Cancer. Fibromyalgia. Crohn’s disease. Bipolar disorder.
Sheyanna Bailey has a lot on her plate both physically and mentally
And that’s not even including the stress of being a single mom of three high-needs kids, recovering from the abusive ex-husband she sent to prison, coming to terms with her own challenges from childhood, and processing the deaths of her father and two close friends.
Tattoo on client’s arm to remember a lost child.
Bailey, 43, moved back to her hometown of Buckner, Missouri, five years ago after her divorce.
Without the medical and psychiatric help she has received from the HCC Network’s Buckner clinic, she’s not sure she would’ve been strong enough to maintain her sobriety from methamphetamines and alcohol.
“I probably would have broken down and did something stupid or hurt myself or somebody else,” Bailey said.
On the medical side, Bailey credited family nurse practitioner, Stephanie Hutchison, with listening and ordering the tests that revealed the conditions beyond the fibromyalgia that previous practitioners elsewhere blamed for all her symptoms.
“She has turned my whole life around,” Bailey said.
She also said mental health care professionals at the Buckner clinic have more accurately tied her symptoms to a mix of the bipolar disorder with PTSD and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Talk therapy with licensed clinical social worker, Michelle Wimsatt, has also given her the tools to advocate for herself.
Bailey said her therapists have convinced her to stop her negative self-talk, and to realize she’s a little bent, not broken.
“They give me an outlet to talk, and that’s amazing, because I’m everybody’s outlet. Nobody’s my outlet,” she said, “So they give me that comfort that I can tell them how it really is — they just let me cry it out.”
Bailey cares for her severely autistic 23-year-old son, and her 11-year-old with a violent streak was placed in foster care for a while. Her other child is a 10-year-old daughter who was also impacted by Bailey’s bad marriage.
Her children have also received dental care and mental health therapy through HCC.
A high school softball player, Bailey at one time worked as an umpire for girls softball around Jackson County. Her health doesn’t allow her to do that anymore.
Other than that, she said, “I’ve always done caregiving or house cleaning; I’ve always taken care of people. It’s a big mental thing that I need to be taken care of most of the time now. And so it’s a big change, and it’s a lot to deal with mentally. And so Michelle helps talk me through all of it.”
Bailey has also connected with her peer support specialist, James Wells, who can identify with her struggles with addiction.
All in all, she said, the Buckner clinic “has been amazing, turning my mental, my physical, everything around in the right direction to get all the help I need, and seeing all the specialists, and I wouldn’t have that without HCC.”
