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"Voluntary Separation" from a Colorado University Program: His/Her-story is Familiar. But for the Grace of ... _____?
"Ironically", I received my 'usual' Alumni donation solicitation call from the Colorado State University Applied Human Sciences College on Friday. Honestly, it has creeped me out in the past that long-lost friends couldn't track my cell phone number down but my Alma mater, which I was not all that inclined to have any 'attachment to' after graduation as an occupational therapist in 1996, could. So Friday when my cell rang, my mind was steeped in what was on my television and computer along with millions and perhaps billions of people in the world: the latest 'shocking story' coming out of Colorado.
This time it wasn't about wildfires as earlier this summer and spring, but once again, having to do with a mass shooting in the Denver-metro area. I was, quite frankly, wondering how it was that everyone was so 'shocked' by the event, when the people who had been present were typically starting their stories with "I was thinking it was part of the promotion" or "I didn't initially think it was something to be alarmed about, even after (the chemical bomb) was thrown".
The young man on the phone Friday did a very nice job of cojoling me out of whatever gear I was in at the time the phone rang, I was actually on another call and when I saw a CSU number come up, I presumed it might be one of my friends or former coworkers; he listened to my response about having already donated to someone in need directly recently and I'd just hours earlier said "that was my 'giving' for a while".
He was sincerely interested in what I had to say about life after graduating in 1996 with a degree in occupational therapy; he stated apprehension about taking upper level classes after this summer, and so I inquired as to where he went to high school (and affluent part of Denver near the middle-class Aurora on the news that day and since).
Always wanting to know what makes someone 'tick' (known as their 'volition system' in OT), I asked what his passion and goals are: the answer was "broadcasting and music". So I asked "Why are you studying applied human sciences?" to which he responded that he is just trying to get through higher education as simply as possible, earning the easiest degree for him to get, and then be on his way in the world of work. I ended up making a SMALL donation; it made his day.
And as I returned to my work and the computer and what was on in the background on the television news I was monitoring, quite frankly, the call and the young man's story made it me start thinking about MY time at Colorado State Univeristy when I was his age, and the age of the "alleged shooter" now in custody and being held at the Arapahoe County jail. Interestingly, one of my best friends from growing up and through college at Colorado State University and to this day got a master's in social work and worked in juvenile intervention programs for that county and facility.
One of my NEW friends and professional contacts from facebook happened to closely follow on her heels there as a medical social worker and then on my heels in Colorado Springs at the city hospital, finding the same dysfunction I found which was literally intollerable for any self-respecting professional. The first gal I referred to has also now tried to work in public education; no can do either. Hmmm, the system is so messed UP that three of us have 'dropped out' .. how many others are out there who literally feared for our safety or our licenses and ability to work in the future by being in systems as employees which were not conducive for our well-being.
And we're 'mature, experienced women' -- what are these young people encountering today? And if they do step in one of the many 'land mines' out there in the world of work, do they have mentors to look toward? I was 3 years into my career before anyone stepped up to volunteer to mentor me outside of the minimal amounts required of them in their job / paid time. In the previous FOUR environments I was pretty much having to just figure it out, suck it up, and succeed (or not!).
I'd elected to take a very difficult internship which was known to the fieldwork coordinator to only be something attemptable by someone independent and self-sufficient, and I'd sailed through with flying colors and then got out into the medical system and was just DROWNING. But I had experience in that feeling and knew that if you just keep putting your feet in front of the other over and over, you get to another place and usually it's more pleasant than the difficult, 'stuck spot' where you sometimes feel like freezing. Or fallling. Fear of failure is one thing; failure is another.
As people who are guests of Lumigrate.com or who 'follow' me on Twitter or Facebook likely know, I am a life-long resident of Colorado, and our state has certainly been seen around the world this weekend due to having gained the position at the top of a growing list of incidents in the United States related to mass shootings. As of this writing there are currently 12 people who have passed/died and 58 others injured physically.
I believe it is safe to say that all who were there physically have been somehow influenced and potentially 'injured' psychologically. Earlier this summer and spring, Colorado has been in the news a great deal for three very large wildfires which also topped the lists in terms of destruction of properties, one of which has been deemed a 'criminal act' in terms of how it started.
For those of us with 'compassionate hearts, minds, and spirits', it is difficult and sometimes "painful" to see these types of things, no matter what geographical distance they are from us, and that can amplify if someone is closer geographically. I noticed one regularly posting Facebook friend stating concerns for family who lives in Aurora, Colorado, and it becomes clear that social media has created the ability for news to travel very fast (that is where I learned of 'the Aurora Batman movie premier shooting'.
The Chief of Police for Aurora clearly addressed social media in his press conference the next day/Friday and reminded people of the power that the Internet holds. With that in mind, I sat back until today to collect my thoughts and information from what is being presented both in MSM (mainstream media) and alternative sources. I've seen good intentions overall, but there is an expectation by anyone who has an 'Internet presence' to 'say something'. So I hope that what I have to contribute is of benefit, appropriate, and helpful to you if you are taking the time to read it.
