RAGpages

Waiting on Perfect

May 4, 2013

Just a few thoughts while I patiently wait on that golden, dream job opportunity call on my phone…

I have been working in the field of counseling for about 20 years. Mostly, I worked in agencies that served at-risk youth and their families. I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree when I first started. As the promotions went, I was forced to get my undergraduate degree. More experience and more promotion ceilings. In 2009 I moved to Alabama to pursue a personal relationship. There really were no attractive options for employment other than a “line staff” or something equally entry-level. So, what is a boy to do? Go for the Master’s degree, of course! Two years later, 30k+ poorer and still people want to offer entry level “opportunities” to a guy with 20 years of experience (public speaking, prolific writing, policy drafting, quality assurance, significant management experience) AND now a MS in Counseling Psychology.

Here is the trouble (as I see it) with our field. I see a lot of program contracts that have been farmed out to the lowest bidder by various state and federal agencies. I won’t get into the potential for graft and corruption here. The initiators/creators of the programs are doing well, and get by with a churn & burn of revolving door mental health technicians and lack-of-experience clinicians who are only there for supervision or internships or to say they have some experience at the next job. The line-staff often are hired with no real experience (manager needs a warm body to fill the hole in the schedule). The scared and frustrated line staff won’t be disempowered by the clients, so they often resort to brute force or verbal abuse to maintain control on the floor. Meanwhile, the clinicians get burned out hot and fast like the flame under the space shuttle as it struggles to get out of the powerful gravitational pull of the Earth. Often, they burn very bright and fade quickly and leave because the system is dysfunctional or rather not growth oriented for clients or staff. Where is the management you ask? They are covering and coveting their office chairs and ensuring that their butts don’t move from that perch. Opportunities are missed and the cycle continues. The dysfunctional system that was tasked with helping people with dysfunctional lives does nothing but add a new painful chapter in their already scarred lives.

Folks, money is important. Job security and quality opportunities for growth are important too. Perhaps what is most important to a caregiving professional like me is the ability to make a difference. I am well past the phase of my career where I am best utilized by serving the individual needs of the clients. I certainly still enjoy helping individuals seeking help, but I believe the best use of my skills and abilities is to help mold, build or fundamentally change systems that serve people in need. Through my many years in the game, I believe that is exactly the skillset that isn’t wanted by most agencies that serve people in need.

It is sad that people in other fields are falling all over themselves trying to decide between the offers and large salaries. I think of sales as I write this. Sure, pushing out a product is good for the company making it, but what does it really do to make the world a better place? And sure, I am just a little bit bitter and jealous. I often get mouthy at the TV when I see some athlete complaining about 5.5 million being so insulting to them as a salary offer. Really, what do you do again??? You play a game! I can sense that this particular line of thought will just nosedive into a very righteously indignant diatribe about our culture and the entertainment industry as a whole. So, I will stop. Meanwhile, I sit waiting in my shared room in my volunteer job waiting for the next person to come in expecting me to work miracles in their life. All along, I know I am looking for the opportunity to change systems that CREATED most of the dysfunctions in this person’s life.

I also know that I make the people sitting across the table during the interview uncomfortable because I am open, honest and freely share my goal for utopian helping systems achieved through frank discussions and freely challenging what is inefficient, unhealthy or just plain dysfunctional. Is there an organization or company out there with a position for a guy with a ton of experience who would be best suited for turning around poorly performing agencies in order to better serve the clients? I promise I don’t want to rock the boat! I want to rock the ocean.

— R. A. Grier

The “Helping” Profession

April 6, 2013

What would you think about your Doctor for treating only your cough, while all along he knew you had TB? I am guessing that after you passed on, your family certainly would lawyer-up.

I won’t pretend to be simplistic in my answer and will start my reply with an incendiary statement. Only treating “at-risk” youth is the same as only treating that bad cough you have after the x-ray confirmed TB. It is criminally negligent and unethical. The problem is that no one out there in the MH community is willing to talk about the real causes. Instead, we pat ourselves on the back for working countless hours in impossible conditions for low pay so that we feel glorified when making statements like, “if I can just save one…”.

