Isayah Alman

Teaching social work

January 7, 2026

I’ve been spending part of my time teaching social work material to students for whom English is not their first language.

On paper, this sounds straightforward. Review content. Explain concepts. Practice questions. Prepare for an exam.

In practice, it’s something else entirely.

Much of social work education is built on assumptions that are rarely named. Fluency is assumed. Cultural shorthand is assumed. Even the way questions are written assumes familiarity with how institutions think, not just with the material itself. For many students, the difficulty is not a lack of intelligence or effort. It’s that the language of the profession is doing more than describing reality. It’s filtering it.

So the work becomes translation.

Not just of words, but of systems.

When we talk about diagnoses, interventions, ethics, or next steps, we slow things down. We ask what the question is actually testing. We separate what is being asked from what feels emotionally salient. We distinguish between how a client presents and how an exam wants you to reason about that presentation.

Often, the teaching starts with unlearning.

Many students arrive believing that social work is about being kind, being present, or having good intentions. Those things matter, but they are not sufficient. Institutions reward something more specific. They reward pattern recognition. Risk assessment. Role clarity. Containment. Knowing when not to act as much as when to act.

So we practice that.

We take exam questions apart line by line. We identify distractors. We talk about why a “nice” answer is often the wrong one. We look at how ethical principles are operationalized under constraint, not how they are described in theory.

What’s striking is how quickly students improve once the rules are made explicit.

Confusion gives way to confidence. Anxiety drops. Performance improves. Not because the material has changed, but because the system has been rendered legible.

This kind of teaching is slow by design. It resists shortcuts. It values understanding over memorization. It treats language as something that can either empower or exclude, depending on how it is used.

It also reminds me why I care about this work.

Social work is full of people who are capable, thoughtful, and motivated, but who are asked to perform fluency in systems that were not built with them in mind. Teaching, in this context, becomes a form of advocacy. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just careful.

The goal is not to produce perfect students.

The goal is to help people see the terrain clearly enough to move through it without unnecessary harm.

That’s the work. Quiet. Technical. Human.
Mental health systems

January 6, 2026

Part of me needed to see what would happen.

After years of accumulating skills, experience, and expertise, I wanted to know whether there was finally room for me to simply be myself at work. Not exceptional. Not disruptive. Just honest. Present. Human.

We spend most of our lives working. I cannot exist in a space where I am required to be fake for eight hours a day. Where I have to flatten myself, dilute my instincts, or tolerate practices that feel wrong in my body just to survive. That kind of compromise accumulates. Over time, it costs something real.

I never wanted wealth or status. Those things can be nice, but they were never the point. What I wanted was simpler. A place where I could work as who I am.

I grew up parentified. Raised by a young single mother. I learned early how to feed myself, get myself to school, and navigate the world without much guidance. Independence was not a personality trait. It was a necessity. What that leaves behind is not a hunger for recognition, but a longing for acceptance. To be allowed to show up whole.

So when I entered professional spaces, I carried that hope with me. That once I had proven competence, once I had paid my dues, there would be room for authenticity. That good work would be enough.

What I learned instead is that many systems are not designed for that kind of presence.

Highly regulated environments often value compliance over connection. Predictability over judgment. Optics over substance. The work becomes less about responding to human reality and more about maintaining a particular version of practice that is legible to the system itself.

This is not a moral accusation. It is a structural observation.

When someone works relationally, intuitively, and responsively, they introduce variance. Variance makes systems nervous. Not because it is wrong, but because it is harder to control, harder to measure, and harder to defend when things go poorly.

Over time, I learned that my way of working did not fit cleanly inside those containers. Not because I lacked ethics or discipline, but because my approach relied on trust, presence, and judgment rather than strict procedural distance. That mismatch created friction.

Eventually, that friction became unsustainable.

I do not believe mental health work is a conspiracy, nor do I believe institutions exist solely to cause harm. But I do believe many systems are designed primarily to manage risk, liability, and cost. Healing, when it happens, often occurs despite those constraints, not because of them.

Mental health does not offer cures in the medical sense. It offers containment, support, symptom relief, and sometimes transformation. That work is slow, relational, and difficult to standardize. When systems are stretched thin, the pressure to prioritize efficiency over depth becomes intense.

In those conditions, certain kinds of practitioners thrive, and others are slowly pushed out.

What I am grieving is not a loss of status or position. It is the realization that the environments I entered were not built to hold the kind of work I was trying to do. That authenticity, for me, came at a cost those systems were not willing or able to absorb.

