art, ideas, musings

Repost: Are art teachers “stupid”?

This post appeared on my original blog on May 16, 2016. I am reposting it because I think it’s a thought provoking essay. It’s mostly “as/is”. The featured photo was taken by me at the Uffizi Art Gallery and Museum in Florence, Italy in April 2022.

Just to be clear, I don’t think anyone who teaches art or any other humanities or creative class is stupid.  I think a good art teacher can be a lifesaver to some kids.  However, I know there are “practical” minded people out there who think anyone who chooses to teach art or music or any other course that isn’t an “essential subject” must be an idiot.   

The real question is, how stupid do you have to be to pay for a degree to teach art? Financially doesn’t add up.

This was posted in a Facebook group I used to frequent. It was full of overly pragmatic people with “military mindsets”.

Some people who read this blog may know that I am a graduate of Longwood University.  Longwood is well known in Virginia for turning out great teachers.  I didn’t become a teacher myself, but I do have a lot of friends and one relative who earned teaching endorsements at Longwood.  I’m not sure what the laws in Virginia are now, but I do remember that the year I entered Longwood, the “elementary education” major was discontinued.  Everyone who wanted to be an elementary school teacher had to major in a subject and then take additional education courses.  And while some of the subjects seemed fun, they were also a lot of hard work.  I can’t count the number of times I watched my friends laboring over colorful projects involving contact paper.  You’d think it would be fun to make teaching aids and bulletin boards, but those projects required time, patience, creativity, and most of all, money.  They weren’t fun and games. 

I often hear people talking about how art, music, dance, and theater are “fun” majors that are ultimately useless.  They have no respect for people who study the arts because they perceive those subjects to be easy.  What some people don’t seem to understand is that it takes actual talent to major in those areas.  Moreover, the arts make the world a better place.  They stimulate creativity, which leads to innovation and discussion.  Arts of all kinds get people talking and thinking and make the world more exciting.  People who teach artistic subjects inspire young people and, in some cases, can actually be lifesavers.

When I was in school, the local school system employed a husband and wife who taught art.  The wife taught art to 7th and 8th graders and her husband taught at the high school.  Mr. and Mrs. Bergh were definitely “artsy” people.  In 7th grade, I took Mrs. Bergh’s class.  I had always enjoyed art and thought her class would be fun.  I actually found Mrs. Bergh’s class difficult.  I will never forget trying to draw a perfect sphere, my hand, or my shoe.  It was really hard.  I don’t think I got higher than a B in that class.  But I did learn something from Mrs. Bergh.  She taught me to “draw what I see”, and that changed my whole perspective.  

Before I took Mrs. Bergh’s art class, I would only draw what I thought I saw.  I wouldn’t actually look at something and try to create it on paper.  I would just create something from my thoughts, never even observing the thing I was trying to draw.  While a lot of great art comes from imagination, there is a lot to be said for taking a minute to look at reality and recording it accurately, as you actually see it with your eyes.  Mrs. Bergh taught me to look closely at an object and draw what my eyes were actually seeing, not what I thought I was seeing.  I must admit, learning to draw what I see was a difficult skill to master, but it changed my worldview.  I could apply that lesson to more than just art.  Mrs. Bergh taught me to look at things objectively rather than subjectively.  That’s a skill that transcends all subjects.

I never took any of Mr. Bergh’s art classes.  I am not a particularly talented artist and I found his wife’s class to be enough of a challenge.  However, many of my friends took Mr. Bergh’s classes.  He was a popular teacher who managed to make a career in art even though he had one prosthetic eye.  Some of my friends were struggling with adolescence.  At least a couple of them were not doing so well in their academic classes, but they excelled in art.  Mr. Bergh’s class gave them a place to express themselves and may have even prevented a couple of them from committing suicide.  He was a good teacher, but he was also a valued friend to most of his students.  He made high school more bearable for a lot of kids.  

My sister majored in art.  She is not a teacher (thank God), but she is a very talented artist.  She’s always been employed, generally in her field.  Years after she completed her art degree, she went on to earn a master’s degree in journalism.  The two areas of study complement each other.  Though she probably could have majored in something others would consider “practical” like accounting or nursing, my sister would have been mediocre and miserable in those fields.  She’s an artist and her work has value.  She got to where she is because people in her past chose to be art teachers.  It’s because someone taught art that my sister isn’t torturing some poor soul in the hospital with a cold bedpan or fucking up someone’s taxes. 

