Resources for the Community
Mental Health/Mental Illness by Marian H. Cremin, LCSW If you or someone you know is showing signs of a men- tal health problem, there is something you can do about it. Nobody needs to endure this kind of pain alone. It is important to find a licensed clinician or doctor and ask questions. It is important to describe feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that seem painful, unusual, frightening, or dangerous. There are many resources in Marin County and support for families. Start by consulting your family doctor, calling the local psychiatric emergency services, or calling the on- call nurse and asking questions. Most schools have counsel- ors that can be consulted. You could get a referral to speak with a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Suicide Prevention If you are feeling suicidal , you can get help. Call 911 right now. That one phone call can save your life. If someone threatens or makes statements referring to suicide, take them seriously . Help them and do not be afraid to ask them questions. You may want to call 911 or Marin County Psy- chiatric Emergency Services at 415-499-6666 as well. If a seriously suicidal person forbids you to call, is angry about it, or upset, you should call anyway . Resources for Help Here is a list of some of the numbers you can call if you are feeling emotionally or mentally distressed. You can also call if you are concerned that someone in your neighborhood, your family, or your greater community is in emotional distress or has other mental health problems. The impor- tant thing is to reach out and get help. You don’t have to handle it alone. Community Mental Health Psychiatric Emergency Services 415-499-6666 A 24-hour staffed phone line and drop-in crisis center for mental health services. Suicide Hotline 415-499-1100 A 24-hour crisis hotline for suicide and severe emotional distress. Marin Alcoholics Anonymous 415-499-0400 Regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are held on Mon- day and Friday evenings at 8:00pm at the SGV Presbyterian Church. NAMI-Marin (National Alliance on Mentally Illness) 415-456-9416 Provides support and resources for families of those with mental illness.
Sheriff 415-499-7233 If you have concerns about the well-being of an individual, whether because of a mental health issue or other reason (e.g., an elderly neighbor who lives alone, or someone you haven’t been able to reach recently), you can call the sheriff and request a welfare check. If you believe it is an emer- gency, call 911. Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito 415-331-6161 Provides free grief counseling and other volunteer services. Low-fee counseling: Family Service Agency of Marin: 415-491-5700 CIP — Community Institute for Psychotherapy 415-459-5999
The Collagist by Gerald Fleming
He’d hated “passed on” when he was younger, atten- tive lieutenant in The Battle Against Euphemisms, railed against it once at a dinner party, but fifty years later it seemed a good fit for him, the stone bastion between worlds long ago having become curtain, the curtain now membrane, the membrane thinning as if toward some birth, some expulsion. She was gone now, and the process of erasure and rever- sal had begun: the photos spread on the table and in boxes at his feet, the letters, the receipts, reminders/remainders written in her hand, by her hand. What’ll be done with it anyway, he wondered, and so day into late night it was razor-knives and scissors, one line in a letter sliced free, glued to the face of an old friend, the rest of it tossed across the room in an energy he’d not known for a long time. Photos trimmed, glued to photos. Her old horse Bolivia, long gone—broke loose that night to go back to her birth- place & die—now she had a rider: the uncle barely remem- bered, and there they go, the uncle mounted reverse on the horse, headed straight into a lake. He could live like that for a long time, in the mess of it—a kind of invention of the new world—something to hold onto, something to pass on.
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50 th Anniversary
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