The Aurora Chief of Police also said, in a wavering voice full of emotion about a dozen or so hours into what clearly was an intensive period of work for him and all involved, that psychological support services were in order and on the way and in the works for the near future for those involved. I was keenly aware of what is likely going on behind the scenes as the second podcast I recorded for Lumigrate, with Dr Chris Young, who contracts to be the psychological support for various companies and law enforcement agencies, was unable to be at the studio as scheduled to record with Rock Cesario and me related to 'the healing power of music', so Rock and I went on with the 'show' and we simply scheduled another podcast which did 'go off' as planned, and has been perhaps the top-listened to podcast produced by Lumigrate so far. (Search on podcasts and any of the names or keywords such as music, healing, etc., if you're interested, they were really FUN and insightful.)
I turned on the 5 pm local news and was pleased to see on the one channel I happened to have of the three, our acclaimed and beloved local child expert, Cheryl Young, wife of Chris, who was interviewed related to how to talk with our children here on the 'other side of the mountains and other side of the state' about what happened. I'm pleased to report that we've had something at Lumigrate since our very first holiday season from Cheryl Young's "treasure trove of teaching", something I'd picked up from her at a meeting I had been included in back in the 'formative years' of what lead to Lumigrate.com so that I could share the amazing local providers I have been gratefully placed in the path of since moving to the far western part of Colorado in early 2004.
Nationally, as I followed the television coverage in order to get a sense of what I might best write today on Lumigrate in my blog, I was pleased to see much 'in and on the air' about the realities that exposure to information about this event can have an impact on people who are hearing/seeing it, particularly if viewed excessively. In 2005, when I first made the acquantance professionally of Cheryl and Dr Chris Young, we discussed their concerns and what we might be able to collaborate on related to what they were seeing with children and teens in the western Colorado area they serve related to the effects of entertainment and most specifically video games.
At that point in my career I had some background in my career as an occupational therapist with teens, but only down to age 15, which came when specializing in special-needs driving education for two years in 1998-2000. It was an innovative, privately funded program which had exposed me to some progressive training related to the brain/body connection and the presentation I gave literally hundreds of times in those two years demonstrated how the brain is 'like a computer' which we program to respond to different situations. This can be a fantastic tool for our survival, such as getting the correct responses pre-programmed for reacting to hazards when driving automobiles. But clearly then, what we are exposed to also can lead to other types of responses as well.
I will not belabor this more beyond what I have just said, except to add that when I watched the eyewitness accounts of what unfolded in the theater I was struck by a common denominator in almost all accounts: They related that initially their thoughts when the attack began, their first thoughts were 'this is entertainment', this is a stunt for the marketing of this movie and NOT "this is a threat to my safety". Could it be that EVERYONE overall has been overly influenced by too much exposure to things that are 'unnatural' and we're starting to simply 'lose our grounding' collectively? Something to think about, perhaps.
This trend of mass shootings, famously began in our state in 1999 with 'Columbine'. I was working with many students with special needs related to learning to drive who were students at Columbine at that time; I had been at lunch at a local sandwich shop and saw one of my students, a young man of short stature, studying with three friends and I thought "there are some really amazing young people out there in the world these days, look at them studying over noontime when getting off campus to eat, did any of us do that back in the mid 1970s?"
Within hours I was hearing about what was going on at nearby Columbine on the television with the rest of the world, and perhaps since I was geographically close, and had personally known people who could have been killed, it stuck with me. Sadly, I did know the mother of one of those killed that day, through my circle of people in my community where I grew up in the mountains west of Denver; we'd collaborated in 1992 related to getting a reunion underway which she largely pulled off the next year 'with a little help from a LOT of people'.
Aurora, Colorado now holds the dubious 'honor' of having responded well, from all accounts, to this recent incident which places it at the TOP of the list of number of victims; currently there are 12 people who passed/died and another 59 injured.
I believe that many are asking "why", and I have read that one of the alleged shooter's former coworkers had said that he played a lot of games on the computer with role-playing. I don't have further details about what kinds of games but I will be interested to hear when that information surfaces. Again, from my standpoint, all of us reading have the most influence on the world in terms of what WE DO personally, so perhaps we need to unplug a bit more for some of this 'technology stuff'.
I also was concerned that the young man was 22/23 and was initially reported as being a 'medical student'. Later reports got it a little more accurate, that he was withdrawing/separating voluntarily from a program which would be something you'd do as 'pre-med'. I was once his age and withdrawing voluntarily from Colorado State University and had a great deal of shame about it, as in my family of origin, people were judged by one of my parents based on their education. That education level was translated into intelligence and acceptance or not. And the expectation placed upon me from as far back as I could remember was that I would grow up, go to college and as that day approached the message was refined to 'with the least expense to me/us', so I separated financially from my parents in my first year of college.
I moved off campus and got a job typing statistics for the University and made extra money typing graduate school documents for graduate students. However, I was not 'socially isolated' but rather had a robust set of fun friends who were right on campus across the road from me, and I had a live-in boyfriend with plans to marry and have children. Even as it was, I remember one time walking to a final on a day we'd had a huge snowstorm, and crossing the railroad tracks and thinking how much better my life would be if the train would just come along and I could slip and fall and be killed. Because I was, you see, not going to be loved and accepted by my ever-important parent who was so tied up in 'conditionally' accepting people based on education.