Today’s post was inspired by a rant one of my friends posted about an art teacher calling her daughter stupid.  My friend was understandably upset about the teacher’s conduct.  Another friend said the music teacher had also behaved unprofessionally.  There was a lot of talk about how difficult it is to be fired from the government system and that’s why these teachers were getting away with behaving so badly.  As the discussion continued, someone mentioned that art teachers are usually not very good teachers because their field is not in high demand or they couldn’t hack a “real” subject like English or math.  There may be some truth to that idea.  It could also be that some of the people teaching art and music would rather be creating art and music.  They became teachers because they thought they had to teach in order to make a living.  Maybe they’re burned out or not suited for a career in teaching. 

I think a lot of people go into teaching because they simply want to be employable.  I almost did that myself.  Originally, I planned to get a teaching endorsement to be a high school English teacher, even though I had no desire to teach.  Having taught English as Peace Corps Volunteer, I now know that it would have been a mistake for me to be a professional teacher.  But even as an 18 year old, I knew that I wanted to be able to find a job.  Not being a particularly worldly 18 year old, I thought teaching was the obvious practical skill to fall back on should I ever find myself faced with the prospect of living in a van by the river.    

I majored in English because I love writing, but I believed it was unlikely I would be able to write for a living.  So, being a somewhat practical sort, I figured I could teach.  I know I’m not the only one who’s done that.  Fortunately, I wised up and abandoned my plans to teach.  It would have been a mistake for me to be an English teacher.  I would not have been very good at the job.  Had I decided to be a teacher, some poor kid would probably be complaining to their parents about me.  Or maybe I would have been fired and still ended up in a van by the river.  

Too many Americans have the mindset that they have to follow a set path.  Yes, it’s important to have solid skills that lead to gainful employment.  We do need people in fields that require a specific skill set.  But the world also needs creators and dreamers and people who think outside of the proverbial box.  People who mentor the world’s dreamers have an important job.  Art, music, dance, and theater are very important, especially to young people who are developing their critical thinking skills and their creativity.  We should have more respect for those who choose a career in the arts and those who are brave enough to teach in the arts. 

The world doesn’t need more mediocre scientists, nurses, accountants or teachers.  I know some people think studying the arts with the intention of launching a career is a “stupid idea”, but I would submit that it’s actually stupid to expect everyone to go down the same narrow path.  If you broaden your mindset, you may find that any course of study can be useful and worthwhile.  Moreover, it’s often the creative types who find ways to use arts training to make the world better while they earn a living.  Limited thinkers are those who believe wholesale that art teachers are inherently “stupid” or “can’t hack teaching a ‘real’ subject” simply because they choose to teach art.  

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healthcare, social media, stupid people

Alabama doctor gets “threats” after warning people on Facebook about COVID-19!

Hey guys… I know I’m on a short vacation, but I need to make a comment. And right now, Mr. Bill is about to take a shower, so I have a few minutes to vent about this.

A couple of days ago, I read a heartbreaking story about Dr. Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist in Alabama, who shared an emotional Facebook post about the realities some of the people who don’t get vaccinated against COVID-19 will face if they get sick. She wrote:

I’ve made a LOT of progress encouraging people to get vaccinated lately!!! Do you want to know how? I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late. A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same. They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.

As always, I am an open book. Please bring me your questions and I will tell you everything I know and everything I don’t.

It’s not too late, but some day it might be.

It got picked up by multiple news outlets and shared in the article I found on MSNBC. I shared it on my page, and one of my friends, who is a nurse at the Mayo Clinic and has been taking care of COVID patients from the beginning, wrote about how she took care of a person who asked her if they were going to die that night. That person, who was unvaccinated and asked for the vaccine while hospitalized, didn’t die. However, another unvaccinated person who was being taken care of by my friend at the same time did die. Both were previously healthy people in their 40s. She still thinks about both of them, and countless others who have been under her care.