There are countless people and systems that have a “finger in the pie” of responsibility of this problem. That is exactly why it won’t get solved, but rather it will evolve. Also, the problem did not come in the last four years or even in our generation. We now have multi-generational, circularly-reinforced cultural degradation. Eventually the “problem” will become so large and so prevalent, that it will simply become the norm; ergo, no more problem. We have seen this type of evolution in concepts many times.

In a perfect world, everyone would be happy, no one would need anything and there would be no trauma or the resulting drama. Heaven is the only utopia and Adam and Eve blew our chance of having that utopia here on earth. Now, chances are that by saying “Heaven”, I lost a large portion of the MH community. Regardless, I will soldier on. Absent a perfect world available anymore, we are living in a fallen world. Pain and consequences are often indicators of something being wrong. For quite a while, our societal culture has chosen to do pain management, rather than prevention and/or surgery. If you notice more than a few metaphors relating to healthcare, it is not a coincidence.

Our culture is the parent of our next generation. Parents gave up the difficult task of parenting a very long time ago. There are many excuses for the cessation of that responsibility AND a tremendous amount of “help” from agencies, schools and the government. The common excuses I have heard why parents are absent are usually related to money or work. Besides, there is an after school program or a local kids’ club to keep them busy. Jump back about 200 years or maybe even just 100. We still had crime. We had people out of work. We had natural disasters. What changed? Now we have unnatural disasters to add to the list.

I will give you wonderful MH professionals another analogy to chew on. Johnny is an alcoholic. He has lost or severely damaged many relationships and has lost multiple jobs directly due to the effects of his drinking. Now, Sally comes along and she feels sorry for Johnny and wants to help him out. Johnny is without work, behind on the rent and doesn’t seem to even have enough money for food. This tears Sally’s heart into pieces. Sally believes that all Johnny needs is a break. He just needs a chance to get out from under the stress of his situation. If she can take some of the burden of Johnny’s life off of his shoulders, he will have a chance to get back on his feet and start the healing process. Sally offers to pay Johnny’s light bill and rent for the month. She feels empowered and fulfilled by doing such a good deed for someone in need.

Pretend this is one of those “you pick the ending” books. As a MH professional, what do you believe the outcome will be? Does Johnny, see the light and become the model father, neighbor and employee? Or does Johnny continue to drink and make Sally another in the long list of broken relationships in his life? Specific to MH, what is it called that Sally did? Starts with an “e”…

Does enabling help the “client”? Does it help the helper? Does it help anything? OR, does it hurt and prolong the pain, suffering and damage? Take the concept and act of enabling out of the individual situation. Globalize it to an entire culture at the societal level. Please tell me why it is WRONG to enable Johnny in his alcoholism, but it is GLORIOUS to enable generations by eliminating consequences for their choices with programs, assistance, grade leveling, welfare (corporate or individual), or any other attempts to manipulate outcomes??? We feel so DAMNED GREAT about our attempts to fix, help and treat those in need…

Is the community of MH Professionals so lost in incestuous thought, education and practice that we cannot do critical introspection for our efforts and effects on a societal level? Or are we just scared of offending somebody that we are willing to continue to walk down the path of destruction? Two questions: Is it working and are you really helping?

— R. A. Grier

Sequestration or just a nibble off the block of Govment Cheese?

February 28, 2013

I just wanted to add my thoughts on the current Sequestration turmoil that has engrossed the FEDGOV and our media friends. Everyone is screaming about how bad it will be to cut all of the services and programs out there that are helping people. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) said it could cost 179 million jobs! Holy large fecal number Batman! (BTW, there are about 180 million in the total workforce in the US) Now, I pray that Rep Waters just made a gaffe! Otherwise, sequestration means we are closing the plant and firing everybody.

Shove this thought into your pipe. All of those services and programs are ensuring that millions are enslaved by a FEDGOV that is only ENABLING them to be perpetually helpless.

