Category: Blog Post

Beyond Medical Stabilization for Mental Health

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

One of the things I feel most people forget in the modern world is that no one is intended to live on pharmaceutical medications like ongoing forever. Kudos to individuals pointing out insulin, anti-rejection medications and the like. I get it. There are conditions for which people may expect to be on medications forever. Knowing these medications exist has not stopped scientists from looking for a cure ergo no one is intended to live a healthy life on medication forever. I guess this is a better way of putting it – no medication should be considered a cure rather a momentary remedy to a potentially chronic issue spanning multiple generations. With this in mind, we all need to be willing to be accountable for the disaster that has been created within the pharmaceutical industry. We see medication provided as unknowing masks to maintain the baseline a.k.a. status quo. This has created some conflict in that those individuals within elite and other generally healthier groups who may function quite well with just one or two masks. This can be sustainable. That doesn’t mean that it should be nor is it the end all for healthy living. Unfortunately, those very same people are in the groups that hold places of power and therefore make decisions. Often this is accompanied by a skewed view and understanding of not only what is happening but what potential there is to come.

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It would be irresponsible for us to not hold ourselves accountable for what the medical industry has become. In its origin, the American Medical System was primarily interested in infectious disease control and the preventing disease onset altogether. Over time we have had brilliant discoveries which were intended to aid in this process. For the longest period advice given by doctors was to eat right and exercise. Have you ever encountered someone that heard this who became so upset? I blame the discovery of penicillin for so much consequence. Individual expectations of immediate end to suffering is absolutely one of them. This expectancy combined with the consumerist nature of business relationships in the U.S. led us to a space of dilemma. Do people with blood pressure and cholesterol conflict not realize they are intended to use a pharmaceutical as a crutch to prevent death while allowing time to implement healthy life changes which may reverse the effects and lead towards the discontinuing of medicine? In a similar manner and with regard to my own experience with mental health conflict I credit ongoing effective Rx treatment for my ADHD to allow space for my ability to sort through the disorganized thought processes which had been created by my life’s traumas. Once I arrived to a space where I could keep up with my thoughts without the need for medication, I began experiencing adverse symptoms associated with the medication I was on. Many individuals are misinterpreting that their Rx should be seen as a way to combat their symptoms while also sorting through a means to exist without the medicine or at least minimum medications. We do not possess the literature to support maintaining all these multiple medications at a time ongoing and is why we often see adverse reactions go unattended or misinterpreted by physicians and the research.

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It was election day when I sent my brother a text that went ignored as my bizarre thoughts tend to be by him. As a PICU doctor my brother is obviously highly trained in medicine. And he, like many providers, lack understanding to chronic illness or how to approach them. The question I posed on that day was “Do you think the conflict of the balance of humors in 1300s Europe could be considered comparable to the autoimmune conflict happening now?” – The irony that I read a similar point of view a week later in Gabor Mate’s The Myth of Normal,  which in that moment was sitting on my bedside table. This is where I see a great gap as well as great opportunity in the medical industry currently. Specifically, as it relates to mental health – we are becoming involved in people’s experience at younger ages and with an ability to interrupt lifelong conflict which used to be assumed to accompany severe mental health crisis. For myself, I have been in a lifelong relationship with the mental health system, first beginning at age 16. After nearly 7 years of maltreatment primarily by means of overmedication, I got pregnant. I often credit the pregnancy of my son for saving my life and my marriage. At this point I went off all medication and was able to attend weekly therapy arriving to what I have called a factual level of healing. This was followed by postpartum psychosis to accompany the 6 week postpartum hormone rush leaving me in a recovery rut. A year later, I continued this factual healing through finally attending some level of higher education with an ability to complete it successfully. I ended with a four-year degree in psychology while simultaneously implementing preventative care to my firstborn through adequate testing and positive reinforcement psychology parenting class. After extensive time attempting to establish my career, I reached a point of needing additional mental health support. This came in the form of therapy which involved some EMDR, Internal Family Systems – a favorite of mine personally and professionally, and intense levels of shadow work. I credit this time period for the ability to heal on an emotional level.

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And currently, I am at the place of preparedness to heal the physical remains of what’s been revealed to be a lifetime lived in survival mode and with the discovery of a gastrointestinal condition surfacing after more than three decades of symptoms. We are at a place where there are increasing numbers in my position with an extreme limitation to the options available, particularly for anyone in less than the Elite level demographic – this is both economically and locality. One conflict I have in particular with the practice of mental health is that by it’s design it is beneficial to those with high level intellectual capabilities as well as financial stability. This does not largely describe the population of people with a current mental health need. Moreover, the field of mental health should be leaning into holistic options for releasing trauma rather than forcing the front loaded talk therapy version which is currently causing more destruction than anything. Personally, the early interventions I had with mental health largely contributed to forcing me into a place of learned helplessness when I now realize I had been so resilient before their encounter. I find it interesting that advanced level therapies such as EMDR are training people to dissociate from what surfaced through their more traditional CBT. In this regard, I think many therapists would benefit from the concept “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. And by this I mean, maybe the underlying conflict is too much to process for some individuals. This can be due to their current environment not providing enough support, lacking the intellectual ability to fully process, or their trauma being too difficult to cope with on a surface level. My physical and spiritual healing have both been aided by the phenomenal treatment of Myofascial release. This is backed by more than thirty years of research and is beginning to be utilized in medical clinics. When I tried to bring this up to my cohort of master of social work students, holistic care was scoffed at as being unattainable due to cost. In my mind, given so many providers leaning to holistic and interdisciplinary options, it seems to me the conflict that needs resolved is access to these therapies rather than scrutiny and continued pushing of the current failing biomedical model.

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How many of us with a one in a million condition must unite before you hear the damage being caused by a standardized medical system employing the least qualified at the most crucial space – entry level. I am personally in possession of the first psychiatric assessment I went through, ironically on April Fools’ day in 2003. His final prediction was that he was likely wrong in his psychiatric assessment referring that I would likely find benefit in rheumatology – twenty years later, I am. Of course when medical malpractice only covers two years back, who could believe someone in my condition could find stability in time to have any form of justice. Not that the psychiatrist was the sole to blame. I frequently think back to my PCP with a longstanding history of providing me with antibiotics without confirmed medical need who also prescribed off-label antipsychotics to address my severe headaches which are in current remission through the assistance of drinking homemade Baja Gold mineral water. A tip I became aware of when Gary Brecka started showing up on my feed last summer. I remember sitting there with my PCP as teenager, at a complete loss and in extreme pain with him retorting “pffft, you could try yoga”. I so often think back to that moment and wonder, had he taken the time and intention to really express concern for how stress can impact the body and mind, maybe I would have found that alternate reliever at an earlier time in my life. It just felt as though I was constantly cast aside. The carrying out of the current American Medical System has created a monopoly of availed care. Those of us who are suffering most require access to alternatives from what current evidenced based practices can provide. For decades we have pushed through pharmaceutical studies at inadequate rates potentially causing their efficacies to be forever questionable. We have done this out of desperation to help those in need – and from someone who has been on both the patient and professional side of this I wholeheartedly understand. I question what more longterm recovery could have been achieved had we instead created partnerships for those in highest need. This would include access to clean foods, away from the commotion of the city involving access to nature, and with job training and ability to learn about ones own condition. In terms of equity – those of us who are most tormented are deserving of this option. I can only hope for the research breakthroughs that could be made to surround healing beyond and within the biomedical model of treatment. Imagine a world where people with psychotic symptoms realized they may not need an antipsychotic and for them to be surrounded by a community that could help identify this need and to coach them through it.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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#msw #socialwork #psychology #selfcare #selflove #communitycare #communitylove #mutualaid #neurodivergent #recovery #equality #equity #inclusivity #antioppressive #hope #supportsmallbusiness