Then yesterday, a friend of mine and Bill’s– a Trump devotee from Alabama who was smart enough to get the vaccine– wrote that his daughter is currently in the hospital with COVID-19 and she is VERY sick. She was not vaccinated, so her life is now in danger. Our Trump loving friend– and he really is a friend we knew when we lived in northern Virginia– wrote a heartfelt post to his friends and family members about the vaccine, encouraging them to get it. Most of his friends were respectful and kind, although one referred to the vaccine as “poison” and felt free to opine about how things are in Europe. Bill needed to set her straight on that. I also added my two cents, which I rarely do on this guy’s Facebook, because his friends are even more conservative than some of my relatives are.

People– COVID is NOT a political thing. It’s a public health crisis. Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years, and they WORK. Is there a small chance of experiencing adverse effects? Yes, there are risks in everything we do. But your chances of getting very sick and dying decrease dramatically with the vaccine. I am a big believer in people making their own choices, but some folks are just plain being stupid about this and they are paying with their lives. And their choices are affecting so many other people.

Making matters worse is that some of the terrified people out there in Internet land, offended or angered by Dr. Cobia’s pleading on Facebook, have issued THREATS to her, and her mother! What the hell is wrong with people? It’s never okay to threaten people, especially when they’re being kind enough to tell you the TRUTH. Below is a quote from the Washington Post about Dr. Cobia’s Facebook crusade and the aftermath:


Cobia said that she initially “agreed to a few interviews to help spread the word because I think the message is so important,” but she and her mother have since received “a lot of harassing and threatening messages.”

“So I just need to take a step back from everything right now and let the post circulate and hope it does its job and changes some minds!”

Cobia, and her husband, who is a neurosurgeon, both got COVID last year. Cobia was 27 weeks pregnant with her second child at the time, and chose to deliver early out of precaution. So this is not just about a doctor treating people with the virus. It’s also about someone who got the virus and survived. She knows firsthand about it, although she was lucky enough to have a somewhat mild case. Cobia says she got the vaccine as soon as it was available and even breastfed afterwards.

Getting the vaccine doesn’t mean you won’t get COVID. However, it does make it a hell of a lot less likely that you’ll die from it or be hospitalized. And you are much less likely to be sitting in a hospital bed, holding hands with a doctor like Brytney Cobia, BEGGING for the vaccine, only to be told it’s too late, and you are forced to die alone.

Please… for the love of Christ, get your information from healthcare professionals and, if you can, consider getting vaccinated. When you get seriously ill, it doesn’t just affect you. It affects everyone around you, including the people who have to take care of you. And no matter what, DO NOT THREATEN PEOPLE WITH DEATH BECAUSE THEY SPEAK THE TRUTH! That is just insanity!

I hope the people who issue threats are caught and dealt with appropriately. There is absolutely no excuse for that!

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politicians, politics, Trump

“Twin bed Jed”… pro-life and pro-gun, and can’t hold a candle to his opponent, the queen…

I had a good laugh this morning as I read an admittedly fluffy news article about state politics in Arkansas. Jed Duggar, aged 21, is running for a Republican seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives. This young man with a cheesy grin and a soul patch, has taken on the Democrat incumbent, Dr. Megan Godfrey, who is 35 years old, a mom, and worked as a schoolteacher before she ran for office.

Jed, who sleeps in a twin bed in the same room as his twin, Jeremiah Duggar, is being slammed for calling Dr. Godfrey a “princess”. Godfrey’s young daughter, obviously astute like her mom, reportedly said “But Mama, you‘re the queen.” Indeed, Megan Godfrey is not only very smart and experienced, but she WAS also homecoming queen at the University of Arkansas. And she had a very witty retort for Twin Bed Jed.

You go, Megan Godfrey! I truly hope she kicks Jed’s ignorant ass.

Jed Duggar, on the other hand, is a graduate of the School of the Dining Room Table and says he wants to “grow jobs”, although he’s never had a job that didn’t involve working for his father. He’s been called out for accepting illegal campaign donations from a guy who lives in Louisiana, and his own dad, our very own Jim Boob, only donated $300 to his campaign, while some of his brothers and brothers in law each donated $500.

