Where have we been on TheWildSideWalk?

I swore I was going to start posting on this thing . . . But "the best-laid plans . . ." Well, perseverance is a virtue (most of the time, except when one perseveres about things that become toxic . . .). So below is the introduction to recent WildSideWalk activity that might account for continued gaps in blog-initiative.

The WildSideWalk and on-cusp-of-adulthood daughter made one of our memorable sojourns to the Southland (a traditional Little Rock sandwich on NOLA bread, anyone who knows us well enough knows that routine). That occurred in late August 2011. Our second NOLA leg of this trip included the amazing and daunting opportunity to be there during the entire Hurricane Katia period, as well as the passing of its successor, Lee. This gave us some vague notion in a very mild way, of what New Orleans was like during Katrina.

School started shortly after we returned from that once-in-a-lifetime experience. Less than a week had passed after our return to NYC from NOLA, and WildSideWalk's life took some unexpected turns . . .

Precious daughter of WildSideWalk, a senior at a prestigious NYC public high school, who had begun having a difficult time during the previous year (and ended up in summer school making up lost credits as a result), started school with no small measure of continued trouble. Essentially, the depression and anxiety that had begun to haunt her (acutely during the previous year) were awakened from their summer-dormant state; in fact they woke with a new vengeance and took over her existence. She was absent from more classes than she attended (interesting degree of non-accountability at this very highly-rated school, perhaps future posts on that frustration). She lived to hang out with her two closest school peers (mother refuses to use the term "friends"), at least one of whom was an active/heavy user of illicitly-acquired prescription drugs and alcohol. (These kids think that Smirnoff Ice is VODKA, instead of the hangover-formula malt liquor that it really is--makes me nauseous just to imagine it.)

Simultaneous with that, The WildSideWalk was precipitously laid off from a position with the iconic addiction treatment organization that had employed her as the Research/Program Evaluation Manager for the previous two years. This represented a very sad state of affairs for that organization, in that it is one of the "elders" in the therapeutic community (TC) world, and it is fiscally tanking in a huge way. There was a complete upheaval/ejection of top executive staff that began shortly after WildSideWalk arrived. Periodically there were waves of layoffs at every staff level throughout the organization; round one of this occurred shortly before we got involved with this organization but was "downplayed" during the hiring process by the Senior Vice-President to whom we reported. That organization has more recently taken a "clever" turn, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They spin the report that this in not in an effort to begin closing down, but to "facilitate further restructuring."

Had I known more from the outset regarding the already dreadful fiscal disaster this agency had created for itself, there might have been a different decision made about going there in the first place. Just goes to emphasize that one should look below the surface before believing others' sales pitches about the safety of the pool . . . (More also about this in future posts.)

From that time to the present, we have been involved in a series of life-struggles, with continued unemployment, trying to survive with that in New York City, and daughter with her own set of challenges, that of course reflect back on/bounce of of/permeate the existence of those close to her . . . This is the first up-close-and-personal experience of a seasoned professional psychologist, with the intimate, personally-felt details of a large urban "mental health system." It has provided much material for thought, and an altered perspective regarding many aspects of the experience of people in need of help for life's problems. We hope in the course of this to be able to capture and express some of those insights and views, as we found them staggering--and profoundly revealing, of the barriers and frustrations encountered by people in need of help for emotional, psychological, and other forms of suffering.

That is the introduction.