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#spreadlovenothate #unitedwestand #dividedwewillfall #meetmeinthemiddle

Why I’m not Upset About Revamping US Education

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

With consideration to the Education System being the highest form of colonialism we have remaining; it’s no wonder the academics are losing their minds over its potential exposure. Let’s be real about one thing to start with – any person currently residing in the U.S.A. under “legal” status is actively benefiting over the pillaging of a nation on the backs of others. This is non-negotiable and we are each benefiting at least as much as the next. What “made America great” at one point was the legacy of being able to provide a better life for your offspring by means of opportunity through hard work. That and the idea that if you weren’t surrounded by “your people” you could go and find them somewhere. The preservation of free thought accompanied more innovation than the world had previously known. There was this intended ability to move freely in trade and in being amongst this space of shared overall security. What made America not so great was the idea that it was not safe for every person to venture everywhere – frequently on the basis of external appearance and is unfortunately still that way. And the idea that anyone could ever own another person is absurd. However, one could argue we have the assumption of ownership to our youth currently, but messing with that idea might put others responsible for their livelihood so we better leave that one alone for now, I suppose.

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It was reading another’s blog post years back that I first read the suggested idea that the education system has been the longest run experiment on children without being validated. I have argued since that we have enough data to have, in fact, proved it to be invalid. In my research of the application of the education system, it definitely organized through the North Eastern territories first – focused on male learning. As a fourth-generation Midwestern higher educated individual, I have witnessed a deterioration to the Enlightened portion of becoming educated. Much of this can unfortunately be attributed to affirmative action. Instead of investing in the disenfranchised through early education and the availing of opportunities for expansive mind development through enriched cultural experiences, we just changed the acceptance rates – not enlightening. This is just one of the many band-aid policies gone bad through a government that doesn’t relate to its citizens. I come from a Libertarian community with a longstanding heritage for continued investment by its own members. This included through the education system for the longest time. I feel mostly grateful for my early education experiences there, these were that which gathered the final resources which had been availed to my generation X siblings. It was just after one of their graduations that my father saw a need. He approached the principal – who was the same as his own decades prior. He pitched the idea of having every senior in the school take a class called “life” where they should have professional members of the community come in and teach about vital aspects such as taxes, banking, and other required information to be successful in adulthood. He thought this would be a great way to make connections in the community as well. Due to the increasing standardization he was shut down.

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Consider the self-esteem of any person in the graduating class of 2001 or after. In many cases, even those who’ve been successful but are without a college level education remain feeling as though they have fallen short. This can be seen alongside “No Child Left Behind” which cast the seventy-five percent of Americans who fall into the classification of lower than a Bachelor’s level education to think they had failed. It has, not to mention failed to adequately prepare that same group for the requirements it will face to complete this learning. In this way we have seen the U.S. education system be gradually tailored to the needs of the Elite above the rest. This can be seen, in part, through the dismissing of arts programs and other extracurriculars. For how many generations have we seen our youth being challenged by curriculum that far surpassed the complexity by which their parents had learned? In considering the idea posed by Gabor Mate – play being the biological opposite of trauma. I would argue the disintegration of the arts programs through the public school system is linked directly to our societal decline in mental health. People should be learning languages, instruments, and other forms of artistic expression as a creative outlet to experience the world as well as process their life happenings. As it is these extracurriculars are mostly available in the spare time for those same Elite families the entire education has been geared towards. No wonder many who are in the teaching and leadership spaces where decisions are being made are so out of touch with what options lay people have. This is not to mention their assumption that the quality behind any education matched what they themselves had received. As an elder millennial of the rural population I can tell you – we did not. Top that off with them designing our economic system to favour their positions in the world. It is painful to observe people driven by the amount of money they can earn rather than how excellent they may perform.

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“Were the women in your family not pushed to achieve?” This was the question brought to my attention by my coworker towards the close of the 2016 election. It left me in a beyond a deer in the headlights position of reflection for quite some period after hearing it. It occurred after a bout of my bragging of how accomplished my brothers both were. I have always admired them so much. One is a Lawyer, CPA, and Judge, another is a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Doctor. After hearing this question it did come to mind that I never heard the same tagline for them at the encouragement that they could be whatever they wanted. Which was to remember to find a rich spouse. As a child, my early standardized test scores were better than that of my elder siblings. This is a fact I remember asking my dad to stop airing prior to attending graduate school a few years ago. I told him how embarrassing it was to hear that information with consideration to the comparison of our lives and how pitifully mine had turned out. At that point I had earned my BS in Psychology knowing there’s not a damn thing you can really do with that without a Master’s degree. So, there I was in my $15 /hour substance use intake program, unable to make any student loan payments and in need of furthering my education and a better paying job. For the longest period I was known to say that I never minded being overqualified for a position. As it relates to doing the work – I still don’t. It became a problem when people with more impressive letters than mine spoke to me with such condescension I knew they had never experienced humility. This was directly linked to an astonishingly disappointing level of thought able to be dialogued in my master’s program all while being taught to act from a point of arrogance.

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It was while my husband was listening to a Tim Pool podcast that I picked up on his critique that the United States is not currently producing anything for the rest of the world. This set with me for a period as I was working through my MSW. It was watching the series Madam Secretary where I would put it all together. This was the idea that, in many cases, our nation’s leaders are being educated right alongside the siblings of other world leaders children. This got me reflecting back to the number of international students who I went to school with. Most of whom were intended to return home with the knowledge they’d acquired from the renowned United States higher education system. All of the sudden, poof – we are educating the world, that is what we are producing. This led to my solution for the current student loan conflict in the U.S. through the Tariff of all Tariffs – we need to apply an astronomical level tariff to the tuition of international students – the parents who are paying can afford it and will and then when this surplus becomes more than the student debt owed by current U.S. citizens, they can be forgiven. This would also help us to pay attention to the subjects which foreign nations revere as worth investing knowledge in – I can tell you, I don’t recall meeting a single international student seeking their undergraduate of psychology nor their advanced social work degree along my side.

