WEST CHESTER — Help!

You are young, fighting mental illness and your parents can’t afford insurance or you are on medical assistance.

Leslie Holt, founder and director of A Child’s Light is there to help while working toward a solution.

Leslie Holt looks at a photo of her late daughter who was an inspiration for A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIANEWS GROUP)

A Child’s Light funds trauma-informed, private mental health treatment for children ages 2-18 and has served 150 children to access long-term treatment.

“ACL funds kids who have been victims of sexual or physical violence, trafficking, loss of parents to fentanyl poisoning and other life-altering trauma,” Holt said Tuesday morning during an interview at the new offices of A Child’s Light at 1444 Phoenixville Pike, in a cottage located on the property adjacent to Treehouse World.

A Child’s Light has been operational since 2019 and opened the doors to the new office in June of 2023.

The 501(c)3 not-for-profit serves families from the Pottstown to Parkesburg areas and everywhere in between.

A great place for therapy at A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIAENEWS GROUP)

ACL partners with therapists who understand the huge need for childhood mental health providers and the challenges families in Chester County face. With a waitlist approaching two years, Holt has developed another business model to help children who have suffered the worst types of abuse.

“Severe trauma is life-altering and our children and community deserve more,” she said. “We are investing in our kids.”

Holt knows of what she practices. She was a victim’s advocate for five years and was able to see firsthand the inefficiencies in the systems in place to help little victims.

Needy kids receive therapy at A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIANEWS GROUP)

“This is not something specific to Chester County,” she said. “Across the US there is a childhood mental health crisis.”

Holt’s personal and professional life coincided with her own daughter’s sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted friend who bought her alcohol when she was 14 and encouraged her to drink to blackout. This one incident changed her daughter’s life forever.

Suffering from the attack and chronic Lyme disease pain, her daughter was poisoned by 3 methyl-fentanyl given to her without her knowledge and died. The daughter’s death was instrumental in the development of A Child’s Light and in her passion for helping little ones who suffered as she had from abuse.

“Seeing my daughter bravely struggle, I don’t want any other children to struggle as my daughter did,” Holt said.

The Phoenixville Pike facility hosts the Great Room where support groups and therapists meet with families. A huge picture window looks out onto Valley Creek and a whimsical treehouse can be seen from the backyard. The facility with much natural sunlight is located down a driveway in the back of Treehouse World. Wood floors and beams welcome clients and staff.

The Stone Room is a comfy, private space for one-on-one therapy and looks out to an abundance of beautiful mature trees.

“This is the type of environment that kids should come to for therapy!” Holt said while talking about the faculty in general. “Isn’t this space warm and inviting and not at all like a regular therapist’s office?

“What child wouldn’t want to come to therapy here?”

Plans call for adding art therapy in the fall, at a sun-filled room opening to a slate patio along with music therapy and boxing for empowerment and building self-esteem.

A Child’s Light is excited to welcome other children, while other professionals serve in the building, including Confident Parenting, 2BeSocial, and Imago OT, to its second floor.

A Child’s Light is honored to be the designated recipient of proceeds raised by this year’s Paoli Blues Fest on Sept. 30 at Wilson Farm Park. This event is open to all with food trucks and there will be activities for kids from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information and to support A Child’s Light, go to www.childslight.com or call 610-405-2968.

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Even though it’s been three years since the pandemic started, student mental health is still a big concern for lawmakers, and they wanted to make sure it’s supported for this new school year.

The state issued $15 million in grants for mental health specialists to 72 districts across the state for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 school years. This has been funded through the state’s American Rescue Plan Act funds, according to a press release.

Total payments for schools in New London and Windham Counties receiving the grant include:

• $220,279 for the Bozrah School District

• $160,698 for the Canterbury School District

• $167,400 for the Columbia School District

• $324,000 for the East Lyme School District

• $232,000 for the Groton School District

• $193,050 for the Integrated Day Charter School in Norwich

• $297,909 for the Interdistrict School for Arts and Communications in New London

• $162,000 for the Killingly School District

• $209,774 for the Lebanon School District

• $230,709 for the Montville School District

• $133,397 for Norwich Free Academy

• $162,00 for the Plainfield School District

• $139,860 for the Preston School District

• $162,000 for the Putnam School District

• $240,300 for the Scotland School District

• $279,342 for the Sterling School District

• $114,750 for the Stonington School District

• $162,000 for Woodstock Academy

• $67,905 for the Voluntown School District, and

• $162,000 for the Windham School District, according to the press release.