Jed never went to college and will never be pregnant, but he thinks he knows what’s best for women and wants to force pregnant women to give birth. He champions denying women the right to have abortions as he encourages people to buy weapons that may put already born people who have an actual concept of life and death at grave risk. Yep, he follows that well-known Republican mantra that the only lives that matter are those of the unborn. As Carlin said of Republicans, “If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, you’re fucked.” Jed is following that observation to a tee. And as a Republican, Jed doesn’t support helping those pregnant women, especially once they’ve given birth.

“I grew up in Springdale all my life”… I don’t think the job is quite done yet, Jed. By the way, his channel has only 44 subscribers! That’s nineteen fewer than I have!

Sadly… the fact that Jed Duggar can’t hold a candle to his political opponent in terms of education, experience, and class is meaningless to a lot of people. He’ll get votes because he’s a young white man who is “pro-life” and “pro-gun”. He’s from a famous fundie family that is on reality TV. He’s somewhat good looking, I guess… the cheesy smile and relation to a notorious sex pest is somewhat of a turn off. But he’ll still get votes.

Many people don’t even care if a political candidate has any real experience. In fact, many people have no idea who or what they are voting for when they hit the booths. At least if you vote absentee, you can look up the candidates before you choose, right? Unless you’re fed up with Republicans and just vote straight blue, like I did. It isn’t the wisest strategy, since there are presumably decent people who are Republicans… but right now, I am super pissed off at the Republican Party for giving us Donald Trump and his ilk and voting blue is the only way I can make my point… besides writing another pointless blog post.

Moving on…

Something kind of funny happened yesterday. Thanks to the sudden rise of COVID-19 cases in Germany, Bill has decided to do his part to help stem the tide by working at home yesterday and today. At around lunchtime, I went down to the dining room and was looking at Facebook. A woman was asking about living in Stuttgart and taking care of the dog she was bringing. Since Bill and I spent six years living near Stuttgart, I responded to her.

I said, “I just advised a woman to…”

And Bill cut in with, “Fuck off?”

I had a good laugh. Obviously, it’s time I cleaned up my language! We’ve been married awhile, too, so he knows me well. But no, this time I didn’t use the f-word. I told the woman she should join Stuttgart Friends, which is a local Facebook group that has a lot of information for newcomers. It didn’t exist when we lived down there the first time (I actually joined Facebook when we lived in Germany the first time), and was the source of much irritation for me when we were in Stuttgart the second time. But it is a good place to learn about moving to Germany, and it’s also a good group to leave once you get the hang of things.

I do enjoy having Bill at home during the day. I’m glad we still get along so well, especially since our anniversary is coming up.

And… in fairness to Bill, I DID just tell one of his ex friends to go fuck himself. So I guess it makes sense that he thought I’d tell some random lady on social media to fuck off. But this time, I swear, I’m innocent!

As for Trump and the presidential debate… I missed it. I wouldn’t have watched it even if I had been in America and not sleeping while it was going on. It doesn’t matter what either of them say because I’ve already voted. If it weren’t so glaringly obvious to me that Trump needs to be ousted, I might have tuned in. But, in my mind, Trump’s time in the White House has been about four years of sheer embarrassment and foolishness, and I truly fear for the future if he wins again. The man is becoming more and more unhinged as the days pass and his followers are becoming more emboldened and entrenched in fascism.

I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think anyone who still supports Trump is some combination of crazy, stupid, and selfish. Sadly… there are many people like that in America who will keep voting for him and his ilk, so I’m steeling myself for what happens in November. But, at least Bill and I will celebrate another anniversary! Hopefully, I won’t tell anyone else to go fuck themselves.

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condescending twatbags, politicians, politics

Fun with trolling men who have “correctile dysfunction”…

I don’t often troll people online. I think it’s disrespectful to screw with people, even strangers who ask for it. However, sometimes I do get a bug up my ass… or a bee in my bonnet. And I must admit there are times when fucking with the stupid among us is a lot of fun.

Yesterday, I was reading The Washington Post and ventured into the Facebook comments section. There, I ran across a man named Justin who referred to Kamala Harris as “kameltoe”. Below is the comment that caught my attention and provoked a response.

The mental illness joe biden has, will prevent him from being president and We will reject kameltoe like a bad glass of milk.

So I wrote this:

Don’t be a misogynist, Justin. It doesn’t suit you.