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The thing about theory is that it is a great way to discuss what has already happened. It is not, however, a practical way of navigating what is going on in real time. As someone with ample life experience compared with my typical undergraduate and graduate level classmate, I had an edge going into both of my programs. This was in part to know how valuable having direct access to these professors was and to be more grateful for the opportunity to be there at all. What I have observed repeatedly at this point in my career has been that longitudinally intuitive, or lived experience does match that of what theory has found and brought to light. The first thing I want to point out is that this is fantastic news. The conflict which has gradually risen and become more pronounced through standardization and the current educational/licensing processes is that all too often those with access to the theoretical knowledge are not the same as those with lived applicable experience. And it takes the latter to connect with the client. Without connection, treatment will fail. At this point in time, we have a massive deficit of qualified providers which has been met with the diluting of material in order to pass individuals through. As I informed the leaders of my MSW program – this is only muddying the waters between actual qualified providers. What I can tell you now, as someone whose high school principal recommendation was to drop out stating “school’s not for everyone”, after all that I’ve accomplished is – he was right. After experiencing a major health emergency that derailed my thoughts for the direction of my career, what I know now is that I never needed nor wanted a higher education. The only thing I ever wanted was to have babies and be a good mom. It was in obtaining these educations that I have failed to achieve my earliest goal. As I am developing a business plan that should be linked to many fulfilling job opportunities to those who’ve felt they were left in the shadows, all I want to ensure I that each person feel dignified in the ability to make a choice about what they do want for their own future without such societal pressures.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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#msw #socialwork #psychology #selfcare #selflove #communitycare #communitylove #mutualaid #neurodivergent #recovery #equality #equity #inclusivity #antioppressive #hope #supportsmallbusiness

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#spreadlovenothate #unitedwestand #dividedwewillfall #meetmeinthemiddle

I am an Unapologetic Rural American

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

Early on in my Master of Social Work program the question was posed “Is there anything good about White Privilege?” I am so thankful to my fellow life experienced classmate and strong woman of color stated “Yes, when it is used to uplift others”. The question was only brought to the attention of the class after the professor and I had a rich after class discussion on my thoughts surrounding her presenting herself on day one as “An Unapologetic Black Woman” and asking what my response to this was supposed to be. As a white, middle-class, rural American who comes from a place of higher means than the average Buckeye, I had been finding myself lost for direction. You see, I am from a state still being referred to by trend casters as one of “the fly over states”. I am the daughter, granddaughter, sister and more to the good White men who wouldn’t dream of standing up for themselves – but I will. When the highest suicide rate by far is middle aged white men and we can’t even say that out loud for fear of triggering someone who hates that same group, we have got to believe we are approaching this ALL wrong.

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I am a Midwest mut who knows where my roots come from. In one of the D.E.I. trainings I went through I expressed my ongoing distaste over my life for the term ‘Caucasian’ as I feel it has taken away from my heritage in my knowledge of the specific countries my ancestors come from. These are of England, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, and some potential not yet verified drops of Cherokee. The leader laughed at this idea proclaiming, “they will never do that!” This combined with the statement anticipating black and brown people to be on track to become the majority made it very clear that this was not in fact about diversity and inclusion but in a turning of the tables so to speak. The leader also spoke on the differences she has lived with coming from a small community with a population of 85,000. When I brought up my upbringing as being from the much smaller community of 15,000, she laughed in judgment rather than to ponder our unique differences. It was made clear repeatedly that this PhD of Education did not believe she had room to learn from the likes of me.

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The collectivist community in which I was raised was one which allowed space for both my top 1% Patriarchal family and my bottom 1% Matriarchal family to provide opportunity to their families through hard work, ingenuity, and a commitment to faith, family, and community. At the same time, as a primarily white farming community in origin, they have not been allowed to embrace their collectivist nature at the same rate of as any minority group. Even in this primarily industrial and agriculture town with railway roots who has embraced migrant workers from our southern border since the early 1990’s and on. This brings another conflict I attempted to bring to the D.E.I. providers attention – the diverse culture of all countries south of our location which are diluted to one term despite their unique and dynamic differences. Recent attention to the Latinx community has really disparaged the majority Latino community which is unfortunate. One group I had hoped to bring light to at a larger corporation with a D.E.I representative who saw me for my true servant’s heart and also knew I was against an insurmountable battle. That was to be a voice for the neurodivergent population – one of the largest and most over-stigmatized and underrepresented populations there is. I had evidence of facing discrimination from my colleagues up to my own manager and did not want conflict but to educate. This woman of color had of course built up this large network’s D.E.I. program, only to have a man of color hired over her – in true Booker T. Washington fashion. They then went on to do this large presentation which everyone doted over yet on my ask of what they were doing to support rural diversity as half the counties they claim to serve fall into that range. I received an email suggesting we scheduled follow up which got forwarded to some scheduling assistant and then put off indefinitely.

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Recently, I came across my original journal plans for this business which I had put into chicken scratch in August of 2016. Later that week the grandmother who had loved me like only a mother could died of a stroke. I journaled then of my need to suppress my emotions surrounding her death in pursuit of this longterm goal which involves restoring a community that had supported her family as migrant farm workers in the 1930’s, coming from a cotton sharecropping farm in Missouri – more of that Caucasian diversity. The 2016 election had been the first time I voted Democrat. This was the first time I learned the DNC thinks it knows better than it’s voters. I was a big Bernie fan as a fresh BS holder. I thought he and a Republican Congress could make real things happen in the terms of mediation and change for the masses. Then Bernie won Indiana, the state I live, but through the use of Superdelegates Hillary received more votes – again the DNC wants you to think you have a say when they know better and just fix the vote. I still voted for Hillary – I held my breath, but I did it. As I told my staunch Republican grandfather who asked what I thought of President Trump once he was in office, I am so disappointed in the Republican party which left him floored. I told him I did not think that in 2016 you could have the rhetoric about woman that he had and be elected President of the United States of America. Then all of these strong conservative men who I had respected my whole life bit their tongue – for the sake of pushing their agenda. Paul Ryan truly broke my heart. About a week before the end of 2017, I stopped following all major media sources. I did this after becoming consumed with negativity about things that weren’t affecting my day to day life. I did not vote in the following presidential election. Due to the state of the economy, I didn’t see a matter where Donald Trump was not re-elected. At the same time I could not vote for President Biden as what they were doing was elder abuse – again for the sake of pushing an agenda. In this past election, I could see that Donald Trump was likely going to win. While I was not happy about this, I could see it as a means to support my business plan in an effort to pull us back to the center.

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What I will say of Donald Trump is that my primary problem with him was his rhetoric about women – he’s not doing that anymore. As someone who truly believes in systemic injustice, I see someone really shaking up the system and think – how can I take advantage of that? I grew up under parents who did the real work of colorblindeness. This was to become enlightened and to return to their home community to teach this and work towards natural integration. The majority of their classmates fell to colorblindeness the noun – this was to take their Enlightenment to the suburbs to be together and casting judgment to those they’ve left behind. Over time we have seen this animosity of the low income urban and low income rural pitted against one another polictically, each staring to the hills in resentment towards those on the other side. As a political purple, I waited three years in that MSW program for my rural population to be acknowledged. It came up in the in-person classes one time – this was by the one openly transgender of the cohort and it was to say “farm communities are really weird” and everyone agreed in unison. What an oppressing and judgmental statement to make about an entire subgroup of humans. Another person who had been assigned to my hometown complained how awful it was – social work in an area without resources certainly is not as easy as the telehealth and hands off approach promoted by COVID. Many people in the program came from the coasts and even more left the state following their draining of resources from a primary state university in a seventy percent rural state. It was in an online course that I did get the attention of a rural engagement group. They came to do a round table in my home community and when I left I can tell you – I did not feel comfortable sending those students in to work with the people I came from as it was. I reached out to these guys in my business plans with a hope to partner with them. It was five minutes before our scheduled meeting during the month after the election that I emailed them my business plans and they cancelled the meeting. I still have hope they will encounter the humility they need to be passing on to the students they are teaching. As a member of the final graduating class of IUPUI prior to its dissolution, I can testify so much likely causal link to the lack of teamwork from each school. As it is, the psychology department I came from maintains interest in a partnership – point Purdue.

