The Mental Health Field is Undervalued

[ricachica]

Currently I volunteer for a trauma intervention program in my county where we are called by first-responders/hospitals to arrive on the scene of a death or extreme crisis. 95% of the time, its a death, and we give emotional first-aid and practical resources to the family members and other witnesses etc. It's a 24/7 service, 365 days a year, and we arrive to in-home deaths, deadly car accidents, mass shootings, hospital deaths, overdoses, suicides, etc., and essentially help with the emotional part of the process while police/hospital staff/coroners can attend to their more practical part of the job and can leave, so to speak. We help families call mortuaries and stay until the deceased is picked up, or aid in communicating between family and hospital staff. We give a resource book filled with information about funeral homes, group therapy, hotlines, etc., highlighted best to their specific situation.

Point is, we are there for someone's worst day of their life after losing a family member, and we help them throughout the very first moments of it. Our job is essentially to be a vessel for them to lean themselves all the way into and hold space for them to grieve as they wish. It is delicate, it is intense, it is softness, you must show reverence the whole time, you must hold strength for them, you must be flexible, you must understand how no words in reality can actually describe what they are going through. It is a highly dignified role to do this type of work, and from what I have heard from friends, its something they would never consider doing and are shocked that I and others are doing it.

I was first recommended this program about 2 years ago from a friend who also was in it, and at the time I had just quit an ABA job working with autistic children for 2 years. Besides all the unethical things I saw from coworkers and supervisors, I also made more doing Instacart and delivering groceries to people than working at the highest paying agency in the area. I did the math one day, and I grew increasingly bitter that my standard of living was so low, when nearly everyday I saw the immense benefit I gave to families, from helping teach a child their first word, to helping them stop hitting themselves, etc. It made me angry that I made more on a delivery app and would have to do it after 8 hours of work with the children just to make ends meet. It made me distraught when I delivered to a luxury apartment with someone working from home who majored in accounting and could afford their lifestyle, but because I choose the helping profession, I was still stuck with multiple roommates and nothing in my savings. Not that I want or need a luxury apartment, but you get my point.

So when I was recommended the trauma program by my friend shortly after quitting due to my sentiments towards the undervaluation of the mental health field, I politely declined, but inside I was livid that such an important and vital program was being run under volunteer work...now I wouldn't be getting paid at all. Each volunteer has to do a minimum of three 12 hour shifts per month, with one being a 12 hour night shift, but it's still 36 hours I have to be completely ready for and cannot do anything else with while waiting for a dispatch call. Along with a mandatory 3 hour meeting every month. Essentially a whole full work week.

I have since joined the program a few months ago, and we get many talks from police officers and other agency presenters in the meetings telling us how important our work is to them, that the police can remain being "hard" and "tough" on scene that they say they need to be while we do the "soft" and "delicate" work. They cannot hug a grieving wife that is sitting on the floor next to her deceased husband as she strokes his beard for the last time, but we can, and it means everything to them that we can.

The "hard" and "tough" jobs get the good living wage with pensions and benefits, and the "soft" and "delicate" work gets nothing.

I am tired of my softness and delicateness being taken for granted, I am tired of not being given equal treatment for it. I am tired of it being worth dirt and framed as doing it from "the bottom of my heart". Yes, I do truly care about the people I serve, but that does not mean I should get to live off food stamps. I have to become an MFT to make a livable wage in this field, when I would be happy to also do work like this and similarly for life, MFT shouldn't be the only option. I know even the ambulance and mortuary drivers do not get paid well....so many of us, and its because its the helping profession getting taken advantage of.

Edited May 31 by ricachica

[Leo Gura]

Yes, this is the fundamental problem with capitalism, it actually rewards some of the easy and less important jobs while underpaying the most important ones like school teachers and other kinds of helper roles.

It's twisted that a Hollywood actor makes $50 million of 3 months work while the teachers of their children earn $60k/yr.

Edited May 31 by Leo Gura

[ricachica]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, this is the fundamental problem with capitalism, it actually rewards some of the easy and less important jobs while underpaying the most important ones like school teachers and other kinds of helper roles.

It's twisted that a Hollywood actor makes $50 million of 3 months work while the teachers of their children earn $60k/yr.

Yes, and many of the helper roles are filled by women, who also historically don't receive as much pay as well. It feels like a poor integration of respecting and realizing the importance of the feminine-featured roles in society. Softness is made fun of and seen as weak, when I think it can actually be just as strong as hardness. It definitely takes strength to be soft while attending to parents mourning a child's suicide in the next room...wouldn't ya think?

The capitalism part also means a lot of MFTs are coming from a group of people who may have been well off to begin with, as graduate school and licensure is also expensive, meaning less diversity of related life experience for clients to choose from. The volunteer program I see the same problem, with 80% being retired financially stable white women who are comfortable with their free time...not that they aren't good people...but their lack of related life history/culture with the rest of the community has been inconspicuously evident in some cases.

I mean I am definitely seeing some sort of change, for instance a scholarship opportunity was recently created for my field where you can be awarded up to $35k, which I have not seen anything like it before. Catch is, I must work with underserved youth/young adult populations for 1 year after graduation to accept the scholarship. Not that I am opposed to working with them, as I have before, but it obviously doesn't pay too well... and I would have to delay graduate school for a year. Still hoping I get accepted though!

I want to get to a point that I am not worried about the money like this either, and can just focus on the people I serve and not worry about survival mode. I could start developing myself more in other personal/spiritual pursuits, which I feel would actually help my clients the more I develop, but I can't get there fast enough with all of these financial delays  . Not losing sight though, as aggravating as it can be at times.

[Lucasxp64]

On 31/05/2024 at 3:37 AM, ricachica said:

Yes, and many of the helper roles are filled by women, who also historically don't receive as much pay as well. It feels like a poor integration of respecting and realizing the importance of the feminine-featured roles in society. Softness is made fun of and seen as weak, when I think it can actually be just as strong as hardness.

With the risk of just paraphrasing you:

The human civilization has always been really toxic, only now things have been improving. Essentially, whoever gets paid the most is whoever has the most power to bargain, which means, we are still fundamentally very power and survival driven.

But that's it. It's just a fact of our current state of affairs, evident to everyone in this forum.

😉 Personally, I'd recommend you to do ASMR videos on YouTube, personal attention, emotional talks, roleplays, "reiki", etc. Checkout EdiyASMR for example.

Most ASMR videos are just a front for receiving that kind of feminine energy.

Some artists even receive some monthly income even from donations from people that expect nothing back, many times they don't release a video for months and people don't stop the monthly donations. They form some sort of parasocial bond.

My best regards to you!

Edited June 12 by Lucasxp64