Category: Beyond Support Groups (Page 1 of 3)

The University Interviews: Mental health peers to mental health providers.

October 7, 2023 /

In the months to come, STS is interviewing a number of peers pursuing university degrees in the mental health field. The unique challenges of college education for peers are illustrated in their experiences and stories shared, including how existing accommodations must improve to ensure peer success in their studies.

It’s a growing community of mental health peers returning to college to become mental health providers. There is a built-in benefit in this trend: Mental health peers taking primacy in the mental health provider market results in ongoing successful treatment for peers. Peers treating peers just makes sense.

Encouraging enough peers to enter degree programs is difficult, though, because these programs continue to lack properly enforced scholastic accommodation for the unpredictable nature of symptomatic episodes. The “wash out” rate is significant because the structure of degree programs value benchmarks and expected completion scheduling over the individual needs of candidates.

While university accommodation services are more available, the parameters are so ill-defined by administration and repercussions for non-compliance by educators is so inadequate, scholastic accommodations for mental health peers are easier to ignore than honor.

A prime concern is mental health peers aren’t involved in developing scholastic accommodations. Having peers develop mental health degree program scholastic accommodations for successful completion and graduation is critical, and not as an abstract talking point for consideration, this is required right now and going forward.

Given a choice, peers choose providers who implicitly understand with a unique-to-peers lived-experience empathy. And we peers deserve more providers who are peers. The time is right to change things up. Let’s create an ongoing education environment to support mental peer students. The upcoming interviews have lots of excellent insight on just how to do this.

Conspiracy theorists and mental health peers share a strong similarity.

September 22, 2023 /

Conspiracy theorists are upset that their views are dismissed and they thesmelves are marginalized. I say this is an excellent dynamic and I’ll tell you why, as a mental health peer advocate.

When I first started this peer advocacy thing – ten years ago – and began attending community behavioral health meetings in New Mexico, I was continuously “complimented” by others for “being so articulate… for a peer.” Yes, this is incredibly ignorant, biased, discriminatory, and just plain mean, and I could have gotten upset and demanded peers be treated with professional and basic human respect.

But I didn’t.

Why? Because as long as these minimizing well-wishers underestimate peers, we can get through all sorts of necessary change with little bureaucratic pushback. Being seen as intellectually deficient and less capable is a stigma worth capitalizing upon. So I did and I encourage fellow peer advocates to do the same.

The point is:

Let the world underestimate you for as long as they allow. Being called a conspiracy theorist is a gift to your ambitions and goals.

Now, my conspiracy theorist friends, a number of your ideas seem absolutely whack to me, but that’s a good thing. I take you seriously AND I think you’re nuts (at times). Folks like me are primed to accept your conclusions when we’re shown otherwise and logical proof. And to let you in on an observation, theorists friends. You’re more right that wrong, it just takes most of us longer to catch up.

So being tagged as a conspiracy theorist is a gift, not an insult. Let it ride. And, you can perpetuate their self-constructed myth even further with primely chosen words. For example:

Mental health community stakeholder: “Steve, you’re so articulate FOR A PEER.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what half of those words mean.”

Just know going in, invariably the gift is rescinded when they figure you out. This gift to peers hasn’t been available to me for years. In fact, I’m seen as “too functional,” and because of this, mental health colleagues either didn’t recognize or simply ignored that I was falling into a seriously dangerous suicidal episode by volunteering to help the Albuquerque Police Department. But that’s a different tale for another time.

For now, always keep this chestnut cliche firm to the chest, ready at mind, and primed at the fore: Self-care, self-care, self-care! And this is a great number of articles for another time.

And again, let them underestimate you. It’s a great way to get things done with little resistance.

What was funny then is cringe-worthy now thanks to growth, evolution, and wisdom.

August 15, 2023 /

Do people change over the course of a decade or more? Let’s explore this with a joke I wrote about recently deceased musician Amy Winehouse in 2011.

When this joke was posted to Facebook in 2011 I laughed myself silly at how clever a comic I was. At the time that iteration of myself had limited experience with co-occuring peers, as in no experience with co-occuring peers at all. I read the post now in 2023 and I cringe reflexively and morally scold myself.

