24/7 Hotlines: Call or text 988 or text 741741
Join Ella, the Turning Point CT Project Coordinator, on her mission to make choices that benefit her mental health! Follow along and share your own story on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube by using the hashtag #TurningPointMoment
If you want to find out more about her mission, visit her blog HERE !
Click HERE to talk about it in the forum !
Join Ella, the Turning Point CT Project Coordinator, on her mission to make choices that benefit her mental health! Follow along and share your own story on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube by using the hashtag #TurningPointMoment
If you want to find out more about her mission, visit her blog HERE !
Click HERE to talk about it in the forum !
Join Ella, the Turning Point CT Project Coordinator, on her mission to make choices that benefit her mental health! Follow along and share your own story on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube by using the hashtag #TurningPointMoment
If you want to find out more about her mission, visit her blog HERE !
Click HERE to talk about it in the forum !
Here at Turning Point CT, we decide to make our August Monthly Antics a back to school cookout for teens and young adults. Part of our SMART Recovery Group is that we do an event every month for teens and young adults in the community and we call it our Monthly Antics. These past months we have done escape rooms and painting classes. If you want to be a part of our Norwalk Teen SMART Recovery Group, check out this page. If you want to see more you can check out our social media pages.
This cookout is a fun event where high school teens can come blow off some steam before the incoming school year. There will be a bunch of fun activities for teens to participate in. It’s a great way to have a lot of fun before the school year starts. We know that there is a lot of stress and anxiety that comes with school. So we decided to have this so you could start the school year off with a bang!
If you want to attend this event, respond to the forum post here.
If you want to help us with this event, please spread the word. Share this on your social media, and/or reach out to us.
This cookout is going to be Saturday, August 31st at Shady Beach in Norwalk, CT from 12-3 pm.
We hope to see you there!!
Hey guys! We are here with the TurningPointCT interns: Adrianna and Nahjeera along with Eliza and Adrianna’s aunt Woodeline!
We left the office for a little while to go across the street to The Norwalk Green and enjoy the sunlight and Summer air.
At the start of every SMART Recovery meeting we all check in with highs and lows- now we are at the Norwalk Green to hang out and check in about our Summer!
How is your Summer going? What is your low and your high of the season and break? Check in with us on this post!
To see more of our interns check out our YouTube page here
and listen to their other videos and podcasts in our media room here
In this podcast we spoke about vaping and smoking. All of us are in high school, some of us just finished our freshman year and Nahjeera is is graduating this year.
Emma, Adrianna and Nahjeera all vape, but Cindy doesn’t and really does not like smoking.
We all talked about why we vape, and when we started. Some of us were in middle school when we started, and others tried it and then stopped for a while.
We spent a lot of time talking about why people vape, including our friends. Vapes come in a ton of flavors, and a lot of us only do it for the taste, or because friends suggested it for stress. Eliza lead us in a conversation about why our friends like to vape, and if we want to stop.
our views on vaping and smoking, why we smoked and why don’t.
Some people smoke because of popularity or as a coping mechanism. We also talked about how advertising makes people smoke more, and why some of us wouldn’t try certain flavors, like tobacco.
A lot of our friends in high school vape, and we talk about how addictive it is and if we think we are addicted.
We all talked about how we would quit if we ever decided to, and how we could help our friends quit if they asked us for help.
If you have ever vaped and want help, or just want to hear about it from the perspective of a high school, then check out our first summer podcast!
A few months ago, Eliza and Diamond (our SMART group facilitators!) were at one of our high schools, talking about vaping during lunch. To check out what that was like, click here.
Our website offers a safe space online to share your story, talk about your problems, get information, and connect with resources. Our staff runs SMART Recovery support groups for teens in Norwalk and Fairfield… with more to come! We connect with other young people at schools and colleges across the state through speaking events, workshops, and resource fairs. Whatever you’re struggling with–mental illness, addiction, homelessness, bullying, family problems–we’ve been there too.
Help us raise $10,000 to support our small part-time staff of young adults in recovery to be able to keep reaching out to schools, making connections with young people, improving our online support, and running support groups! We want every young person to know that they are not alone.
Click this link to Donate today, and share this page with your friends and family so we can reach our goal.
