradition. I was not raised with any spiritual belief system. My grandmother thought Christmas was the absolute best holiday in the world and she began shopping for gifts, in the summer and was done by Thanksgiving and the Christmas tree was up the day after Thanksgiving. Cookies started baking in October and she had a freezer, and I'm getting choked up over this because nobody does this in my family anymore. She had a freezer of cookies and cakes ready for giving gifts to all the neighbors, everybody at her work. Everybody associated with our family got a tray of cookies and cake as a gift at Christmas and so Christmas was always a very happy, festive, giving, social time in our life, and I loved social things. I loved the way my grandmother did Christmas. Then when I was 19 years old, I had a spiritual revelation and I accepted Christ, and I began going to church, I was this all or nothing thinking, right? I went to this extreme saying, “this is Jesus' birth, and it must be celebrated this way.” And so, when I had my kids in my twenties, I thought, OK, it’s more important that I raise them in the Christian tradition than in my grandma's tradition. We gave gifts and we tried to keep some of those traditions. From day one I told my kids there was no Santa. Mostly because I didn’t want to tell them that Jesus is real, and Santa is real and then they get to a point where they don't believe either one, right? I thought I was doing the right thing, but I remember very distinctly, and I don't know why I'm going to cry over this, but I think my daughter was around seven years old and she was talking about Santa, and I'm said, “baby, I've told you, Santa’s not real”, she said mom, “just let me pretend”. I realized I was taking something away from her, her imagination wanted to participate in that. As I'm getting older as a grandma, I have a more realistic balanced thinking of raising kids and I wish I would have just allowed that process to happen naturally. When we talk about Raising Mentally STRONG Kids and the number one thing is relationships are a priority, it’s OK to allow them to experience the tradition. There's no right answer here, and that's where I'm going. There's no right answer of how you do the holidays right, but I challenge you as you're trying to Raise Mentally STRONG Kids decide what traditions and spiritual things you want to bring into the holidays but make it about relationship and allow your child to enjoy and experience those things in a positive way. So that's my take on tradition. There's no right answer. Find your traditions, bring the joy into the holidays. Another thing that I did a lot of is what other people thought I was supposed to do. My grandmother would want me to celebrate it this way. The church wants me to celebrate it this way. Now that my kids are grown and I'm by myself for the holiday, what does the holiday really mean to me? And so, trying and finding my new traditions with my grandchildren and what that looks like. This is an evolving thing; it doesn't stay the same. Find that joy and remember that relationships are a priority and that you are Mentally STRONG.

Raising Mentally STRONG Kids - Mentally STRONG

Hi Dr. B here, we are officially in the holiday season and December is coming and Christmas. I remember growing up my grandmother made such a big deal about Christmas. It was her favorite holiday, and it wasn't really a religious connotation for her. It was about giving. I really think maybe her love language was giving gifts and she would start shopping for Christmas gifts even before Thanksgiving. It's like it was in in Christmas, was always about the kids and so this Holiday season I would like to do a series on Raising Mentally STRONG Kids.We have a whole course on Raising Mentally STRONG Kids and it's not a how to course. It's a self-development and relationship course about how to have that kind of relationship with your child. It’s about learning the developmental milestones and what should I be expecting from my child. I want to start with just each week, giving you a few of tips on Raising Mentally STRONG Kids, It's a journey and it's not just 18 years, it goes into adulthood, but it is about that relationship that you have with them.

And as we go into this holiday season and gift giving this whole concept around expectations of giving and receiving and those kinds of things and we want to make sure that we are teaching our children balance in that. One of my pet peeves in just our culture is that we have a lot of all-or-nothing thinking right, it's like oh I'm going to spend every dime that I have on making sure my kids get at least 10 gifts.

And there's, I want this for them, and I want that for them and it's like, oh, you know you were bad this year, and so you're not getting anything, and we almost threaten children with putting put coal in your stocking and there's this all-or-nothing thinking and even if you think about that continuum, you're like, oh, I don't want to spoil my child. And so how do I have that balance in giving and receiving? And I just want you to focus on 2 things. one (and I'm going to say this one in every video) So hopefully you will always remember that relationships are a priority. If you have a solid relationship with your child. Regardless, if you feel like you've made mistakes or not made mistakes, you saw in the previous videos, I talk about mistakes that I've made with my kids, but relationships are a priority. If you have a relationship with your child, you can correct and guide and that will have strength as they grow, but also this all-or-nothing thinking, really think about how you're approaching the gift giving.

I remember when my kids were small, I had seven children and it was like I needed to have the same number of gifts for each child and I wanted it to be like you walked out there and that it looked magical, right? So, it's all about these numbers of gifts and how magical looked when they walked out and a lot of those gifts were dollar store gifts, especially when they were young, and they didn't need it. But it was almost like I was trying to create a magic and that's OK to do. True, but also, it's not about the number of presents, it's about that relationship that we have. You know I kind of created this and then it was like literally over in in 5 minutes and did they really appreciate the time that was spent doing those things? All I'm saying right now is there's not a right way to do the holidays. What are you doing with your family? Does it feel right to you? Does it promote A relationship with your child and finding that balance? So, the two tips for this video are relationships or priority, and you'll hear that one in every video and balance. Finding that balance is not about the right number of gifts or the right amount of money, or the spoil or not spoil just finding balance. In using this time this month, this holiday season to grow in your relationship with your child because you are Mentally STRONG.