There were also grants awarded in August for student mental health in the summer, meant to last three years. Recipient schools in New London and Windham Counties include $46,800 for the Groton School District, $120,398 for the Killingly School District, $108,333 for the Norwich School District, $40,500 for the Plainfield School District, $40,500 for the Scotland School District, $33,418 for the Sterling School District, and $70,046 for the Windham School District, according to a press release.

How grant funds will be used

Lebanon will use its funds to increase its social worker count from two to three, so one person can be in each of the district’s buildings. Though this is a convenience, it’s more important to ensure the mental health needs of students are being met, Lebanon Superintendent Andrew Gonzalez said.

“It doesn’t seem like much, but in a small district like Lebanon, it’s going to make a big difference,” he said.

The Norwich Free Academy seal on the school floor.

Before this funding, one of the social workers was split between the middle and elementary school, but increasing need became too much for one person to manage schools. There would be times families would want to speak to the social worker, but they weren’t available. The families were directed to the school psychologist or building principal instead, Gonzalez said.

The pandemic brought student mental health needs to light, and it’s important for the government to support these services, Gonzalez said.

“If our students aren’t feeling safe or welcomed in our schools, they’re not going to be able to focus on academics or building relationships,” he said.

Norwich Free Academy will use funds to support existing programs

Norwich Free Academy is still finalizing its plans for the money, but it will continue to support existing efforts. Currently, the school employs four school psychologists, six social workers, and 12 school guidance counselors, and is looking for another, Communications Director Mike O’Farrell stated in an email.

“We have support teams for each grade, and work collaboratively to support the needs of our students,” he stated.

Anxiety, trauma, emotional dysregulation and poor decision making related to social media are top concerns reported among NFA students. With this demand,  the school needs to continue having mental health resources available, as community resources often have waiting lists, O’Farrell stated.

“We need to continue to collaborate with our community partners and work together to support our students and families,” he stated. “We need to foster relationships with families and connect families to community resources in the best way possible to help our kids.”

Three years after the pandemic, there are still schools around the state that don’t have all their students back in person. Supporting mental health services is a way for the districts to continue bringing students back to in-person learning, and address issues for the students and families at an convenient location. Mental health became an underground issue over the years, so it needs to be brought forward again and be addressed, State Senator Cathy Osten said.

“If we are going to recognize mental health, we have to recognize that it needs resources, and (student mental health grants) provide these resources,” she said.

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Connecticut funding student mental health around the state

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A team from the Yale School of Public Health will use the grant to offer their evidence-based therapeutic tools to community centers across the country.

Richard George

3:07 am, Sep 08, 2023

Yale Athletics

With a $4 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Yale researchers are seeking to offer new therapeutic interventions to LGBTQ+ community centers across the country. 

The five-year grant, which was announced in a press release last week, will support research by John Pachankis, who is a professor of public health, and his team at Yale’s LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative. The team will administer novel LGBTQ+ affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy to over 90 community centers and 540 mental health providers across the United States.

“LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT recognizes LGBTQ+ people’s exposure to identity-related stressors,” Pachankis said, speaking about a form of psychological treatment called cognitive behavioral therapy. “It teaches LGBTQ+ people to undo harmful legacies that led them to be more ashamed, and replace them with new, empowered ways of thinking and being.” 

Pachankis and his team hope to use the NIMH grant to compare different methods of educating providers on LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT. They will evaluate the therapy’s effectiveness alongside other factors including cost and competence. 

Pachankis’s research on LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT finds that a client’s reactions to “minority stressors” — negative emotional experiences like hypervigilance, concealment and fear — are caused by stigma against queer people. This stigma can stem from harmful personal interactions or larger structural changes targeting the queer community, such as the rise of legislation blocking access to health care for transgender individuals. Mental health providers trained in LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT ask questions about clients’ past to help them reflect on why they experience negative emotions to improve their self-esteem.