This isn’t a really mean comment. I figure Justin must be really scared, though. If you have to refer to the future vice president as “kameltoe” instead of explaining rationally why you don’t think she’s a good fit for the office, I figure you’ve got nothing. Moreover, he clearly doesn’t think women belong in leadership positions. He probably mansplains a lot.

Justin didn’t like my response. So he wrote this:

…neither does a pedophile dementia case for a president. Trump2020. You will see and I’ll make sure i remind you I said that in a few weeks.

Hmmm… Justin must be scared. He’s clinging to that bullshit Wayfair conspiracy theory like it’s Linus’s blanket.

Then he continued with this… not even two minutes after his last comment:

 I mean Nancy is already using the 25th to remove him. Geez 30+ nominees and down to creepy Joe, now Nancy wants to replace him with kamala who is a complete political failure. Your party has killed itself.

I must admit, I didn’t bother to read his comments as he was posting them. In fact, I am just now actually reading what Justin wrote. I was drinking wine and feeling sassy, so I just kept egging him on. This type of person can’t stand it when a woman backtalks him. There’s no point in actually addressing their non-sensical posts, either. And… he makes an assumption that I am a Democrat. I’m actually not registered with any party affiliation. I just decided to vote all blue this year because the Republican Party deserves it. So I responded thusly:

You really are drinking the KKKool-Aid, aren’t you? Poor baby.  😞

This is neither an original or particularly clever comment. I mainly posted it because, in my experience, Trumpers can’t stand it when you call them racist, even if they obviously are. I don’t actually know how Justin feels about people of color, but he made it quite obvious that he disdains Kamala Harris, who is a very bright, capable, black woman who could mop the floor with his feeble minded retorts. In any case, anyone who supports Trump obviously doesn’t mind racism, classism, or sexism. Justin bit on the KKK comment with this:

joe biden has direct ties to the KKK. He even read a eulogy at a klansmans funeral. There are dozens of photos of joe surrounded by KKK klansmen. Keep trying silly woman.

Really Justin? I don’t believe you, with your “correctile dysfunction”. So I wrote this:

Personal attacks… what a weak argument. Why not just see who wins?

Seriously. What good does namecalling do? Does Justin really think that being insulting is going to change my mind? He comes off as scared and desperate, and more than a little bit pathetic. Poor baby, indeed! But he still thinks Trump is a winner… and he can’t walk away gracefully.

we will, and I’ll remind you I knew that outcome already.

What if he doesn’t, Justin? What if Trump loses by a landslide? What will you do then, little boy? I was getting tired of chatting with Justin, so I decided to shock him. I wrote this:

Keep on commenting. It makes me wet.

Crickets! How do you respond when a woman you’re arguing with says something like that? Twenty minutes later, I wrote this:

Funny… I guess the prospect of making me wet was too much for the guy who referred to our future VP as “kameltoe”… I guess I don’t know my own strength.  😉

I decided to look up my new friend. It appears that he lives in Texas, is eight years younger than I am, and graduated high school. He really admires Donald Trump. He doesn’t seem to realize that Trump wouldn’t give him the time of day. Trump would think he was “disgusting”. In any case, here are some choice screenshots from Justin’s page. He’s not exactly a mental giant.

Anyway… I did think it was funny that telling Justin he was turning me on was enough to get him to fuck off. I don’t know what he’s doing reading the comments on a Washington Post article. He clearly isn’t a thinker. He hasn’t read this, from The New York Times

Several people who have dealt extensively with Mr. Trump have suggested that he takes a dubious, even disdainful view of his most loyal followers. He takes them for granted because he knows they would forgive him for anything: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

“The people Trump despises most love him the most,” said Howard Stern, who hosted Mr. Trump on-air for years, in May. His voters, Mr. Stern said, are people he would not want in his hotels. “He’d be disgusted by them,” he said. “Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.”

Special thanks to the cartoonist, whose name I can’t read…

Yeah, that means you, Justin. Your hero thinks you are disgusting. So do I. Nothing about you makes me “wet”. I just enjoy messing with people like you.