That does not make them evil. It makes them incompatible.

So this is not a rejection of mental health care, nor a declaration of opposition. It is an acceptance of limits. Of fit. Of reality.

I am no longer interested in proving that a system is broken. I am interested in building or finding spaces where I do not have to fragment myself in order to function.

Spaces where judgment is trusted. Where presence is valued. Where the work is allowed to be human.

That is all I ever wanted.
Crisis worker

January 6, 2026

Crisis work does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in rooms where time is compressed, information is partial, and the consequences of inaction can be irreversible.

The crisis room is rarely quiet. Phones ring in uneven rhythms. Screens populate with names, fragments, alerts. There is always a queue. Someone is always waiting. The work is not to decide whether to act, but how quickly and with what degree of certainty.

The formal mandate is simple. Respond, assess, de escalate, document, move on.

The reality is less tidy.

People arrive in crisis carrying histories that do not fit neatly into protocols. They are isolated. They are frightened. Some have been harmed repeatedly by systems meant to protect them. Many have no one else to call. When the call drops, when the connection is interrupted, when a name appears again after weeks or months, the worker is left with a decision that is rarely neutral.

Do you wait, because the procedure says wait?
Or do you act, because you know what it means when someone disappears?

Judgment in these moments is not abstract. It is situated. It is shaped by workload, by staffing shortages, by the absence of supervision, by the knowledge of what has happened before when follow up did not occur. It is shaped by the worker’s training, but also by memory. By knowing that some people do fall through the cracks. By having seen what happens afterward.

Crisis systems often assume clean handoffs. One shift ends, another begins. Care is imagined as interchangeable. In practice, continuity is fragile. Information lives in shared boards, temporary notes, incomplete records. Responsibility diffuses easily. No one person is assigned, yet everyone is accountable.

This is where moral tension emerges.

The worker knows the boundaries of the role. They also know the limits of the system. When a high risk individual appears to have lost contact with services, when planned check ins quietly stop, the question becomes not what is allowed, but what is owed.

Clinical judgment under constraint often involves choosing between two imperfect options.

One choice risks overstepping.
The other risks silence.

Neither option feels clean. Acting carries the possibility of misunderstanding. Not acting carries the possibility of harm.

When decisions are made in these conditions, they leave behind moral residue. Even when the outcome is safe, the discomfort remains. The worker replays the decision later, asking whether there was another way. Whether the same choice would be made again. Whether care can ever be fully reconciled with compliance when systems are stretched thin.

What is often invisible from the outside is that these decisions are rarely impulsive. They are informed by repeated exposure to risk, by patterns observed over time, by training that emphasizes caution when lives are involved. They are attempts to reduce harm in environments where perfect adherence and perfect safety cannot coexist.

This is not a defense of error. It is an acknowledgment of reality.

Crisis work asks people to make rapid judgments in conditions of uncertainty, with limited support, and with the knowledge that the cost of waiting can be catastrophic. When those judgments are later examined outside of their context, they can appear clearer than they ever were in the moment.

But judgment does not happen in hindsight.
It happens in the noise.
In the gaps.
In the seconds where someone must decide whether to reach out or remain still.

Understanding crisis work requires understanding those conditions. Without them, the decisions make little sense. With them, the humanity becomes visible.
Crossroads

January 5, 2026

Hi. My name is Isayah Alman.

I also sometimes go by Alex — my middle name. Javier was my father’s name; he passed away when I was very young. Alman is my mother’s last name. If I told you that having more than two names causes identity confusion, that would only be partly true.

Mostly, it causes confusion for the barista when I order at Starbucks.

I’m writing because I find myself at a crossroads.

Before I go any further, a small but important disclaimer.

This site is not a manifesto, a position paper, or a declaration of final truths. It’s a working notebook. A place to put thoughts, opinions, half formed ideas, clinical reflections, psychological questions, philosophical detours, and the occasional rant that probably made more sense before coffee.

Think of it less as “thought leadership” and more as wisdom from a slightly grizzled social worker who has seen a bit too much, stayed too long, and is now writing things down so they don’t rattle around endlessly in his head.

Some of what I write will be serious. Some of it will be speculative. Some of it will age poorly. That’s fine. Take what’s useful. Leave the rest. And please don’t cite this in a court of law.

It’s 2026 — a moment where my identity, my work in mental health, and the world at large feel slightly out of alignment. Not broken. Just incongruent. And when things don’t line up, I’ve learned that writing is one way to bring them back into focus.

