Confessions of a Mental Health Worker

Just a lower class psych worker with a lowly degree, failing to save the world or anybody in it.

[psychconfessions]

One of the most thought provoking questions I've been asked.

A consumer today asked me what I wanted out of life. I had to think for a while to answer. I finally settled on: to be content. I hope that I can make myself do my part in making that happen. There's so often that I want more, even when I have so much. 

[lakotapeopleslawproject]

Please Keep Sharing and become a Member at http://lakota.cc/1kvf8ka to help create a foster care system run by Lakota, for Lakota and end the corrupt practices of the state of South Dakota. Illegal over-drugging of Lakota children. Many Lakota children in foster care are being involuntarily administered as many as five adult psychiatric drugs every day, including: Zyprexa, Geodon, Prozac, and Abilify—all of which are not allowed, by the FDA, to be administered to children without consent from their parent or guardian. The use of such powerful anti-psychotic pharmaceutical drugs on Indian children by the State of South Dakota has, in fact, increased by over 1300% since the year 2000! Due to this, and other problems with state-run foster care, when these Indian children “age out” of the state foster care system in the State of South Dakota at the age of 18, over 63 percent of these children are, by the time they are 20 years old, either homeless, in prison, or dead. Children should not be drugged into submission and made to feel like zombies because they have been taken from their families and their communities. This must stop. Please show your support by becoming a member!

[brandx]

This is ethnocide and this is child abuse, all courtesy of the white savior industrial complex.

[geeksquadgangbang-deactivated20]

[nateriot-deactivated20180701]

Obama on gay adoption 

[nodaybuttodaytodefygravity]

yeah totally ruining this country what a horrible guy

[the-uncalm-nipples]

Fun fact: Obama has attempted to fix almost everything that he promised to fix, but the republicans have voted almost all of his bills out of congress. He’s not the problem.

[psychconfessions]

8/31/14

When people ask me why, now nearing thirty, I want to switch from working in psychology to working in something like computer science, there are often a plethora of reasons that come to mind. Tonight though, the big one is that I doubt that if I worked in CS, I would come home and sob for nearly an hour. And if I did, I highly doubt that it would be over something so heavy, or that I would still feel as bad after my cry as I did at the start. 

But as it happens, I did not choose to work in Computer Science, I chose to work in mental health. And sometimes, I really hate it. 

Truth be told, that's not entirely accurate. Part of me really loves the work I do, or at least some parts of it. The problem is that other part that gets louder every day, the part that cannot ignore the facts anymore that we are not doing anything to help the people on our floor. Put aside the fact that nearly everyone in the building makes more money than us, put aside the fact that the people of "authority" spend less that five minutes with each patient a day, and do not even pretend to actually care about them most of the time, and so much more put aside and you still have it there, spitting in your face: the health care system in this country is setting mental health consumers up for failure.

I work on an inpatient unit that is geared toward recovery and transitioning long term patients back into the community. I'm too focused on patient care to actually do the research and come up with the exact number, but I can tell you that it's something like 9/10 patients that come back. Based on that level of recidivism, how is our unit still funded? And better yet, why has nothing been done about the fact that it's clearly not doing what it's supposed to? Well, I have my theories, but that's for another time. With only a B.S., I'm pretty stuck for where I can work and actually pay my bills right now. But in my current situation, I'm not sure what's more broken, the U.S. mental health care system, or my heart tonight.