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My final thoughts on the pulling of D.E.I. initiatives is that a primary law they were attempting to bring light to – the 1990 Disability Rights Act – has not gone anywhere. As someone who participated in the flawed programs, it’s not a bad idea to refine it before we cause much more harm than the good that should be intended by this. I will refer to one more experience from the first, smaller organization training I participated in. This was two powerpoint slides after learning about implicit bias when the leader attempted to attack people using the term “mansplaining”. Now I know what she meant by this, she meant when a superior over explains something in a condescending way. I asked, “do you think they could come up with another term for this considering we just learned about the impact of implicit bias. Perhaps we should consider what we are saying explicitly about the group with the number one suicide rate in the nation”. Her response was to laugh, and declare they are working on that on the coasts. Isn’t that just it? These coastal driven policies for resources we don’t have in the middle and then judgment when we aren’t able to apply it correctly. As a multi-generation Midwesterner, I am sick of my homesteading heritage being attacked. I grew up knowing I was hated everywhere I went, just for being who I was. And I still only ever wanted to help people. I won’t apologize for that.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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#msw #socialwork #psychology #selfcare #selflove #communitycare #communitylove #mutualaid #neurodivergent #recovery #equality #equity #inclusivity #antioppressive #hope #supportsmallbusiness

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#spreadlovenothate #unitedwestand #dividedwewillfall #meetmeinthemiddle

A Neurodivergent Leap of Faith

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

What I have come to know of myself is that I cannot help to be an outside of the traditional style of thought process thinker. It was recently that I began to visualize myself as having been placed inside this box. Over the course of my entire life what has repeatedly happened has been my slow observation and taking in of the world around me. While doing this I found myself back towards whatever corner or edge I could find. At this time, I began to work myself slowly up the side and out of the box completely. Someone would then come along and see me standing there, holding this box, pick me up and put me back in the middle once more. Finally, I realize the box has been the problem all along. Living within the confines of societies script of who and how I was to be quite literally led me to madness, and ultimately almost killed me. You know how they say what almost kills you only makes you stronger? I will affirm this in my case, but only as it pertains to the strength in my conviction. What I have gone through has weakened me physically to an unrecognizable extent by my internal self and who she has always known herself to be. My seventy-year old father whose brain works most similarly to my own and has had a front row seat to witness the fullness of my self-destructions, battles, and triumphs will tell you I am of the most sound mind he has ever seen. A lifetime of turmoil and conflicted choices added to an imminent autoimmune riddled maternal inheritance has left me physically worn and weathered. Yet, I am filled with an indescribable joy and desire to create pathways to overall healing for others.  

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We are at a unique time in mental healthcare which I have seen coming for some time. This is where we are bearing witness to an abundance of need which we do not have the services and if we’re being humble enough to admit also lack the know-how to be able to assist without many if any positive long-term outcomes as guides. I am not saying there aren’t increasing numbers of persons with complex mental health diagnosis and experiences working at the professional level. I am absolutely saying those who are in this group are largely isolated to the affluent crowd, such as myself, and most will say there is not a level of comfort and acceptance by colleagues across this board in fact the majority of challenges with stigma professionals face is that from other professionals. It is alarming to hear the rhetoric towards the symptoms that create behaviors in people experiencing mental health turmoil by those whose positions in society are maintained through the financial exchange for their ergh care to them. There is little interest in taking the perspective of how someone became the way they are and even less inkling of optimism towards real potential for recovery. It is not for a lack of good-hearted people. It’s systemic. And it always has been.

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It’s not my fault I was born to a system not ready for me. There have been extended times I have been resentful for the level of maltreatment I underwent when it came to my healthcare. As a person of privilege, my family had the means to obtain better than what I received, and for many reasons just didn’t. Of the many – I was the great-granddaughter and granddaughter to the town doctor. We trusted and supported our local healthcare options. Increase this complication with my parent’s notion that my brothers and I were not indebted to anything special in the form of accommodation. As a member of the “other side of the tracks” I did not earn the same lessons in how to use my class to my advantage from the same-sex parent, rather I was raised by a mother who taught me to fear the power it had over me. A primary pathway to my own healing has been to make purpose out of all that I have gone through. One of the silver linings that I can assess from my situation, a person who went through what’s been described by a renowned colleague as “the worst of the worst” in mental health maltreatment, is that I had the ability to make it through what most don’t. I am not attempting an arrogance in my saying that I am of the higher intellectually abled. I tend to refer to myself as having traditional intelligence as I have come to know so many other abled in ways that I can only admire. I feel a heavy amount of survivor’s guilt in regard to the less than subpar services I was subjected to and cannot fathom the increased severity with which these systemic issues have impacted those who began in far more oppressed classes and with far fewer advantages than my own. It was around this time fifteen years ago that I was processing the totality of my experiences with my therapist. I was in the middle of my post-partum psychosis when I first declared something had to come of all I learned in what I went through. At the time of course, I was speaking in riddles and sentence fragments without a ton of control. I remember a lot of 1990’s girl scout slogans coming out, “Dare to Dream” stands out in particular in my recollection. At the same time, there was an immense awareness in the need to have an inability of rushing the sequence it would happen.

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A Bachelor’s in Psychology with Spanish minor and impressive research and volunteer work to accompany it would follow the event of my postpartum psychosis. You see, I became inspired when I attempted to explain the revelation I had come to in 40 weeks of therapy during one three-minute inpatient interview with a psychiatrist. The complete arrogance in his eye roll in his refusal to make eye contact through his thick, black rectangle eye frames with his greased slicked back wavy hair that extended just as long as the back of his hairline, adorned in his authoritative white coat was enough to inspire fifteen years of action. What I would tell the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner I saw in 2019 was that I decided to “white knuckle it to prove everyone wrong” prior to returning for my undergraduate work. What my final Clinical Supervisor for the duration of my 600-hour Master of Social Work Clinical practicum would ask me in affirmation was “are you about finished?” It was during a requested informal supervision with this person that I would share my choice in going off my medications which included for ADHD and a mood stabilizer and a multitude of physical health combats that surrounded now confirmed autoimmune symptoms. I had gone from no medications up to nine medications and it was past time for a voluntary clean out. What I shared with her revealed an immense amount of self-awareness and level headedness. In part, I also revealed my ability to experience the world, particularly nature, in a more fulfilling way.

