Journaling 101

 Journaling has many benefits, one of which being that it helps you process your thoughts. I did this all the time during college when I couldn't find a safe place to blurt out my thoughts verbally to a friend or alone. It is best to do this while being honest with yourself. What else are journals good for? Let's find out!

Photo By Committ30

Why journal? There are many reasons. You can release your thoughts and process whatever is most bothering you. It helps you manage anxiety and depression, too. Keep in mind that typing it out and ignoring it is not processing it; to process those thoughts you released you have to leave it all out on the page and reread it to identify bad thought habits and what is most stressful. If you are obsessing over something unhealthy it will come out in your journal. 

How To Journal

To get the most out of the journaling (typing or pen/pencil) you have to do it at least weekly, if not daily. It unclutters your mind and clears the cobwebs out of your thoughts. Let it all fall onto the page. Then read through it. See anything toxic in those words? See any negative self-talk? See any obsessions that need to be kept in check? Actively work on what concerns you about yourself from there. 

Distractions during work happen for me. This internal dialogue that doesn't shut off and takes my mind off my work is best managed by a distraction journal. I put the date, what I remembered I need to do later on, and then move on with my job. This is also ideal for keeping kids busy for the duration of long speeches, services (whether you are in a church or a ceremony), and any time you need kids to be quieter while something is going on. 

Idea journals are for writers or artists that have so many ideas we need to carry journals around with us to sketch or jot them down. Inspiration comes at strange times. The muse shows up when you are at your desk working or already have too many projects. We need the idea to come in contact with paper or phone app before we lose it. Generally, we have a million projects going on and will go down the list of ideas as we finish current projects and need more. That idea journal is great for that. 

An off-shoot of idea journals is observation journals. Most artists base their art on real people. Writers take characters from real life. Lots of people carry journals and sketchbooks for this purpose. For this reason, I count a book of observations as a journal. People watching may seem odd to some humans, but writers and artists do it all the time. 

Another reason people journal is taking notes on games. Gamers who do puzzle games specifically have to or they don't solve the game. I have been creating a walkthrough journal that includes all my Nancy Drew collection in the same notebook. Some gamers created fancy-looking ones with flaps. Others have them in a messy format. It depends on the game and gamer you are looking at. 

Photo By Calendars

Goal and bullet point journals for organizing are common. You can get fancy stamps, pages, stickers, and pens for it at any craft store that carries them. They are adorable. I also find them to be more like a scrapbook. Adorable, but they take time to make them look cute. If you like that sort of thing, more power to you. Goals are good to document. 

Prayer journals are wonderful. You can do this in many ways, including writing your distractions at the top of the page to clear your mind pre-prayer. Basically, you put your requests, God's responses (if any of them came and only if you want), and what you are thankful for. This can double as a gratitude journal. This is also a release of emotion since you can let go of your anxieties and send them God's way. My thought processing journal is in the form of letters to God, so mine is both a prayer and a journaling exercise. 

Reflecting On Your Thoughts

How do you reflect on your thoughts constructively? Let me help. WRITE is an acronym that some therapists suggest. W stands for what you want to write about. R stands for review/reflect. I stands for investigate, which you do through your writing. T stands for time, which means spending at least so many minutes writing. E stands for exiting strategically, in short terms summing up the entry and writing any goals you have and steps to take. 

Why It Isn't Hard

You can do this anywhere. I have a Word document I spew my words onto when I can't verbalize in front of someone or it isn't a good time to spew my thoughts to God out loud. It is also an option to record yourself on any device and play it back. Paper and pencil, recording, or Word documents are all great options. We all have phones, keep in mind, so you can always have a journal app ready. 

No one else's opinion of your thoughts matters. That journal is your private place to let your thoughts fly and no other humans should see it if you don't volunteer it. Do whatever you want with it when it comes to structuring. It can have no structure at all or be so structured that someone with OCD would be satisfied with every page layout. Put little drawings all over it Sonny Joon style, bullet point, color it in calligraphy, destroy it - whatever you want! 

