Matthew Ladner has been an active peer supporter at Soteria-Alaska since January of 2011. Throughout his consumer and peer experiences within the mental health system since his teenage years, he has attained much life experience on accepting and assisting others in coping with experienced alternate realms of reality during acute psychosis. After witnessing the results of labeling people with diagnoses and dullment through psychotropic medications, Matthew advocates for reform within the way stigmatization and concerns of the mind are currently systematically dealt with. Although he resigned from his full-time supervisory position at Soteria-Alaska to pursue his education, he remains an active contributor and supporter of the community and its progressive “being with” ideology. Matthew loves examining nature, and cares for the quality of life and acceptance of all creatures on Earth. Born out of his ability to empathize with creatures of all forms, Matthew is pursuing an education in Microbiology while he obsessively defends the rights of the bacteria on his dirty dishes, and watches the development of pond microecosystems with his microscope in his spare time.
© 2024 Mad in America Foundation