Happy Thanksgiving Week
I’m finishing up the grief series and so I’m pulling myself together and talking about gratefulness in grief. We're going into Thanksgiving and then the holiday season and you know, finding that gratefulness and what does gratefulness do to our mental health and our mental strength? Being grateful in the midst of difficulty and pain, is a choice. And I'm not saying, to go around being fake and pretending to be grateful when you're really angry or hurting. You have to go through this process so that it's genuine and real. I probably cannot stop the DRPLA in my family. So how can I be grateful? How can I take this and find happiness and joy? That doesn't mean I'm grateful for DRPLA. Definitely not. But I am grateful for the time I had with Reggie and his purpose here. He touched so many people, there was a time for a whole year We did what we called Reggie Therapy, which was this hands-on therapy, and he touched the lives of so many of my nursing students. They still follow me today. I am grateful for Miah. I struggled with, “what is her purpose?”. She didn't have this big following like Reggie did. And you know people that meet her they think oh, she's so sweet, but there's not like this huge amount of people following her, but there was this one person outside of my family that fell in love with Miah. And that's Tatiana. And I'll tell you, I truly believe that Miah saved Tatiana’s life, and if you don't know her story, but it's wrapped up in a lot of really hard decisions and trauma and substance use. You know she fell in love with Miah, and she has this bond that is saving Tatiana’s life. So, if Miah’s only purpose. on this earth is to save Tatiana’s Life, it's worth it. So, I'm grateful for that relationship. I am grateful for, if it wasn't for DRPLA, I wouldn't have moved to Colorado, been able to start my own business and share the Mentally STRONG Method with everyone. I wouldn't have even created the Mentally STRONG Method. So, there are ways to actually find gratitude in grief. And in trauma. And I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying to ignore the pain because in my previous videos about grief, I'm I talk a lot about Controlled Grief. You have to feel that pain. But let's find some gratitude in it. Take your pain and make a gratitude list specifically around that pain, and it's going to be difficult. Because the pain is greater than this feeling of gratitude, but you can do it and that's how we keep moving forward. That's how we find that strength. That's how we help other people when we can find that it's easy to say I’m grateful I'm from the US. I'm grateful I have a house, I'm grateful I have a car. We almost expect those things, but it's really hard when we've been through pain that that we feel like no one else has been through to find gratefulness. And I am not happy that my family has DRPLA, but I am grateful for the lives that are being changed because of it. I am finding my mental strength every day. You can find your mental strength in this gratitude because you are Mentally STRONG.
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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

https://www.facebook.com/Mentallystronginc
https://www.mentallystrong.com
mentally_strong_
@MentallySTRONG4
https://www.youtube.com/c/drbmentallystrong
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mentallystrong

I don't talk about my brother very often. Because I'm disappointed.

I'm disappointed. I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I am trying to teach and share mental strength with so many people. And my own brother, I'm losing him to drugs. 

So Wayne is still here. He is very much alive. But he is choosing to continue to use substances, and I feel like I could help him, I have all these resources, but am I enabling him because he has me as a lifeline? Is he not ever really hitting rock bottom? But I don't know if I believe in rock bottom.  There's a couple times in his life that I thought he hit rock bottom. I thought he hit rock bottom when he went to prison. I thought he hit rock bottom when he was shot in the chest and airlifted to the trauma center.

And so, what do I do with this grief? And in my belief that you never give up, you don't give up on relationships. You don't give up on people. And I really believe that. But I also believe in boundaries and so how do I juggle all of those truths a little bit about Wayne?

When Reggie passed away in October of 2016. I don't know if he had previously used meth or not, but that's when it became evident to us that he was using substances more than just alcohol. And it became that his drug of choice was meth, methamphetamine and as a professional I know that that's one of the worst substances. It actually changes. The dopamine receptors, burns them out, and we know that that there's so much damage that's going on in the brain.

We are now at the anniversary of five years since Reggie's death, so probably using methamphetamines for five years, I treat people with substance abuse problems. I empower people to learn the mentally strong method and make positive choices and hang my brother day after day is making poor choices and poor choices, and the drugs are winning the battle. And so, I'm going to do a whole series on addiction in 2022, so look for that. Today is a series about grief.

I've lost my brother to an addiction, but he's still here.

How do I manage that? and so I'm taking the time, we talk a lot about taking time to grieve, I'd say you've got to take the time to grieve, and so I am mourning the loss of the brother that I knew.

But still providing some sort of lifeline. These are choices that I made and there is no absolute right answer, and this is. You know there's a lot of support systems that say, oh, you have to cut them off and just take care of yourself.

But I have stopped to take the time to grieve.

And I may have made some bad choices. Maybe I was letting him. Maybe I was enabling him by knowing he was using drugs and still paying him for odd jobs. I don't know. So, if you're out there watching and you have a family member addicted. Take care of yourself first, like that oxygen to yourself before. Don't give up.

Continue to try to help with realistic boundaries for yourself. I’m not saying it's easy. It's very hard. I love you Wayne and I will continue to be here for you. I believe that you can find your mental strength and I will continue to find mine because I believe that we all have that in us.

That we are all Mentally STRONG

Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

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