I took a full time job off campus and had to go onto campus five days a week to collect supercomputer printouts for my employer and NOT to take tests for the first time in four years since I started there as a freshman studying business and with a myriad of UNdiagnosed and therefore untreated learning disabilities. That was very helpuful to me, as I at least stopped feeling locked up mentally every time I set foot on Colorado State University property. I had horrible 'test anxiety', something I eventually got over after having more successes in the end with that than the struggles I'd had at ages 18-22.
At age 24 I went to work for a researcher at the National Park Service located in a building that was the post office and Federal buildling in Fort Collins, which looked just like the one made famous in the Oklahoma City bombing years later. Whew, again, off campus BUT then it turned out, we moved into a space built as an addition at the Colorado State University foothills research campus. There, I had many challenges but it was overall a positive learning experience for me. I remarried, to one of the researchers there who was funded by the psychology department to study visitor values and the perception of the brain on air quality.
When we separated when I was 32, it was not comfortable for me to work together, and I 'happened' to see an advertisement for a job at the University Health Center working for the health education department, which had a satellite from the University Counseling Center as well as the Center for Drug and Alcohol Education in addition to the eating disorders team and nutritionists. I was 'steeped' for two years in informal and formal education, becoming certified as a peer health educator and certified in the Univeristy's drug/alcohol program.
I learned much about the various pressures placed upon students of all ages and reasons for being at the University. Some were from foreign counties. Some were on athletic scholarships. Some were Native Americans. Most were traditional aged and from Colorado. Some were from out of state. And one of the things I recall from ALL 18 years was that ONLY ONE TEACHER EVER said to the class (and I never 'ditched', only missing one day after my mother's unexpected death which I learned of on a Friday after work, actually) "there is a holiday coming up, you're welcome to come to my home and join my family if you will be in town and without anywhere else to go".
Last fall I happened to be on the Front Range and got a paper copy of the Denver Post when this story ran, and I thought I'd share the link and the highlights here and I encourage you to follow the link and look at the actual story and engage with their information. Please notice "I felt trapped" and "I felt I had nothing left".
I hope this piece might encourage those reading to withhold judgment on the young man who allegedly committed so much violence against so many people and leave that up to the processes of our legal system. I believe we need more emphasis going forward related to putting our efforts into REAL solutions, and I hope that by sharing my story of being at a point where dying seemed like a really better option at age 19 than having to fail a final, and then to continue pullling on that thread to track back over 10 years to when my second grade teacher had appropriately been concerned about my learning disabilities she had seen and did her best to get me tested and diagnosed.
But my county, Jefferson County, Colorado, the largest school district in Colorado and in 1968 VERY well funded compared to today, had a 'crack' I slipped through; there was nobody on contract to interpret the tests the technician performed on my eye movement with reading at the administration offices, where the principal had driven me and two other students from my class who were not performing in reading consistent with our intelligence and other testing and observations.
My parents had their myriad of dysfunctions and distractions and selfish interests for their resources of time/energy/money or were focused on my older sibling who was the family 'star'. It took me decades to 'accept' the reality of how things were and to be honest, it is an ongoing process on my part to continue to understand the 'why' because of evolving understanding of the experts who study and educate others, myself included, about psychological concepts.
So I have to wonder, if I would have been born 30 years after I was and had the same struggles as I experienced, but without the 2 total hours of video games I have played (Pac Man and Donkey Kong) and Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music being my mainstays as a child, with 'Rocky' being the most violent movie I saw and that was at age 17 and my first date with my future husband (and a handfull of my gal pals, he was a good sport), and had I gone out of state and been separated from my AMAZING gal pals, who today remain my 'framily', where would I be right now?
The world is a really challenging place right now, please look around you and see who might be needing a hand. It can be direct or indirect: yesterday I had a conversation with a restaurant worker who revealed they were unaware they could donate their leftover food to the homeless shelter here as the employees had worked in corporate chains which had internal policies preventing that and they did not realize that was not a 'law'. I could have left it at that or I could take the extra step to get the information from the shelter and into the hands at the restaurant on a follow-up.
I could plan to clear some more 'dysfunction' out of my own life and make room for helping someone who could use a helping hand at Colorado Mesa University. In the last two years I had not done as much as I would have liked for a student I was 'supporting' if needed because, quite frankly, I didn't filter well enough the dysfunctions that were being leveled at me. Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! ~~ Mardy
From CSU student's depression, scholarship to fight suicide is born
FORT COLLINS — The deaths came so suddenly that they overwhelmed Sam Lustgarten, making him think he needed to end his own life.
"I was so depressed, I felt such despair," said Lustgarten. "I just felt there wasn't any hope."
In all, there were three suicides in just a few months, and they were linked in some way to Lustgarten's life as a student at Colorado State University.
The first was probably the worst for Lustgarten. It involved a quiet student whom Lustgarten got to know briefly during the spring 2009 semester.