Photo By My Inner Creative

It doesn't need to be documentation of every detail of your day. It can ignore any aspect of your week and be all about one encounter. Unless you are giving someone a status report on your work progress (and that isn't going to be in a private journal), you don't need to put anything you don't care about in the entry. I am not talking about classwork journals (and believe me, those are a pain when you have a prof. that demands details). Be vague, be so detailed you annoy yourself, be something in between. Be you. 

Your journal can easily be a sketchbook, a poetry book, letters, a song, or any form of art. The arts are therapeutic in nature. The release of emotion through words, especially in creative form, helps anxiety. Your journal doesn't have to be in sentences or grammatically correct. No one is grading your journal. This is not for a class or anyone except you. Let your creativity flow. 

Nosy People

If you think that someone is going to break into your journal, try code. Adopt a system that you can easily use to encode a message, then put the journal into that. Should you need to switch to different codes to hide your safe space, you'd better just put it under a lock and key with different codes every week. Someone who keeps invading your privacy needs to be confronted. I think they'll get your point when you change into code and change lock combinations weekly. At any rate, go talk to this human and tell them to mind their business. 

Journal with combo lock -Photo by Notebook Post

Many people want to be all in your business in this world. Find a safe space to journal if you think you'll be interrupted. Lock yourself in a room, if you want. I know what it's like to have people pry into your life, so you aren't alone out there. When it comes to privacy some humans just don't care and want to make your business theirs. Don't let them stop you from journaling. Just make sure you do it somewhere that they can't get access to it. There are some individuals who just want gossip and you should make sure your writing doesn't end up in their hands, especially if they intend to harm you with it. Like I said in the previous paragraph - use code if you need to. You'd be surprised how many people won't bother to decode it. That being said, still keep it somewhere secret if you know that someone wants your private thoughts for malicious reasons. 

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1#:~:text=Now%20it's%20called%20journaling.,and%20improve%20your%20mental%20health.

https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-of-journaling/

https://screening.mhanational.org/content/how-keep-mental-health-journal/

https://thedoctorweighsin.com/can-journaling-improve-your-mental-health/

https://intermountainhealthcare.org/blogs/topics/live-well/2018/07/5-powerful-health-benefits-of-journaling/

Poorhouses and Workhouses

 Christmas Carol mentions poorhouses and workhouses through Scrooge's infamous line about "Are there no workhouses?". Allow me to enlighten you on what those were. 

Photo by gold.ac.uk

When we see the horrified faces of the charity workers responding to Scrooge's comment on workhouses this is because these places were horrible. Scrooge literally told them that the poor can die in these places and he didn't care in different words. I mentioned almshouses and poorhouses in a previous blog about Nursing Homes. 

The earliest laws for dealing with the poor were made in 1601. The Elizabethan Poor Law declared locals had responsibility for the poor, had to provide for them, and were not liable for the poor outside their town. The paupers of the time could be auctioned off and work as payment for having a home. The poorhouses had the goal of transforming the character of their people and check the expenses of pauperism (selling the poor to other people). You still had to work for your care, but it was supposed to deter you from calling outside aid. This system was abused as the poor stayed and left on repeat, not finding work for themselves and taking advantage of the poorhouses.

Scottish Law

The Scottish laws were not what Dickens portrayed, being a separate system from the UK. The poor here were in two categories - deserving or undeserving poor. 1424 law made the point that some could work and didn't, while others couldn't physically work at all. If you were able-bodied and didn't work you could be arrested with two choices. Choice one was to find work within 40 days and choice two was prison. If unable to work, you had a token that showed authorities you were allowed to beg. 

The churches supported the poor who were unable to work. A 1579 act shifted that responsibility straight to the church. This created aid for those who were infirm or elderly. The children of beggars were not free from being taken as slaves (unpaid labor), however, until a boy was 24 and a girl 18. Landowners could take the offspring of beggars and make them work for nothing until those ages. 

Correction houses were poorhouses in Scotland. While these did exist and there was a legal union to England, the Scottish law is separate and resulted in a more functional city. The city was clean and well-built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1707.

