Chapter 26: Returning to Work in the Mental Health Field

Certified Peer Support Specialist

That name for a job title and role came to my attention initially when I met with the folks at Community Empowerment Fund (CEF). I had been on both sides of the proverbial couch. I had been a therapist and then I went through a long period, about two decades where I had been faced with one nightmare after another and so many traumatic events.

A Peer Support specialist uses their lived experience to help others, to bring hope, to encourage self-advocacy. I had been on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) for about a decade and a half.

One of the online groups offered by the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health was a WRAP group - Wellness Recovery Action Plan. This was appealing since it suggested tools for coping with mental health challenges. The training was co-facilitated and one of the instructors was a Peer Support Specialist.

I noticed how this Peer Support Specialist (PSS) was sharing more about his life and mental illness experience than I had been used to hearing from professionals in the field.

Despite the transformative experience of support that began in the hospital, I still struggled with feeling shy and uncomfortable with myself and I doubted my value and self-worth. I had asked a nurse what I thought was an innocent question about whether she could tell if there was anything at all positive she noticed about me. Her response was that it was not proper to make such statements.

It is true that there were other factors that contributed to my low self-worth, self-esteem, and my shyness. However, part of it still had to do with the embarrassing lies on my permanent record. As much as mental health professionals are able to note disabilities and problems, which have a negative connotation, yet, they could not offer anything positive about a person without violating boundaries.

I did arrange to have a meeting with the instructor of the WRAP group who was a PSS to learn more about what a PSS does. Any opportunity to work in the field and help others seemed to be exactly what I wanted.

New Revelations about Myself

There had not been opportunities to explore non-binary gender identity ideas, roles, pronouns and other topics previously. At CEF, I met someone who used the pronouns they/them/their. Their gender expression was neither clearly male nor female.

It had not seemed like a topic that would create so much political backlash. Hadn’t we always considered gender stereotypes? Hadn’t we always talked about extreme masculinity? Tom boys were girls who acted like boys.

Who could have thought it would be so divisive? I remember from shows set made in the 70s and 80s where the styles of dress, hair and more were challenging the stereotypical gender roles.

I thought about my general nature. I didn’t go out of my way to express myself with clothing that was worn by women and I was not someone who was born with male body parts who felt like a female. Yet, much of what was typically associated with being a man or guy didn’t resonate with me.

Now there was a language for this.

Gender non-conforming or non-binary.

A part of me worried that this would not be perceived by others as genuine and I worried that someone might think that it was just one more reason that I made up to demonstrate that I would not have attacked Ana. It’s true that had I been a woman then things might have occurred differently. The gender biases would not have shaped my life around a false claim of violent behavior.

Yet, that case had ended long ago.

Becky, the student counselor who met with me, was the first to listen to me describe my thoughts about not feeling like I was masculine. She thought it was brave of me to share this and appreciated that I trusted her enough to share it with her. It seemed safe to talk to a counselor about this topic. There is an assumption of confidentiality.

In general, one talks to a counselor about things that are not commonly discussed with hardly anyone. Intimate matters. Private matters.

I don’t know how new the expanded focus on gender identity and sexual orientation was a part of the consciousness of people in society. I had been isolated for a long time.

I would also be able to reflect on various matters with Becky about psychology and psychotherapy. It was great for me. I reflected on how, if things had happened differently, I might have been a supervisor for her. I was still well informed about the theories and therapies, along with the science and skills that informed the practices of counselors and therapists.

I had long been a fan of life-long learning. The web was offering so many opportunities for this.

Continuing with the topic of gender identity that I discussed with Becky… Throughout the book, I have described ways in which I was soft. When I read “In a Different Voice” by the psychologist Carol Gilligan, that truly resonated with me. She, Carol Gilligan, described how girls will sometimes be more lenient about the rules in games of competition because they are attuned to the feelings of those who lose.

While this doesn’t rule out girls being bullies or mean, it did remind me of feelings I had as a child. Carol Gilligan was talking about girls and their experiences with game play. My concern for the feelings of others as a child could not be predicted by anything in particular.

I had rejected the violence of my mother as well. Again, she is a woman and yet men are more likely to be violent or aggressive. My father had assaulted me a few times, including punching me in the stomach in one memorable moment that my sister didn’t want to believe happened, when I mentioned it to her during this time period.

