When Licensed Professionals Are Afraid to Seek Help: My Experience With HPSP

In 2012 or 2013, I told my therapist that I had used an illicit substance.

At the time, I was scared.

I was a licensed mental health professional. I understood professional responsibility. I understood reporting obligations. I understood what it meant to carry a license, a reputation, and the trust of other people.

I told my therapist I thought I should report myself to HPSP.

HPSP stands for the Minnesota Health Professionals Services Program. It is a monitoring program for regulated health professionals, including licensed professionals whose health, mental health, or substance use concerns may raise questions about their ability to practice safely.

My therapist told me not to report myself.

She did not give me a long explanation. She did not walk me through every possible consequence. She simply told me there would be a lot of paperwork and that it was not a system I should ever want to work with unless I absolutely had to.

Then she said something I never forgot:

“Nicole, if you don’t plan on using that ever again, let it just be that and move forward.”

So I did.

I let it be that.

I moved forward.

The First Time I Almost Reported Myself

Looking back, I understand why I thought I should report myself.

Licensed professionals are trained to think about risk. We are trained to document. We are trained to follow rules. We are trained to protect other people.

But we are not always trained to know what to do when we are the ones who are scared, ashamed, overwhelmed, or in need of help.

That moment stayed with me because my therapist did something very important.

She saw me as a person first.

She did not reduce me to one mistake, one disclosure, one risk category, or one professional license.

She asked me to consider whether I intended to keep using.

I did not.

So I moved forward.

Fast Forward to 2022

In 2022, I was lying in a hospital bed after years and years of loss, stress, grief, and exhaustion had finally caught up with me.

A doctor had gathered information from me to complete a diagnostic assessment. I told her parts of my story that I had carried quietly for years.

I told her about loss.

I told her about stress.

I told her about being overwhelmed.

I told her I had been sexually assaulted.

I also told her about the shame I carried around that assault, because I was a dual-licensed mental health professional and some part of me believed I should have “known better” than to be in a position where something like that could happen.

That sentence alone says a lot about what stigma does.

It makes even trained professionals blame themselves for being harmed.

It makes people who know the system afraid to need the system.

It makes helpers hide when they are the ones who need help.

After I disclosed some of the most painful and vulnerable parts of my life, I was told I was being referred to HPSP.

When Disclosure Became Surveillance

What followed was not healing.

What followed was not stabilization.

What followed was three years of trauma.

I am not sharing this because I believe every person in every system is harmful. I do not believe that.

I am sharing this because professional monitoring systems, licensing systems, healthcare systems, and mental health systems need to understand something:

When a licensed professional is in distress, that person is still a human being.

They are not just a risk category.

They are not just a liability.

They are not just a file.

They are not just someone who should have known better.

The Gap Between Accountability and Harm

There is a dangerous gap between accountability and harm.

There is a dangerous gap between support and surveillance.

There is a dangerous gap between helping someone stay well and pushing them further into fear, shame, isolation, and instability.

I know that gap because I lived inside it.

Licensed professionals absolutely have responsibilities. Public safety matters. Ethical practice matters. Accountability matters.

But accountability without humanity can become another form of harm.

Support that feels like punishment does not create honesty. It creates fear.

And fear kills options.

When professionals are afraid that disclosure will cost them their license, reputation, income, credibility, or dignity, they are less likely to ask for help early. They are less likely to be honest. They are less likely to seek support before things become a crisis.

That does not make the public safer.

It makes suffering quieter.

Why anjoRENEW Exists

This is part of why anjoRENEW exists.

Not as therapy.

Not as crisis intervention.

Not as a replacement for medical care, legal support, professional accountability, or formal treatment.

anjoRENEW exists because there are people who are carrying more than they can keep organizing alone — and many of those people are still expected to keep functioning because they are educated, licensed, competent, responsible, or depended on by others.

Competence should not disqualify someone from support.

Professional status should not erase someone’s humanity.

And systems that are supposed to protect the public should also be willing to examine the harm they can cause when fear becomes the primary tool.

There needs to be more support before crisis.

More options before collapse.

More places where people can be honest before they are treated like a problem to be managed.

If You Have a Story Like This

If you are a licensed professional, former licensed professional, healthcare worker, therapist, counselor, nurse, social worker, teacher, caregiver, advocate, or someone who has been harmed while trying to seek help, I would like to hear from you.

You do not have to share publicly.

You do not have to have the perfect words.

You do not have to be ready to turn your story into advocacy.

But your story matters.

If you have experienced professional monitoring, licensing fear, stigma, shame, or harm after seeking help, you are not the only one.

Please reach out to anjoRENEW.

Your story matters here.