Giving Day runs from 12:00am to 11:59pm on Thursday, February 28th. Help us to reach our goal of raising $10,000.
Your donation may even help us get a bonus grant if you’re one of our first or one of our last donors on Giving Day! If we get at least 25 donations of $25 right after midnight when Giving Day starts, we can win an extra $1000. So think of us Wednesday night before you go to bed and just stay up a few minutes past midnight! If you miss that chance, then please donate Thursday night between 9pm and 11:59pm. If we get enough donations during that time period, we may even win a $2,500 bonus!
Whether you can give as much as possible, or you know people who care about mental health who can donate, we need your help. Click the link to give what you can, share this page, and ask your friends to give what they can.
Together we will raise $10,000 to support young people struggling with their mental wellness!
Click the picture to donate!
(If you want to learn more about Fairfield County’s Giving Day overall, click here.)
This is a love letter to the abused,
For my friends who’ve dug fault lines so deep into their soul
They don’t understand when a compliment bounces off their armored skin with a hollow t h u n k
And stare blankly ahead with confusion when even the closest of people try to lift them higher
They think to themselves, ‘What’s wrong with me?’
When there’s nothing wrong at all
This is a love letter to the abused,
For the wise and the meek to realize that they can take off their armor
That they can shed their tears without hesitation or fear
Allow yourself to rise from your soot and ash,
You are worthy of more than limitations you’ve set
Unburden your soul and unclench your fists for you deserve to smile for yourself
… This is a love letter to the abused,
From one kindred spirit to you.
Submitted by: Faljak
Talk with the creator of this expression and join the conversation here
Watch Meredith’s inspirational video on life after recovery. In this video, she talks about her experiences and how she believes that “you are not a failure if you feel behind in life due to struggling with a mental illness during your teenage years.” Meredith supports her mental wellness by practicing yoga regularly as well as meditation.
A Quote From Meredith: “Because I struggled with a mental illness during my teenage years, the hardest part of recovery for me was figuring out adulthood. Because I spent so much time in the hospital, I didn’t graduate at the same time as everyone else. It can be so easy to compare your journey to someone else’s. When in reality we are all on our own unique timeline. People don’t realize how much strength recovery takes.”
Join the conversation about this video here
There are a lot of people who will ask, in most any plethora of scenarios:
“Tell me a list of traits you’re proud of.”
“What are some positives?”
“Give me a reason why you’re a good person.”
We always sit there listening to nothing but that off-beat clock on the wall, avoiding awkward looks that seem to give the gist of, ‘well I tried I’ll see you next week I guess’, as we attempt rather poorly to come up with just one pitiful answer.
One.
You know how disgusting it is? To not look yourself in the mirror? To see not glass, but broken shards? The past? The scars and fears? The demons lurking over your shoulders in every corner of those four walls?
All it ever took, was that one answer to get going. To get anyone going.
So who am I? Not by definition of one fucked up stigmata so screwed into my core, blaring like a goddamn police siren every time someone asks, “What’s wrong?”
My answer? What else but, “Fine.”
It’s not fine. But I can tell you what is.
Who am I but talented. You know that one professor you have that kicks your ass with work? Makes you think outside of the realm of reason? I had one. She made me think, made me understand things… And even then I was presented with a new word to my arsenal: ‘Polymath’. In layman’s terms it means having the ability to be good a great many tasks but still being shit to yourself. I was always my worst critic, and still continue to be to this day.
Who am I but selfless. I have always emphasized that the ability to make someone smile would be greater than anything. So I cultivated that. I grew with that in my heart, and with that came another greater term: empathy. The ability to know and understand, to learn and guide… Where someone falls, you should know I will have my hand right there for you to help you back to your feet. Compassion, in its more pure form and reality, comes from the most deplorable of lifelines.
Who am I but resilient. Know where you come from, but why let it drown out who you are now? It’s useless to continue to lick those wounds, pick at scabs that continue to bleed and blind you day in and out. It took me years to realize it, yes, but once you let go and live. You’re actually alive. Abuse, night terrors, addictions, starvation tactics, self-harm and mutilation… The list worsens from there, but it takes a real strong mind, body, and soul, one that is steadfast and vigil, to overcome, oversee, and make peace with it all.
Who am I?
I am someone who deserves not the toil and tremor of depression, the affliction and pitfalls of trauma, the snares and fears of anxiety. I can learn and expand beyond even those.
