My Story: Maxine Speck: Part II

Then I had the biggest breakthrough, one that was going to change my life forever but at that time I didn’t know it. For my 50th birthday I asked a good friend of mine for a gift, it was a trip to New York City to attend a Chopra Center program called “Renewal Weekend”. I learned about the Chopra Center when I read a book written by Deepak Chopra called “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga”. One of the most important things that I learned to do at this event was to meditate. The Chopra Center has developed and teaches a specific meditation called Primordial Sound Meditation; this is the type of meditation that I have been practicing for over 2 years and now teach it as a Chopra Center Certified Primordial Sound Meditation Instructor.

When I returned home from the event I did meditate as I had been instructed and within the first eight months I started making changes in my life that would eventually help me heal entirely. I attended a therapy program offered by Halton Healthcare; this program played an integral part of my healing and transformation. The program is designed to help people understand what their specific mental illness is and how they can help themselves, they teach how different prescription medications work and teach you how to take care of yourself. Most of all, the staff are knowledgeable kind and compassionate. After completion of this program I attended another therapy program that was recommended by the staff of Halton Healthcare. This program was called WRAP (Women Recovering from Abuse Program) held at Women’s College Hospital, this is an eight week full time program. WRAP helped me deal with all the emotional baggage and trauma that I had been carrying with me my entire life. It was a life changing process and for this I am forever grateful. The staff that manage and facilitate this program are kind, compassionate and loving. The environment is safe and this is where I was able to completely open up and receive healing, it does require dedication and effort. My meditation practice gave me the energy and inner guidance that I needed to complete these life changing programs

Another amazing change for me since I started to meditate is that within one year of practicing meditation I have not needed any prescription medication and over this past year my health has been great. I sleep well everyday and all my relationships are so much better, my life is better and I am happier. I realized that all these phenomenal changes came from practicing meditation so last year I decided to take the teachers course at the Chopra Center so I could share this amazing tool with others.

I believe that we are all in this together and there is help out there and there are resources out there even though sometimes we feel that we are all alone. The truth is that help is out there we just have to learn to ask for it. Most of all we have to look inside of ourselves, because the answers are all within our own souls. When we get quiet and disconnect from the constant chatter of everything outside of us we begin a journey inward towards freedom. This can be attained through the practice of meditation.

If you wish to learn more please visit my webpage.

My Story: Maxine Speck: Part I

My name is Maxine Speck and I am 52 years of age, I am sharing my story of mental illness because it is a story of success. I want my story to give hope to others to know that we can all do something to help ourselves and there are resources available to help us make changes in our lives.

Approximately 5 years ago I was diagnosed with major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, panic and anxiety disorder, high blood pressure and I had insomnia. Financial stress, and pushing myself to the point of exhaustion, were just a couple of the factors that contributed to the state I was in. It all started to manifest when I was let go from my work due to downsizing of the company and at the same time my husband was out of work too. Other stress came from the fact that in all of my relationships I tried to be perfect and be everything to everyone because I had no boundaries for myself and I did not know how to take care myself.

I accepted a new job in the financial industry that first required studying and passing all the financial industry licensing requirements. This meant that I had to study and pass several exams in a very short 3 month period as I was being paid to do this. I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion and felt stress like never before but as always I completed and passed all of the requirements and received the designations required to work in that industry. However at the end of the entire process I had a complete breakdown both physically and mentally and I could barely function at all. I started to have more bouts of panic and hysteria and my health kept deteriorating. Another one of the causes for the anxiety and panic attacks came from having flashbacks of the abuse I suffered as a teenager when my own daughter turned 13 years of age (this was approximately the age I was when the sexual abuse I suffered started).

The dosage of the medications I was taking kept being increased but this only served as a band-aid. I also sought help through talk therapy which helped me cope to a certain degree. Unfortunately, things got to the point that I finally ran away from my husband and my two children, we had been married for almost 19 years. I had asked my daughter to move with me but she was horrified by the new place that I was going to call home and refused to make this move with me. My son wanted to stay with his dad. This was the beginning of what I call hell, but looking back on all the events that took place over these past years and seeing where it has brought me to date, I can see that it was necessary in order for me to find healing and eventually turn my life around in order to help others in need.

Running away from all my relationships was a common thread but this one was the worst because I had two children that I loved so dearly. My children eventually moved in with me and together we moved a few times, they became victims of my inability to function. The depression, panic and anxiety, insomnia and high blood pressure became worse, they followed the ambulances that took me to the hospital on more than one occasion. The quality of our lives wasn’t the best. I couldn’t work anymore as I found it hard to get out of bed and when I was working I was spinning my wheels and not making much progress and eventually my work environment became threatening to me. The thought of taking my life was common but the love for my children kept me afloat.