Go ahead. Quote the numbers of people who have used assistance and then gotten away from it with good jobs and higher education. That’s great. Really, it is. That is what is was supposed to be for and I am ALL FOR HELPING PEOPLE!!!!

However, I would like for you to think of FEDGOV programs in terms of real solutions to real problems. Pretend you had a bullet wound and the bullet was still lodged in your body. Being shot is bad enough. The doctor comes along and does surgery. The doctor promises to fix the problem. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that we got shot in the collapse of the markets in 1929 and the couple of decades after that included the depression and a world war. The FEDGOV’s surgery included lots of money (pain killers) thrown at the “problem” over the years.

Just take ONE set of numbers that describes DIRECT PAYMENTS to INDIVIDUALS by the FEDGOV from the period of time between 1940 and 2011. The chart I am getting my information from what was published by the OMB. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/

If you will notice the “whitehouse.gov” portion of the website. That is the FEDGOV folks!!! These aren’t my numbers or some conservative hack!

(The chart numbers are in millions of dollars (e.g. 1.00 is actually 1,000,000.00))

So, in 1940 the direct payments to individuals was $1,360,000.00

By 1946 it jumped to $5,222,000.00

1950 — $12,407,000.00

1961 — $24,907,000.00

1970 — $56,079,000.00

1974 — $105,557,000.00

1979 — $206,276,000.00

1987 — $413,541,000.00

1998 — $817,749,000.00

2009 — $1,732,245,000.00

Now, those are a bunch of numbers.

You might wonder about an increase in population to explain the increase in spending. Smart!

1940 US Population — 132,164,569

2010 US Population — 308,745,538

Gee, it took 70 years for the population to increase by 100%, while in the same 70 years direct payments by our FEDGOV to individuals increased by 139,113%!!! That is a COMMA between the 9 and 1!!!

Now, back to the bullet you got shot with that your FEDGOV doctors are working on taking out of you.

Originally, in 1940, the size and weight of the bullet that you got shot with was akin to the size and weight of a Tylenol pill. Now, after the FEDGOV doctors have worked on you for 70 years, the bullet has grown to about 11 pounds is about the size of a football. Does anyone really think they are solving the problem? Really? Anyone think that???

Today, the politicians are SCREAMING about how much this sequestration will hurt. Well, if the FEDGOV doctors had done their job to begin with, we wouldn’t be trying to hack out such a large bullet from the patient using such crude tools as sequestration. Wait, how much are we cutting out???

Just how much money are we talking about anyway with sequestration? What unfathomably large dollar amount is going to cause so much pain when cut out??? 85 billion dollars. Yeah, that will hurt. It represents a little over 2% of the entire FEDGOV “budget” in 2010. It is just over 4% of the FEDGOV payments to individuals in 2010. Ouch, you pulled some hair out when you yanked that FEDGOV Band-Aid off! Wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I freely admit that numbers ARE NOT MY THING! Look them up for yourself and please tell me if I am wrong.

— R. A. Grier

February 18, 2013

Held Hostage

To believe that the current (seemingly perpetual) political environment is about anything other than power and control to get and keep something for a select few would be asinine. In America today, leadership at the FEDGOV level is not of a country, but of an ideology that carries and supports only the top members. The masses are pawns on both sides. As long as the President (any President) can keep the invading armies off our shores and reasonable access to tennis shoes and ham; the masses will be content enough not to cause any real trouble.

The masses are an inconvenient necessity for the leadership. They make the world go around through the daily toiling in their lives, jobs and efforts. I have said it before and will re-emphasize it now. Given the resources, talent and brains afforded to our FEDGOV, it is inconceivable that problems have not been solved. If you listen to the mouthpieces (AKA, talking suits) of the FEDGOV, they will tell you that they are working very hard for us. They just need your patience, more time and of course more money.