Even when I was pulled to stand up for myself as a boy or to engage in boxing with my friend, I had been afraid to hit him back… afraid of hurting him. Boxers do that but I just couldn’t. I could enjoy the “Rocky” movies, somehow, but I couldn’t do that. Rocky had even equated being a man with what he did. In one scene he asks his wife not to ask him not to be a man.

“Law & Order: SVU” was another influence that disturbed me with stories about how guys acted. Even though sexually based crimes are considered especially heinous, which they are, the show presented characters who were not all monsters or psychopaths. There were guys just being guys.

They sometimes felt that it would be okay to do it if a woman was semi-conscious. The guys found ways to justify it in their minds and to a jury. Defense attorneys argued whether a woman protested strongly enough or could she have wanted it and didn’t remember. A young man might assume that if things went far enough there was no way he could stop and it was unfair to make him think she didn’t want it.

It was disgusting to me.

What is so ironic and disturbing, and this is not the first time I had this thought, Ana had falsely accused me of a sexual crime or attempting something. With so many actual victims, she was pointing a finger at me!

Even in my own family, I got the impression that a wife was supposed to be available for her husband to meet his needs. It had never been that way with me.

None of this made any sense to me.

It wasn’t any one thing that made me feel like my gender identity was more feminine than masculine. I felt like I could relate better to women and their point of view.

A Public Case

Sarah and I had been talking about the hearings that occurred a couple of years earlier for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Like me, Sarah had believed Dr. Christine Blassey-Ford. Carrie, my sister, was blinded by the “politics.” It was great that not everyone is blinded by these things, as evident by my interactions with Sarah.

Sarah was shocked when I told her that Carrie wondered why I didn’t relate to Brett Kavanaugh having been falsely accused.

Did Carrie reject and think I would reject all claims of victimization by a woman just because one woman falsely accused me?!

It was sad and a chilling thought for women.

Here are the differences that are stark. Given the opportunity, I would have loved to see a real investigation done to clear my name. Brett had repeatedly rejected that opportunity when those on the “left” had offered the opportunity to let the FBI do a more extensive examination of the facts and evidence that Dr. Ford was presenting.

Brett had not gotten up there and pointed to his record of helping women who were victims of violent crimes to get justice. That could have been his parallel to me counseling and treating survivors/victims. He had never even mentioned Christine in his statement.

He seemed entitled and was complaining while he was being considered for a job and a career advancement. He already had a prestigious career as a judge.

The so-called bad people on the left were giving him a chance to clear his name. To retrace his steps.

Christine would be on record with a sworn testimony under oath and facing criminal penalties for making false claims.

One of the Republicans was brave enough to ask for a further investigation by the FBI. The “politics” would not change what kind of candidate was going to be on the Supreme Court. Despite the delay to do further investigation, we all knew that people in power would ensure that Brett got the job.

This was not a criminal trial. One might have assumed that they would start with Christine and try to verify her account to see if it matched her testimony. Yet, she was never asked to help. A Ms. Ramirez had a story about Brett at Yale a couple or few years after the alleged assault on Christine. This was very damning but it was reported that she was not contacted when the FBI was supposedly re-examining the background of Brett.

With the whole world watching, Christine told her story. I could see the idea of Carrie so close to her mother refusing to see Christine as someone just like our mother.

Brett was not claiming to be the victim. His testimony was full of anger and animosity towards anyone for even questioning his sense of entitlement. This would never be allowed by any defense attorney. Such a performance by an accused person would have been a gift to the prosecution.

I would have welcomed the FBI or anyone interviewing anyone who ever knew me in high school or college.

Brett’s name was a household name across the world and the way he left things, at least half the world believed he was guilty of heinous crimes. No, no, that would never do for me.

For me, I had hidden from anyone knowing about the mere accusation. However, if the accusation was mentioned, I would have leapt at any opportunity to have a full and complete investigation. My friend Sarah had been wondering if there was evidence in the property of the Durham police that would set me free, metaphorically speaking.

Brett’s daughter would be exposed to the accusations and what people thought about her father. How could he leave it that way?

It made no sense to me.

The differences were glaring. Even if I was angry at Ana or the detectives and the system, I would have known not to come across the way Brett did. Even when I got drunk I never became a person that was dangerous to anyone.

Breaking connections

I was always looking outside my own family for help. There was an overlap between starting to get some therapy with Becky and ending my therapy sessions with Andrea as she was retiring from the clinic where she was working.

At one point, I had asked her to reach out to my sister for some financial assistance to help me pay for the copay to keep up with regular sessions. My income was tight and I was needing to meet at least once a week with Andrea for the Eye Movement Deprogramming and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Andrea explained how my sister had said, “why can’t he just get a job.”