It’s never too soon for a joke and someone being offended by my joke isn’t a mitigating control. What makes this cringe-worthy now is I’ve had many co-occuring friends in my life since 2011, many peers at odds with addiction and mental illness. Five years of presenting Laugh It Off to peers inpatient at Turquoise Lodge Hospital gifted me insight into what it’s like living with addiction, and, yes, while it’s excellent to laugh at the horrible experiences of being a peer (the crux of Laugh It Off, that laughing at the horrible stuff takes back the power the horrible stuff holds over us), it’s simply never acceptable to take joy in a peer losing their life to their addiction.

So I’m morally scolding myself through the lens presentism. This isn’t the same as apologizing for the Amy Winehouse joke because the notion “I should’ve known better back in 2011” holds no weight or relevance. It’s like Disney firing James Gunn (writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy) for a rape joke he made on Twitter over a decade before. Because he should’ve known better as a younger version of himself that joke would be cringe-inducing a decade later. And he should’ve known he’d be working for Disney. And maybe this isn’t the best example because Disney had to eat racist Dumbo crow and hire Gunn back to do Guardians 3 under threat of boycott by the principle cast. And now Gunn is the head of the DC Cinematic Universe. So he came out great with opportunities never presented had Disney not fired him over a flippant decade old post.

Okay, backtracking out of the rabbit hole, the point to laser in on is people’s attitudes and beliefs evolve over their lifetime, and this is borne of life experiences reshaping bits and pieces of their worldview. And often upon retrospection – in my case here because Facebook Memories remember forever and every year remind me of this – I’ll revisit a prior version of myself and think, “Dude, it’s sure a good thing I don’t think like that anymore, and thank every star above I’ve grown as a person.”

In 2011, a celebrity succumbing to substance addiction didn’t register in any real way. It was an abstract to riff upon as something jokey and fun. Twelve years later in 2023, I’ve witnessed too many friends and their lives impacted by addiction to ever find mirth in their pain. Growth and evolution of attitudes and beliefs is the core of the human experience. Poking fun at addiction isn’t acceptable joke fodder for me any longer, because my life experiences over twelve years are now wisdom unavailable when Amy Winehouse lost her life to her addiction.

Proof positive: The majority of Hunter Biden memes fall flat with me. Good on you, Steve. Here’s a self-earned self-administered pat on the back. Keep up the good work and I’ll see you in twelve years for the next round of “Dude, wh

Why I didn’t and won’t watch Breaking Bad

July 25, 2023 /

It’s appreciated just how excellent a program Breaking Bad is. I didn’t watch it and I won’t watch it for this very simple and singular reason:

It’s a show that dramatizes drug culture.

The stuff I do in peer co-occuring advocacy gifts me with friends whose lives are severely and significantly damaged by illicit drugs like meth. Dramatizing drug culture isn’t necessarily condoning, glorifying, or celebrating drug culture. However, it’s impossible for me to watch a show like Breaking Bad without reflecting on the horrible life stories my friends shared with me. This negates anything pleasurable and enjoyable about watching the show. So I didn’t and I won’t.

And that Breaking Bad was filmed in Albuquerque makes it even more tangible, the literal recognizable physical setting of my friends’ life experiences.

I have an irritated good friend insisting I watch Breaking Bad, pointing out it’s about more than meth culture, that it’s about character development and character interaction. He insists if I give the show a chance I would understand this.

I asked him a single question: Does the show utilize meth production and sales as a central plot point throughout the series? The answer is of course “yes.” Returning to my first principle reason for not watching the show, because it is based upon dramatizing drug culture I won’t watch Breaking Bad. Flatly and immutably.

Call me stubborn if need be. I don’t feel my personally earned principles are open for debate. And I appreciate just how excellent a program Breaking Bad is.

Starting psych meds and remaining suicidal – or – Starting psych meds and only then becoming suicidal.

July 25, 2023 /

Last week’s thrifting found two DVDs from a medical-sounding production company directly funded by the Church of Scientology. These DVDs are candid interviews and group discussions with parents who lost a child to suicide. Viewing the material a few times, I recognized this logical pattern.

1.) Child is depressed and suicidal.

2.) Parent chooses to take child to medical provider.

3.) Medical provider prescribes antidepressant.

4.) Child begins med regimen.

5.) Soon after, the child suicides, by these accounts within days of starting the med regimen.

6.) The medical provider and their prescription is to blame for the suicide.