As a residence-hall assistant at CSU, Lustgarten tried to get to know all the students housed at his dorm. The two talked about books and soccer, and Lustgarten noticed the student liked to spend time alone.
But Lustgarten said he had no idea the student was considering ending his own life.
"He wasn't on my radar for something like that," he said. "I had no idea."
After the student died in April 2009, two other CSU-related suicides quickly followed, and Lustgarten found himself enveloped by despair.
"I felt trapped, I felt I had nothing left," he said.
However, Lustgarten, a psychology student, recognized the signs of his own severe depression and decided to save himself.
He shook off his lethargy and left his parents' home in Golden on a cold winter night in 2010 and drove himself to a hospital.
That was Lustgarten's first tiny step toward establishing a $25,000 scholarship aimed at preventing suicides.
After being released from a 72-hour mental-health hold — and rejecting the idea of dropping out of school — he returned to the CSU campus with a new resolve.
"I just had to try and put a stop to this," Lustgarten said. "I had to believe something had to be done."
He approached school officials in spring 2010 with the idea of helping students interested in mental health and suicide prevention. He started the Always Remember Never Surrender Scholarship and began soliciting donors.
Money flowed in from a variety of sources, and last week it was announced the scholarship is fully endowed at more than $25,000.
"It's amazing and stunning how suicide has affected so many people," Lustgarten said.
A Poudre High School student raised $4,000, which was promptly matched by Jan Nerger, the dean of CSU's College of Natural Sciences.
"I just think people were touched by this," said Simone Clasen, director of development for the College of Natural Sciences. "They figured this is the way to make a difference."
Two CSU students have been awarded money under the scholarship, which could help fill an enormous mental-health gap on America's college campuses, say experts.
Suicide is the second-most-common cause of death in college, and it's third behind vehicle crashes and homicides in the general population of 18- to 24-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Stress over grades, loneliness, monetary issues and relationships can all lead to depression and thoughts of suicide among students, said Lustgarten, now a graduate student and research associate with the Colorado Injury Control Research Center.
It is estimated that 9 percent to 10 percent of college students have considered suicide, while nearly 2 percent attempt suicide.
Yet, 38 percent of colleges don't even offer psychological services for students, according to one 2003 study.
Lustgarten hopes the scholarship can pave the way for more help for students who are hurting. "There's hope for people who are suffering and there's hope for people who can help these people," he said.
To contribute to the scholarship, go tohttps://advancing.colostate.edu/cns/psych/give, or call Simone Clasen at 970-491-0997.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 ormwhaley@denverpost.com
Read more:From CSU student's depression, scholarship to fight suicide is born - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19224480#ixzz21NNKipsl
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
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I have some additional thoughts, now two weeks since the Aurora shooting, and have a bit more to say. This is how I would like to blog about the situation at this point in time, knowing now what we know that was not yet clear:
"Ironically", I received my 'usual' Alumni donation solicitation call from the Colorado State University Applied Human Sciences College on Friday within hours of when I heard about "Aurora" and the young college student who had invaded a movie theater for the 'epic' opening of the new Batman movie. Honestly, it has creeped me out in the past that long-lost friends couldn't track my cell phone number down but my Alma mater, which I was not all that inclined to have any 'attachment to' after graduating as an occupational therapist in 1996, could.
So Friday when my cell rang, my mind was steeped in what was on my television and computer along with millions and perhaps billions of people in the world: the latest 'shocking story' coming out of Colorado; a dozen lives 'gone', dozens others physically AND mentally injuried; hundreds with first-hand experience traumatized ('injured' in mind/spirit and also body if you look at the connection as we do at Lumigrate), and then the effects on the millions or billions of people who would view it on television and computer, read about it, hear about it, talk about it.
This time the attention on Colorado wasn't about wildfires as earlier this summer and spring, but once again, having to do with a mass shooting in the Denver-metro area; Columbine in 1999 is to the SW of Denver, Aurora to the east. I was born in Denver -- what has happened to 'my state'? It's just increasingly disturbing that a beautiful state like Colorado, settled since the 1800s mostly by people whose families are elsewhere in the United States, has had this 'trend'. The large fire outside of Colorado Springs recently was a 'criminal act'; 19 other fires were set all around the area, including near the military base, at the time that one took off into a huge deal.
A decade ago the Hayman fire down that way was set by a heartbroken U.S.Forest Service worker who wanted to get attention as being a hero for putting out a fire so she set a fire she couldn't, ultimately, get out. That fire went miles and miles to the area where I grew up outside of Denvver and burned the homes of people I knew personally and I heard the stories of evacuation from other friends who were trying to get 'in' to get their pets 'out'. ALL THESE THINGS are saturating all of our minds, if we let them, and to me, when I heard the interviews of people who witnessed the shooting, most said 'I thought it was part of the theater's promotion of the event at first, until a bomb of chemical was set off ... and he started shooting people".
