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Megan MatthewsParticipant
Make mine a frozen raspberry, no salt. With the cute little paper umbrella.
Megan MatthewsParticipantShout out to Yashi because every single thing you’re saying hits me SO FREAKIN’ HARD, especially the Unsolicited Universal Shoulds, which are thrown ALL OVER my kindreds by mainstream forms of therapy and the mainstream world in general – they SHOULD want to blend in, they SHOULD mask their differences so they can “pass”, they SHOULD be less like themselves and more like the mainstream ideal, et-fucking-cetera. But you wanna know what REALLY grinds my gears about my industry (mental health counseling) in particular? The people out there actively peddling the idea that neurodivergent folks need to be trained (like puppies!) to act in ways that are more acceptable to mainstream (as in neurotypical) society – and *passing this off as a form of therapy*. Essentially, as far as I can discern, they’re pretty much programming people to stop acting like their authentic selves; which in my mind makes them no better than those who are still peddling “conversion therapy” to LGBT folks. And again, they are *passing this off as psychotherapy*. Those fuckwits grind my gears just as hard. (Side note: the national association for my profession has formally denounced the practice of conversion therapy. So it’s clearly not my gears that these knuckleheads are grinding…)
Okay, yeah, end of rant. I’m gonna go listen to Halestorm – Freak Like Me. (Content warning: This song is Hard Rock/Heavy Metal. Strong language is all OVER it. Which is why I love it. Also, Lzzy Hale is my goddess.)
Megan MatthewsParticipantI’m a clinical mental health counselor by training, education and licensure; but for nearly five years I worked as a chemical dependency counselor after having been essentially “railroaded” into that line of work by an academic advisor who told me that a chemical dependency counseling graduate certificate would “open doors” for me, and said that was something I needed because I didn’t “present well”. (Translation: I’m neurodivergent, and my advisor decided that I was too “different” to ever find work without going into a field that was so desperate for workers that the certification didn’t even require a four-year degree, let along a master’s. Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Dr. Neuronormativism.)
That was how I started understanding the “Thing” that has kept finding me, over and over and over, that I’m here for, that I was literally born to do: Working with people who are “different” like I was (and am) “different”. The ones who are discouraged from following their dreams because they and their dreams don’t fit in the standard-sized societally-approved box. The ones who need to know that being neurodivergent, or having a chronic illness or disability, or being queer or black or brown, doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be in the margins forever. The ones who need the affirmation that just because we’re different doesn’t mean we’re broken or wrong.
Showing people with nonconforming identities how to embrace who they are and how to navigate a world that wasn’t built for us or even by us is My Thing. It’s followed me all my life – because it IS me.
Megan MatthewsParticipant“What excites me… is that I’m literally making a career out of being different.”
This. OMG THIS. ALL THE THIS.
I’ve been fifty shades of “different” all my life. Born with a medical condition that could *technically* kill me except it was “under control” (except the rare times it wasn’t, and then off to the ER we go) – so I was told it didn’t count as a disability. Neurodivergent in a time before even the *concept* for that word existed. And “gifted and talented”. From the time I started school I got the narrative that I Must Not Stand Out In Any way Ever Ever Ever (except academics, which I was good at), because standing out draws attention, and *any* attention would get a giant-ass target drawn on my back. So I learned to make myself as small and invisible as humanly possible as much of the time as possible, because they can’t pick on you if they never see you.
Long story short, I ended up with that target on my back anyway, mostly because I am absolute shit at even trying to lie, and I couldn’t (still can’t) high-mask to save my own life or anybody else’s.
<<<SKIP a lot of years of living with C-PTSD I didn’t know I had, most of it from “lifelong medical trauma” and LOTS of school bullying>>>
Flash WAY forward. Here’s me, in the counseling private practice I’ve been dreaming of since, I shit you not, age sixteen. Standing in service to (to date) thirty neurodivergent and/or LGBTQ+ humans who’ve mostly wanted more than anything else to feel seen, heard, understood, and *not so fucking alone.* And you know how I give them that? By being able to say, with all my heart and all my truth from a place of utter authenticity, “I get that. I really *get* that. Because I’m one too.”
*Damn* I love my work.
- This reply was modified 9 months, 3 weeks ago by Megan Matthews.
Megan MatthewsParticipantOm nom nom… yummy, yummy boundaries…
(Yes, I’m like this naturally. No drugs involved, not even caffeine. Whyever do you ask?) 😜🤣
Megan MatthewsParticipantOh man. You bring up a very different question; and yet in a way I feel like it’s kinda the same question but in a MUCH larger font size, and in bold type.
If I had all the money I’d ever need…
#1: Send my mom enough money, regularly enough, that she’d never have to worry about how much it costs to live in a Florida condo EVAH AGAIN. (Stupid gougey homeowner’s association fees, grrrr…)
#2: Pay off my soul-sister’s house (and her financial debt to her toxic relatives, ugh).
#3: Pay off my mortgage and student loans.
#4: Offer administrative jobs in my practice to all my closest and most beloved ones, so those who wished to could escape the 9-5 toxic-workplace “good little cog in the machine ’til you die” Venus flytrap.Megan MatthewsParticipantMy Why for starting my business… I started it as a teeny tiny Saturday-to-Monday side hustle (that I thought was okay with my 9-to-5 boss until he flipped the script and claimed he never said that) because my 9-5 supervisor told me point-blank to “get out of here and start doing what you were actually trained for, before you lose your edge”. So I did – after several traumatic work experiences involving the toxic/gaslighter boss. I expanded my therapy private practice from side hustle to full time and I’ve never looked back.
My Why for getting up every day and still doing all this crazy “therapreneur” shit, is the clientele I’ve chosen to serve: the neurodivergent, LGBTQ+ folks who feel forced to twist themselves into pretzels to fit into a world that wasn’t built by or for people like them. They’re my Why, because I’ve been them. I *am* them. And I want to be the support for them that I never had for myself.
Megan MatthewsParticipantMy confidence is knowing that my response to “just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD” and other barrier-type language getting thrown up in my face can always and will forever be:
“Yes, and just because I ‘CAN’T’ doesn’t mean I WON’T.”
My confidence is knowing, deep down in the bottom of the marrow of my bones, that every time I actually try something I will, in SOME way, succeed, even if my success doesn’t look like I planned/hoped/expected – because I. Will. Have. LEARNED. Something. And learning is never NOT useful.
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