A few days ago and only a few miles away, there was a standoff that made the national spotlight for several days. A man shot and killed a bus driver, kidnapped a child and held the child hostage in a bunker for six days. It is my collective opinion that Jimmy Lee Dykes wanted to make a political statement about how badly he disliked the FEDGOV and its practices.

For the record, I do not and cannot support him (or anyone else) hurting uninvolved “innocents” to get a point across. Jimmy Lee Dykes killed a bus driver and held a child hostage. They had nothing to do with his fight. It should have never happened and those hurt should have never had their lives interrupted or ended.

I believe that Jimmy Lee Dykes felt like no one was listening and he felt powerless. After it was over, the FBI Special Agent in Charge, Steve Richardson was quoted in the local paper saying, “Unfortunately, we will have to deal with another one of these some day,” Yes, I agree. We don’t have to, but we will see more of these… a lot more.

It didn’t take too long before the media starting throwing around the term, “mentally ill”. The convenience of labeling someone “mentally ill” made the ordeal even more disturbing to me. Lately, it is the term de jour for describing the acts of people with guns. A man, with little regard for others’ health and well-being took actions that were dangerous, depriving some of life and liberty. Those actions were seemingly only in his self-interest.  Again, go a few paragraphs up with the sentence that starts with, “To believe that the current…”

What is the difference in what Jimmy Lee Dykes did and what the FEDGOV does and has done for decades upon decades?? Lives are ruined and people die every day for the ideologies of the powerful in this country. Those in the inner-circle get ahead. The tertiary supporters get to ride along and feed on the cognitive and substantive scraps and are supposed to feel proud and happy about being able to struggle to obtain the American Dream. Jimmy Lee Dykes had it right; he just got wrong trying to get right.

For years I have counseled kids in an attempt to make their lives better and hopefully our world a little better too. One of the many phrases that one develops in my line of work that I used quite often was, “Don’t get wrong trying to get right.” It meant (among other things) that you shouldn’t just create an end with no regard to how you got there. (E.g. goal is to get better grades; poor choice to achieve the goal would be to cheat. Goal is achieved, but not really). The follow on reason for not doing wrong to get right is because you will perpetuate the label of being wrong.

Jimmy Lee Dykes cheated and paid a price. In the process, he also created another poor argument that armed citizens are mentally ill and dangerous, especially if they disagree with the FEDGOV. What a convenient occurrence for the other mentally ill in this country to steal more liberty! A stretch? No, I think it is a fact and I believe that it has been happening for a very long time.

Laws do not make “right and wrong”. In fear of sounding like another burned-out (and dead) “crazy” who was also eliminated by the FEDGOV; I believe that God has the only law that matters. MOST of the other tripe in the law books was created to perpetuate the myth of our leadership fighting the good fight for the citizens. It also stacks the deck for some. How many of our leaders are struggling? How many of them are in the poorhouse during or after their terms in office? Does anyone out there think that they are on our side? Really??? If you do, please don’t bother yourself by further interrupting your comfortable, mythical existence any longer by reading more of my stuff. Go back to your glowy box. Listen while the nice man tells you that everything is going to be alright as he sends you back to Honey Boo Boo. I love the movie Idiocracy by the way.

America is and has been held hostage by our own dreams. We toil and struggle only so long as it suits the powers that be. Another counseling example of this would be the process of enabling. It isn’t too much of a stretch to see that welfare and other social programs are simple satiation of the electorate and a means to quell the masses from rioting, thus interrupting the comfortable carrying out of diabolical schemes by the leadership. Enabling is an act or acts that are well-intentioned, but do nothing more than perpetuate the behavior that is “undesirable”. Here is another example for you to chew on. You want to help Johnny. He has a serious drinking problem. Last month, he “lost” another job. He is struggling and you believe that he only needs to be out from under some of that struggle, so you pay his electric bill for him. He is grateful and tells you how difficult things are and mentions that he could use a sandwich. Awww, the poor boy needs a sandwich, so you get him one. Meanwhile, Johnny buys more booze… You find out and get mad. Why on earth would you be mad? Go back to that paragraph that starts with “To believe that the current…”