Glasgow Asylum - Photo by Pinterest

The workhouse introduced something similar to an asylum when they created a floor for lunatics. This led to the Glasgow Asylum for Lunatics around 1810. After expansion and moving, a second location became a poorhouse. The conditions were meant to discourage all but the most desperate. It was criticized for unsanitary conditions. The institution separated kids, males, and females. If you had family you had to ask there for support first. Disability was a requirement to get in. 

In the Barony parish of Glasgow the able-bodies worked to make firewood and stones. If you didn't work you were put in solitary confinement and given bread and water rations, as opposed to tea and class C diet. 1845 required care for "lunatics" to be had in Barony. They built an asylum for the care of the "lunatics".

Glasgow Poor house -Photo by Glasgow Punter

Govan and Gorbals never established a poorhouse due to lack of funds. When Govan did have a poorhouse the nurses were unpaid and taken from the female inmate population (like most nurses in poorhouses). It was an area of seriously low income. 

The poor had to jump through so many hoops to get into these places and get the help they needed that it was ridiculous. If no family would support you and no poorhouse would give you aid in either cash or living place you were destitute and on the streets. While the idea that the family should be supporting family members is good, not every family did. If they found you had family you might not get into a poorhouse, even if you had asked for support previous to contacting the poorhouse. 

Anyone and Everyone

These places had also become a human garbage dump, meaning that they threw anyone they didn't want out and about in there. This is where elder care started after some families couldn't find space for their family members, which sickens me. Orphaned people ended up in here. Some of the accommodations were less than stellar, with straw beds, terrible food, flies everywhere, and generally awful conditions that made it more like a prison. Living in an almshouse created stigmas, too, and that you could never shake - even if you got out of there. 

The worry over the state of these places made foster homes and orphanages start. They had thrown orphans in the poorhouse and workhouse before this and the unsanitary conditions made some people upset. In 1875 the Children's Act passed, which meant children aged 2 to 16 couldn't be in the workhouse. This adjustment made the almshouse look more like a home for the aged. 

1800s Orphanage - Photo by Pinterest

To be fair to those who did treat the poor of the time with care and tried to make it a home and not a dump, the Beverly Poorhouse in 1900 did fairly well for a time. They kept the house and grounds in order. They tried to keep it sanitary and feed the people they served good food. I don't know if it lasted, but they did okay for a while. 

The closest equivalent we have to this system, a system no longer in place, is a temporary shelter or soup kitchen. The poorhouses were dispersed as the foster system and orphanages took the young kids from the workhouses and the elders that were there went into nursing or assisted living homes. The government aids those of low income today and the stigma still remains. The people who take advantage of the system remain, too, but that is not everyone. There are people who need that help and get it without milking it. 

Worthy of Aid

Whether you were worthy of aid in any form was a big question. It had to do with your character. What it came down to was probably your reputation. If you couldn't work, were a lone woman with a child, or had an illness you saw an overseer who deemed whether you were worthy of help. It was a problem if you were considered immoral or had a mental disorder that made it hard to work. Pillars of the community got aid easily, but the loose woman down the road who ended up with child didn't. If you got any help at all as undeserving poor it was the almshouse. 

Many immigrants ended up here. Poorhouses in America started around the time immigration began. The poorhouses were to deter undeserving poor, so you can imagine that they weren't kept well. Higher classes thought that almshouses, asylums, prisons, and orphanages created character and reformed the poor, which was actually wrong. Reformers eventually made an effort to get fallen women, children, and the mentally ill out of the institution. It left only the elderly there, likely along with some immigrants. The 14th amendment made it impossible to be forced into a poorhouse unless you volunteered to be.

Conclusions

The poorhouses are directly connected with the creation of Asylums, the foster and orphanage system, and nursing homes. My research proves to me that helping the people who truly need it is not as easy as once thought. People will take advantage of the aid systems as long as our society exists. The issue is that the early aid systems turned away those that truly needed it because they were "immoral", "fallen", or mentally ill and physically able. We need to consider this and let it sink in. The system meant to help those who needed serious help turned them away because they judged their character and not their needs. I'm truly disgusted by the fact that those who came to the system for help for real were refused for not being considered worthy -  when the gospel tells us Jesus saved us despite our sin. We weren't worthy of that, but Jesus did it anyway, so let's be kind to those who need our help. Make Charles Dickens proud. 