“The identities we have and the prejudices people have about them have real and tangible consequences for people’s health,” Skyler Jackson, an assistant professor of public health and a clinical psychologist with the Initiative, said. “One of the distinguishing factors of our approach is the use of best practices in psychotherapy honed in on the areas, issues and challenges we know queer people face due to previous anti-LGBTQ+ stigma.” 

The team’s LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT is the only evidence-based approach in addressing the mental health challenges of the queer community. From their initial research to putting that research into practice, Pachankis and his team have acknowledged the wide diversity of the queer community. LGBTQ+-affirming CBT encourages providers to approach clients’ multiple identities with cultural competence, curiosity and tailored questioning.

“LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT has an explicit focus on intersectionality,” Pachankis said. “It recognizes that people and identities are complex and shaped by intersecting structural and social conditions.”

Through the therapy, providers and clients recognize the clients’ diverse identities beyond their sexual orientation or gender identity to pinpoint the causes of their struggles. According to Jackson, identifying these sources of shame encourages clients to be proud of themselves. 

Danielle Chiaramonte, an associate research scientist and community psychologist with the initiative, told the News that LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT is a popular mental health approach.  “Therapists can feel confident in the treatment they provide, and there are people all over who are interested in it.” 

LGBTQ+ community centers, many of which were created to help respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis, have transformed into primary healthcare centers that provide comprehensive services. By implementing evidence-based practice, Pachankis said that his team believes community centers can improve their mental health divisions through federal funding and external support. The team insists that working with local community centers will spark sustainable change that impacts providers, clients and the wider queer community. 

“Community centers are doing the work that the rest of society isn’t,” Pachankis said. “They provide care to those who are uninsured, people of color, transgender. They are on the frontlines of addressing mental health needs of the LGBTQ+ community members at the greatest risk.”

With the grant’s help, Pachankis said his team hopes to accelerate bringing LGBTQ+-affirmative CBT to the real world. By supplying workers in community centers with evidence-based therapeutic tools, the Initiative aims to build a more informed group of mental health providers. 

“Initiatives like this are crucial to ensure that LGBTQ individuals receive the support they need and help increase access to lifesaving, medically necessary care,” said Samuel Byrd, director of Yale’s Office of LGBTQ Resources. “This five-year grant will undoubtedly make a significant impact in addressing mental health disparities within our community and providing evidence-based care to those who may not have had access before.”

Ultimately, Pachankis said his team understands that their research will not completely solve discrimination against the LBGTQ+ community. 

Still, he said, they hope to empower queer people to cope and confront their current realities.

“We are committed to building a world that works for all of us,” Jackson affirmed. “We need to arm queer people with armor to navigate a world that is still unfair and unjust. We need to give LGBTQ+ people all that they can to survive and thrive.”

The Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative was founded in 2013. 

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For Angela Graham, it all started eight years ago.

Nearly two decades of encountering disturbing scenes while on the job triggered extreme anxiety, nightmares and uncontrollable anger in the retired Santa Clara County firefighter. She tried talk therapy, medication and a treatment that involves moving one’s eyes in a specific pattern while processing traumatic memories called EMDR.

But none of it really worked for her.

Then, through an acquaintance, Graham discovered a clinic in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, that offers guided psychedelic trips with mushrooms and DMT to help people heal from mental health problems. The psychedelic journey she took last year felt like “being turned inside out” — and jumpstarted her road to recovery.

“You know, I’m not a hippie,” said Graham, who retired in June after 17 years. “But they might have been on to something.”

The experience was so life-altering and cathartic that it pushed Graham to form the S.I.R.E.N. Project, which funds psychedelic trips for Bay Area first responders who are seeking alternative ways to treat their mental health issues.

Angela Graham co-founder of the S.I.R.E.N. Project on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, in Gilroy, Calif. Graham, a retired Santa Clara County firefighter started the nonprofit to provide funding for first responders seeking psychedelic treatment for mental health issues like PTSD. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) 

Graham co-founded the nonprofit with her husband, an active firefighter who has yet to announce his involvement publicly out of fear it could jeopardize his job. They will have sent 15 firefighters, a spouse of a firefighter and a police officer on psychedelic journeys by the end of the year.