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The stripping of my medication was done with assistance of the rheumatologist I am working with towards a goal of all out remission and no medication. These are words I never could have dreamed hearing from a doctor previously. I am fully aware that I am only prepared for the level of healing I am at due to the appropriate biomedical support I sought and received for a period of time in combination with the intense work I did to analyze and repair the complex medical and relational trauma that added up to my flawed functioning as an adult. Now, I’m left to make my way out of the mud I slipped into so to speak. This includes having engaged in an ongoing trauma bonded marriage, though rooted in deep love and commitment, is going to take extended time and intention to repair. This includes the setting of boundaries which previously did not exist meaning a need for added room for practicing new behaviors than those which have been enabled nearly two decades to this point. This also means a needed reparation to the flawed systems of attachment we have passed on to our now teen and pre-teen. While this is difficult, I believe it can be done with the addition of grace to a family unit. And change, big change.

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The ultimate healthcare dilemma I experienced led to my initial and unexpected change. This was an abrupt exit to my nearly decade long tenure in an emergent mental health intake position. You see, I had previously worked an unidentified autoimmune disorder to a manageable albeit not fully remitted level at hiring to this position. When the COVID19 pandemic came about, I was smack in the middle of processing the forced overmedication I had gone through during my teenaged years following me into my early adulthood. I was the primary breadwinner and benefits holder for my family. When the hospital I worked for mandated the shot masked as a vaccine, I was initially going to attempt a medical waiver but then the graduate school I was to begin jumped on the mandating bandwagon and I felt I had no options. The reaction to this shot has been crippling at times. The painful symptoms and persistent fatigue have at times been more than overwhelming and there was a potential TIA in there. Ultimately, it was the flu shot which I had been mandated to get that I had approval for medical exemption but did not get filed in time. I will never forget the day I went to get the flu shot, I looked to my husband and said “I will get it one last time”, words I couldn’t have known I would almost die by. This shot incited a Guillain-Barre Syndrome reaction. Something I had only previously googled to research on behalf of the maybe handful of people I met while working acute mental health who said they had experienced it. I am so fortunate to have made the richest and most robust network of trusted colleagues to seek counsel through this month-long, intense mind-body-spirit near-death experience.  I am forever a changed person because of what I have underwent through nearly four decades of mistreatment through the traditional American Medical system. I am choosing to take a leap of faith on myself for my family and for the betterment of communities like the one I was raised within. This will include a shift towards minimalism and simplicity by my family in the form of a downsize and move with a goal at unifying and learning new behaviors together. It also takes place in the form of my business plan, one with room for creative approaches and fruit-filled research and extensive long-term partnerships. It’s time to refocus on the rural neurodivergent whose population and potential have been left behind.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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The Conflict with “Evidenced Based Practices” and How they Propel Elitism

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

I find it interesting that we live in a time when Scientists have never stood more assured in their outright claims on… everything really. It seems to me, if you look around, we’ve never gotten our practices more wrong in the history of the modern, documented world. Yet we continue to follow suit, sold on this idea of what should be and the way to obtain it – as if there were any one standard that society should ever fall into. It was in the Spring of 2015, I had the most amazing opportunity to witness Dr. Carl Hart speak and to meet him. Dr. Hart, the first African-American tenured professor of Columbia University has multi-specialties as it relates to neuropsychology, pharmacology, and the way social policy has influenced behaviors. His incredibly unique perspective on the subject is derived in his roots, which was an upbringing in the hood in Miami, FL. During the Q&A of his speech directed towards “the science” of the topic at hand, I found his response most provocative. This was to say, “The data is there, you can trust the science in the data. What you cannot trust is the story that the Scientist is trying to tell.” It was the prior Fall when I had taken a course rooted in his own scientific research on Drugs & Behavior. Much of his science is supportive to the social scandals revealed in the infamous work, The New Jim Crow. Instructions from my professor who taught on behalf of his science was to “follow the money”. After more than a decade in pursuit of sensical answers, I have found one glaring and obvious truth. This is that we are doing things incredibly wrong. Through current practices, we have failed to encapsulate the needs and realities of the majority of Americans. This is the seventy-five percent of adult Americans who do not pursue a bachelor’s degree or higher.

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The buzzword phrase of “Evidenced Based Practices” is being sold as a Golden standard of which I assure you it is not. It provides a false sense of security to the voluntary participation in experimental practices – which is exactly what ALL soft sciences represent. Over the course of my undergraduate Psychology studies, the importance of research methods, understanding validity and reliability, and especially the deep understanding that a correlation study is not enough to indicate causation – which is almost impossible to verify with certainty. A concept continuously referred to is analyzing the framework for “hard” versus “soft” sciences. The “hard” sciences are the ones that might be expected, chemistry, algebra, geometry, biology – the fields where a specific value can be assigned and observed without much, if any need for further assessment. The “soft” sciences are going to frequently be represented by the social studies of psychology, anthropology, theology, and more. These tend to be more philosophically rooted and require a substantial explanation for understanding. This has led to more room for the creative scientist to impose their will on how the information is shared rather than the presentation of pure fact. Currently, we have largely been subjugated to the long-term impacts of limitations placed on research through the avenue of participating in a Corporate Capitalist society. This includes the need to have a job weighing on the shoulders of a researcher, more prominently than ever. It also means keeping that job, which means providing results your financer might be interested in. And one of the largest shortcomings, in my opinion, is the need to sacrifice sample sizes which accurately reflect the population and sub-populations as a whole for the sake of convenience. What I mean by this is that the evidence based practices are secure – for those who fall within the population tested. These are often exclusively college students and/or targeted to more densely populated urban and suburban areas. This means most all of these studies have extreme limitations for their ability to be applied in an effective way to many small communities who are deserving and in need of quality care and attention. In my graduate studies for my masters in social work, the first professor I had once boldly declared the fact that sometimes she will write and idea and then go to look for a source to back it up. She outright admitted to being a biassed researcher showing limitations to her ability to remain a true scientist which by definition would remain unbiased and open to shifting from facts presented.

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When we are considering these young, collegial level researchers, getting excited about learning in the hopes they could make a career of it, we have to wonder the pressure they also face. These are the complications of needing to be published to continue well in the profession. The thing about getting noticed from a publication source is they want something to report on. This means to get published, it takes results. With this in mind, when presented with “cutting edge” and “breakthrough research” that is not longitudinally based, it is more likely to be a fluke than what it is declaring itself to be. We must remember for research to hold and show real value, one must observe the repeated results again and once more, repeatedly. When it comes to modern medicine and current practices, one can observe the discovery of penicillin to have been most revolutionary. This took place in 1928, more than one-hundred and fifty years after the American Medical system began to form. What we must remember when it comes to this event is that it happened by accident. My fall back on Evidenced Based Practices as they relate to mental health especially is that yea, they are cool and all – but never forget that we would never have made the discovery of penicillin had the scientist not left his lab dirty for the weekend. We have only been allowing mental health conditions to be admitted to the hospital since 1911. So, over a little more than one-hundred years of the modern medical, evidenced based practice approach to mental health treatment and I will argue we are far worse off compared with how we managed the first several millennia.

