We are in a space where the treatment for substance use disorder is far surpassing the treatment for general mental health. I’ve done papers, presentations, and endless advocacy surrounding this topic. All the while, information provided appears to be mostly streaming in one ear, right through another. The superficial reasoning is easy to see – money. It took exacerbated mental health conflict going on in the form of the current havoc that chemical addictions have taken on communities to gain any funding attention to mental health at all. Now you bear witness to the conflict of the very systems who’ve created and led towards this conflict having a desire to equally capitalize from the chaos they are themselves responsible.
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The COVID19 pandemic brought to light just how damaging isolation is to our mental health and really our health overall. People who have been stigmatized through experiencing mental illness have been all too familiar with this for ages. Over the course of my professional career and studies, I have noticed the ongoing trend of resources funneling towards treatment of SUD. This has left those who fall outside of criterion for substances as their primary treatment need are even further in isolation than ever previously.
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An additional conflict I have been subject to in being taken seriously is my willingness to be forthcoming regarding my own history with a significant battle for my mental wellness. This is exposing to the large lack of representation there is currently to peers of those with diagnosable mental illness –specifically those who have fallen in the “severe” category. These most often include schizophrenia, bipolar and related disorders. I cannot speak to how many times I would be attempting to provide insight to colleagues, only for them to make a passive, judgmental social cue towards another almost in “isn’t that cute” fashion. Though I preferred the gestures which indicated they were not taking me seriously above those with any remnant indicating fear. Even after more than a decade of time keeping myself in check, being the bigger person, and obtaining an impressively backed master’s degree along the way – I was still kept in a confined manner with regards to having influence. It was announced that they would begin to utilize peer involvement into our processes. I volunteered with overwhelming zest as someone from a rural resources deprived environment, I am one degree of separation from so many with significant mental health duress. This includes myself, my family, and my community – all of which I have continually been open regarding in attempt to help with informing those professionals around me who lacked lived experience. The response I received was that they were more interested in external peer influence. Revealing, not the interest in peer involvement per se, but rather an interest in the illusion that it has been made.
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If you were to picture yourself in SUD treatment—you are surrounded by peer recovery staff, peers in advanced level positions, persons next to you with 20+ years sober who have relapsed and are right back where you are. In this, one can see themselves making something out of what they are going through. Not only that, there is a pathway that has been illuminated as a guide for individuals to follow. It is being widely revealed that we learn and heal through the sharing of experiences. In general mental health treatment, there is none of this. There are group homes and avoiding them, with not much in between. There is not a peer or a community element that has been able to be accessed. It is being filled with the encouragement to develop skills they’ve no experience with, in settings that there aren’t opportunities to access, and show up in your pajamas monthly or biweekly if you are lucky. Those who are stable and doing well in a living arrangement, often are estranged from family and filled with little substance in their connections. Those in long-term treatment on the coasts, programs swallowing six-figures and again producing no real speakable recoveries but rather a palatable explanation of existence for their affluent families.
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The day I received a serious mental illness diagnosis I was sixteen years old. I went into the office filled with what little hope remained in me. Before that day, I was incredibly future oriented and excited for what would be. Afterwards, it was like my world was slowly caving in around me. My dreams and desires were being suffocated, and the future being painted was bleak. This seems like a great direction to take on when one is already battling thoughts of taking their own life. My future and potentials were ripped away like a band aid and all that was left was the stinging flesh beneath. My psychiatrist treatment plan took me from desperately seeking to want to be alive into a person totally indifferent about life and living at all. It affected my goals and changed any idea for what my life could be. It altered my sense of self in a way I don’t know how to begin to describe. It challenged my ability to practice my values. My experience with the mental health system is that it is incredibly limiting to those with mental illness. It is not supportive to a healthy future or a way beyond their care.
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There is not currently a more oppressive system that exists than the mental healthcare system. When I went to therapy over the course of my pregnancy in 2009, I came to the realization of how wrong the mental heathcare system had gotten it in my situation. Over the course of nine months, I went to therapy weekly – without medication. I told them when they diagnosed me and I first started medication I would not take it while pregnant. They wouldn’t be able to produce enough research to allow me to consider it. The therapy over my pregnancy took place with an LMFT, who are incredibly undervalued in the field in my opinion. She gave me one assignment – to make a list of coping skills. In my presenting them to her in session two she revealed the value of my sensory functioning mind combined with a deep mother wound. This timeframe allowed me ability to heal from what I had gone through on a factual level. This was unfortunately complicated by postpartum psychosis. Though mine was due to malnourishment (I was fifteen pounds less than pre-pregnancy weight less than six weeks to follow) and sleep deprivation. This made room for the physicians – who wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, to negate 40 weeks of progress in therapy.
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It wouldn’t be until June 2019 I would go back to therapy one last time and officially receive a correct diagnosis. This was after seven years with no treatment – my attempt to prove them wrong. During the gap I obtained a BS in psychology and successfully implemented preventative care for my child. This time when I was in therapy to the end of 2020, I credit to helping me heal the emotional component of the trauma wounds I’ve encountered to where I could process emotions in any sort of healthy way. Then I would continued to my MSW with mental health addictions focus. And now, now I am on to the next step. One of healing the physical remains of trauma and the overall concept of remission supported by a medical doctor. Of course, this is a rheumatologist and as a former mental health leadership personnel told me when I was looking, “they are a joke”. I can understand how the medical community is needing to discredit this specialty though – I am successfully treating the physical symptom of over thirty years of daily food regurgitation with a specific breathwork. This is backed by thirty years of research and is in no way supportive to earning a chronic patient by my doctor. The current US healthcare system is not approaching mental health treatment in a way that supports individuals with symptoms of severe mental illness. It is inconsiderate to the individual’s self-awareness and self-determination. For this to be remedied requires peer and community and hope for the future. This system is not it. I survived despite it.
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