Tag: mental-health

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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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

The Great Insurance Scam on My Life

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Uncategorized

I was sixteen years old when I was inappropriately given a severe mental illness diagnosis. I remember my mother’s response to the diagnosis being far more dramatic than I had felt necessary at the time. She approached me in a state of minor hysteria, proclaiming, “Your father and I will always make sure you have insurance!” At the time, the severity of the grim future that was assumed to likely attach itself to this diagnosis rose to the surface like rapid fire. It was as though the world around me was expanding in size, just bigger and bigger. All the while, I sat in that doctor’s chair shrinking to an almost invisible level, the air unable to continue to be consumed by my lungs. As someone who grew up in a family whose economic status never had to consider insurance and medical care costs once I was around, I was in shock at the idea she believed I would be unable to provide care for myself. As a stubbornly headstrong and independent young woman at the time, I was terrified at the notion of remaining permanently attached to my parents from the perspective of dependency. It was at that time I began to become aware of the extreme uphill pathway I had stumbled upon by means of my entanglement in psychiatric care. This induced a sort of panic state, igniting my desperation to be self-sufficient. What I know now, is that my mother was terrified of my suffering her same experiences. This was to be economically unstable enough early in her marriage where they did not have insurance. Their first child was born while uninsured causing my mother to delay going to the hospital while in labor to the point she almost had a home delivery by accident! For me, it has caused every single decision I have ever made in my entire adult life to surround insurance and the maintenance of it.

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I began to work full-time the Monday after I graduated from high school. This was after a year and a half of tortuous psychiatric overmedication had caused me to almost fail out of high school altogether. Even with my gradually declining grades, my parents had offered a two-week European vacation that I refused. At the time, I was so disgusted with myself and what had become of me that I could not have appreciated that gift. My early high school career was revealing to my potential that at the beginning of my senior year I was accepted to Purdue University. It was sometime during the Spring, while literally barely making it to the finish line of a high school diploma, I had decided to put off going to college. This surrounded the fact that I knew, due to the condition I was in, there was no way I would be successful in my endeavors at that time. Even after making this choice myself, Purdue doubled down through the rescinding of their initial offer of acceptance – done through the usual means of cowardly avoidance that these entities tend to choose: the US postal system. Honestly, I could have done without that punch to the gut, solidifying I was not worthy. Still, I pressed forward, optimistic in my role as a dietary aid at a nursing home, a role I loved. There were times I entertained attempting to pursue the leadership there – sometimes I still wish I had. This position was not one that allowed me to fulfill the expectations of the collegial driven family I was raised and left me feeling like I needed to achieve more.

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From here, I became lost in the balance of needing to have insurance and wanting to have freedom and to pursue goals. After being raised in a small town whose roots run back four generations on both sides, I have always felt this pull within me to be on the go. I was forever held back by that nasty need to be insured. To be honest, I didn’t even know why I needed it really. It was just embedded in me that this was something one could not live without and I desperately wanted to be on my own without assistance. I attempted a brief move to a small nearby metropolitan where I would be able to find work and attend an off-chute location of a larger university. My work scheduled called for me to work late hours making attention to my studies impossible enough that I dropped out – but I kept that insurance, though. From this point, I went to work for my father who was able to provide me insurance though the coverage was lacking as it has tended to for those working for small business owners such as he. During this time, I attempted to go back to school multiple times having to drop out each time. I jumped into an impulse marriage and became pregnant within 6 months of that – all the while maintaining numero uno, you guessed it, insurance! During my time bearing child, I went to weekly therapy without medication, getting to the start of the roots of my neurodivergence and severe maternal relational trauma. It would be a post-partum event in 2010 involving the complete subjective removal of my civil rights that would cause me to a.) double down on my conviction and b). realize how small I would have to become to prove myself once and for all. It was during my pregnancy I became aware that an insurance company is unable to consider a past diagnosis as active if one does not receive treatment for that diagnosis in seven years. For the record and others sake – I do not know if this is wholly accurate, it was just something I read and latched ahold of and as I have said, give someone with OCD traits something to hold onto with a passion and forget it!

