New Gazette column allows readers to get ‘Local Answers to Life’s Questions’

Editor’s note: Today’s edi­tion of The Delaware Gazette marks the launch of “Local Answers to Life’s Ques­tions,” a new local advice col­umn that gives Gazette read­ers the oppor­tu­nity to ask an Ohio licensed pro­fes­sional coun­selor from Delaware for advice on a broad range of issues and life sit­u­a­tions. Read­ers will be able to sub­mit their ques­tions via the Gazette’s web­site or by mail, and responses will be printed in the Gazette in the style of a local “Dear Abby” or “Ann Lan­ders.” Read­ers who sub­mit ques­tions will remain anony­mous. The col­umn will run every Sat­ur­day on the Lifestyle page. Read on.

Start­ing a new ven­ture is both thrilling and simul­ta­ne­ously ter­ri­fy­ing. So as the lat­est addi­tion to The Delaware Gazette’s LifeStyle colum­nist staff, here begins a dif­fer­ent chap­ter in my life, using my Ohio State under­grad­u­ate jour­nal­ism degree and com­bin­ing it with my train­ing as an Ohio-licensed pro­fes­sional coun­selor. My goal is to pro­vide you, the reader, a local forum for address­ing life’s chal­lenges or the need for a refer­ral to var­i­ous com­mu­nity resources, anony­mously addressed in this newspaper.

As a mem­ber of The Delaware-Morrow County Men­tal Health Recov­ery Ser­vices Board, the dilemma of an ongo­ing national and local eco­nomic down­turn equates to fewer peo­ple hav­ing the finan­cial means or time avail­abil­ity to access tra­di­tional coun­sel­ing ser­vices. After much con­tem­pla­tion and my being a life­time ded­i­cated reader of sis­ters “Ann Lan­ders” and “Dear Abby,” I approached The Delaware Gazette with my idea of offer­ing local read­ers a forum to express their dilem­mas prior to engag­ing in a tra­di­tional coun­sel­ing rela­tion­ship. The edi­tor enthu­si­as­ti­cally accepted my pro­posal, and so here we begin.

My col­umn will never sub­sti­tute for needed ther­apy or legal involve­ment to address emer­gency or life-threatening sit­u­a­tions. How­ever, it could serve as a start­ing point for those read­ers who have been hes­i­tant to admit and define the per­sonal chal­lenge they are encoun­ter­ing in their own lives, within their fam­ily, at their work­site, with a sig­nif­i­cant other or involv­ing a friend.

After 20 years liv­ing in Atlanta, I have returned to this area, mar­ry­ing for the first time four years ago and encoun­ter­ing the chal­lenges of being an only child to an elderly wid­owed par­ent whom at “92-years-young,” staunchly lives alone on our fam­ily farm. Dur­ing my pro­fes­sional career prior to a recent mid-life “rein­ven­tion” and becom­ing a licensed coun­selor, I worked in both organ dona­tion and hos­pice, thus giv­ing me many years of expe­ri­ence when encoun­ter­ing dev­as­tat­ing end-of-life choices. Through the Delaware Police Depart­ment, I am cer­ti­fied in cri­sis inter­ven­tion and have worked as a ther­a­pist on the acute unit of an in-patient psy­chi­atric facil­ity. My master’s degree in coun­sel­ing is from Geor­gia State Uni­ver­sity with post-graduate train­ing from Rich­mont Grad­u­ate Uni­ver­sity, both in Atlanta. Through Ken­ne­saw State Uni­ver­sity, I am cer­ti­fied in geron­tol­ogy and in May of 2012, I received cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a smok­ing ces­sa­tion spe­cial­ist through the Breath­ing Asso­ci­a­tion in Columbus.

A few of the top­ics I am will­ing and qual­i­fied to address with read­ers include the chal­lenges of blended fam­i­lies, step-parenting, addic­tion issues, bound­aries, co-dependency, divorce, the infringe­ment of tech­nol­ogy in our lives, finan­cial issues, unem­ploy­ment or a career change, the impact of phys­i­cal and men­tal ill­nesses and cop­ing as an adult child with the strug­gles of car­ing for an aging par­ent, just to name a few. At times, if a ques­tion is beyond my scope of train­ing, I will access other pro­fes­sional resources within our com­mu­nity to offer their guid­ance for a par­tic­u­larly prob­lem­atic situation.

My col­umn will be printed weekly at first, depend­ing upon reader response, so please do not hes­i­tate to sub­mit ques­tions by vis­it­ing http://delgazette.com/life-questions-with-local-answers/ or send­ing them to Mar­i­ann Main, The Delaware Gazette, 40 N. San­dusky St., Suite 203, Delaware, OH 43015.

Thank you for pos­si­bly writ­ing to me with your ques­tions or dis­cussing life issues. I hope to be of assis­tance to my home­town of Delaware and to those cen­tral Ohio read­ers who are strug­gling with a prob­lem but unsure of where to turn.

Mar­i­ann Main, LPC, APC

Posted by Mariann Main on Aug 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.