I am someone who does not need this wall that blockades me from the world; sheltering me from everyone and everything, surrounding me in my fear and degradation. By one foul brick and mortar at a time, I am greater than this and the masks I’ve put up to keep everyone at bay.
I am someone who knows she is limitless with potential, yet nowhere near some gross definition of perfection.
I am worthy. I am good. I am —
Fine!
-Submitted by: Faljak
Talk with the creator of this expression and join the conversation here
There comes a point in time when you have to step back. When you have to remember that the disease, the traits it comes with, is not you. It does not and never will be capable of defining you. And admittedly, it took me years to realize this, to make this breakthrough without breaking a few other things in the process.
Your presence will never lie; you do not lie. No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape who you’ve become, but you can rewrite who you once were.
I used to tell myself:
“She was right about me all this time. They were right about me.”
“For fucks’ sake what have I done to myself? To everyone?”
“What do I have to show for all these years?”
And worse still,
“This world would never miss some piece of shit like me.”
And you know, I made the attempts, I came up with my plans as unorthodox as they were and they failed. One right after the next they were thwarted. There was a reason, they told me. It took me a very long time to understand what they meant. And I spent my days to weeks to a near month imprisoned in the walls of some hive-mind Institutional facility of nothing but smiles and medical snares —
You’d maybe think that was the epiphany for me. It wasn’t.
People often tell you, “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want the help,” Or even, “You can’t get the help if you don’t want it for yourself.” And they’re right. I’ve hurt people. I hurt myself. And to this very day I still hear things that try to convince me to do those very same things.
… Cleaved wounds tilled into my skin in hopes I had staved away some essence of those demons who constantly haunted me, numerous sleepless and unending days spent as some insomniac… Paranoid that I would fall into the void if I closed my eyes once. And when I did I was plagued with terrors beyond rebuke, flashes of unending things I dare not repeat lest they tease my waking hours.
I had no help. No despondent course of action until finally… I made one more plea. And that was all it took.
Should I be some brave form of myself, I would perhaps be able to look myself in the mirror for more than a split second. I would be able to smile at the reflection rather than cringe or nearly cry. I would not have to judge the bastard falsely beaming back at me, pointing a finger, scowling… In some deeper part of my being I know that smile is turning into something less masqueraded and truer to course.
If I knew how to be brave I would cast aside the fear of pulling down this baseless construct of a wall surrounding myself from others, of letting someone close enough to me… To love me. To hear me. To hold me. Hopeless as it may seem now, it is a goal, which I strive for with every pitiless strum of my heart, one that is chased by baseless threads of terror and trauma —
When I learn how to be braver, I will no longer fear to antagonize the ultimate enemy: Myself. I will have every skill to combat my own war, my own corruptibility, to brace back my storms and know when I need anything more and anyone else to pull me from my tombs. I am the greatest thing standing in the way of my goals, and I always have been, I always was the scariest and most traitorous thing to date. But maybe… Just maybe… There is hope yet shining through.
Bravery, I believe, should not be misconstrued with the term conquest; to have the ability stand in the face of your demons is enough, but to blatantly dismantle them is another. You cannot do everything. Not all at once. And certainly not on your own. That’s another thing I’ve learned the hard way.
But to know bravery perhaps, to know and understand where you stand while facing your more destitute selves… That is, placing yourself toe-to-toe with them, flipping them the bird and righteously yelling of your freedom… Perhaps you should be mindful that they had a hand in sculpting who we are now, who you will become. If only just a bit.
Submitted by: Faljak
I – You – Me – Us.
We.
Remember what you say this day. And those therein.
Verbatim.
No one knows your strife, who you were in a redacted essence.
Your wits and good guidance be-damned and screwed to the sticking place
Lest we all fall back into a cycle,
Over and over,
Tilting back into that same phase of incriminating definition;
You know your stigmata,
Be it so bright it blinds those who look at you now?
Hear they not our cries and pleas?
Our so-called excuses for restitution of reality that we greedily seek?
Drugs and antidotes and therapies so fruitlessly plundered
From the ministry and hierarchy
Normality, we ask so wantonly;
But to be normal would be to lose who we have become or what we have aimed for,
We are as we have always been so leave us are we are
I – You – Me – Us.
