[OOhsoflyDELTA#9]

WOW....just wow to this thread...I'm on here like everyday so I don't know how I missed this......first I commend everyone here for their strength in sharing...you all have probably helped someone who hasn't gained the courage to share their stories yet...I've mentioned before that I work in mental health as a BAQP, MHQP, DDQP, and a whole bunch of other alphabet that all basically mean mental health case manager...I came into this field by accident but I fell in love with it because I realized how many people really have issues stemming from mental health...it was supposed to be just a filler job until I ready for medical school but now I have changed my entire career path in order to continue to serve in this field...BUT thats not the story...after a while of trying to figure out why I was so drawn to helping my consumers I realized that I saw myself in many of them...since I was a teenager I would go through bouts of defiance and anger....getting into trouble, fighting in school....then I would just want to be left alone and not deal with people for days at a time....I had been called mean, moody, and just bad for so long that I didn't know that there was a REAL reason for my behavior...although my diagnosis isn't severe, I found comfort in being able to place a name on something that had plagued me for years, and that had caused me to make many mistakes and bad decisions in the past...so now I'm focusing my studies on comprehensive mental health, my agency/practice will serve the total need of the consumer... physical and mental health....I want to focus on the African-American community and raise the awareness of the existence and frequency of mental heath disorders within it......