Now… Donald Trump might very well win re-election. But if he does, you can count on him being impeached again. And honestly, people who continue to champion Trump will get the leader they deserve, although unfortunately, it will be at the rest of our expenses. I hope and pray enough people in the United States have wised up since 2016. I truly get being Republican, but we need someone competent and caring in charge. Almost anyone would be better than Trump is.

But… I must admit, it’s kind of fun watching Trump melt down every day, just as his ardent followers are. His ego can’t take the prospect of losing… and if he does lose, he may very well end up in a place he really doesn’t want to be. Either way, November 4th will be a hell of a day. Either way, it’s going to be rough going. I hope Justin is prepared.

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healthcare, Military, rants

Repost: EFMP… There’s nothing “exceptional” about it.

I am rerunning this post that appeared on my original blog, back on March 10, 2013. I am no longer an “Army wife”, since Bill retired in 2014. However, we know the lifestyle and this post got tons of hits… plus, it came up last night as we were remembering how I was FORCED to join EFMP because I had taken antidepressants. And then, once we got to Germany after I had dutifully enrolled in EFMP, Bill got a shitty email from some uppity guy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, wanting to be “apprised” of my “condition”.

We were laughing about it, though, because unlike “Big Army”, the National Guard didn’t give a fuck about EFMP. They cut Bill’s orders for Germany before I ever visited the medical people in DC, so I probably could have skipped the whole thing and totally gotten away with it. Of course, that was in 2007, and things have probably changed.

Anyway… Bill was funny last night as we were remembering that time because he said, as we remembered the email, “No, you don’t. We’re already here. Fuck off.” He’s obviously benefiting from my “charms”, which have rubbed off on him. To clarify, no… that’s not what he actually said. Bill is very good at politely telling people to fuck off. He basically told the guy to leave us alone and they complied. But thirteen years later, he might say it. That makes me proud. So here’s the post from 2013. Maybe it will be interesting/helpful to someone while I wait for fresh inspiration.

Back in 2007, my husband was deployed to Iraq.  We were also planning to move to Germany.  Because Germany is not in the United States, I had to do some things to prepare for the move.  One of the things I had to do was get a physical.  I was really dreading having to do this for a lot of reasons.  First off, I’m not a big fan of going to the doctor’s office.  I especially hate going to military doctor’s offices.  It’s a pain in the ass to set up the appointment.  Military medical providers tend to talk to their patients as if they are either children or in the military, even if they are civilians.  I also had a very traumatic incident with a military provider in the 1990s that continues to haunt me today.

Anyway, I had to get this physical and then I had to be screened for the Exceptional Family Member Program, a supposed benefit for military families.  Basically, what EFMP does is allow a servicemember’s command to consider the medical and educational needs of a family member before moving their “sponsor”.  I have already ranted about the term “dependent” to describe spouses.  My husband is considered my sponsor.  How’s that for demeaning?

So I got a friend to help me set up my appointments.  I saw a physician’s assistant who turned out to be really kind and patient with me, especially after I told her about my first and last disastrous attempt to get a pap smear when I was 22 years old.  She thought I had high blood pressure, but it turned out my high readings were caused by white coat hypertension.  That was proven by 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, which involved wearing a sphygmomanometer for 24 hours.  As soon as I stepped out of the military hospital, my blood pressure readings dropped to normal.

Finally, I arranged to be screened for the EFMP, which I had been told involved having a doctor look at my records and determining whether or not I had any conditions that warranted special consideration as to where my husband could be assigned.  From 1998 until 2004, I took antidepressants and went to therapy for depression and anxiety.  The worst of my issues were from 1998-99.  I chose to stay on antidepressants while I was in grad school mainly because I didn’t want to feel shitty while I was dealing with such a stressful time of my life.  At the time, I had no idea I would ever marry a military man.  I could have gotten off the antidepressants earlier than 2004.  I got off them because I dropped civilian health insurance and was hoping I might get pregnant.  I got off the drugs with no incident and didn’t even miss them, except they helped me keep my weight down.