Though some states and cities have loosened laws around certain psychedelics, many are still listed as Schedule 1 drugs, which the federal government has determined have no current accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. The S.I.R.E.N. Project sends first responders to Mexico — where the laws are not as strict — and a church in Texas that is legally allowed to hand out the medicine through an exemption in the laws.

The couple has poured their own money into the nonprofit, along with outside funding from a secretive and well-known tech billionaire whose name they wouldn’t share. Each trip costs between $2,000 and $5,000. The active duty first responders who participate have not informed their departments since there is often a zero-tolerance drug policy. However, two retired firefighters involved in the nonprofit agreed to talk to the Mercury News.

Graham’s project comes amid a renewed scientific movement to push psychedelics further into mainstream medicine and as more first responders face mental health crises.

State Sen. Scott Wiener also is trying to pass SB 58, which would decriminalize certain psychedelics. In an interview, Wiener said he’s known people personally who have benefitted from them — and his goal with the legislation is to “reduce the stigma” around their use.

But a group called the California Coalition for Psychedelic Safety and Education wants Wiener’s bill to include more guardrails around personal use so that the drugs don’t get into the hands of those who could be harmed.

Lisa Hudson, a member of the coalition, lost her son in 2020 after he took mushrooms. Thinking he could fly, 16-year-old Shayne Rebbetoy jumped off the family’s 40-foot-tall deck in San Anselmo and plunged to his death. Hudson said she’s listened to and supports those who have benefitted from the drugs — like the first responders — but thinks the state is moving too quickly.

Lisa Hudson holds a photograph of her son Shayne Rebbetoy in her home on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023, in San Anselmo, Calif. At age 16 Rebbetoy took a dose of psychedelic mushrooms that ended up resulting in his death. Hudson and a coalition of other California residents are raising concerns about SB58, a bill that would decriminalize certain psychedelics in California. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) 

“They got their lives back, and that’s incredible, but they were in a safe and controlled therapeutic setting. But that’s not all this bill does,” said Hudson. “The bill as currently written legalizes recreational use and is a recipe for more heartbreak. More loss. More deaths. Kids will never be the same.”

Though researchers have studied psychedelics for decades — and indigenous communities have used them for millennia — it’s generally accepted that UCLA psychiatrist Charles Grob spun the wheels in motion for more recent scientific inquiries to emerge after his small study of cancer patients with advanced-stage cancer showed promising results for combatting anxiety.

That opened the door for research at other top American universities to study their efficacy in combatting PTSD, depression and addiction. There are some hypotheses as to why psychedelics may help with those ailments. Some think it puts the brain in a state in which it can form new thought patterns, but multiple researchers at Bay Area universities who are conducting clinical trials said in interviews it’s too early to tell what’s really going on.

“There are people who think it’s all just the drug and everything else is sort of a happy accident,” said Dr. Boris Heifets, who runs a lab at Stanford that investigates the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. “And there are other groups of people that think this is an experience-dependent thing. Where it doesn’t even matter how the drug works, per se, just that you have an intense experience and that in the context of preparation and integrating those experiences, that’s really what catalyzes psychological transformation.”

Stanford University professor Boris Dov Heifets with an image of a mouse brain from a mouse treated with MDMA as part of a study to understand how MDMA fosters social connection, on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023 at Stanford University. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group) 

The latest trend toward the use of psychedelics also coincides with a rise in mental health crises among first responders.

A 2021 study that examined data from the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance System revealed that firefighters are 72% more likely to commit suicide than the general working population. A heightened risk was also found among EMTs and law enforcement officers.

The S.I.R.E.N. Project’s Graham knows of seven California first responders who have taken their lives — and explained that firefighting isn’t just putting out blazes but responding to emergency medical situations, many of which can be brutally traumatic. On top of that, the rigid and still largely macho culture within some fire departments doesn’t always encourage opportunities to be open about one’s mental health struggles.

For retired Mountain View firefighter Wade Trammell, his three-decade career was like a slow war that brought him to a breaking point.

