TheMilieuFiles

I’ve worked the floors and walked behind the locked doors of residential care. I’m here to talk about the things that don’t make it into brochures, treatment meetings, or the “trauma-informed” training slides. This account is anonymous, but experience is not.

@bacchusplateau @MrDanielBuck To not even have a debriefing is insane and something I know too well

@MrDanielBuck Happened in my classroom. I didn’t even get an apology from him and he was back in my classroom the next day.

I’m sorry, if a kid throws a chair, I don’t care what’s the root cause or what unmet need they’re trying to express The school cannot tolerate that behavior and the kid has to be expelled

I want to be hopeful, but that hope has been cut down over the years. Having this outlet has given me more hope and allowed me an opportunity to speak freely about the issues that destroyed the hope. I don’t want to be a never-ending gossip-loop. I want to be an advocate, that’s able to provide real, actionable solutions to the problems I’ve encountered. I think knowing your purpose and remembering the main goals stops those cycles from happening

@TheMilieuFiles You sound hopeful. The types of people you find on twitter, I'd say only 1:100,000 are not in a gossip loop.

More people are starting to question systems instead of only blaming the individuals trapped inside them. I think people sharing lived experience has played a huge role in making that awareness impossible to ignore. Seeing the shift gives me hope.

People always said: "The kids will break you." The kids did not break me. The same system that broke them did.

@FiveRedkin Common sense isn’t common

What level of common sense does a psychiatrist have?

@DoctorPerin Sweet babies

@Dommcming I’m not disagreeing. It can turn into a never-ending loop of talk without action, but opening doors to further conversations, exploring different perspectives, and bringing awareness to systematic issues gives me hope that these systems will change one day.

@TheMilieuFiles There is a lot to said here. But we have to be aware of "the gossip trap". Which is : we get stuck only at the "gossip only" stage.

A facility without proper training or models does more than create unprepared staff; it promotes a culture of survival and containment rather than facilitating treatment and care.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but forgiveness is bullshit. You do not owe anyone anything, especially not forgiveness. It is not something you hand out freely. It comes with a price, and more people need to talk about that price. A lot of people want you to forgive so they don’t have to hear about what happened anymore. So they don’t have to sit with it. So they can feel better. That is fucking selfish. I was taught forgiveness was the first step to moving forward - news flash, it is not. First steps are acknowledging that your pain real, accepting that it happened, processing what it’s done to you, and living with it. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Being told to forgive only causes guilt for still hurting. Still thinking about it. Not being able to “just get over it,” as if moving on was ever that fucking easy. And it’s even worse when the people who hurt you never acknowledged what they did and only made excuses for it. So do not force yourself to remain connected to people who harmed you just because others expect it. Protecting yourself, your mind, and your body matters more than making other people feel better about the guilt they have to live with. I made similar decisions for myself, and I feel less guilty every single day - less worried about whether forgiveness is that important compared to my own pain. I hope the same happens for you.

I'm not a child sex abuse survivor; I am still a victim. I still get deeply distressed when I see children. I have flashbacks. I get hypervigilant. I think about what happened to me. I get incredibly angry. It's unpleasant, and I'm fucking sick of it to be honest.

@tylerblack32 Undertreatment is a significant issue. Real intervention is unaffordable, especially for those without insurance. People who need/want treatment frequently cannot access services. Even when they do, the cost of ongoing care is beyond what is realistic

While psychiatric overprescription does occur, the biggest problem in America is that a large percentage of the population has no access to any MH treatment of any kind. It's undertreatment. People with mental illness need professional care, and they have none.

@AliceBunnyland2 I think it’s definitely projection, but the reasons vary. Some feel powerless, but it’s due to their school systems. Teachers inherently lack control, but some do overcompensate. I’m not excusing it, just offering a different perspective.

Why do so many teachers have power trips? Like it’s honestly really sad especially now that I’m a full grown adult to see other adults who feel like the only control they have in their lives is over their students. There are some amazing teachers out there, but some are the worst

@Rituraj062000 @mr_vossen I stand by my original statement with the correction that both sides need to learn the skill*

The experience is valid, and something I’ve encountered too. I wasn’t trying to dismiss that, as I know it happens. Both sides can lack those feedback skills, and sometimes correction becomes a power struggle rather than a way to solve issues. I’ve also worked with children who gave constructive feedback I appreciated, but we intentionally taught this skill: communicating feedback to peers and adults without escalation. I stand by my original statement

A few years ago while working as a dean at a middle school, a parent once told me not to say anything to her child. I remember telling her, “Well the best way to make sure that happens is to take him to another school because adults are going to correct students here.”

@aas_ker The real question: How do we teach children to respect people, period? They first need to learn respect as a baseline skill before anything else

How can we teach children to respect people from different backgrounds?

@Knowles7Andrew @empathadvocate I’m against medication-first approaches and oppose many practices, but criticizing intervention differs from claiming psychiatric medication is illegitimate. The real issue is misuse, overreach, and poor practice, not when medication is assisting someone to function

@empathadvocate You live in a society that uses state violence to force psychiatric drugs on strangers. You vote. You should expect angry victims of the violence you support to turn up. And I am entitled to think it is absurd you alter your brain when it has never been proven diseased.

I really don’t appreciate being shamed for taking antidepressants or any medication for a matter of fact. All of my medications have saved my damn life.

@Efrwqt And then the cycles only repeat from there

@TheMilieuFiles Reactive kids grow up to create reactive environments

Reactive environments create reactive kids.

@_xojnk Buddy, romanticizing? Plum wild. I didn't choose this life; this life chose me 🫩

Ask people with ADHD

@empathadvocate No one should be doing that. Getting shamed for using something that’s helping is crazy work

@looneyfox_1 Literally, yes. Everyone at my last job

Betrayal trauma is horrific. I look at thr world completely differently after chemo and after work bullying. People will stand by and let you be bullied.