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It was after this point, without medication and with a strong will to make something of all I’ve been through, that I was finally able to return to school successfully. After four years of year-round schooling as an adult commuter student with a full-time job with benefits, it came time to for graduation. Of course, I spent my senior year pregnant and expecting to have my second child the week before finals of my last semester. It was not looking like I was going to be able to continue to hold my family’s benefits, luckily in time for the Affordable Care Act to be rolled out. So, I gave it a shot. To say this was the worst experience I have had with insurance amongst the horror stories would be an understatement. The initial application process wasn’t difficult, there really just weren’t anything but high-deductible plans that were fairly expensive to choose between. While that was the sole year of my participation in this product, I have not heard a difference in the results since then for what is available. The worst of what I would experience wouldn’t happen until the actual birth of my daughter – a qualifying life-change event for any insurance carrier to be able to make insurance changes. Usually this means a call to member services and the providing of the facts. Unless, of course, that provider received their original information through the government—then the change has to be made through the government. Well, let me tell you how disastrously they handled the onslaught of applications received which had exceeded any lawmakers planned expectations. They handled their overload by simply deleting the excess of applications they presumed they would not need to hold on to. After the early May delivery of my beautiful baby, I spent countless hours through the very last week in December attempting to get my daughter added to my policy. Of all the things I know myself to be, connected is one of them. Now, this has not gotten me much social fulfillment overall, however it has allowed me access to knowledge and professionals outside of the reach to the typical person. Because of this, my then insurance agent enlisted the support of a local Senator who reached out to Ben Shapiro who was willing to hear out our situation if I would bring my infant on the show with me. I couldn’t let myself do this as our arguments were not the same. His, a stereotypical outrage against government healthcare. Mine, a disagreement with lawmakers ability to make and enforce policy without having to present a plan on how to get there. My opinion on healthcare – no one should face bankruptcy due to a health issue. No one should fear going to obtain care due to the financial predicament it will put them in. No one should make every life decision based on whether or not they have insurance. I ended that year with an evening phone call from the White House to add my daughter successfully to the policy. Of course, it was never applied appropriately, and this cost my family thousands of dollars out-of-pocket that we did not have to spend.

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After this year, I returned to full-time work and the maintenance of my family’s benefits. This is the position I have remained bound to for nearly a decade. It was during a health emergency that I felt forced to leave my corporate position. This crisis was really the final straw in a months long string of events and so I had already taken the steps to understand what my exit could look like. This included first priority of course that my husband felt up to the responsibility of holding our family’s insurance for the first time in our 16-year marriage. He had touched base with his HR to find out the process. I had reached out to understand the outlines of my tuition reimbursement contract. My plan had been to drop to a PRN level position and slowly phase out in the hospital that had kept me miserable. Instead, I was strung along in the full time BS position I was overqualified to start and now with an MSW and no more pay. It was in the middle of a one in a million near-death reaction to the flu shot that I would be unable to care about much more than ridding myself the corporate affiliation which had plagued my life. It was smack in the middle of this I realized the significance this need to hold insurance had really held for me. This was that it kept me reeled in to the point of preventing my wild side from taking me off the deep end. The actual care it availed and costs associated with it were null and void as it would happen.

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

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

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The Adaptable Autist and Relational Trauma in Rural America

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Uncategorized

Much of my awareness and expertise on relational trauma surround having experienced such complicated personal levels while at the same time having direct exposure to multiple generations back, enabling ultimate understanding to its sources. It doesn’t hurt that in addition to the life I have lived, I was born with unrecognised autism. What I find interesting about myself is that I am also incredibly adaptable. The trait I was referred to have excess of by two Clinical Psychologists I studied under during my undergraduate studies was that of resilience. Being ever adaptable, by nature, goes against the fundamental concepts that the psychological community has approached autism spectrum disorder. This has been the assumption that those born with this rigid thought process involving serious sensory processing complications are incapable of change. No wonder so many have fallen through the cracks. My situation has been difficult with providers in large part due to my brain being what I have referred to as this “weird Meredith brain mapping” and now I’ve been left to sort through it on my own. Many of the clients I worked with who experience severe mental illness share a similar frustration of not knowing what or how they are supposed to be. This includes a misunderstanding of what provider’s expectations of them are and wishing it were clear cut.