This logic troubles me greatly. As a peer who has cycled through many different antidepressants, I can attest to the dreaded “it’ll take two to four weeks to see if it even works.” And in this efficacy lag time, quite often I remained suicidal.

No antidepressant I’ve taken has ever worked within days.

Based on my experience and my understanding of psych meds, the query is plain:

Did the medication cause the child’s suicide, or did the child continue to be suicidal as before starting the medication?

The Church of Scientology is infamous for their outspoken denouncement of psych meds, and aggressively so. For DBSA and STS, Craigslist was a great way to reach peers in search of a peers support group. Well, the local Scientologists messed that up for everyone by overposting. Now, no peer support group posts are allowed.

You see, the church posted daily dozens of “support group notices” of the ilk:

“Do you have anxiety? Come to our support group.”

“Do you have depression? Come to our support group.”

“Do you have bipolar? Come to our support group.”

“Do you have PTSD? Come to our support group.”

“Do you have insomnia? Come to our support group.”

“Do you have an eating disorder? Come to our support group.”

And onwards.

There was no accompanying contact info, just an address … which was the local office for the church. I dropped in once in curiosity and upon arriving I was near immediately asked if I was prescribed psych meds and given literature similar to the DVDs I watched this week.

There were no support groups.

What’s so troublesome to me is how hazardous this tactic is, using manipulative illogic to dissuade peers from exploring every option available, in this case psych meds.

Don’t give your suicidal child psych meds because I did and it made my child kill themselves.

I asked the plain question earlier, was it the psych med that pushed the child to suicide or did the child remain suicidal and end their life in that dreaded two to four week lag time?

The answer is also plain. The child remained suicidal. Some will take this as me being insensitive and ignorant, which if you know me and my advocacy efforts you’ll know is not true.

What I find concerning is using correlative illogic to convince peers psych meds are universally deadly. How can that be? There are millions of peers making use of psych meds who are alive and healthy, their lives more successful and joyful in part from having the choice of psych meds available to them. This includes me.

We’ll never find a DVD of interviews with parents whose child has benefitted from psych meds. Like Yelp, reviewing activity is skewed greatly towards complaints and not praise. To take a (thankfully and blessedly) small population of family tragedies and claim this represents inherent danger is knowingly irresponsible.

How can I know this? Because if psych meds were as damaging as claimed, the pharmaceutical manufacturers would have been out of business decades ago.

This is plain logic that makes good sense.

My feelings on psych meds and treatments options for mental illness is consistent and transparent. Peers benefit the most from having as many choices as possible available. For my wellness, I am alive because of the choices I made in my treatment, and this includes choosing to have a psych med regimen.

It is responsible to encourage and promote support for all existing choices and the creation of new choices. Peers benefit from having choices.

And to be balanced, this includes choosing not to take psych meds.

Announcing DBSA Albuquerque’s partnership with Stand Up To Stigma!

December 10, 2018 /

DBSA Albuquerque is excited to announce our partnership with Stand Up To Stigma, LLC. This collaboration ensures our support groups and chapter members continue to benefit from the education programs Stand Up To Stigma (SUTS) offers to our communities, to help empower DBSA Albuquerque peers by offering their voices to the community, and to broaden our peer support groups to communities not currently served by our standing weekly meetings.

Stand Up To Stigma is a peer-run and peer-owned company bringing peers to our community to share their life experiences and stories living with mental health challenges through a number of education programs. The goal is helping others understand the peer experience because through education and understanding, the biases, prejudices, and stigmas surrounding peers are acknowledged as real and exposed as falsehoods.

We are looking forward to our continued close collaboration with Stand Up To Stigma and all the benefits this partnership brings to peers and our communities.

DBSA Albuquerque and Stand Up To Stigma strongly believe that . . .

Stigma Is Temporary

Advice for Muggles concerning AOT

December 4, 2018 /

This will be one of the shortest articles I offer on Thoughtcrimes, and it is special advice for the Muggles in the audience.

When it comes to AOT (Assisted Outpatient Treatment), rather than trying to convince peers AOT isn’t forced treatment try sharing what AOT can do to benefit peers instead.

Start the conversation with:

I appreciate you feel AOT is forced treatment, and there might be benefits to peers being overlooked. I’d like to share my thoughts with you.

This will require some homework and analyzing AOT from a peer perspective. I feel we’re worth the effort.

You’re welcome.

