35 years a humanist in the voltaverse
medicine, work & heart strings
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I like the artist, but still:
[I like the artist...you get the point]
Pretty much
1997 - pretty sure now my sister played a joke on me that put me in therapy for the first time. Some guy named Bruce, was my mom and gram's (her mom's) therapist. Weird office. Little window. North Adams. Told him I was like a piece of cheese and my gram and mom's fighting was always tearing me apart. Berkshire Mental Health Systems
1997- 2000 - a lady named Glinda was assigned to me. Oz jokes. Mancala in the CT Plunkett cafeteria. Pulled out of class to talk about masturbation. That part happened when I was in foster care after my gram died. They had me in an after school program where a guy named Uriah was my "first boyfriend". Gave me a yellow heart magnet and a mood ring. Would pull me into rooms and kiss me on the cheek. My dad got custody eventually. I remember he took pictures of us hanging out on Mt. Greylock. Eventually the guy called me fat while we were playing pool at the after school therapy program and I broke up with him. I still think it's weird the adults didn't say hey what the fuck about it. And one of the women in that same program is who first asked me if I wanted to go to Milton Hershey School. I said yes without a clue about what it was. I was like 10.
August 2000 - June 2008
Milton Hershey School
I'm glad I was never sent to Philhaven or respite and it seems like a bad mix of theology and medicine for the kids I know who were. No one had a positive review of the mental health services. I was given a string of nameless student therapists who had me fill out bubble sheets and didn't listen to me for shit. Then when I was 16 I had a physical for swimming and they gave me my first [and only one of two] gyno visits. There were seven people in that room [copenhaver medical] and I said it was okay but I was just being compliant. It was super fucking painful and they couldn't finish - I was crying. The nurse at the window gave me an envelope with a blue piece of paper with clouds printed on it that read "past history of sexual abuse ?" along the top. No follow up.
Later in college of the student mentors from MHS would help me go back to college after medical leave but that's the most therapy help I ever got.
2008 - 2012
Therapist at Ithaca College was linked to the medical side as a team. The first doctor they gave me prescribed Effexor XR 75mg for PTSD, depression and anxiety. I was on that until I moved to Portland and officially became a cannabis medical patient and budtender.
Was assigned a different doctor after the first retired. In 2012 I got an inexplicable concussion and I'm pretty sure now someone hit me and knocked me out. I recently got another head injury and was bleeding but didn't pass out so the time back in 2012 must have been way harder.
2012-2016
I managed to go years feeling healthier than I ever felt before and didn't have a therapist - I was in love. Then I had a really bad job experience as a janitor and needed to find a free therapist. I thought they were cool, but they were a student and when they graduated I lost my therapist. They listened to what happened at the bad job and said it sounded "rapey".
2017 - 2018
People were so obviously fucking with me it's unbelievable and I ended up in a medical clinic. I remember being terrified because the guy nurse they sent out to do my intake was a customer at a store were I had worked. Gave the place "too small town" vibes.
They put me on medication that is known to be overprescribed and unnecessary. Zyprexa, olanzapine, clonodine. We should have just been advanced enough to work out a better cannabis regimen. Not being able to consistently afford high quality cannabis was a bigger problem than the cannabis itself would ever be. I still stand by cannabis as medicine and would pick that over something like electroshock therapy [I know other people who have been destroyed by it].
There is nothing wrong with me. People have been bullying me out of my own life.
The clinic gave me a reference to a free therapist who was by far the most bogus and worst of anyone I have ever talked to - they told me she was fired and encouraged me to let it go.
Ended up at the same clinic later after I wrongfully lost a job working at a dispensary where one of the co-workers directly said "our customers can have PTSD but we wouldn't want you to work here".
2025
The cool student therapist I had back in 2016 became available again - I couldn't afford them went they went private. They gave me a letter explaining my PTSD and need for accommodation- which is the most anyone has ever done besides the mentor who helped me go back and finish at Ithaca in 2012.
If you thought therapy sucks I wouldn't blame you. The world needs some kind of secular, transparent, free, trustworthy therapy. Would be happy to help but you'd have to actually listen to me.
Now it's just the same old routine where they can use it to throw someone away instead. I am inconvenient and bad for business - yeah, I'm well aware. I don't need a lobotomy, thanks. I needed real friends.
I'm not going anywhere
#ciacab
Find me here until I can't afford internet anymore (until there's an easier way to stream my fair use educational purpose art protest somewhere anyone can experience it without trying to take over my life itself):