Sources:

The History of the Poorhouse (primaryresearch.org)

A journey through the old Glasgow workhouses – Source (sourcenews.scot)

The Poorhouse: America’s Forgotten Institution – Brewminate: We're Never Far from Where We Were

Deadpool Storyline Overview

 Deadpool is an immensely popular marvel antihero. If you haven't heard of him by now you live under a rock. While I was thinking about Loki, I figured we could dive into this guy's backstory for a bit. Ready to dive into the world of Deadpool? 

Photo by Hulu

Deadpool is not a hero, but instead an antihero. His antics are quite violent and that disqualifies him from the hero category. That doesn't stop the public from loving him, which is where antiheroes come in. He can't die and has two voices that only he can hear in his head. There is no mental filter for his mouth (though his mouth was sewn shut at some point). He has all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of various marvel X-Men. His actual name is Wade Wilson. 

What you might not know is that Deadpool has cancer. He undergoes a procedure that saves him and leaves him disfigured. His cancer can't die, yet it won't kill him. He can't die at all. He also gets his name from a bar, one that bets on which bar patron will die first. It fits perfectly. His suit is red so no one can see him bleed. Deadpool's history is a complicated one. 

The Most Coherent Info I could Find

First of all, comics that involve X-Men get real complicated real quick. Normal Marvel gets complicated, too, so I may get something wrong. Please correct me if I do. 

For some odd reason, Wade does not remember his childhood accurately. Allegedly his parents still live in Canada and kept his room for him. He didn't remember anything about that. At 17 he was briefly in the military. He became an assassin after that, was nursed to health by Wade and Mercedes Wilson, and ended up killing a bunch of people on a mission instead of just killing his target. He got close with Vanessa Carlyle before that incident. 

After this bit of oddness, he joined the Weapon X program due to getting cancer. A few experiments later and he's cancer-free and super-powered. He can grow back entire body parts. He's an expert marksman and hand-to-hand combatant. He's also bilingual. Much like Loki, his violent antics and unbalanced mind make people want to kill him or generally highly dislike him. He's not loved. 

He escapes hospice and frees other people. He goes back to killing people. He kidnapped Blind Al and failed to kill Cable. Other organizations wanted Wade's healing powers and none could get them. He had a few falling outs with others (an understatement, if you ask me). Thanos also cursed him with immortality after Deadpool fell in love with death (the character, not the concept). He at one point worked for SHIELD, Great Lakes Avengers (until Squirrel Girl kicked him out), the Avengers, and Nick Fury. 

Plot twist, he has a daughter and married Shiklah Queen of the Undead! He was also used by the sleeper agent posing as Captain America to help Hydra take over. After all this stuff had happened, he put a bounty on his own head, challenging the whole marvel universe to kill him. But he's cursed with immortality, so obviously he didn't die. And that is Deadpool for you. 

Ending Thoughts

Comics get complicated. What order do you read Deadpool's story in? I'll give you a link.

Deadpool Order

Truthfully, it might be easier to keep track of the storyline by reading it yourself. Keep in mind that he is rated R as a whole. You don't need to be reading this to young kids. But you knew that, I'm sure. All in all, he's the most out-of-control antihero ever recorded by Marvel.  

Photo by Game Rant

Sources:

https://www.bustle.com/articles/140805-whats-deadpools-origin-story-the-tale-as-unique-as-the-character-himself

https://www.marvel.com/characters/deadpool-wade-wilson/in-comics

Where Nursing Homes Started

If you look at the history of the asylums blog I posted before this, you see that this type of home replaced the asylums when it came to the elderly. How did this start? Let's take a closer look. 