At the time of the Hayman fire in Colorado Springs, I attended my ONLY late-night 'grand opening' of a new movie of my entire life; my 'significant other' was a fan of Lord of the Rings. I had just badly sprained/broken my ankle and had to keep working as I was hired to cover a young OTR who injured her back lifting a patient and was having surgery/recovery time off. BUT, on a Friday night we went with a bunch of other people who 'had a hobby' of following late night openings or that particular story/fantasy. We were 40 and 50 years old and quite old compared to the majority. So we are now at least ten years into this 'era' of increased incidents of people doing big, dramatic things to get attention. And how are we doing addressing it?
The young man from the Applied Human Sciences Department on the phone Friday did a very nice job of cojoling me out of the gear I was in at the time, which was that I'd already made my charitable donation for the summer (to help people more directly than lofty 'education', I pay taxes to fund education so I don't tend to 'boost' my State's education funds with so many other basic human needs going unmet in the United States, Colorado, Grand Junction, and world-wide).
Despite my initial 'not now, thanks', he was sincerely interested in what I had to say about life after graduating in 1996 with a degree in occupational therapy; he stated apprehension about taking upper level classes after this summer, and so I inquired as to where he went to high school, which, it turns out was in an affluent part of Denver near the middle-class Aurora on the news that day and since. He was basically the same age as 'the shooter', and he was expressing such need to 'hear from an elder' in his field. When I worked for Colorado State University's Health Education Department, I got a broad education about the psychological and physical needs of the students, and there was a new focus on 'non-traditional aged students'.
I was one, intending to be accepted into the OT program in my mid 30s. I therefore needed to do a lot of volunteering to get good letters of recommendation from people who would set me apart from the other five people vying for the slot I was vying for. So I was the volunteer advisor for ALL non-traditional students coming into the Applied Human Sciences. Ironically, the deparment head had as much dysfunction in his life as any college student I have ever known and it played out right in front of my eyes because it involved an "inappropriate relationship" with a woman who I had advised when she put in an application when coming to the University after being accepted -- uprooting herself and her family from hours away from Fort Collins.
This was only preparing me for the situation I encountered when I quit working at the Health Center to begin the OT program -- clearly the high-level volunteering I did put me over the cusp from 'no' because my grades were, I believe, the worst of anyone in the class; I had a 3.49 on my most recent 40 credits they used and my learning-disabled study partner had a 3.46 and good volutneer work recommedations and she did NOT get in. What a sad moment when I arrived at class the day after 'letters' arrived in the mail to us saying our lives would go as hoped the next year or we had to go to plan B.
We had a student who, like me, had documented learning disabilities and also had the benefit of the Americans with Disabilities Act to help support our special needs for studying and testing. As such, we had to check in with the grand pooh bah advisor and none of the underlings. That is the only reason I knew this classmate. Within a month she came to class with a totally black and blue face, and being a certified 'peer health advisor', I approached her afterwards to be sure she knew of the University Counseling Center. "The cops want my boyfriend to use his own counselors" was the response. Good, I don't need to get involved the cops already are. I didn't 'know' any of my classmates except one older gal who had come to me through the non-traditional club's routing of her as an Applied Human Sciences applicant.
All the students had been clustered in the preliminary classes and so they knew each other, I'd taken ten years to do those classes so I was 'the odd woman out'; not a good position when you have to do group projects! The first group I was in had our only class dropout that semester and it was while we were in our group -- her religious beliefs wouldn't allow her to accept other people's spiritual beleifs and so they basically flushed her out. So at some levels, within the boundaries of a State educational institution, they were addressing 'spiritual' stress and seeing the need for holistic therapists working with the whole of a person's mind/body/spirit. VERY tricky -- they flushed her out by having the first WEEK be about genetics of human and nonhuman primates.
NOT flushed out was the woman whose beatings, allegedly by a boyfriend who moved with her from out of state she had told me on check-in day waiting together, turned to someone beating her when she took out her trash -- a random man. This was after a few of my classmates and I and my boyfriend and his friend with a truck and muscles, who was in Search and Rescue and a 'good guy', helped her move to a 'safe location' away from the alleged boyfriend.
However, I showed her to drive a route and pull over to see if she was being followed and when she took the next group of students helping her from her old to her new/'safe' location, she didn't pull over or have any concern about being followed. For whatever reason, my classmates hadn't thought that was strange that she had not concern about their parade of vehicles with stuff in it being followed. So my 'radar' was OFF about this young woman.
What happened next should make us think about how someone THIS MENTALLY ILL was admitted to have one of the coveted 60 slots that year in my occupational therapy class where we were literally expected to be supporting each other in our groups so that the teachers only had to grade 1/4 as many things. They had found it difficult to figure out what admission requirements to impose. They found that 'average'/C students could not pass with a D the neuroanatomy class that premed students also took, but they found that the high "academic" achievers would get to internships and have problems. So they were trying to tease out ALL these problems with us in the curriculum.
And guess what? WE were the FIRST BATCH of a totally redisigned curriculum. You know how you never want to buy a model of car the first year it is produced or you don't want to join a new business the first year it is open? Well, you don't want to be in the first year of new occupational therapy program. Another older student and I fortunately ran into each other drinking on a Friday night (and having dinner, the yuppity spot was and is a now-famous margarita/Mexican place called 'The Rio" -- posted limit of 3 in neon over the bar turned into their logo!)
