Month: October 2024

Every Day Is World Mental Health Day

Does it ever feel like everybody but mental health peers are super stoked for World Mental Health Day and mental health awareness week and suicide prevention month? Having bipolar, it’s just another day, just another week, and just another month, with the only noticable difference being a bump in the numbers of people telling me how “brave & inspirational” I am for talking so willingly about that part of my life that is bipolar.

Okay, I get it, it’s important to have the open conversation and I’m active in that conversation . Still, hubris be damned, I’m pretty cool the rest of the year, too, and I know this because my Mom told me how very special I am every day.

You should be praising my bravery every day!

Living with bipolar, for me every day is world mental health day for as long as I’m in this world.

© 2024 STEVE’S THOUGHTCRIMES

Our Brain, Our Choice: “Med Noncompliant” Is Inappropriate.

The term “med noncompliant” must never appear in a mental health peer’s medical records, and any psych provider who notes this in a peer’s medical record must be stripped of licensure and never be allowed to treat peers ever again.

Sure, that’s obviously hyperbolic, but it’s no less extreme than such front end loaded nonsense, that a peer must take psych meds or be branded as difficult, stubborn, and not serious about their treatment. Bite the big green weenie, you psych providers who use “med noncompliant” in a peer’s notes. You don’t make the choice for a peer and you have no authority over a peer’s treatment options and decisions.

It’s the peer’s decision on all treatment strategies. As a psych provider, you are like our mechanic. We tell you what’s wrong under the hood and you make recommendations based upon your professional training. You are a professional collaborative advisor and not a legal treatment guardian.

With few exceptions, notating “med noncompliant” is an inappropriate assessment that assumes an authority not given by the peer. It’s okay to notate something like “peer chose not to try meds at this time” because that is factual information useful to the peer in future treatment. It’s also the type of honest information useful to other providers, because when you write “med noncompliant” in a peer’s medical charts enough times that peer will fire you and find a new provider. This happens, providers being fired by the peer.

Recap: Never say a peer is “med noncompliant” for saying no to your medical advice. Medical advice is not one size fits all and it’s the absolute and ultimate choice of the peer whether to accept your medical advice.

Our brain, our choice. Simple.

© 2024 STEVE’S THOUGHTCRIMES 

Are therapists to blame for narcissists?

The people who go to therapy are overwhelmingly narcissists. Maybe not before beginning therapy but definitely after months of weekly therapy.

Week after week of nothing but talking exclusively about themselves for a full one hour. Therapists are conditioning and training people to talk only of themselves, to think only of themselves, to focus only on themselves. Want to know why we have so many narcissists in our modern world?

Blame therapists.

Keep reading . . .

By the by, I’m developing a master class named “Recognizing Obvious Satire and Parody for Dummies.”

This is “lesson one.”