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It has far passed the time where the higher educated need to release what they think they know and humble themselves to what they may not know. The process to become enlightened is not what it once was. In it’s origin, it was a state of being that had to be strived to attain. The foundations of our education system and medical system were once intertwined beneath a cloak of excellence. The Corporate Capital effect to this has been to make the education process a means to train for a job. By maintaining the status quo, the reward is then to operate a standard of living above anyone you may serve while accessing privileges that were tailored to those who have chosen likeways of life to your own. Through the participation in this accepted mainstream culture, one validates the class system they participate in, acknowledging those working below them understand less and are deserving of less. I am not saying those in the Elite level are vocalizing this, I am saying they are displaying it through their actions. Those who’ve received their higher education and further have oppressed the masses through a lack of humility. In reflection of current Evidenced Based Practices, one can observe the impact as those who research is written for not only benefit from the services but stand in judgment to the seventy-five percent who are not represented by the majority services offered and often do not find the same positive outcome from similar services.

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Consider Social Media the Potential Conceptual anti-Christ

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

Do you remember back in the early 2000’s when cell phones were first becoming a thing? It appeared they could become common place. Do you remember the hysteria about them? Back then there were all these warnings and concerns about brain tumors we were going to get from the magnets in them. That’s when early earpieces started – the irony of taking one electronic magnet away in order to replace it with another, am I right? I will say, at least back then we were still in a state of wonder and questioning of the potential dangers that could come from our excessive engagement in these products. We are definitely guilty of being physical beings. At what point I wonder, did they begin to question the involvement of our minds?

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I describe myself as being of the “AIM” generation. Of course, I started briefly with ICQ – my family has been Microsoft since day one. It was quite the revelation then when AOL created the crossover product of AIM, allowing Apple and Microsoft to collide for the first time. The potential connections became endless. I have noticed some long-term impacts I believe to be from this being the primary form of peer communication I had during peek social development years of middle school. Some of these include a severely monotone voice at times, though this could be linked with my autism traits. I also have a tendency towards transparency and trust – I definitely allowed people insight who proved undeserving. As a writer, it has been really problematic to my verbal communication skills outside of intonation. I need to be able to process and proofread. Ultimately, I am proving to be verbal processor. Sometimes this looks like me making a statement out loud and once I hear it I am just like “that’s not what I meant” inside my head. That is not always forgivable in the era of clickbait and “gotcha” moments.

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Back to the original topic at hand – our fear of brain tumors.. Imagine that the only risk we would actually face would be the loss of ability to make and form genuine connections with people we love. And that’s not even the worst of it. While we are selling ourself on this illusion of satisfaction through the vapid dopamine hit of that notification. We are currently actively participating in the destruction of our ability to have a sustained and functional reward system of any kind. Now we are going to hard pivot to background of my philosophical thinking which of course originates in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I spent my life in contest with the idea of the antichrist and my difficulty accepting this as a human being. Once I had my first child I spent a full year in prayer for the mother of the anti-Christ. While I was experiencing the passion and love of a mother, I could not fathom a God of love that would subject a mother to that level pain. Over time I gravitated towards the idea that the anti-Christ would be more likely to be a concept or broad movement than an individual. While I do not currently profess this faith in any traditional sense, I do believe value can be taken from all ancient texts and translations.

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When we consider what “the anti-Christ” is presented to be – all knowing in order to be all divisive, all seemingly good. How could we not consider this fashion of communication we are observing to potentially be this conceptual and consuming being. I see many valuable uses for social media personally, this is only because I have healed from the serious damage engaging in it brought me. I am disgusted with some of that hate I have willingly participated in, but I also have gotten to the root and forgive myself for it. I was incredibly invested in my followers and keeping everyone posted on the day to day of my world. As a working commuter student and mother, this was very useful in my feeling connected to my life and keeping me on track. Then I fell into the spiral of overconnectedness to situations which did not concern my life. In 2017, I found myself consumed to the point I was physically ill at the political spectrum of the United States, My husband would come to me and ask if I’d seen what our president had done and I would tell him at least five facts to add to it.

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A week before the end of 2017, I had to stop. I went through my social media and unfollowed every single news source. For a period, any time I saw anything that inspired negativity I unfollowed or deleted. After this I began slowly engaging in things I was interested in like fairy gardening and plants. Then I began exploring bohemian chic décor pages. Gradually this spilled over in the work I was doing on myself and I started gravitating to motivational quotes. Now that I have trained to be a counselor and have gone through extensive trauma work, there are a lot of spoofs on that. What I am saying is that Social Media can be used for good and has been so revealing to the many communities who’ve been isolated and in need of finding one another. A conflict has become the individual’s need for their side to be heard and understood by everyone – and that is never going to happen. Until we utilize the internet for the good it can be, we will continue to see it cause problems of both perversion and division.

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We are not made to sit indoors. We are not made to sit. We are not made to stare at screens. We have been uniquely designed to use our bodies to be able to explore the Earth in a rewarding and fulfilling way. We were made to dance and make music. Our artistic expression and abstract thought and ability to conceive outside of the ordinary makes us who we are. I am in a place in time where I have recognized the real damage that participation in these forms of communication have done for myself and for my family’s health and marriage. For example, my husband and I are not very connected currently. It all started when I went off of Facebook and asked that he do it with me. He would not. Months down the road, his male – woman hating friend, suggested he do it and he did. Weeks after that at a get together, my husband proclaimed how grateful he was to his friend for suggesting this. It is all to common for my husband to wince at my ideas until he hears them from male tongue. Now here we are years down the road and I only long for him to be on Facebook. To be seeing our photos and our kids and be engaging with one another. Instead he listens to overtly conservative podcasters – all male. It has caused him to further separate and this is the most discouraging feeling I can describe. My kids – also barely get out, something I am actively working to remedy.

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The way I am seeing it is that algorithms – while well intentioned, have fueled a vast division. While they are valuable in allowing a person to primarily access things they enjoy, they are severely limiting. Currently, algorithms are interfering with diversity of thought of thought due to lack of exposure. This has led to the angry woman hater having what they see be filtered to see more hate spewed about women and the vile things they have been known to participate in. By similar accord you see the Uber liberal is only buried under a pile of victim sobstories of the unhealed and are therefore inundated with legitimate trauma. These continued exposures have seemingly altered our abilities for compassion toward another. The superficial nature of online communication has become so dehumanizing, it can be difficult to continue. It is the nature of the current world that we are unable to get away from past relational trauma due to this as well. For me, I know I have had to remove people from my friend due to the triggers they cause. One has to find the discipline to not participate in the potentially damaging aspects of social media. Unfortunately, the current model is writing the code against our likelihood of moving toward more emotional regulation and impulse control, rather the exact opposite.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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Mental Health Treatment for SUDS vs. Mental Illness & Why we’re failing.

