My experiences in the Mental Health care field

My experiences in the mental health care system spans about 1/2 of my life. My step-mother took me to a psychologist when I was in high school. I don't or haven't remembered that experience but was told I was being a difficult child.

1st- adult experience
college classroom-exercise meditation I experienced flashbacks of burying a stuffed dog, given to me by my classmates on my birthday the year my mother died. The memory of the funeral home and not being able to say good-bye. The limousine pulling away with my Dad and siblings in it. I left the classroom sobbing, I wasn't sure if it was real. My instructor comforted me and suggested therapy. I waited two months and then found myself locked in my room crying for two days straight. I couldn't stop I didn't know why and my son took care of his sister. My son finally called his Aunt (my youngest sibling) who took me to a physician. He prescribed a sedative and then Anti-depressants. He hooked me up with my first therapist. She told me that I must have been sexually molested. I thought about it, and it just didn't make sense. So when I tried to get her to discuss my Mom she kept trying to make me tell her of the sexual abuse. I quit taking the anti-depressants and stopped seeing her.

2nd 1996
I was hospitalized as I was suicidal. I remember saying "I don't want to kill myself I just want to die"
I learned I was passive aggressive
http://health.yahoo.com/centers/personality/000943.html
I learned that I was abused, up until that point I didn't like the fact that my father had chosen corporal punishment, but didn't realize it was abuse.
I realized I had made some good choices in my past, and that I needed to forgive myself for the not so good choices.
I learned that I have a tendency to have irrational thinking when presented with extreme stress.
Part of that experience was to be with my family. My Dad wouldn't come and my stepmother told my therapist about all my failures.
ie. A Home sharing program I developed and got a grant for through the Creative Options Program. While attending college, I was doing volunteer work at a local homeless shelter. I had to give back the money because I didn't have time to devote to the programs development. I left my research, over a years worth so that if someone else had the time it could be continued.
Single parent
She considers my not marrying a failure.
College Degree I was 12 credits shy of a degree in Ornamental Horticulture when I broke my ankle. The first week of classes. I had three outdoor labs, plant identification, surveying/landscape design, and turf grass management. My cast got wet three times cutting off blood circulation and had to be replaced. After a month it became painfully obvious I was too far behind and falling further. I asked for a medical withdrawal planning on returning the next fall to complete it. The clerk didn't document that it was medical, nor was I given the option of taking an incomplete.
Within that conversation my therapist knew what I was fighting. I felt like a failure nothing seemed to work out in my life. The things she sited as failures were in fact my attempt at personal growth and were not failures. He suggested I disassociate from my family to give myself time to work it out.

My experience in mental health care

Delano Clinic
Borgess Hospital
Kalamazoo

"I didn't want to kill myself I just wanted to die"

Group Therapy

Identified

Passive aggressive
Guilt
Skewed thinking


Diagnosis
Chronic Depression


Hadley Center Mental ward

Ludington

After having intense lower back pain for 6 months, not being able to work losing my/daughters home and being told I was overweight.
Herniated disc C6 and C7
Imploded Ovarian Cyst
Was told by physician the pain was in my head, and associated with my being obese. Undiagnosed Ovarian cyst imploded during MRI hemorrhaged for 1 month caused infection.
While hospitalized, I was dismissed from his practice Sept. 11th (NY terror) for not following through with his orders of physical therapy which could have paralyzed me.

Diagnosis
Chronic Depression
Scheduled appointment with neurosurgeon for surgery - disc fusion November, 2001
D&C while hospitalized and antibiotics for infection


Therapists

Too many to count

Each had the basic tenet of chronic depression. Each wanted to medicate me with anti-depressants. I would stay on the anti-depressant long enough to feel better, but because I did not change the learned behaviors I would find myself back in chaos. Wanting to get off the roller coaster, not knowing how.

After the stay at Hadley checking myself in as a mental patient when in all reality I needed Health care. I felt betrayed by the medical profession; I was angry and knew there had to be a way to recover. I again sought therapy and explained the whole story I was then re-diagnosed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It all made sense the miscues, the behaviors, my responses, the flash backs, the feelings of being on a roller coaster ride.
Since my surgeries, (I had 5) in 2001; my youngest child reached the age of 18 graduated from high school and is currently enrolled in college. Her father told me he would not help her in college if she chose to stay living with me. He is a Power and Control abuser. She is a very talented artist going to college for graphic design. After everything we went through in 18 short years, she has benefited from the knowledge about abuse, being in a domestic Violence Shelter and her witness of physical violence in her fathers home. (He assaulted his wife) She has been involved in Young Life a Christian based outreach program since middle school and is now a leader for Wyld Life talking with kids of middle school age. I felt ok about leaving her in the hopes her Dad would indeed help her with college and went to Kalamazoo in search of holistic* medicine.
My body is failing because of the weight of my emotional burdens. Due to my being disabled I receive State Assistance in the form of Medicaid. With budgeting problems I wasn't able to secure a holistic physician. I was also denied aqua aerobics as it isn't a covered benefit. Since my disc fusion and knee surgeries I can not exercise as I should, I have reached 300 lbs on my 5 foot 8' frame. I need to be in a location for healing of my body, mind and spirit. I found myself homeless in Kalamazoo and have to start over so I am going on this journey.


*Treating the mind and body together as a whole.

My journey has begun. I am currently in Colorado Spring's Colorado. I have collected stones all my life some pretty some because of there uniqueness. Since deciding to take this journey to self I began to research Indian healing, part of which is the use of healing stones. I made a pouch while here to carry them in. I visited the Garden of The Gods a natural rock garden that could have only been made by God. This area at the foothills of Pikes Peak, (which is beautiful in and of itself) is massive rock formations titled by men. I was awed by their beauty and asked the God who formed the Garden to guide me in my healing. I listened to the Pines and heard a bird in song.
In one section of the Garden you come over a hill and at the top of this small hill a valley falls out in front of you, I could picture what the first settlers saw and imagine a covered wagon or a lone Indian sitting drawing on the powers that formed the Gardens. I'm feeling nervous at my next stage of this journey as the next part is solo. I stopped and visited people I knew and now I am going on alone. To face my demons and the fears. Coincidences continue to occur and I can see that this Journey "is" what I am supposed to be doing.


The Sundance Center
for personal growth
Equine Assisted Therapy
sundancecenter.net