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Back to how this incognito condition has contributed to my proclaimed expertise in mental health. Honestly, it feels like I have been the ultimate social scientist since I was in second grade. I may not have great self-awareness in the moment, but I have amazing reflection skills and when I am provided the information needed to make sense of a situation, my brain can accept it. With practice, I can often replicate the anticipated behaviors for prescribed situations. I did not have anyone but my “inside voice” helping me to make sense of the world, no wonder I’ve had a bit of a learning curve to get to the point I am. A significant reflective observation of mine concerning talk therapy and its potential ineffectiveness surround the detrimental impact I feel it is having on the adaptable neurodivergent. I say this because for almost a decade I underwent traditional CBT to accompany severe overmedication. Now that I have become familiar with the manner in which my mind works through the use of my own education and then going to a therapist who also struggles with some neurodivergence, I seriously believe that I spent that near decade being unknowingly gaslit by neurotypical providers. I truly believe this has contributed to the severity with which my thoughts can twist. Part of the blame for some of my nonsensical word patterns of course can also be attributed to being higher intellectual. This surrounds the fear and paranoia instilled to do with the importance in avoiding plagiarism – oh the sentence structures I have come up with to avoid this!

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I describe us as “living in a world of memes”. It’s such a simple way for someone to be made aware they really are not alone – if there’s a meme about it, surely more people are experiencing it! I think a favorite of mine was a hot take on the neurodivergent community. It is very often stated that those with ASD are unable to identify social cues. This meme presented the hot take that the neurodivergent brain does understand social cues, what it cannot conceive are inauthentic social cues. Yes! This is it. This is everything my life experiences have added to. I grew up liking rules and liking to follow rules. But when you live in a world of contradicting rules in a “do as you’re told” household – this becomes very challenging. Rules in terms of order: 1. Church – obviously church which feed right into 2. Parents – who you obey at the fear of the wrath of God. Somewhere in there would be school rules, inside the house versus outside the house social rules which seemed extreme coming from a reputable family of the community with image to uphold. Then there were the rules on my dad’s side of the family who came from the top socioeconomic class which reeeeaalllyyy didn’t match the rules on my mother’s family from the lowest financial class. These were all rules that were nearly impossible to manage growing up. I spent a lot of my time inward, trying to figure out how to navigate social situations – I have become thankful that I have grown to love myself and time with myself as not to take these difficult interactions personally. It was through living on the inside that I have really been able to make connections to generational trauma and how it has impacted those I love and want to love in their own relationships.

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When I went back to therapy on my own terms in June of 2019. I remember acknowledging that none of the stages of development I have gone through matched any traditional sense of growth. Yet here I am, plopped into adulthood, just expected to know how to manage it. Of all the rules I have had to make sense of, there is one that I did not expect to encounter and that is not readily identified in any research I have seen of yet. This is the observation that I am way too small town for the city. In presenting this to a former manager, she said she didn’t think she’d ever heard this. The thought really became pronounced midway through my Master of Social Work program who paid little to no attention to rural community work. There was a specific work by a Black male author done as a follow up to previously breakthrough A Framework for Poverty which had been done by a white women. The Black author, Kunjufu, laid out different rules by which one had to live in various social classes. I see opportunity for this to be expanded on to include rules of an impoverished rural community whose framework is as different. What I can say of myself is that living three decades in a population of less than 20,000 and then moving to the suburbs has left me in disgust. I am of a collectivist background to an environment who has not been inspired to embrace this at appropriate rates. I come from the rural America that could unite to get through times of suffering together under self-governance. Now, I am surrounded by those who offer shallow levels of concern and support. It is so clear to me that the suburban life is filled with those who’ve fled various attachment conflicts. Whether it was the systemic poverty typically fled by the urban population or the increasing familial abandonment through avoidance in leaving rural homesteaded territories – this area is filled with the superficial and the largely unhealed. It is so individually driven that no wonder they found hope in the unity of COVID19 pandemic.

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 In an overall assessment of those with neurodivergent traits, it seems unfortunate that the stillness of rural life has gone overlooked in its potential for providing environment for healing. There is much commotion and differing energies moving about the city and suburb that the country could meet with solace. As interesting to me is that the rural environment is one that is supportive to small business and participation in community care, once you’ve been accepted. This is an area which can support work while accommodating symptom needs. If we were to turn our investments toward creating treatment environments in these small communities, we could see more progression towards recovered states and less continued medical model needs. The neurodivergent mind is entrepreneurial in nature and is why so much of the midwestern small towns were built of stabilized yet unique minds. These areas should be seen as collectivist in nature and more family-based models of treatment are needed. Behavioral psychologists have immense room for opportunity as it relates to approaching generational relationship trauma in these areas where primary dating concerns were seen as finding a mate who isn’t related. As it is, the rural neurodivergent is being left behind, while the rural landscape offers the most potential for hope in alternative treatment methods.