Retired firefighter Wade Trammell, of Danville, worked as a firefighter with the Mountain View Fire Department for 29 years and retired in 2015. Trammell suffers from PTSD and participated in a psychedelic treatment in Mexico that he says helped him heal from his PTSD. He was able to get access to the treatment through nonprofit organization called SIREN which was started by a South Bay firefighter couple. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group) 

He witnessed many gory and devastating scenes, but one in particular shook him to his core.

It was an early summer morning and Trammell and his crew responded to a semi-truck on Highway 101 that had rammed into a freeway sign, skewering the driver’s abdomen as flames surrounded the vehicle. Trammell was assigned to get the driver out but was unsuccessful.

“There was physically no way to move this man out of the cab and there was no time,” recalled Trammell. “He continued to scream until he quite literally burned alive in my arms.”

In the years since he retired in 2015, Trammell was drinking excessively, not sleeping and going through crying spells. Through former colleagues, he was linked up with the S.I.R.E.N. Project.

“She said, ‘Wade, I had the exact same symptoms as you,’” Trammell recalls Graham telling him. “‘You need to do this.’”

Graham sent him this year to the same retreat center she went to, where a guided experience was overseen by Andrea Lucie, a healer with experience working with military veterans. Along with a handful of other Bay Area firefighters, Trammell drank orange juice with mushrooms in it and then smoked 5‐MeO‐DMT, which is dried Sonoran Desert toad venom. That’s when he experienced the “eureka moment.”

“Right at the end, it came to me,” said Trammell. “Thirty years of firefighting and seeing what you saw, you have to guard your heart. Always be fully alert. I wasn’t feeling any emotions. It just came to me that I must open my heart again to my family, friends and wife.”

Scott Sorensen, who retired from the city of Santa Clara’s fire department in 2019 after 29 years, joined Trammell in Mexico. Sorensen had experienced equally gut-wrenching episodes during this career. He recalled rescuing an injured three-year-old baby who was found under some train tracks after his mother had tried to kill them both. The mother died and the child lost a leg.

Scott Sorensen, a retired captain from the Santa Clara Fire Department, sits in his living room with his 8-year-old Leonberger and Saint Bernard mix rescue dog, that he has had for about a year, at his home in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2023. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) 

To help with his PTSD, Sorensen tried EMDR, which he described as his first “life-changing” moment. He had never used drugs but tried MDMA, or ecstasy, which he said helped him reconnect with his empathy and changed the dynamic of his relationships in a “profoundly” positive way. Then, in Mexico, mushrooms helped Sorensen deal with the emotions of his son’s ongoing and life-threatening medical condition.

“It lowered the walls and the fences and the fears and allowed me to start working on that stress and the trauma,” said Sorensen about the experience. “It’s just been remarkably beneficial.” He stressed that the medicine wasn’t a silver bullet — and that his recovery involved multiple therapies aside from psychedelics.

For the S.I.R.E.N. Project’s Graham, her experience — along with Trammell and Sorensen’s — marks a paradigm shift in how first responders can find help.

“I think that (it) totally changes the morale in a department and heals a lot of people,” Graham said. “This needs to change. This needs to be legal. And we’re going to do that one first responder at a time.”

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Various Washington communities will receive parts of a $23 million grant from the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) as announced by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell on Friday.

Fentanyl overdoses kill more Washingtonians than firearms or car accidents. Recent data released by the Center for Disease Control shows that Washington had the highest drug use increase among U.S. states between 2022 and 2023. This was an increase of 25.39%.

A total of 13 grants were awarded to various Washington state entities. The money went to support programs in the State of Washington in the form of 12 separate grants. The final grant was awarded to Washington State University for an international public health program.

According to the DHHS, the money will provide more resources to help combat the surging rates of drug overdoses while improving mental health treatment options. These resources include new ways to monitor overdose data, improve health disparities between communities, and increase harm reduction services.

Sen. Cantwell has been hosting roundtable discussions about the fentanyl crisis across Washington. On Wednesday, Cantwell spoke in Tulalip at the National Tribal Opioid Summit. Throughout August, Cantwell has hosted roundtables in Walla Walla, Port Angeles and Vancouver, WA.

