Amanda Brenner \u201922 MSW has always been a dedicated and accomplished student \u2013 she makes good grades, won her college\u2019s award for best undergraduate research paper, and received a grant from the Special Envoy for Health at the United Nations right after she graduated from American University in 2016.<\/p>\n
She majored in foreign policy, landed a great job a year after graduation, and was preparing to launch her career in international relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always loved policy,\u201d she says. \u201cI always thought that was a way that you could be a very useful person, and feel like you’re useful, by getting involved in policy work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, and now a policy practice Master of Social Work student at UConn, Brenner is still working on policy, but it\u2019s an extremely personal mission \u2013 she\u2019s hoping her lived experience can give others hope while helping to reduce the strong stigma that exists around severe mental illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my first full-time job in international relations, and I suddenly couldn’t get out of bed,\u201d she says. \u201cI was so upset with my inability to work and the quality of my output that I just didn\u2019t want to do it at all, but mostly it was because I felt so physically awful that I just couldn’t see how I could continue to go day by day. It really became sort of a disability, and it is a disability, but at the time, I didn’t realize that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brenner was a first-year undergraduate when she started feeling ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I had a cold, and I didn’t know what it was, and I thought it was persistent and very frustrating,\u201d she says. \u201cIt sort of progressed from there, where first I started feeling just a little bit physically sick, and then it became having weighty thoughts about things like purpose and not understanding why I had this sort of existential dread. And then it shifted into this kind of just straight-up sorrow. And eventually it was much more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She felt physically terrible, she explains, but couldn\u2019t pinpoint where her discomfort was coming. She only went to the campus clinic, but didn\u2019t seek out additional treatment or therapy and continued to struggle, not understanding what was happening to her.<\/p>\n
She struggled as she studied abroad in South Korea, seeking out doctors who were unable to diagnose her with any physical illness. She struggled as she completed her undergraduate degree and looked for a job in the competitive world of Washington D.C. politics and policy. When Brenner finally landed that job, she struggled even harder \u2013 eventually quitting and leaving D.C. to move back to her parents\u2019 home in Shelton.<\/p>\n
\nI’ve always loved policy. I always thought that was a way that you could be a very useful person and feel like you’re useful, by getting involved in policy work. — Amanda Brenner '22 MSW<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cI was feeling proud of myself when I was graduating, and I suddenly had let myself down,\u201d Brenner says, \u201cwhere I was like, I’m not going to be able to continue with this level of achievement. I’m not going to be able to continue with this, making people proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
She entered her first mental health treatment program when she returned to Connecticut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really felt like that benefited me for a short period of time,\u201d she says. \u201cI loved the staff. The staff there is what got me interested in social work. I didn’t know anything about social work. I didn’t realize that clinical social workers were mental health therapists. I didn’t realize they studied mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also met others who were living with mental illness, which helped her feel less alone, but the benefits of the program didn\u2019t last. She was hospitalized, then hospitalized again, and again, eventually diagnosed first with severe, then later recurrent, major depressive disorder. None of the treatments were helping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t want to live, and it wasn’t like I hated myself,\u201d Brenner says. \u201cIt wasn’t that type of suicidal thought. I was in so much pain, and I couldn’t do anything about it, and I did not know how I could continue to the next day. I was in the hospital three times without making any progress. I had tried every type of medication under the sun. I tried all kinds of talk therapy. Like I was a dedicated student, I was a very dedicated mental health patient, where I was like, \u2018I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to figure this out. There’s got to be a way to figure this out. It has to get better.\u2019\u00a0 But at one point I stopped believing that it was going to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Living with severe mental illness, she explains, is like running a marathon that has no finish line: You\u2019re exhausted, you\u2019re uncomfortable, and you\u2019re in so much pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou keep looking to see that finish line, and there’s nothing,\u201d she says. \u201cThere’s nothing in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n
A finish line did finally come for Brenner, but it took a long time and sent her down an unexpected road.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went to Yale, they told me about something called electro-convulsive therapy, which is this very old fashioned treatment where they give you controlled seizures to induce improvements in depression, among other things,\u201d she says, \u201cand I thought it sounded really scary. But it’s an evidence-based practice. It really makes a difference in cases where nothing else has made a difference at all over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brenner underwent electro-convulsive therapy, or ECT \u2013 first as an inpatient, and then at regular intervals as an outpatient through a process known as \u201cmaintenance ECT\u201d \u2013 for months without feeling any better.<\/p>\n
And then, everything changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so very sudden, after receiving ECT \u2013 and they said it could happen like this \u2013 but all of a sudden, the pain stopped,\u201d Brenner says. \u201cIt just stopped completely. It was just gone. You wake up one day, and this thing that has been with you for years and years \u2013 suddenly it’s gone, and it’s just the most shocking thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Brenner is quick to say that ECT did not cure her mental illness \u2013 it did not end her worry or her existential dread, or change her thinking patterns \u2013 the physical pain that had been unsolvable for so long was gone. She began to reimagine the rest of her life, filled with gratitude for the support and care teams she had garnered along the way and motivated to use her talents to contribute to the well-being of others.<\/p>\n
\nI really wanted to do policy and study mental illness at the same time, and I found that you could do that in a study program like the one at UConn. — Amanda Brenner '22 MSW<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cI was so inspired by the people who were good \u2013 the people who were amazing and empathetic and so human and kind and compassionate \u2013 that I wanted to go into this field myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to amplify the voices of people with severe mental illness, because they have their own voices. Everybody has their own story.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continues, \u201cI really wanted to do policy and study mental illness at the same time, and I found that you could do that in a study program like the one at UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n
UConn\u2019s Policy Practice MSW concentration prepares social workers to intervene at the levels of service delivery in organizations and government to improve laws, regulations, and policies affecting populations in vulnerable situations. Policy practice involves policy development and policy analysis, program design and implementation, and policy and legislative advocacy.<\/p>\n
Like other social work programs of study at UConn, Policy Practice students engage in robust, hands-on fieldwork placements designed to offer critical experiential learning opportunities. It was UConn\u2019s approach to these all-important field placements that made UConn the perfect fit for Brenner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have such a wonderful field department, and they really care about what you want in your internship experience,\u201d she says. \u201cThe first year, I said I wanted to work at either the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and they said, \u2018We can make that happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n