A Note about the Canadian Health Care System and Beyond: Treatment Quality Primary, Quantity Secondary

By David Albert Newman
August 3, 2010

This post discusses a very strong point of interest of mine: quality over quantity health care treatment.

This article shows the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) advocating pay for performance based upon quantity of patients treated.

A piece rate system (pay for performance) based upon the QUANTITY of patients treated is NOT a good solution. That rewards expedient performance. That is the problem with the current health care system: patients are treated TOO quickly by doctors when they finally see them after waiting for too long and the patient ends up with suboptimal care.

The solution: pay for QUALITY of CARE measured by LESS FREQUENT follow up appointments and/or fewer hospitalizations from conditions that could have otherwise been treated sooner or better.

Quality over quantity better manages the health care operations bottleneck: waiting times. I have studied this in my MBA Operations Management course about queuing theory and line balancing to manage the bottleneck by adding resources to equalize a system flow.

We need to adopt a new model of health care that I have coined: Think. Consult. Reflect. Act. (TCRA).

Doctors rely too much upon their own knowledge and skill rather than consulting a peer for his or her thoughts and a second opinion. That is extremely rare in professions.

The consult may take more time up front BUT in the long run the patient may recover with fewer repeat contact points to the health care system.

This is important since while many doctors think they are infallible, they are like the rest of us: they make mistakes AND their mistakes are often more serious due to the nature of their work of treating human beings who are ill, either acutely or chronically, and who may be getting worse.

It's time to change the culture of doctors to REQUIRE that they consult UNLESS IF and ONLY IF the diagnosis and treatment is very routine.

The current system BEFORE a negative change to a piece rate system of pay for performance relates to my poor health care treatment when I had ulcerative colitis in my mid-teens that almost killed me (I went to hospital at 98 lbs at 5' 10" tall and I was there for a week or so). This family physician not only did not diagnose my ulcerative colitis, he provided medication that moved food through my body faster since he thought I had an ulcer. That exacerbated the already chronic diarrhea that was dehydrating me and leading to my rapid weight loss. Thus, he broke the rule of non-malfeasance in the duty of care for me as the patient.

As for my mental health care, I was diagnosed incorrectly during 2000. I can't recall if the doctor was a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but based upon talk therapy, he must have been a psychologist since psychiatrists rarely perform talk therapy; rather the psychiatrist is a pharmacologist toward mental illness treatment.

During 2000, the psychologist stated that my long dead grandmother did NOT have schizophrenia even though she had finally been diagnosed with schizophrenia by a very prominent Winnipeg psychiatrist when she was quite old; how can a subsequent psychologist make a differential diagnosis about a relative, my grandmother, who had been dead for years and then extrapolate to me that I also did not have schizophrenia even given my paranoid behaviours of my wall posters staring at me and persecuting me? I was treated for anxiety with medication that controls the heart rhythm. This too is an act that broke the rule of non-malfeasance in the duty of care for me as the patient.

That is a SERIOUS error since I suffered for 5 more years before being hospitalized three times during 2005 where I finally received the diagnosis of schizophrenia (with depression and anxiety as a result since I could not recover properly and I had no idea at the time before diagnosis what was wrong with my brain, along with the following reality). I had lost all jobs, I had no positive cash flow income, I almost lost my house, and I almost killed myself since I was highly suicidal. The EI system funds ran out and then they came back at me for not properly declaring the little side income I did earn in my poverty.

I would have been gone and not only my family and friends would have lost me; I believe in myself and my ideas and the world would have lost those too.

The underlying problem in my case for both the family physician and the psychologist: no peer consult and over confidence in their knowledge and skills to properly diagnose completely ignoring me, the patient, and the input from me and my family. The CMA does have one thing correct: the patient MUST be the center of care. That is the whole point of the health care system.

I think the Hippocratic Oath needs to be recalled by all medical doctors regardless if they are a general practitioner or a specialist. This patient was almost killed twice by insufficient and inappropriate medical treatment and it is not only my goal, it is my moral duty, to minimize that same occurrence for other patients who may be too ill to fight for their human rights of proper health care treatment in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

David Albert Newman, CGA, CIA, ACCA (UK), B. Comm. (Hons.) with Distinction

"Anything is possible if we let our mind wander away from standardization towards creativity."

Being Scene

‘The artists are reaching for something inside’



Being Scene is an art exhibition which showcases pieces by artists who have experience with mental health or addiction issues. It combines pieces from artists with formal training, as well as, those with no training at all.

The exhibition pieces do not follow a mental health theme, artists contribute whichever pieces they would like. Rather, this is an opportunity for artists who have faced mental health challenges to express themselves creatively and share their work with others.

This article on "Being Scene" appeared in Sunday's Globe and Mail.

Read article here