Andrea was trying to explain that Carrie, my sister, could not understand everything I had been through. She had no understanding of the challenges, the toxic shame, the loss, the suffering.

In fact, I was blaming her. She had done nothing. Gone on with her life as if everything was normal when I was in jail. None of my family doubted my innocence but they didn’t stand with me.

They didn’t care.

I had already drawn a line in the sand with my mother. My father died in 2015. We had already been distant. I had realized that in my darkest hours she had not been there in any way, shape or fashion.

Becky had used a metaphor of how when we push things down, it is like holding a beach ball underwater, it will come up eventually. I could see myself walking by the beach shore and the proverbial beach balls were bursting up out of the water, one after another and another. Each represents pain, anger, betrayal, abandonment, and suffering that I had held down while I maintained a relationship with my parents and Carrie.

I wrote an email to her about divided loyalties. She responded with a diatribe about how I had made so many bad choices in life. She told me that I should have gone to school in the evenings to get my graduate degree and that I owed it to my parents to work as an engineer.

What? They wanted me to give up my dreams and goals because they paid for an undergraduate degree? Carrie had taken away the appreciation I might have had for my parents giving me that degree. It has enabled me to get a graduate degree. Was a pre-med student throwing away their undergrad degree if they became a doctor and never worked as an engineer? I knew a pre-med student at Georgia Tech.

I had felt like a trophy that they wanted to show off. I was acceptable for showing what they had produced and my own interests took a back seat or were ignored.

It wasn’t even possible for me to get a graduate degree in social work taking more than maybe 4 classes part time. I also had to grow so much more in other ways. Yet none of that mattered.

This would be the final straw. I was about to break all ties with Carrie based on all that this email had revealed to me. None of my happiness or accomplishments were mentioned by her. She only remembered the time period when I struggled and that struggle was because I had no support from my family when I had sought the support. It wasn’t just financial support.

Carrie was using a metaphor and asking if I ever thought about how there are only so many times that you can go to a well and expect to find water. I told her that in all the time I had been to the well, I had never received any of the waters of compassion, support, or empathy. Just breadcrumbs.

So, I told her not to contact me again. She wasn’t to call me, email me, write to me or anything.

I also started writing my books. I wanted a record of my life and who I am to be recorded. I couldn’t leave my story to the people who I had thought were family and had known me since my childhood. I wanted a better story told.

I was writing my story - literally. Building a new life and seeing where it might lead.

A New Career Direction

After my discussion with a few Certified Peer Support Specialists (CPSS), I approached the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VR) and stated that I wanted to get my credentials as a CPSS.

I had already been working with VR who had assigned me a IPS worker (Individual Placement Services). This is a professional who supports people, with long term mental illnesses and similar problems or challenges, in finding employment.

I might have stayed up to date with lifetime learning but I had not worked in the mental health field in about two decades. I had let VR in Durham sway me towards web design and development in the aftermath of losing my licensure and my criminal charges. I had known as an undergraduate with the help of a psychologist, my counselor, that these technical pursuits were not a good match for me. Yet, I let myself go astray.

I had thought that no one would trust me. Now, I was emerging in a radically new way.

VR had concerns about whether I would run into challenges with my criminal record. We seemed to determine that many CPSS professionals have criminal records. Often, they have a history of drug and alcohol addiction and use. This leads to a range of different criminal charges. VR did agree to fund the training to obtain the certification and to continue to fund an IPS worker to help me find employment after I got the credentials.

During the training, met someone who had committed murder and spent about half his life in prison. He was going to be a CPSS. That would probably be a challenge.

During another training workshop that occurred over a weekend, I met people who had come from a background of recovery from drug addiction. I also met someone who had experienced Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This is a condition in which a person is poisoned by a parent or caretaker who gains some form of psychological gain through the support that is offered. The victims believes they are sick when they have been poisoned by the person who was entrusted with their protection and care.

I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach and that was strange. The stories of people who had addictions were not very relatable in one way or they should not have been. Yet, the treatment by my family was characterized by “tough love” and some sick form of waiting for me to hit bottom. That was the story they might have told.

They were probably embarrassed and cared more about appearances than standing by and protecting their first born son who bore the name of their father. In a way, it was as if I had been poisoned by their influence and through my interactions with them. It wasn’t something I physically ingested.

It was a psychological poison.

I had seen myself for so long as sick. Diseased. Disabled. I wanted to see myself differently from now on.