Reprinted with kind permission from Steve’s Thoughtcrimes.

Opinion: Why would our chapter decline funding?

April 2, 2018 /

In my time on the DBSA Albuquerque board, twice has our chapter declined large funding opportunities.  It might seem counterintuitive for a self-funded volunteer organization to turn down any donation, much less sums of $35,000 and $50,000. These were in no way easy decisions for our board, and both instances and board decisions are predicated on a single inescapable principle:

DBSA Albuquerque is first and foremost a peer support group, and anything that potentially threatens the safety, confidentiality, and fidelity of the group must be discouraged.

This can mean any number of things. In the past, we’ve dismissed disruptive peer members who were so obnoxious and bullying they were driving off other peer members. This is a very clear and easily-understood concept and rationale.

But what about funding? How does money threaten the safety, confidentiality, and fidelity of peer support groups? The answer might be surprising, although it is equally clear and easily-understood.

It depends on where the money is coming from.

Let’s talk of the $35,000 our chapter declined and why. First off, the funding was being obtained from a “grant writer”, and the grant writer was taking a percentage of the amount collected. This is horribly unethical. Grant writers traditionally and ethically write their fee into the grant.

Secondly, we were not allowed to meet this grant writer, nor were we given information on what grant or grants were applied to in the name of our chapter. So, the source of the money was a mystery.

After some careful, discrete inquiries, it turned out this money was being spearheaded by a state politician who supported and helped draft legislation unpopular with peers, namely Assisted Outpatient Treatment, AOT, aka “Kendra’s Law.” Many peers hear “AOT” and reflexively say “Forced Treatment.”

Through board discussion, we agreed that accepting these funds was tantamount to stating DBSA Albuquerque supports AOT legislation, and by extension the peers attending DBSA Albuquerque support groups. As a board, we have no right to speak on behalf of peer attendees to our support group.

The DBSA Albuquerque board felt accepting this funding was the same as buying peer endorsement of legislation either unpopular with or harmful to peers.

A similar logic was applied to the $50,000 offered our chapter. While the intent is pure and the cause noble, this funding was made available through a court settlement in relation to why the Department of Justice is auditing and monitoring Albuquerque Police Department use of force treatment of peers in crisis. Again, accepting this money can be seen as peer endorsement, and more importantly . . .

Through negligence or circumstance, APD will be held over the coals for a use of force violation in relation to a peer in crisis, and this has great potential to raise the visibility of our chapter and by extension peer support groups in media and meetings.

In addition, numerous peers at our groups have had poor relations and experiences with law enforcement, and if these peers feel our chapter is in direct collaboration with law enforcement, they will not come to our support groups any longer. I can say this with 100% authority. A group of peers left DBSA Albuquerque and formed their own peer support group because of my personal involvement with APD training.

Peers come first. And the purpose of DBSA Albuquerque is to hold peer support groups where peers feel safe talking openly in an environment free of public scrutiny and attention.

I’m uncertain if prior DBSA Albuquerque administrations gave this magnitude of consideration to accepting donations and funding. I feel it is a necessary debate and is a respectful consideration of the peers who attend our support groups.

If peers don’t feel safe and welcome, they won’t attend. And that defeats the purpose of DBSA Albuquerque peer support groups.

Steve Bringe, Vice preisdent, DBSA Albuquerque

Friday March 30 is International Bipolar Day! Come Laugh About It!

March 29, 2018 /

This Friday, join us at 6:30 PM at the Taylor Ranch/Don Newton Community Center before our support group for a special presentation of the Stand Up To Stigma education event “Laugh It Off.”

“Laugh It Off” is weekly presented at Turquoise Lodge Hospital, as well as individual events over the last year. Oddly, we’ve never actually presented to DBSA Albuquerque. So, what better day that International Bipolar Day?

DBSA Albuquerque president Sarah Salway and DBSA Albuquerque vice president Steve Bringe will be our comics for the night. The idea for “Laugh It Off” is to laugh about the horrible things that have happened in our lives as a result of our mental health symptoms, and if you can laugh at the horrible things, it takes away some of the power these horrible things have over us.

“Laugh It Off” begins at 6:30 PM and ends at 6:50 PM.

Our regular support groups at 7 PM, as usual.

I’ve been led to believe DBSA Albuquerque treasurer will have cake for us. Yum! Cake!

 

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