Sometimes I catch myself asking familiar questions:
How did I get here?
Where am I going?
Am I even qualified to do this?

When I think about where I am — and where I might go next — my mind inevitably turns backward.

Over the past fifteen years, my career has spanned psychological research, crisis intervention, and social work. I’ve taught in clinical settings, intervened in moments of acute distress, and ridden in police cars. I’ve worked at the sharp edges of mental health — the places where theory meets reality, and where decisions matter quickly.

I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve listened to a lot of stories. I’ve helped when help was needed.

I’ve been busy.

And yet, here I am again — at another threshold.

Not because everything failed.
But because growth has a way of circling back on itself.

Crossroads have a habit of asking old questions in new voices.

So this space exists for that question — the one that never fully goes away:

Who am I, now?

If you’re reading this, you’re welcome here. This will be a place for reflection, psychology, mental health, and forward movement — thoughtful, grounded, and human.

No grand declarations.
No polished certainty.

Just the work of paying attention, and moving forward honestly.

— Isayah Alman
Why write?

January 5, 2026

Before I go any further, a small but important disclaimer.

This site is not a manifesto, a position paper, or a declaration of final truths. It’s a working notebook. A place to put thoughts, opinions, half formed ideas, clinical reflections, psychological questions, philosophical detours, and the occasional rant that probably made more sense before coffee.

Think of it less as “thought leadership” and more as wisdom from a slightly grizzled social worker who has seen a bit too much, stayed too long, and is now writing things down so they don’t rattle around endlessly in his head.

Some of what I write will be serious. Some of it will be speculative. Some of it will age poorly. That’s fine. Take what’s useful. Leave the rest. And please don’t cite this in a court of law.

Before getting into anything else, a small clarification about what this space is and is not.

This site is not a press release, a polished thought leadership hub, or an attempt to sound authoritative for the sake of sounding authoritative. It is not optimized for outrage, hot takes, or fast consumption. It is also not written by an algorithm pretending to have a soul.

This is a place to think out loud, carefully.

I started writing here for a few reasons. One is practical. Writing is one of the few mediums that slows thought down enough to see what is actually there. It exposes contradictions. It forces structure. It turns vague intuitions into something that can be examined, revised, or discarded. For someone who works in systems, psychology, and research, that matters.

Another reason is personal. Over time, work in mental health, crisis response, and systems level environments has a way of filling your head with unfinished stories. Writing gives those experiences somewhere to go that is not another person’s nervous system. It is a way of metabolizing what has been seen, learned, and carried without turning it into spectacle.

There is also a quieter reason. Identity has a way of fragmenting when it is only expressed through roles, titles, or institutions. Writing allows identity to be integrated rather than performed. It is a way of asking, repeatedly and honestly, what still holds up when no one is grading the answer.

Finally, there is a reason related to the broader internet itself. Much of what circulates online about psychology, mental health, and self improvement is shallow, recycled, or designed to maximize engagement rather than understanding. I am not interested in producing content that exists only to fill space. If something is written here, it should help someone think more clearly, feel less alone, or learn something that survives beyond the scroll.

Some posts will be reflective. Some will be clinical. Some will be speculative. Some will age poorly. That is part of the process. This is a working archive, not a finished doctrine.

Take what is useful. Question what is not. Nothing here needs to be taken as final or universal truth.

If this becomes anything resembling a brand, I hope it is one built slowly, grounded in experience, and shaped by attention rather than volume.
Are we worthwhile?

January 5, 2026

Yes.

That’s the answer. The reason, simple as it sounds, is love.

From a cosmic perspective, we are not important. Human life is a flicker in entropy, a temporary pattern of molecules that will dissolve into silence. The universe does not notice us. It does not care. It does not need to.

But subjectively, here and now, we feel. And that feeling is everything.

The human mind is fallible. We act irrationally. Our behaviors are shaped by emotions, memory, and experience, not logic. We are inconsistent. We contradict ourselves.

But our experiences still carry truth.

Reality, in many ways, begins in perception. What we feel becomes real within our frame of awareness. We believe we act with clarity, but most of us move through life inside a fog of unmet needs, fears, and projections.

That is why one line has lasted for thousands of years:

“Forgive us our sins, for we know not what we do.”

It is not just a religious plea. It is a recognition of how little we truly see. We don’t hurt each other because we are evil. We hurt each other because we are confused. We are scared. We are still trying to survive.

When you understand that, forgiveness starts to change shape. It becomes less about letting someone off the hook and more about seeing the truth of being human.