So while this dramady was unfolding with our fellow student who was clearly not mentally well, which I initially opted to help when nobody else would because she 'needed' to move right before a big test and they were very focused on their grades and not PEOPLE around them/'family of classmates', I also helped get a 'pow wow' at 7 am one day with the students and the faculty to have them hear our concerns about what we were missing in our education.
They literally pulled out materials from the old (and good) curriculum and gave us one day's lecture and lab on it. Hand therapy. Wheelchair positioning. ONE DAY on each one? You needs a month on each one of those things in my estimation, now that I have worked in skilled nursing with the average elderly population you get there. BUT if I ever need to feed a child who has C.P., I did get a week about that. OR teach them with cues on the body how to roll over and go through the developmental patterns of the first year to standing. So basically, all the patients we encountered in the early part of our careers had to suffer through our having much of our education time / energy / money taken up to give us things that we 'didn't learn in kindergarden'. And in my opinion, a mental health screening of some sort might have been a good thing to include too, as well as a medical screening. It was flushed out in the program that I have sensory integration problems and such incoordination with my body that I really am not able to learn splinting and other things -- THAT would have been nice to have known 'going in'... fortunately I am very adept with psychology and education and have the life experince of my family and myself have many illnesses and pain, etc., so I was able to navigate a career path which works for me.
Those principles taught to me related to children with CP DO also apply to anyone older with neurological deficits but it was really a shame what we 'missed' in class becasue the PEOPLE that were coming to class were not well-prepared as PEOPLE, so they were trying to strain that out and correct it. We had weeks and weeks about discrimination and finding out what our own biases are and rectifying them.
My biases were cowboys and rich people. Ironically, I went to the Rio to meet my boyfriend that day for a drink and snack before working out at the health club and he had one of his friends there who was also in the building trades and he asked me what I did in school that day. So I told him and what my biases were. I didn't know the friend was a wealthy developer so they disclosed that while they pointed to the floor and were both wearing cowboy boots that day! I laughed and said 'clearly I am not THAT averse to cowboys OR people with money, eh? Thank you again Colorado State Univeristy for wasting a day of my life and another day of my tuition where I am not making income".
BUT I was not the typical student. Neither was the woman who was being beaten -- it turns out, by HER. Last I heard someone had called me who lived in Fort Collins and knew my 'frustration and disbelief' about this going on amidst my trying to become an occupational therapist and with my own medical problems that were appearing to be MS at the time miring my time, energy and money resources -- to say that she was in the paper for her amazing story of triumphing over all this -- she turned her dramady to allegedly have cancer, becoming unable to walk, speak louder than a whisper, losing her hair and eyelashes and eyebrows over a weekend when she flew in a helicopter courtesy of a doctor there AND BACK after two days of double the maximum dose of chemo and radiation over a four day weekend. And our professors and department head didn't recognize that this was delusional and psychiatric and NOT REAL, as they TWICE gave the center stage of our class time -- unbenownst to us ahead of time so we would show up expecting to learn what was on the syllabus that day, to be the 'fodder' for this woman's need to talk about her 'alleged' situation.
For me, and anyone connected to the community to ask around what was going on, this whole 'thing' got flushed out LONG before I had to sit through the classes where we got to say our 'goodbyes to her' as she was terminal she had told the teacher who believed her or acted to believe her in order to have some kind of experiment with our class -- or maybe they were unsure and erred on the side of doing what was 'normal' if it were reality. But THIS is why I don't give much money to my alma mater, WHY SUPPORT programs or businesses which maybe are not right anymore for being in existence? Perhaps support other things that are created to fill the gaps of these archaic systems as they crumble and become part of history? So the young man on the phone suggested a program in HIS program, and it meant a GREAT DEAL TO HIM, that I made a small donation. It made me feel good to have made his day, and I hope he remembers and takes it seriously that I told him to contact me through Lumigrate if he ever wishes to.
The mentally unwell classmate who was being presented by the leaders I looked up to less and less as they proved their incompetence about my classmate, made the mistake of being seen by a homeless man (the heir to a huge fortune from 'old money' who happened to have schizophrenia and moved to Fort Collins) going into a church to attend an AlAnon meeting. The attendees included, coincidentally, the former study buddy of mine who did not get into the OT program because she was not 'qualified' enough to make the cut based upon their criteria. Which did NOT include a mental health screening I might add. So imagine my frustration that someone who would have been an AMAZING OT did not make it despite her extra toiling with learning disabilities, when this one with the mental health problems of frightening significance in my opinion -- also ALLEGEDLY with learning disabilities, remember -- did!
Allegedly she came into the meeting having been stabbed in the parking lot by a man .. and there was a significant knife wound in her rib area. By then the cops were very suspicious of her and it turns out that somehow she had needed to borrow the car that day of a classmate -- I think she maybe was trying to 'involve' the classmates in what she had presumed and hoped/wanted to be an 'investigation' of her stabbing by what she was going to tell everyone was a man in the parking lot. By the way, this was in the afternoon on a weekday.