“As I travel the state listening to Washingtonians on the front lines of the fentanyl crisis, one thing has been loud and clear — our communities need more resources to tackle substance abuse and drug overdose,” said Cantwell. “The grants announced today will support direct action in King and Snohomish Counties to address the overdose crisis, and aim to improve mental health care provided by the Yakama Tribe and the Seattle Indian Health Board.”

Both the Seattle Indian Health Board and Yakama Nation are also receiving grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to support mental health in their communities.

All grants are listed below:

GRANTS TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT / NON-PROFIT AGENCIES

King County – $3,075,000

Addressing the Overdose Crisis in King County with a Commitment to Health Equity, Partnership, and a Data-to-action Framework

Yakama Nation – $970,000

Yakama Nation School-based Trauma-Informed Support Services and Mental Health

Snohomish County – $889,476

Snohomish County Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) Community Response

Seattle Indian Health Board – $400,000

Suicide Prevention Infrastructure for Seattle’s Urban American Indians & Alaska Natives

Washington State Department of Health – $4,193,955

Washington Overdose Data to Action States

Washington State Health Care Authority – $1,361,811

Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) Center for Mental Health Block Grants

GRANTS TO SUPPORT RESEARCH

Allen Institute – $6,132,469

BRAIN CONNECTS: Center for a Pipeline of High Throughput Integrated Volumetric Electron Microscopy for Whole Mouse Brain Connectomics

Seattle Children’s Hospital – $4,259,296

• Enhanced Surveillance to Assess Vaccine-Preventable Enteric and Respiratory Virus Illnesses – $2,749,994

• Mediators and Modifiers of Prenatal Environmental Exposures and Child Neurodevelopment: DNA Methylation, Prenatal Diet, and Cognitive Stimulation (MEND) – $1,509,302

University of Washington – $1,820,573

• Understanding Health Inequities at the Intersection of the HIV and Substance Use Epidemics Across Racial/Ethnic and Other Underserved Populations – $738,902

• Development Of A Behavioral Economic Intervention With Personalized Resource Allocation Feedback to Reduce Young Adult Alcohol Misuse – $670,597

• Engineered Tissue Arrays to Streamline Deimmunized DMD Gene Therapy Vectors – $411,074

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The Mental Health Project is a Seattle Times initiative focused on covering mental and behavioral health issues. It is funded by Ballmer Group, a national organization focused on economic mobility for children and families. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over work produced by this team.

I graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley; participated as a Fulbright scholar; and completed coursework for a Ph.D. at UC Davis. But none of that was on my mind eight years ago, when I ran shrieking unadmitted into a hospital emergency room.

I was experiencing a psychotic break, though it had taken five years for the disintegration to finally land me in a mental hospital. Even though it was against my will at the time, I’m now grateful for my husband taking me to the hospital and for the state holding me inside once I got there because I was what is termed “gravely disabled”: I had stopped eating and drinking, and was unable to function.

The Seattle Times Mental Health Project features contributed essays from members of our community as part of our Mental Health Perspectives guest column. We invite individuals with personal stories related to mental health to share their experiences that reflect broader issues and concerns in the field. If you would like to inquire about submitting a column, please email mentalhealth@seattletimes.com.

On that day, hospital staff forced me into a room, instructing me to take off my clothes so they could put me in a straitjacket and inject an antipsychotic medication into my upper thigh. I fought them tooth and nail and had to be restrained. The next two weeks were a blur: I spent hours in community art time, met with psychiatrists and paced through halls. I couldn’t watch TV because I thought it was talking to me. I thought all the other patients were actors in a major plot to uncover “the fact” that I was a terrorist. (Of course, I’m not.) My Fulbright was in Russia, and I thought the U.S. government believed I had been turned into a terrorist during my stay.

The psychiatrist I worked with in the hospital wrote “lacks insight” on a notepad, a clinical phrase meaning the patient doesn’t know they are sick. I felt confused when I read that because I was working full-time as a teacher at that point, and my essays had always been called insightful when I was a student. I didn’t know it was a clinical phrase for the status of a person’s psychological health. When I learned that I was considered gravely disabled, it felt disempowering — and only years later did I see how true it was.

More Mental Health Perspectives guest columns

Until then, I thought insanity was something found on the streets or in the literature I had studied. I didn’t even know there was a mental hospital in Sacramento, and I hadn’t known anyone who had been hospitalized or who even took mental health medication.