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

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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Insight on the Conflict of Our Mental Health Diagnostic Process

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

We are undeniably living in an overdiagnosed society. What we are in desperate need of is to slow down. One of my best colleague friends and an amazing trauma therapist describes the therapeutic process as painfully slow. I will expand on this to say not only is this the case, the framework for therapy altogether is narrowed to the class of people who tend toward higher intellectual capability as well as some level of financial stability. This creates extreme prejudice to whether then therapy is beneficial to everyone in the way it is being applied. I will argue that it is not. In training for CANS/ANSA—a prominent screening tool for directing treatment currently, the leader acknowledged “we know what we are doing is most effective for those who need it the least”. In taking the defensive state, he defended why this would be the case and then proceeded with the training without taking pause for consideration that perhaps this model was only effective for those whose brains worked neurotypically, or as the laws of nature would anticipate.

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Over the course of obtaining my Psychology degree from Purdue University, the overlapping of symptoms in the diagnostic manual for mental health disorders were so convoluted and glaringly obvious. As I briefly entertained the dream of a PhD, I envisioned my dissertation being one that would tear apart the DSM to expose its potential contradictions. As I have continued in both my studies and my practice, I definitely understand the value the DSM provides the professional clinical community. This is a language to differentiate trending patterns of symptoms through discussion in a language of “diagnosis”. These groupings allow comparisons for most effective treatment and have an important place in treatment. As for the layperson and even current professional application of the DSM, consider it about as valuable as WebMD. No wonder we’re all dying of mental cancer at this point!

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The diagnostic process should be considered the most fascinating and intimate component of mental health treatment. It is multifaceted and should be considered ongoing and ever evolving. Most clinicians will rightfully agree that an accurate diagnosis is most imperative to an ability to provide sound care. The jump to conclusions approach we have developed is far from a means to achieve this end. Many clinicians are unfamiliar with their own implicit biases which are having negative projections on the lens through which they are observing behaviors. This is too often resulting in extreme misdiagnosis and malcare with real, long-term consequence.  It has been through the misinterpretation of externally observed behavior without enough additional investigation to the source of the thoughts producing these behaviors where assumptions have been made. In my home it was well reinforced that assuming something only makes an ass of both parties. My literal brain has cautioned me from assigning similar values to behaviors before enough information has been gathered to do this. These quick diagnosis are the most widespread conflict in mental health today. We have Alpha doctors acting from a point of all-out authority making declarations that they do not have the baseline information nor additional follow-up information to make.

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Many licensed-level professionals do not possess authentic curiosity to what has produced the outcome in the form of individuals behavior. They lack as much patience. This can be seen as a major conflict to having persons in treatment to individuals whose lives they are not interested in. Meanwhile, the majority of their advocating is for their own positions and personal raises. Thank you to the individualism of U.S. of A. Of my own situation I will say that one of the primary issues I had in recovery was the ability to be upset with my early providers. I say this because by the time I was in front of any “professional” to speak of, my symptoms were SO acute, I doubt anyone could have gotten it right. Though, I will never be able to say what official neuropsychiatric testing could have led, it isn’t a helpful thought to entertain for me. I will say as a person of privilege; I have been forced to reconcile that my family did not access their privilege for my diagnostic process. The benefit I can draw is that I received the same run of the mill treatment that others in my same rural town were subject. All that I have gone through since that time allows me to give a voice to so many individuals who were affected similarly and did not get the same chance I did to make something of it. When I did go to treatment, I was completely miserable and had been for some time as previous posts reflect. I had no doubt in my mind I would end up on a full tuition scholarship to a private school, just as both my older siblings had, I just desperately wanted to stop wanting to kill myself. It was my lifelong neighborhood friend who was also going to treatment that convinced me to approach my mother. During the time leading to assessment by local psychiatrist, I saw someone who was not qualified to assign diagnosis for poor counseling. I find it ironic that the date of my first psychiatric assessment was 4/1/2003 – some April Fools that would turn out to be. Still, I struggled to be mad at this dude, who was willing to take on a rural environment. I truly thought he was well intentioned, he was just a shitty doctor, trained by shitty doctors before him.

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I am in the current position that I possess both an atrocious first assessment in the form of my own and an exceedingly appropriate assessment which took place in the form of my child’s. The distinct difference is that mine was done under the traditional medical standards availed to the public forced by the standards of insurance and my child’s, through a psychology research clinic at a major university. We need to remember that the symptoms for mental health conditions are the same symptoms able to be experienced by any person. We need to be focusing on not only what the abnormality is but to what degree that abnormality is impacting lives. In my time observing, studying, and working in the field of mental health I am inclined to perceive all mood disorders identifying an underlying condition that may be revealed over time as information surfaces. A person’s awareness of their own symptoms and whether or not their thought is irrational should have direction in the stage of treatment they are at. In reviewing diagnosis such as ADHD, it can be easy to associate this with some level of trauma history. For example, we see inattention and this is from a desire to be distracted from a negative thought   potentially. With various types of OCD I have deduced them to organized type reactions versus that of disorganized. Those with what I describe as disorganized type OCD, think of things like skin-picking, hoarding, stacking, affinity for ones own waste, the counterintuitive trauma responses. These I have related to those with a trauma that does not make sense to laws of nature in terms of a threat presented. This can be closely linked to paranoia due to the irrational nature. Those who have been through an event that the brain could understand to be threatening leads to organized type reactions. We need to be treating mental health from the inside out rather than the outside in. So often, we are realizing a sensory processing issue has gone missed due to the appearance of irritable, defiant and/or aggressive behavior. This has come to light with our expanded understanding of the autism spectrum specifically. And being attentive to all of this takes both the time and desire of properly trained individuals that the current system does not allow.

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My personal opinion of diagnosing is to use the least invasive diagnosis possible in order for the person to obtain the necessary level of care for presenting concerns. For example, I have a child with combined type ADHD who showed some symptoms of autism that the university wanted to test further. For people with higher functioning autism, it may be best to avoid an official diagnosis due to the limitations of service options that may be imposed. It should instead be seen as information for the provider working with the person that they have a sensory mind in their processing of the world around them. Currently, we are so confined from providing best care in part due to regulations, For example, we know that an accurate diagnosis is imperative for directing care properly. I have worked with many clinicians who have worked for entities who pushed for specific diagnosis due to an increase in funding that would be associated. Those providers are forced into an ethical dilemma of having the money to provide treatment at all versus the long-term consequence to misdiagnosing an individual with something they may never part from. Many providers currently fall on the diagnosis of “adjustment disorder” which falls under the category of anxiety and is descriptive to most transition periods in life. This tends to be a luxury used by private providers and especially those who do not contract with insurance. Once a person needs medication or hospitalization specifically, the need for specific diagnosis increase – even when it is not most descriptive to the person. This is just a quick run down of the surface level conflict of our current diagnostic process. I fear over time the snowball effect of observation and reflection will produce equally large effect in every direction we choose to explore.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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My Earliest Experiences with Mental Health Providers to My Near Demise

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

Today I will discuss the first three “professional” mental health providers I saw. Each whose flaws would set me up for an incredibly long and tumultuous battle with the mental health system and within my family. The first occurred around 7th grade. My mother took me to the Christian counselor that she herself had seen for three years. This woman was dumb enough to have attempted use of negative reinforcement on my mom and I can only think of the extended damage she caused. By this time, I had long been considered “difficult” and had a lot of somatic issues or physical complaints without recognizable medical cause, most notable were severe migraines and food regurgitation beginning around school age. This person was located in a nearby small town, above a shop downtown. I definitely wanted to speak with someone at that point. I was so confused by emotions and my brain. I knew enough to know I needed to infantize myself in some ways to this woman and I definitely knew my faith in God could not be called into question. I decided to give her just a couple of tidbits of information to see if she could be trusted. I remember expressing to her a lifetime of feeling overwhelmed by my emotions – specifically that I would begin to cry without knowing why. I remember telling her I was confused and would sit in front of the mirror to watch myself. And I told her I had always felt a tendency to feel down without a reason. I’m sure somewhere in there had to be the primary underlying theme of not living up to my mother’s desires. At the end of our session, my mother and the Christian counselor spoke privately and then we were on our way. It was left up to me whether I would see her again. On the drive home, my mother said back to me verbatim the information I had chosen to disclose. That was one hell of a foreshadowing to the rights I could one day expect in my mental health treatment. And no, I did not return.