The simple fact that we have perpetual, heritage welfare should be a damned clue that it is enabling, not helping. It is also more dubious in that it keeps the power in power and the powerless (unbeknownst to them), happily held hostage. Above, I wrote about counseling kids and an example of how to approach problem solving a more-healthy way. I now wonder if I lied to all those kids. America really doesn’t work that way, does it? Everybody is doing it and that must be respected. That is right in line while practicing good cultural awareness, which is another short-sighted hallmark of my misguided profession. So what if a few people are inconvenienced by losing their rights like bearing arms or losing their liberty by being taxed into slavery? It is for the greater good, right? Besides, the FEDGOV knows what is best for us. They are working hard to solve our problems. They just need more time and of course, more money. Oh, by the way, here is a succinct definition for Antisocial Personality Disorder found on page 706 in the DSM-IV-TR (that book that defines what is crazy), “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others”. Attributed to Albert Einstein, is the other definition of crazy; doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Again, FBI Special Agent in Charge, Steve Richardson was right. We will see more of these hostage situations. As a matter of fact, we live them every day. BUT, we don’t want them. Who is crazy now?

— R. A. Grier

January 21, 2013

Creep

Somewhere along the way, I heard an analogy about turning a massive ship on a horizon-less ocean. If you do it slowly enough, the crew and passengers will have no knowledge of the turn. After enough time the ship can be going in a completely different direction and no one is the wiser until you reach something hard, like an iceberg.

The United States of America is slowly turning. Maybe not so slow as to not be noticed by anyone, but the masses are quite content. They acclimate with ease as they are placated and satiated by trinkets and personal comforts, given to them by the FEDGOV. The only cost is a yet-unfelt loss of liberty.

The creep I refer to is not the guy in the trench coat near the playground. No, the creep I am talking about is the slow, but steady change in America. Once built by the literal blood sweat and tears of patriots and their families who sacrificed and gambled everything in order to be free; we are now the most regulated and most taxed nation on earth. Our independence was fought so that we could get away from tyrants and taxation. Now, we embrace the tyrants and welcome taxation. All the while, another liberty is being chipped away.

At the end of 2011, President Obama signed into law something that would allow US citizens to be arrested IN THE US and held indefinitely IN THE US for terror related charges.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/

Then, later the military further defines who is a terrorist:

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/west-point-center-cites-dangers-far-right-us/#.UPm2XPNd3fA.gmail

I wish this bothered someone other than me. I am not sure anymore that it does. It is just another tall piece of rectangular wood that the FEDGOV sets up, right next to the last one and the other hundred-thousand domino pieces they had laid over the years. One day, there will be a push on the last domino laid.

I knew a while back that the FEDGOV would seek to disincentivize, discourage, dismantle and disassemble ANYTHING that was a threat to the FEDGOV. The states, the church, the police, the businesses, the military and the citizens have all been put into a box over the years in the name of freedom. The purpose can only be to ensure and maintain power and control. You cannot have liberty while living in a cell, regardless of how big the cell may be. If you are told what to do, how to do it and punished for not doing it, then you are in a cell.

No one cares because they haven’t felt the repercussions of the loss of liberty, YET! Then they will whine and cry like the babies they have been practicing to be for all of these years. They will look for someone to come and save them and fix the mess. No! I say no! You have the choice now to reign in an OUT-OF-CONTROL FEDGOV! However, the point of no return is very close. I pray that we have no already gone past that point.

So, today is another day. What will you choose to do with it? Just like that spoiled, insolent and seemingly incorrigible child; we must provide clear and severe consequences for the FEDGOV’s behavior if they are to be rehabilitated. Otherwise, they will put you in a smaller cell one day, provided they don’t just shoot you first.

Silence and inaction is the same as condoning and compliance. If you are in a position of leadership, exercise that leadership! Stand and speak and act against what you know to be wrong! Find the courage to break the bonds of silence! Stand for God and a Country that needs you! If you are like me and just a simple citizen, then do the same! Stand up and rail against those trying to put you in prison and destroy the American dream. If nothing else, do it for your children. They don’t have the choices we have.