Without insurance and a husband, I would undoubtedly have become homeless. Without friends with connections to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, I would have never been encouraged to always remain on mental health medication. I would have become a “frequent flyer” in the hospital emergency room.

I also want to recognize my race, as a white person, afforded me certain privileges. People of color who have mental illnesses like mine often deal with additional barriers like a lack of culturally competent health care providers, stigma and a disproportionate risk of police violence in crisis calls (for example, the shooting deaths of Black father Leonard Thomas in Fife and of pregnant Black mother of four Charleena Lyles in Seattle, both in the year 2017 and both while they were experiencing acute mental health crises at the time).

Over the four days of acute full psychosis that preceded my sprint through the closing ER doors, my husband attempted to shake me of my delusions. He pointed to the shirt he was wearing with the logo of our high school band, where we first met, and said, “I’ve known you since you were 15. The U.S. government didn’t even know you would go to Russia then, and I loved you before you lived abroad,” after I had accused him of marrying me because of government coercion. He didn’t realize that I was beyond reasoning. 

Nothing makes me sadder than to think of his isolation during that time. Nothing makes me more grateful for having been forced to receive treatment.

I had no idea the mind could play tricks on you over five years of a descent into madness, like I experienced. Some people in my situation go their whole lives thinking they are suspected terrorists. Medication may also be able to prevent new delusions or significantly mute them. I was fortunate enough to be able to look back and see where I had lost contact with reality, starting with my paranoia about my research on child abuse and terror during graduate school.

It didn’t help that my husband is an aerospace engineer with secret clearance who was working on missile defense. Delusions often seem totally plausible, even though they are simultaneously ludicrous.

We’d like to hear from you.

The Mental Health Project team is listening. We’d like to know what questions you have about mental health and which stories you’d suggest we cover.

Get in touch with us at mentalhealth@seattletimes.com.

After my hospitalization, I stayed on a high dose of antipsychotic medication, a mood stabilizer and a low dose of an antidepressant. Suddenly, my delusions broke. Once I started feeling healthy, I became overwhelmed by the reality and extent of my psychological disability. It was paralyzing, mind-warping and all-consuming.

At the end of 2015, my husband and I decided we needed a change of scenery. My husband was recruited to a position in Kent at Blue Origin, and I finally got a good psychiatrist who diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He also encouraged me to continue taking antipsychotic medication. And in 2018, he shared with me that I have schizoaffective disorder — after years of that information being withheld. The diagnosis is sometimes not disclosed to patients because it’s believed the stigma and self-stigma can be disabling and suicide-inducing. 

In addition to taking antipsychotic medication, I also stopped reading articles that triggered mental health concerns. I exercised more outside and I sought alternative therapies, including taking vitamin B12 supplements in high doses, that have been helpful in reducing my schizoaffective disorder symptoms of isolation from society.

When I first got to Washington, I was a language learning specialist for Highline Public Schools and later a Spanish teacher at Evergreen High School. I ended up leaving midyear due to my anhedonia, a clinical term that refers to the inability to experience pleasure. I had lost all love of teaching and couldn’t sequence learning events.

Nothing was more awful than falling from prestige and accolades to hospitalization, gaining tons of weight — due to the antipsychotics — and losing my teaching career.

But it ended up being a blessing. The medicine saved my marriage, and stopping teaching gave me time to actually heal since I’d never gotten fully off what I call the “success treadmill” after my hospitalizations. I started working on efforts around racial justice, LGBTQ+ inclusion and women in leadership, which gave me deep purpose.

Nowadays, my husband and I live in Burien, where I run a strengths-based mentorship program for young people to find purpose, which I see as a tool to help mental health. 

I got a life coach and came up with the concept that my life mission was “to facilitate wellness and contribution.” I wrote and self-published a book in 2020, which was then taken up by a publisher in 2023.

I still have days where I struggle, but no matter what, I still have purpose in my life. Supporting others, spirituality, and my commitment to always taking mental health medication is what keeps me going on hard days.