I was never clear with the pieces I heard where he was and if she had perhaps seen him or not, I just recall that she had not accused him, but the police had somehow interviewed him and he reported she got out of the borrowed vehicle she had that day, borrowed from a classmate who was aware there was something not quite right about this gal but feeling guilty that she was not helping her move and other things that required time; naturally in retrospect we could say 'ah, this way someone from our class is involved in this situation to get her more of her 'payoff' -- the attention for all these things happening to her.
All of us "townies" (I had lived in Fort Collins since 1978 and this was in 1994) knew of the homeless man and his story, and we had been saddened in 1993 by the news one day that another of our schizophrenic residents had been hit and killed by a car just hours after I had bought him dinner. He actually had ordered the fast chips and queso and not a dinner, though I had offered. People with schizophrenia don't 'stick' long around any people because it is difficult for them with what is also going on in their heads. That is what I learned LATER, on my OT internship in the psyche unit at the Denver VA hospital.
Other people at The Rio offered to buy the man drinks, and he had accepted two I believe it was and so I rushed to suggest I buy him food; you can't stop other people from doing wrong sometimes but you can try to offset it! He kissed my hand when he left and said "goodbye, Gracias Senorita Mardy'. I have been so blessed to have lived in such marvelous communities in my formative years where I learned to look out for your neighbors and to only help and 'butt in' when it was needed. I am from the mountains of Colorado and you don't call and ask to borrow a cup of sugar or tools or ANYTHING 'usual', but if there is a flood or a fire or a big snowstorm, or a death, you seek out the community outside your normal social circle.
And I was so fortunate to have these experiences with people in Fort Collins both in and off of the University boundaries. That particular man carried a boom box around and every day and make a loop to all the campus and downtown trash cans where aluminum was thrown away, and he'd sing like he was the best Mexican music singer in the whole world. And he kept to a pretty regular schedule, the post office would have been proud of his regularity in bad weather as well. His family member 'in charge of him' was a University figurehead and so people talked among themselves, the University workers such as myself at the Health Center as a worker or the Applied Human Sciences college as a volunteer and then as a student to my classmates, and the community 'watched out for' these people.
In the years prior to my divorce in 1992, which was 'over' my returning to complete my college education because it was not something he ultimately wanted for me -- I had a good job working right there with him every day and was home with him every day and every weekend, which is what HE wanted, but the job was not 'my career passion', occupational therapy was, or was the educational passion that I was completely drawn to and set my sights on despite it was the most difficult program at Colorado State to be accepted to. My husband was really a good guy but he was increasingly doing passive aggressive things which were undermining my success as a person -- telling people I had a crisis about turning 30 so to pretend to forget my birthday for instance, which happened to coincide the semester I took my first night class after getting my health back on track after chronic fatigue syndrome in my late 20s.
It's kind of a funny story now, to see how I knew deep down that I needed to get away from this 'vampire' in my life, but I wasn't identifying the REAL things that were an insult to my soul because, quite frankly, I had from day 1 had so many insults to my soul from the 'first man in my life', my father. I was in the process of sorting all that out and doing a lot of journaling, talking to wise friends, and reading books like 'Codependency No More' when it came out, which changed my life, obviously. But a 'flaw' I saw of my husband was he didn't donate to any nonprofits, yet he was spending a great deal of money on his hobbies every month. So he pointed out that one time he paid for the medication of an old woman who was at the pharmacy and couldn't afford her prescription she had said, tearfully. He said that he bought the homeless man who frequented the McDonalds he did on his way to work every morning, where his routine was to smoke and drink coffee and read the paper, as at our house the smoke was irritating my health issues and causing friction between us.
So one morning instead of going straight to the office from home, I stopped by McDonalds to commend his philanthropic generosity, since I had clearly been short-sighted about something about my husband, and saw which 'homeless' man it was and my husband went when I said 'that's Mr ________, the heir to the ______ fortunate' (I am not disclosing his name but it is as well known in the US as 'Rockefeller, Gates, Kennedy' I will say that.) I have since been closely involved in my life for years with a man who had two brothers and a wealthy mother, and the son/brother with schizophrenia had a very nice apartment, food if he needed it, always -- but that was not what 'made him comfortable' and he was so supported and known by the police and community of Wichita, Kansas that after the mother's death and no family living in that town, he remained there with family coming to visit him and check on things, including those enTRUSTed to manage the money, etc.
In internships, I was blessed with a teacher/patient with schizophrenia who had responded so well to one of the recently released medications that he had been able to complete college and an advanced degree. Unfortunately, that medication had a side effect that could cause physical problems with the blood/body in a life-threatening way and regular bloodwork revealed that had begun to occur, so he had to come in for an inpatient stay at the psychiatic unit and, as he said "know I am going to 'go crazy' again" as he came off that medication and get titrated up and ajusted on the new medication which was at that time in trials at the VA. He was hopeful and frightened as to if the outcome would be good, and unfortunately, that medication did not work for him.
