I did it.

I made it to HELL and back again.

AGAIN…
PHEW.

Welcome Back, self!

Sometimes, we deserve to congratulate ourselves on a job well-done.

Over the last year, this girl has come into her own.

And damn, was it deserved.

Congrats, We Did It!!!

From fighting systemic educational ethical malpractice to fighting systemic abuse in the justice system, I have come out stronger and better for it. From being a demoted clinican for “lack of qualifications” to being let go for medical malpractice done to me to landing an internship that values me for who I am, I have found my voice again.

From realizing what I wanted and what I needed were different to learning how to stand up in how to help others navigate what I couldn’t, I have been better for it.

In learning being a fighty autistic woman is seen distastefully and dismissed both in academia, in advocacy, and in the clinical sphere, resulting in many men looking down on you, I have learned the techniques to professionally and academically stand up for myself and call out those who are not respecting me. It has made me empowered in myself.

I began my academic journey wanting to change the world: be a documentarian and share the stories of those who were voiceless. I learned film sets were not for me, and maintained high respect for those in the industry. 14-hour days, 6 days a week? Chaos.

Not for me, though.

I fell in love with statistics and data science, and my stats professor loved the spunky girl who was willing to call him out in a 200-level intro to business stats course and say, “Well, Jeffrey, if the book you have us read on ethics says all statisticans lie in how they present their data, who’s to say you aren’t just like them? Why are we to trust your collection methods when they haven’t been explictly disclosed, either?”

I’ll never forget this man and the smile on his face.

“You’re absolutely right, and why don’t we talk about that instead of how to use the data. Why don’t we talk about assessing collection methods and if they are proper?”

I didn’t get it then.

I thought I was being clever in challenging the professor for asking a dumb question. I didn’t get that what I really communicated was intriniscially something cool. I really truly said to Jeffrey, I get that majority of these people are taking this class purely for credit and degree matriculation purposes, but what about those of us who want to be researchers? What about those of us who care about actual ethics?

And this man, may he forever teach stats, loved the girl who said she wanted more.

He said years later, when I ran into him in a tutoring center, even though I dropped his class, “You were my best student,” and only now do I see why he said so.

I didn’t pass the exams very well – that’s why I dropped it. I didn’t get how he worded anything, and didn’t like the way the tests asked me to phrase things. It was a challenge where my data analytics were above the class but the course asked us things at a level I hadn’t accessed in years. It frustrated me beyond belief.

I began academia wanting to ethically analyze data.

That transformed my studies – from film analysis (narrative inquiry and qualitative analysis) to theoretical mathematics (as quantitative as they come). I was not top tier in anything, and yet, every professor whose class I took at a graduate level remarked the same thing to me:

“Your ideas are really interesting. You’re going to be a great researcher.”

I never understood what that meant.

And now, I do.

I approached (and still do approach) every graduate course to answer the functional need behind the course, not the technical need behind the course. It’s not the same research, yes. It’s highly niche and skilled and unique. It’s why Jeffrey really liked me, actually.

Even still, my professors sometimes get confused.

“I enjoyed reading your research,” they will always remark. Sometimes – oftentimes – my technical knowledge obtained through academia I cast aside in favor of accessibility. It gets me in trouble sometimes. “Put in in-text citations,” they say. Eh. “Where’s the APA format?” Wasn’t part of the explicit directions, I don’t care about the rubric.

My functional knowledge is in how to present that I know what I’m saying.

Do I know that everyone needs my verbiage said differently? OH, of course!

My technical skills are based upon adapting it to the audience at hand.

Ethically, when presenting a story, I don’t care if I cited a source. I don’t need my in-text reference to be there for previously held knowledge. Let me have my day in citing further reading; let me be smart without needing to credit some new literature who just echos what I already learned through experience.

I don’t need someone else to have researched my life to make it valid.

I have come back into my own of standing up for myself and speaking up for who I am and what is improper behavior towards me, in all contexts of life.

My Story Is In Progress

Some of us also forget we’re works in progress.

We have not learned everything.

Our skills are still to be developed and shaped. Even when we’re senior specialists.

There’s always more we can learn.

I am going into an internship that sees me as providing them with expertise in trauma informed care, and has matched me with a supervisor who can lead me in learning more than I currently know. I do not claim to know everything, nor do I hope to.

I have surely made many mistakes.

I surely will make many more.

I am fallible as anyone else.

My ethical stance is in owning up immediately, and not flipping the script. No client ever deserves to feel they are medically gaslit. That’s medical abuse, malpractice, and unethical, beyond complete reproach. If they feel it, I believe it has happened. The client can tell, and no clincian should ever pull rank, license, or seniority to discredit that.

I am imperfect.

And ethically, I’m great.

My skills are to be finessed and complexly learned to be fine-tuned.

But ethically, I’m great.

May my data science advocacy be learned as a means to better help all.

XOXO,

Dorothy B.