Everyone is doing their best with what they know. That includes you. That includes the people you love. That includes the people who let you down.

So again, are we worthwhile?

Objectively, no. But we are here. We are alive. And in the random chaos of molecules colliding, we have the rare chance to feel something. That makes this moment rare. That makes it real.

To exist at all is to briefly defy the void. To be aware is to witness a miracle, even if it is small. Even if it disappears.

We are not worthwhile because the universe says so. We are worthwhile because we choose meaning anyway. Because we love. Because we forgive. Because we carry on.

We are the universe, briefly aware of itself.

And that, even for a moment, is sacred.
What is wealth?

January 5, 2026

What is wealth.

In a world of fiat money, debt has become more real than income. Profit is a number on a spreadsheet that moves left or right based on decisions made far from our lives. The house you own is never fully yours. The food you buy exists inside a system where abundance for one often implies scarcity for another. Driving a car, eating a full meal, owning a pet, having a partner, or choosing to have children are framed as privileges rather than ordinary human experiences.

And yet we were born wealthy.

We arrived on this planet as living organisms with the capacity to sense and feel. We can smell rain, feel warmth, taste food, hear music, and experience the full spectrum of emotion. Love, anger, jealousy, grief, joy, and longing are not luxuries. They are built into us. They are the inheritance of being alive.

So what is wealth.

When these innate gifts are absorbed into economic systems that convert time, attention, and even intimacy into profit, the meaning of wealth becomes distorted. Value is measured by accumulation. Success is measured by expansion. More rooms, faster cars, better views, rarer experiences. A modest car becomes a luxury vehicle. A studio becomes a two bedroom. Summers are spent elsewhere. Winters are spent higher, colder, and farther from ordinary life.

Traditionally, the answer is simple. Yes, that is wealth.

But only because wealth has been defined as freedom.

So what is freedom.

If freedom is tied entirely to consumption, then it is fragile. It depends on income, stability, compliance, and constant performance. It can be revoked. It can be priced out. It can disappear with one illness, one mistake, one economic shift.

That is not real freedom.

Wealth is not the car you drive, the home you live in, or the places you travel. Wealth is the ability to make choices aligned with your beliefs. It is the capacity to act according to your sense of right and wrong. It is the space to live in accordance with your humanity.

Wealth is the freedom to express humanness.

To be imperfect.
To make mistakes.
To feel deeply.
To grieve without being unproductive.
To love without calculating return.

It is the ability to exist without constant justification.

Wealth is not a number.
Wealth is not status.
Wealth is not distance from others.

Wealth is a state of being.

It is the quiet knowledge that your worth does not fluctuate with markets. That your value is not measured by output. That your humanity is not a liability.

If wealth is freedom, then freedom begins where humanity is allowed to exist without apology.
What is success?

January 5, 2026

We try and try to achieve success, and still the goalpost moves farther away. The harder we chase it, the more distant the feeling becomes. What we were promised as arrival often feels like exhaustion. What we were told would bring freedom instead brings pressure.

Success is commonly described as a destination. A place reached after enough effort, discipline, or sacrifice. But lived experience tells a different story. Each achievement quickly turns into a new expectation. Each milestone becomes the starting line for the next demand. Relief is brief. Satisfaction is fragile. The chase never ends.

This may be because success was never meant to be caught. It functions more like incentive than fulfillment. It keeps people moving, producing, comparing, and striving. Stillness is discouraged because stillness exposes uncomfortable truths. When movement stops, questions surface. Who am I without my output? What remains if I am not becoming something more?

We tell ourselves we are striving toward progress, meaning, or security. Often we are simply running from uncertainty. We build careers, reputations, and identities to protect ourselves from the fear of being insignificant. We measure ourselves by metrics that cannot recognize us as human. Titles, income, recognition, and status cannot return what we ask of them.

What is rarely acknowledged is this. We were born successful.

At our first breath, life had already succeeded. Existence did not require justification. There was no prerequisite for worth. We arrived complete. The body breathing was enough. Consciousness itself was enough.

Somewhere along the way, we were taught otherwise. We were taught that value must be earned repeatedly. That we must prove our legitimacy through achievement. That rest must be justified and contentment delayed. This belief is reinforced quietly and constantly. Through comparison. Through performance. Through fear of falling behind.

But completion is not something achieved in the future. It is something remembered. The striving that follows birth is not proof of inadequacy. It is often the result of forgetting what was already true.

Success did not begin later in life. It began with the first breath. Everything after that has been negotiation. The work is not to become worthy. The work is to remember that we already were.