Mr. O, I call him to protect his identity -- helped me TODAY understand what I am seeing on the news. And I felt that it was NOT right for the press to treat the shooter the way they did, allowing the victims in a traumatized state to dictate how they were going to report the news! Who was 'judging' the obviously NOT well man who did such a horrendous deed? To have it repeated over and over on CNN, a family member calling him a villain, mind you, a family member who was VOLUNTEERING immediately to say his family member was killed, before the authorities even released a list of victims -- getting a 'jump' on the media coverage. I was astounded to see that a business that named themselves long ago Cable Network News had stooped to such levels. Who is running THEIR show and how much training do THEY HAVE in things which people who are feeding us news should have? For pity's sakes, WHAT has the world come to when I am more shocked by the corporations I 'pay' through my subscription to inform me of news? I wasn't the least bit surprised that someone who was mentally unstable plotted out to kill a bunch of people at the premier showing of a Batman movie -- have you ever talked to people who spend more than a little bit of time playing 'Dungeons and Dragons'? I had one 'date' in that first year after my divorce literally light up mid dinner talking about the character he was going to create for me to play the game with him -- that was 1992 and the people would get together at each others houses and play not online. I made it very clear at my car that I did not intend to have anything to do with him in the future and yet the next workday his roommate came to my office with flowers from him; yes this was a man who worked on a University student services office at Colorado State Univeristy.
Did we have any kind of mental health screenings as employees of the University when we were hired? No, we did not. I had been 'concerningly visited in person or by phone" from 1984 until the end of 1993 -- NINE YEARS -- by a highly 'decorated' professor at the University, who actually left to another Colorado public University in the Denver area. He would sometimes go two years without calling me and he even tracked me to my new job at the Health Center; my former staff at my old office knew of the situation so would not have given my number and I put a note over my forwarding information in the Rolodex instructing them to take messages and please call me if anyone contacted them. I was on a committee with the chief of police for the campus and that is how I got my education at that time in what to do from a safety standpoint.
A few years later, the interesting thing was, I felt completely safe working in the VA psyche unit BECAUSE EVERYONE THERE WAS TRAINED ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and what to do if someone went 'awry'; how many of you know how to do a 5 point take-down? Who don't we just get that education in school or have classes required of us like First Aid and CPR? The amazing, articulate, intelligent man who met with me for an hour at the start of his drug holiday at the VA, disclosing what a gift of life it was to him to have that modern medication come along and the VA support and be able to complete college and have PRIDE in that, and of having a job -- in mental health counseling by the way.
So to have him start taking the aluminum foil from his baked potato and fashion it into antennas on his glasses to bring in the signal better to what he heard in his head, and to start thinking I was his wife and not the OT intern when he would come wandering into the OT room, sitting sometimes with the patients he knew well -- there was a group of Vietnam veterans who came in three times a week, even on holidays if they wanted, to talk -- that was just what 'went on' MWF at noon with the loving direction of the matriarch occupational therapist who was like a mom to them. The other OT, who was my supervisor was about their age and also was wonderful -- but they needed a mothering influence, and she wasn't just 'nurturing them', she was keeping them 'present' and rooted in the REALITY of TODAY and not letting them stay stuck in the Vietnam trauma and drama, though that would be discussed appropriately just like any other stress they were encountering. THEY WERE SOME OF MY GREATEST TEACHERS OF MY LIFE, and I wish that CNN would have had someone in control of their production recently who had that psychological experience.
We need to have compassion about those who are ill. We need to have education to people about what that looks like. And CERTAINLY when someone who has mental illness and the BIG RED FLAG of a separation from the University program they are living in a strange city away from family to 'matriculate at', the PEOPLE running the world in big and small ways would really benefit from some awareness and education. This is NOT about gun control in my opinion, though there is an issue of what types of products are available to what people, clearly. This is about MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION AND AWARENESS, and about each of us stepping back and saying 'how mentall well are we?' If you're at a movie and someone comes in dressed up like that, are you mentally well to have your first thought be 'that's part of the marketing for the movie premier tonight"? Perhaps those people have been a bit too immersed in the images and NON reality of stories we can sit and be entertained by INSTEAD OF knowing the first thing about mental health and recognizing that this was an ill person. Who did not deserve the kind of treatment our country overall gave him initially, in my opinion. It is similar to the treatment the Vietnam veterans generally received when they came home from serving our country.
So if you've read this, it means you are invested in this thought process to some extent. Let's not beat ourselves up looking at the problem, if you look at the pothole and not the solution to not hitting it, you'll just hit the pothole -- what are YOU going to do right now, this week, to do differently? We are all in this together and with a lot of effort -- our BEST EFFORTS -- we can get out of this together, but it means we have to work harder than we have ever worked in our collective lives.
I hope that I do my part every day to provide thoughtful, progressive education which is rooted in validity and soundness, and market it in a way which makes it enjoyable as well and educational. Sometimes it means I take off my boxing gloves and shoot from the hip, as I have today with my writing. Other days it means I write about the magnificance of what we saw in the Olympic athletes and opening ceremony.
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!