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

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#spreadlovenothate #unitedwestand #dividedwewillfall #meetmeinthemiddle

Challenging the perspective of treatment for trauma bonding.

by Meredith Ann, MSW, posted in Uncategorized

The thing about treatment for substance use disorder that is most key in my opinion is this idea of changing your people places and things. For those who aren’t aware, this is a common statement made in SUD treatment. What it means is that for you to be successful in your ability to not fall back into patterns that led to substance use, you must change the environment around you up to and including who you engage in spending time. Scientifically the idea of changing your people places and things really has to do with creating opportunities for the development of new neural pathways. The more opportunity to practice the habits developed before encountering past triggering effects increases potential success to continue participating in these new behaviors. In addition to the element of peer and community models I have written about previously, this is one of the essential contributing factors SUD treatments and its current potential model to be able to display rapid observable positive outcomes.

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A former manager I worked for was known for his affinity to the substance use population. In a raw moment between us, he admitted the reason to be the ability to see real change that is not usually expected with any level of traditional mental health treatment. This was really a fairly sad admission by a professional to me as someone who has struggled severely with mental illness and come out the other side. I won’t say I haven’t had my fair share of substance misuse to accompany my symptoms of mental health struggle. I have never struggled with any one specific substance that I could not recognize its ultimate damage and been able to quit on my own. I have repeatedly sought out something to make sense of the severe generational and developmental trauma I experienced. I went through more than seven years of incredibly poor mental health treatment, primarily by means of overmedication. Never did I do and intensive outpatient, never a residential, not more than weekly meeting with mediocre therapists at best, for years. Given the consideration to what treatment there was for me, how could one expect drastic change of any kind to be able to occur?

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With consideration to couples who have most likely engaged in some form of trauma bonding, I have the utmost empathy. It is pitiful to work on the admissions end of substance use treatment. I cannot tell you the dire needs for family and couple models of treatment to be introduced to mental healthcare. It would be so common for a couple to want to admit to a form of rehab together. The staff would snicker behind closed doors in the most merciless display of misunderstanding possible. For me, as a sufferer of severe relational trauma and neglect, I understand with every part of me the chemical impact of a dysregulated attachment style. It is incredible to observe this opioid epidemic as it is such a clear display, in my opinion, of the depth of the mother wound. When we consider the Oxytocin literally inspires life through the initiation of labor, it is easy to recognize what we all want and have always wanted is to be loved by our mothers. This is the primary neurotransmitter involved in trauma-bonding. These couples who have infused to one another through fulfilling what the other lacked deserve more opportunity for their love to be invested. Currently, the professional field of healthcare is largely filled with neurotypicals and empath enablers. This means almost the entirety of the field in treatment to those in need lack understanding of those they are serving’s needs. And I want to be very clear when I say –what your provider looks like has little to nothing to do with it. For me, a white, middle-class American, every mental health provider I went to that got it wrong with me was also a white, middle-class American. It was not until I had a provider with an overlapping diagnosis to my own complex diagnosis that I was able to make real progress.

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It was at a recent doctor appointment visit for my older child that I observed the front desk, scheduling staff. Upon hanging up the phone, the front desk women cackled about this couple needing to be scheduled with their appointments at the same time. “I’d never be that codependent!” declared one – as if the reason for this couldn’t be the need to save money on gas. Also, if I was someone knowingly struggling with codependence that healthcare facility is now the last place I will seek assistance for this, if I ever do at all. These are the things that people just don’t consider. As if that same codependence wasn’t hijacking the same neural system that an opioid withdrawal does—there is a serious lacking of compassion. If you consider it from this framework. This means that each time a person with relational trauma experiences a trigger, they go into immediate withdrawal in a similar way that a person who just received Narcan would be removed from their state. This provides insight to the severe irritability experienced when a codependent person has an adverse behavior. In an alternative approach to families with codependency there need to be push and pull working towards challenging the production of new behavior by all involved. Perhaps, this looks like creating more opportunities for new neural pathways to be created. This may look like big move as a family. This may look like forced engagement in new activities. What I know when it comes to family mental healthcare is something has got to give from a macro level perspective. All this individuality has caused us to abandon systems in need of much repair. As it is, there is little opportunity for this to occur. As for my own life, I am amidst the largest changes of my life. I am choosing to take a chance on myself, my family, and my faith that something will come out of all we have gone through in our commitment together.

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

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

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