Erin Grimm is CEO of Seahurst Wellness and Education Center, and she lives in Burien with her husband, Todd, and cat, Costco. She is author of a book on supporting persons with serious mental illness, “Emergent Grace,“ and a Christian memoir, “What I Remember of the Little I Understand.” She blogs at emergentgrace.com about suffering, hope and progressive Christianity. Her next book, “The Nine Principles of Hope,” is expected to publish in mid-2024.

Mental health resources from The Seattle Times

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Six ALFs in MMC receive registration certificates under Self-supporting Cooperative Societies Act

ALF to obtain loans up to Rs 10 Lakh and tender for Government contracts

Mail News Service

Jamshedpur, June 1: In a program organized at the Collectorate Auditorium, Deputy Commissioner Vijaya Jadhav presented the registration certificates of Self-supporting Cooperative Society to six Area Level Federations (ALFs) under the Jharkhand Self-supporting Cooperative Societies Act, 1996. The event took place under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Urban Livelihood Mission. Several dignitaries including Director DRDA Saurabh Sinha, Director NEP Jyotsna Singh, DTO Dinesh Ranjan, Executive Officer of Mango Municipal Corporation Suresh Yadav, District Cooperative Officer Vijay Pratap Tirkey, District Social Welfare Officer Neha Sanjana Khalkho, and CDPO Durgesh Nandini were present.

The Executive Officer of Mango Municipal Corporation announced that following the certificate issuance by the Cooperative Department, the six ALFs will be eligible to obtain loans up to Rs 10 lakh without a guarantor for self-employment purposes. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to bid on tenders worth up to Rs 10 lakh in any government department. The registration of ALFs with the Cooperative Department has made Mango Municipal Corporation the first municipal body in the entire Kolhan division to achieve this milestone. The six ALFs which received the registration certificates are Chhatra Chhaya Mahila Vikas Self-supporting Committee Ltd, Nari Shakti Mahila Vikas Self-help Society Ltd, Agsar Mahila Vikas Self-help Society Ltd, EPIL Mahila Vikas Self-help Society Ltd, Surbhi Mahila Vikas Self-help Society Ltd, Prerna Mahila Vikas Self-help Society Ltd.

Under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Urban Livelihood Mission, an Area Level Federation is formed among approximately one hundred or more women of ten self-help groups. After formation, the smoothly functioning federation receives registration under the Jharkhand Swavalambi Sahakari Samiti. In this context, an application for the registration of ten federations was submitted to the District Cooperative Office of East Singhbhum Jamshedpur. After the necessary actions and rule-based procedures were followed by the District Cooperative Office, East Singhbhum, registration certificates were granted to six Area Level Federations today, following approval from the state-level office.

These ALFs comprise predominantly women beneficiaries of self-help groups who have established their businesses, achieved self-reliance, and improved their economic conditions while financially supporting their families. The registration certificates of the self-supporting cooperative society will provide them with opportunities to further expand their businesses. As per government directives, Mango Municipal Corporation has already formed 36 Area Level Federations. Upon the formation of an Area Level Federation, the government can provide up to Rs 50,000 as a revolving fund to assist in business and self-employment ventures.

The program was attended by CMM Nirmal Kumar, CO Nandi Purti, Pushpa Toppo, Urmila Devi, CRP Gayatri Nayak, Sheela Devi, Pratima Devi, Manorama, Laxmi, Holi, Ruby Singh, Romani, Tanushree, Organization Karta Saraswati Singh, and others.

Aspire to do better than the best: DC

DC Vijaya Jadhav encouraged the representatives of women groups to explore new opportunities for self-employment. She emphasized the need to move beyond traditional practices and acknowledged that the success of self-help group (SHG) models in urban areas has been relatively less compared to rural areas. She urged the ALFs to break this myth and discover self-employment prospects in new areas. The DC suggested exploring better packaging and marketing of rural produce in cities, such as promoting products like karanj oil, honey, and homemade nutrition for the treatment of malnutrition, which possess multiple medicinal properties. She assured the women’s committees that if there is sufficient demand, priority would be given to allot government shops. Furthermore, she pledged to provide space for the sale of their products in the collectorate premises. As an experimental initiative, some women committees related to self-employment in food items will be allowed to sell their products in the collectorate premises starting from June 2.

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