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My second interaction would be three years later with, you guessed it – another Christian Counselor! This one is a helluva story. She was another middle-aged woman, similar to my mother. She lived in a townhouse on Purdue’s campus and was studying to get her master’s degree in counseling – she was not even done, yet felt qualified to offer services. She knew just enough to be damaging in making me feel seen but did not know how to direct it, making me feel more like a freak than I already had. And she did not know enough to ask the right questions to be guiding in her diagnosis. What she found out very quickly with me was that she was in over her head.. After telling my mother that I could not drive down the street without wanting to drive my car into a tree and being unable to trust myself enough to promise her I would not, I was sent to West Lafayette, in a vehicle, to see an unlicensed, not even graduated, super unqualified woman who had no trouble with my parents paying her to be in negligent treatment towards me. For my mother, it mattered less that she was qualified and more that she was Christian. This counselor would refer me to a psychiatrist because she had no idea what she was doing and never had any business offering counseling at that period in her learning. I have looked her up online recently. She has a practice in Indianapolis now that she actually has a degree and her license. Twenty-one years later, I wonder if she ever thinks of me, the one she really got it wrong on.

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The third and absolutely most damaging provider I would see was the first encounter with a licensed mental health provider. Of course, I was already on some psychiatric medication. They were being used off-label to “treat” my physical health symptoms I had battled more than a decade at that point. It wouldn’t be until the last year I was given the diagnosis for the autoimmune disorder I was most likely born with which provides much explanation to my lifelong physical and mental health symptom — something that psychiatrist actually predicted in the last line of his assessment before he continued to maltreat me all the same. At that point in time, I was still very strong in my belief system which was Evangelical Presbyterian. I was a straight A student, and I had no doubt that I would go to a private university with full tuition scholarship just as both of my older siblings had – I just desperately wanted to stop wanting to kill myself every moment of the day. As he worked his way through his assessment, he had a clear agenda for his diagnosis. He was looking at this through a lens of mood turbulence and little else. He assigned me the same diagnosis he would one day give the Purdue shooter – where I was a student at the time. It really was his pop diagnosis and favorite for this well-known over prescriber. The medication he would prescribe was pointed out by the Clinical Psychologist I was a research assistant for was not even correct for the diagnosis he gave. His final words with his prescription to me were “I am going to put you on a double dosage of antidepressant to ‘jump start’ you out of depression – even if it throws you into mania” without further explanation, I was to see him 3 weeks later. It wouldn’t be until I worked in acute mental healthcare 15 years later with an amazingly knowledgeable LMHC that I would learn – if you put someone with ADHD on an SSRI it can induce symptoms of mania. This doctor essentially created symptoms and in the long run, he used them against me. The analogy I have used to describe what these doctors are doing is giving people a gun and bullets without teaching them how to use them properly, hoping they’ll get it right. I guess I was just playing Russian roulette with two bullets instead of one. This doctor created behaviors that were out of line with my values. I was literally behaving in impulsive ways that I did not recognize. And three weeks later, the intrusive thought I had successfully fought on my own without medication successfully took over. The last thought that went through my brain was “anything has to be better than this”. I can tell you everything got much, much worse. This provider was at the beginning of his psychiatric tenure. I can only imagine he got a bonus for serving a resource deprived area – one that would have done better altogether without him if you asked me.

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Consider that medical maltreatment only goes back two years. Do we really think that is enough time for anyone who has had severe mental illness with horrible treatment to be able to clear up and defend themselves? I can tell you from experience, even if you could, no one is there to stand up for you. My mother went to a presentation by a psychologist at Purdue where she would share my story in brief and he looked at her apologetically stating that was not the way it was supposed to be carried out. It is unfortunate that so many don’t realize a psychiatrist should be considered a last resort and so far from the end all be all of mental health treatment. It is as unfortunate that individuals allow faith to impede appropriate care. I will repeat to the end of time, poor mental health treatment is far worse than no treatment at all. We have currently over professionalized the mental health field. There is an attempt to sell a narrative of assurance surrounding effectiveness of evidenced based practices that if they were being honest, they don’t have adequate information to prove in many ways and is continuously disproven through subgroup populations. Since all of this time that has passed, my small hometown has had what little services they did have removed. I have been affiliated with two agencies that had claimed to serve that county but did not. Now that I have put more than 2 decades of research into the phenomenon I experienced I am foregoing licensure. I am doing this in attempt to bring services to the level of need currently happening and to highlight the limitations to individual treatment processes due to regulatory standards. The community I grew up in was effectively destroyed through an outsider with limited understanding to relational and generational psychological effects and wreaking havoc through the overprescribing of medications. Now that I have paved my own path to recovery, I want to share with others the power of their own light.

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#alternativeswithcare #melodramaticmeredith #dearmelodramaticmeredith #holisticcounselor #holisticcounseling #alternativemedicine #mindbody #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #suicideprevention

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Dear Melodramatic Meredith..

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Blog Post

Dear Melodramatic Meredith,

                My son is neurodivergent. When we are around other kids he just. does. not. fit. in. We walked into a birthday party last week – one of those “everyone in the class has to be invited” gigs. I could feel the tension as we entered and the mothers sneaking bothered glances at one another did not go unnoticed! By the middle of the party, he was sitting there eating cake at a table all by himself. I could not take it anymore, I was mortified. I grabbed our stuff and we were out of there! I know you have said that you felt like you were “too much” as a child, is there anything I can do to help make him more aware?

Signed, An emotionally exhausted momma.

Dear Emotionally Exhausted Momma,

                Soooooo…. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything you can do to rush self-awareness. That’s something that comes in it’s own time for us all. Because of this I can’t really provide perspective on this from a personal level – after all, I was unaware at the time! I can speak to it as a mother. In moments similar to these what I have found comfort in was not focusing on the other kids but on my own. I tuned in to the fact that by not being aware, it actually wasn’t bothering them. I focused on the confidence which with they played in active use of their imagination. By focusing on the positives they experience, it stopped being about me. I hope you take comfort in knowing you are not alone and keep searching for your people. How lucky this kiddo is to have a mother that loves him in the way you do!

Take Care,

Meredith Ann