Teenage Hockey Player Working to Destigmatize ‘Mental Health Issues’

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From ESPN: “According to Kelly Urso, Pedrie told Morgan he didn’t have any experience with ‘mental illness’ and wasn’t sure what to do. However if hockey was helpful, he said, then she should come participate to whatever degree she was able. ‘He said whatever you need, call me,’ Morgan Urso recalled. ‘If you don’t want to skate in a game, you can be my assistant coach on the bench.’

Morgan left the meeting feeling great. ‘I felt like he was being so supportive,’ she said. ‘I felt like it was going to be OK.’

But the next day, the Ursos got a call from Pedrie that completely reversed course. Urso was no longer allowed at practices or games, and she was told she couldn’t communicate with any of her teammates. Pedrie had gone to the Amateur Hockey Association of Illinois (AHAI), the state’s governing hockey body, for guidance. This was their directive.”

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Well there ya go.
    Her psychiatrist caused this distress for a 15 year old. And psychiatry knows
    exactly what transpired.
    What people hide from is not Outing about “their mental illness”
    but rather their feelings of being sad, or lacking of confidence etc etc.
    And it’s a very good thing to normalize coming out about having feelings, or thoughts.
    It’s not a good thing to lie and call those human things, “illnesses”.

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  2. This seems like a story of a young teen girl who has been exploited by psychiatry and hated and excluded for experiencing some normal human emotions. The stigma and exclusion that she experienced is so much a product of the mental health industry with its rigid imaginary lines between normal and mentally ill. She has been punished for her honesty and for trusting people who were not trustworthy.

    While I am glad she has been able to connect with other people who have experienced similar things to what she has, she is being exploited yet again by the mental health industry in having to tell her story through their lens of mental illness.

    I would hope that her campaign would teach people to be less judgmental and more inclusive of people who aren’t just like they are. But I am concerned that it may turn out to be just another ad for the mental health industry. Giving children psychiatric drugs is just a crime.

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  3. Kids should do sports for fun. When it’s for basic needs, then it’s not right. No drug has been invented that makes you feel known, cared about, and belong. Psychiatrists shouldn’t advertise they can do anything about those basic needs unless they are prepared to spend a lot of time on it. Just my opinion, but based on my own experience.

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