We.
Remember what you say this day. And those therein.
Verbatim.
Submitted by: faljak
Help navigate through a 4.5 acre corn field that offers 1.5 miles of twists, turns and checkpoints! This is a great opportunity for team building and will end with some homemade ice cream & Italian ices which are made FRESH DAILY on the premises!
This event will be taken place on Sunday, Oct. 28th at Plasko’s Farm 670 Daniels Farm Rd in Trumbull.
We will be starting at 12:30 and will have plenty of time to go through the maze, eat some ice cream, and say hello to the critters on the farm!
Need help with transportation? We got you!
All we need from you is an RSVP and please invite/bring a friend!
You can RSVP to Ally @ Akernan@healthymindsct.org
SMART Recovery support groups for teens and for young adults and SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups are popping up all throughout Connecticut! Find out which ones are near you and check them out with a friend!
Our TurningPointCT staff are running a SMART Recovery teen group in Fairfield and about to start one in Norwalk. To find a SMART group near you, click here, or to find other cool spots to check out in your area, visit our map here. Join in on the conversation here.
So what exactly is SMART Recovery?
SMART Recovery is a peer support group run by trained facilitators. It is for people seeking support with any struggle they may have: substance abuse, anxiety, depression, bullying, fighting, etc. But it’s more than your average support group–it also helps you develop coping skills by analyzing your behaviors, triggers, reactions, etc. When our TurningPointCT staff got trained to facilitate SMART groups, they tried the skills out on themselves–and the skills worked! Check out our “What We Like About SMART Recovery” discussion about it on our Videos page.
For more information on SMART Recovery in CT, click here or to find an online meeting visit www.smartrecovery.org
So what exactly is SMART Recovery Family & Friends?
SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups help those who are affected by substance abuse (drug abuse, alcohol abuse) or other addictions of a loved one. If your boyfriend, sister, parent, friend or child is dealing with any type of addiction, this group will not only give you social support from people who have been exactly where you are, but it will also help you develop skills, based on the CRAFT model, to help you handle their behaviors better and also to help you get them into treatment.
For more information on SMART Recovery Family & Friends visit: https://www.smartrecovery.org/family/
Hi guys! Today (July 16th, 2018) is National Disability Awareness Day.
Disabilities come in all shapes and sizes; they affect people in a multitude of ways, and can be invisible or obvious.
The most difficult thing that I faced when being labeled as ‘disabled’ was my perception of my self and my ability. I had spent a great deal of my youth with large aspirations and goals, and believed I was capable of achieving them- however being told that I was unable to do certain things convinced me, I was truly incapable of “normalcy”. Now, in recovery, I am beginning to see myself in another light, I’m making friends with myself and the person I want to be, and I feel closer to happiness than I have in years. I’m grateful for the gift of self-reflection and the strength and will to change. And without the years I spent believing I was “less-than”, I would not have the incredible sense of empathy that I am so grateful to be able to use in my life.
If you or someone you love lives with a disability- today is your day. Recognize the strength you posses, congratulate yourself for the strides you make, and know you are capable and worthy of anything and everything.
What is the most difficult part of having a disability? What are you grateful? Has your disability given you any gifts?
Hi TurningPointCT.org! Today we sat with Chris, Connor, Ally, Beth, and Olivia to talk about spirituality.
We answered questions like:
Is spirituality always religious?
What does the term ‘spirituality’ mean to you?
How has spirituality helped shape your mental wellness?
Join in on the conversation by answering these questions too: https://turningpointct.org/lets-talk/topic/podcast-is-spirituality-what-young-people-need/
Men’s Health Month – Celebrate Men’s Health Month with us.
This week is Men’s Health Week. Make sure to wear blue on Friday, June 16th or any other day of the month to show support.
Additionally, here is a link to the CDC about men’s health so make sure to read it and raise awareness!
Here, you can learn more about men’s health and stay informed.
TurningPointCT.org was developed by young people in Connecticut who are in recovery from mental health and substance use issues. We know what it’s like to feel alone, stressed, worried, sad, and angry. We’ve lived through the ups and downs of self-harm, drugs and alcohol, and the struggle to find help.
Learn More »
© 2024 TurningPointCT.org. All Rights Reserved.