When you do speak up and act according to faith in God and love of Country, there will be those who stand against you. They will try to keep you quiet  in your cell. You now know and have seen your enemy. They are the multi-generationally brainwashed mindless minions of the FEDGOV’s inhabitant army. Do not waste time trying to reason with these fools. Time is a very precious commodity as it cannot be renewed, stored or altered.

There will come a day that words will not alter the path of our nation. There will come a day when our States are powerless drones of the FEDGOV. There will come a day that the inhabitants far outnumber the citizens. There will come a day when the FEDGOV no longer needs to worry with bending rules or feigning pleasantries while it carries out its choices to ensure and maintain power and control. When that day comes, I pray you have made the necessary preparations for you and your family. One day, the FEDGOV will begin to take prisoners on its own soil. Those prisoners’ crime will be nothing more than trying to set the Country’s path straight again according to the Constitution. On that day the first prisoner is taken, mark it as the first day of the next American Revolution.

— R. A. Grier

Someone killed someone else…

Why? Don’t know, ask them.

Who coulda, woulda, shoulda prevented or stopped or intervened or WHATEVER? I don’t know. It is done. Now, the only concern is going to be what will be the response.

Now, those without knowledge or real world experience tell us what MUST be done or who SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED this massacre, tragedy or whatever attention/emotion rendering moniker fits best.

Properly raised and guided people don’t take up a weapon and massacre other people. I will pause slightly for all of those who are part of the problem start justifying, blaming, excusing, minimizing, avoiding accountability and running from anything called responsibility…

You can’t give things to people without giving them the lesson and guidance on how to earn it for themselves.

You can’t systemically or randomly remove responsibility, accountability and the resulting consequences for actions without society believing there are no consequences for actions.

You can’t make or raise kids in less than a two parent home, and that would be a mother and father in the role of “parents”.

You can’t get away with it forever. Regardless of how effective you are at lying, cheating or stealing, your choices will eventually run out of hiding places.

You can’t continually change reality in an effort to protect people from discomfort. That will catch up with all of us and it may have already.

You can’t artificially designate “winners” or maintain an equal outcome for all. This perhaps has been one of the largest contributing factors to the growing sociopathy in our society.

You can’t legislate good judgment, morality or good behavior. (We are winning that war on drugs, right?)

You can’t undo the past.

You can’t spend more than you earn.

You can’t ignore unpleasant things and expect them to disappear.

You can’t let everything in your life be decided by chance or someone else.

I may have missed a few as this list seems to be growing in our society. The hard truth is that for a lot of these “can’ts” the truth is that you can. You don’t get a speeding ticket EVERY TIME YOU SPEED. That is why people speed, because they can. Sure, they get a ticket periodically, but it isn’t until the license is going to be revoked or the insurance skyrockets do they actually begin to alter their choices. Consequences, whether contrived or natural, ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL BAD. That is why they work!

Because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. Eventually, without boundaries, our society will be an anarchy at best. My wife made a very good point the other day when talking about the “fiscal cliff” that our “leaders” are grappling … let me stop. I can’t put everything in quotes. We don’t have leaders in DC. They don’t care about fiscal cliffs, budgets or doing the right thing. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. Sierra Squared, Delta Squared is the same descriptor and result out of DC. Back to my wife! She pointed out that people actually think there is a fiscal problem approaching when all the talk is about the cliff coming up. She sharpened her point with clarifying that only a fool would believe we aren’t over the cliff and have been for a very long time.

You can do anything for a certain amount of time without any unpleasant results or consequences. From my training and education in the world of psychology and counseling, I see that our society is CREATING sociopaths. By allowing all of those “can’ts” above, we are encouraging, training and teaching people to be sociopathic. That day will come. That day  that you have avoided and even believed never would come, will come. It will all get worse and it will all fall apart. I don’t know what you will do. Do you?

— R. A. Grier