Photo by Flashbak - a 1970s nursing home (if you didn't guess by the colors in the room)

The nursing home may have had some similarities to asylums. I'd say it isn't the same, mostly because the focus is different. The focus isn't to cure, but instead to keep the elders of the community comfortable and somewhat happy. This is where you send grandma and grandpa when you can no longer take care of their needs by yourself. The asylums in comparison were similar, yet the goal of the asylum was recovery. 

You think of medical care when you think of nursing homes. Older asylums look like nursing homes in some cases. I know that nowadays nursing homes are not all homey. It didn't start that way. The homes were literally homes set up for those who needed support in their older age. Hospitals also took on some of the chronic, age-related care. The social security act of 1935 resulted in institutionalized rest homes because it provided funding from the government. Almshouses closed their doors around this time. Government funding was followed by government regulations, which were created to combat any abuses within the system. 1965 revealed medical facility-like nursing homes. 

The Beginning

We still haven't addressed where it all started. Early on the elders of the family were cared for by the family. Urban environments and work schedules, as well as lack of living space, created a demand for sending the older family members elsewhere. One of these places could be an almshouse (poor house or workhouse). The almshouse was one of three places you could send your relatives. Frankly, I find that appalling. Do you know who else ended up in almshouses? The insane, orphans, the poor, prisoners, and the displaced in society. Those with chronic and long-term illnesses could sometimes not be admitted into hospitals, and therefore, ended up here. Conditions were awful in these poor houses. 

Blackwell Island Almshouse -
 photo by Dailymail

Where else can you send your elders? Let's see, how about the board and care homes. This is nothing more than a rented room with basic care and meals. This is closer to the system we have today. Churches could be running these places. Sometimes you required a bit of money and proof of good character to get in, leaving the people of the streets out of the boarding houses. The earliest homes were not licensed, unlike later ones. They began providing more care as residents needed more help. The board and care homes transitioned into skilled nursing homes.

Assisted living was created as people disliked and complained about the medical atmosphere that overtook nursing homes. I can tell you that assisted living is not the same as a nursing home, mostly because the people are far more independent and might just need rehabilitation Even the rooms are fancier. At times, people are transferred to the nursing home section after they have declined. By now people were getting the picture when it came to making money; this is evidenced by the prices of assisted facilities today. There were so many places built and much like asylums this meant a lack of quality and ability to control quality. Some days I wonder if the nursing homes will end up in a similar situation to asylums (though I greatly hope that won't be the case). Lack of staffing is a warning sign that is hard to ignore and it worries me. 

Currently, Covid 19 and nursing homes have been having a hard time. We are more regulated there than in any other public place. While most businesses have said "don't worry about the mask if you're vaccinated", nursing homes and care facilities (heck, anything medical) have not. I do agree with the protection of our older humans. I also understand that abuses can easily happen and the regulations put in place are for the safety of the residents. The system is changing in odd ways due to the pandemic and I can't predict what it will look like two years from now. All I know is that the system itself is shifting.

Conclusions

After researching this and asylums in the same week, I can understand why they would keep an eye on the nursing and rest homes that are here. If unregulated, abuses can easily go unchecked and the whole system could crash into the same obstacles that asylums have. If over-regulated, we all go insane trying to meet impossible standards. It is a tight rope in the truest sense. We've come a long way from almshouses, thankfully, but the system is forever changing. May it change for the better as life evolves and we assess how we treat our elders. 

What truly makes me sad is that rest homes run by churches didn't reach out to the poor as much as they should have. They were too busy asking about character to help, which makes me sad inside. If you have read the previous blog on asylums, you will note that some unfortunate elders were sent to asylums to cut state costs. That is one place you could end up, which was just as bad as the almshouse if you were committed to an over-populated one. Food for thought. Take care of your family elders and make sure they are loved and provided for, especially when they are in a care facility of any kind. Give them the love you'd want in your old age. Check on them to make sure the home is treating them well. Hold the system accountable. That could make all the difference in the world to your family member and future residents.

Sources:

 https://www.nextavenue.org/history-of-nursing-homes/

https://www.americannursinghistory.org/history-nursing-homes-in-america

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-evolution-of-the-nursing-home