What I didn’t know was that my time on antidepressants would come back to haunt me.  The EFMP required that I submit ALL of my medical records for the past five years.  Those records included my therapist’s notes about my depression, which were very personal.  I suppose in retrospect, I could have removed the records from before 2002.  I didn’t think to do that.  I showed up for the EFMP screening and was left sitting in the waiting room in the pediatrics department of the local military hospital while the doctor looked at my paperwork.  She finally came out and told me I needed to be in EFMP because I’d had depression and it might be risky to send me to Germany.  She listed the reasons she thought I was at risk.  I might have trouble adjusting to culture shock.  I might get depressed if my husband got deployed (even though he was already deployed when I met with this woman).  I might have problems with the fact that Germany isn’t as sunny as the USA is. 

Our conversation was laughable.  Here was this young doctor in a military uniform telling me that it was a good thing we were bound for Germany, since if we were going to Hawaii, I probably wouldn’t get to go.  She claimed there weren’t enough therapists in Hawaii.  I looked at her dumbfounded and said, “You know, I have an MSW.  The Army could hire me.”  Moreover, this move to Germany would be my third overseas.  I had already survived clinical depression while in Armenia.  I knew Germany would be a piece of cake for me.  But that didn’t matter… my thoughts about my own stability and personal desire to stay out of EFMP meant nothing.  It was fruitless to argue with the doctor, who was just covering her own ass.  She said I could try to disenroll in 2009 and maybe the EFMP would grant my request.

She then told me that if I didn’t comply, my husband could get kicked out of the Army.  And she said he wouldn’t get his orders if I didn’t do what she said.  Her face registered shock when I pulled out a set of orders, already listing me as having command sponsorship.  Apparently, the National Guard couldn’t care less whether or not I have depression.  She spluttered, “You’re not supposed to have those yet!”

It was truly ridiculous.  But because my husband was in Iraq and I didn’t want to cause issues, I complied with the demand that I join EFMP.  I filed the paperwork and we went to Germany.  Some months later, my husband got a nastygram from the very pushy EFMP coordinator in DC, demanding my status.  They needed to be “apprised of my condition”.  My husband sent him an email letting him know that I had no desire to be in the EFMP and didn’t need it.  We never heard another word about it and I got through my time in Germany without incident.

The military is pretty intolerant of head cases… even though if you read my articles about nutty Army folks, you know that the military is rife with them.  The official policy requires that servicemembers who are depressed seek help for their issues.  The unofficial policy is that if you or a family member see a therapist or take psychotropic drugs, your career will probably suffer.  You might lose your security clearance or be stuck in some shitty assignment indefinitely or get sent somewhere you’d rather not be.  I sought therapy for my depression and anxiety when I really needed to.  I’m glad I did it; it probably saved my life.  I had no way of knowing that making the very mature decision to seek help would end up in a ridiculous conversation with an intractable doctor who didn’t know me from Adam and was basing her medical opinions of me on three year old notes from other providers.

I understand why EFMP screening is mandatory for people going out of the country.  I just wish the process involved more subjectivity and people using common sense.  I wish that competent adults were treated more like stakeholders in their own healthcare and given more of a partnership in the process, rather than given the bullshit line about how the screening is for their own good.  The screening is about covering asses, saving money, and controlling people.  Moreover, you can get around the EFMP.  A lot depends on who you are and who you know.  I personally know someone who had her paperwork changed so the EFMP restrictions would be lifted and she could take her kids to Germany.  In her case, it worked out fine.  I know of other people who were not allowed to go abroad because of EFMP and they could not get their EFMP status changed. 

I don’t mean to say that EFMP is not a valuable program for those who need it.  There are families who have kids with special needs that need that special consideration.  It’s not good to go to a new duty station and find there are no suitable facilities to handle someone’s medical or educational issues.  That tends to lead to the family having to be sent elsewhere, which costs a lot of taxpayer money and causes lost productivity.  It’s also a pain in the ass for the family. 

However, the EFMP requirement is not good when it’s forced on a family, particularly when the “exceptional member” is a competent adult.  People know that EFMP can cause plum assignments to get cancelled.  Supposedly, this is not true… the military will tell people that EFMP won’t mess up a person’s career.  But in reality, being limited in where you can go can mess up your (or your sponsor’s) career.  Because of that, some people won’t get help for depression if they need it.  I mean, it’s hard enough to get help for depression because there’s so much stigma.  If it might also mean you can’t go to Germany with your husband, you might also hold off on calling for help.  And that can lead to tragic consequences.

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