Who Let The Crazies In???

I entered my MSW program with the assumption/expectation that I was going to be surrounded by mature, emotionally stable and developed people. The biggest lesson that I learned during the first week of classes was that this was not necessarily true. There is great diversity of emotional and social development among students and faculty alike.

In a small discussion with some people in my "Social Work Practice Lab" (which is basically an intro to clinical class), I divulged that I was, and have been in therapy. It was pertinent to the conversation and it's not something I'm ashamed of, nor did I divulge WHY I'm in therapy. One of my classmates took my openness as an invitation to deluge all her issues to me. Initially, I was just thinking "woah, this woman has boundary issues", but then later she accosted me about my weight - wanting me to commiserate with her on weight loss, and her very Americanized weight management views (which I'm simply not willing to do). When I refused very politely but firmly to engage in that conversation, she told me I was in denial about my weight, and nastily retorted "I hope you have a nice weekend" and stormed off.

My professor for History of Social Welfare class is another person who will force me to maintain my center. In addition to teaching, she is heavily involved with Shapedown - a program for overweight kids and their families at The Children's Hospital. As a former client of Shapdown, I have unbelievably strong oppositional feelings towards the program. I developed bulimia during that program, and it would not surprise me to hear that I was not the only kid who developed an eating disorder during that program. It was apparent to me that my professor has, at the very least, disordered restrictive eating.

Its an interesting revelation that observation of other people's psychological states allowed me to more clearly understand where I am in my own process. The more I understand about myself and where I am, the better I think I'm going to be able to listen with compassion and empathy, and work with people through their own processes.

Oppression

I've always hated the word. Through the first week of my MSW readings, I have encountered it more often than I thought possible - were talking nearly every line in some readings. My initial reaction contained a lot of guilt and resistance. Am I in for 2 years of forced self flagellation due to my class race and culture?
As I continued into the readings, intermittently shouting rants at my dog (as he was the only one who would listen) I began to realize that I was thinking critically! Hold the reins there a sec... They tricked me! Before I knew it I was redefining "oppression" to myself, identifying both the oppressor and the oppressed within myself. I became aware of the emerging concept that this was not to be an experience of degradation and remorse but to lead me to better understand my origins, and those of others: you can not adequately understand client systems without first understanding the oppressed and oppressor within yourself.

Foundation Internship

After being lead to believe that I had landed the internship at the Y, I received an email late on Friday, very curtly informing me that I " was not selected for the Y internship". It was one sentence. No salutation, no explanation, no thank you for expressing interest. To make matters worse, there was absolutely nothing I could do about not having an internship (which is supposed to begin on Sept. 18) over the weekend. I managed not to fall into a spiral of panic only by spiraling into depression. All I wanted to do all weekend was sleep.


This week began with a rush of exchanging e mails with my field coordinator, and the human resources dept at Excelsior (my job), and phone calls to a new list of agencies with potential internships. I was able to secure a fall back option for internship at Excelsior. I really do not want to do this, because my responsibilities as a first year intern would be nearly identical to what I do now. As I plan to continue to work there on a fill in basis throughout grad school, I don't want to do the SAME job, and not get paid for it. Plus, I know how to do my job. The whole point of internship is to do something new. As I've heard back from more and more agencies this week, I'm finding all internship positions are filled. Crapola.


There is however one placement that still has an open spot. It's with the Rocky Mountain MS Foundation Adult Day Program. They offer a multitude of classes for adults with MS, and some with brain injury (did not specify if it was anoxic brain injury or traumatic brain injury). My responsibilities there would include facilitating classes, running group therapy, and psycho-social support. From what I understand there is a lot of flexibility in the internship for me to design my own curriculum. This is a definite "pro" for the agency - as it maps on to my Hampshire background. What concerns me is that they focus so much on people with disabilities, and an older demographic. I'm not sure if this demographic is one that I want to work with. I'm trying to separate my fear of something new (I'm accustomed to working with at risk youth), and my reservations for working with a population that might not be all there - I've found I'm just better with a higher functioning demographic - at least in youth.

Perhaps this level of ambivalence and trepidation is a good indication that I should accept this placement? It could be a phenomenal learning experience.

Aurora teens work to find ways to handle bullying

We were on the news on Tuesday!

Dan Evans, country singer and also former participant of The Biggest Loser came to visit our facility on Tuesday. It's anti-bullying week, and he talked to them about bullying and what they can do about it. At the facility we run strong anti-bullying campaigns, and this time we got some news attention.

One of my favorite kiddos, (and quite possibly the worlds shortest basketball team captain (coming in at towering 4'9")) did an interview with Dan Evans, which was televised. C. was a former bully (and has the most horrendous past I've ever heard), who has now become one of the strongest roll models and leaders. She's such a cool kid.

I couldn't find the full clip of her, so sad...

Aurora teens work to find ways to handle bullying

Evil Bitch Monster From Hell

I have this client whom I shall call the evil bitch monster from Hell. Now I know that this is the antithesis of therapeutic. I'm way past therapeutic with this little shit.
A little bit of background is in order. The evil bitch monster from hell entered the facility about four years ago. She has some mild mental retardation a dysfunctional family and was molested once by her step brother. She has more attention from staff, family, mentors and special programming just for her. She is the most self entitled little snot I've ever met. Also she is incredibly assaultive but there's nothing we can do about it even though she's 18, because the court has declared her incompetent (which shes not). She even threatens "I can hit you and there's nothing you can do about it". It's infuriating.

This evening she was not following directives, and trying to do unnecessary laundry 20 minutes after her bedtime. I told her no, and that she needs to work on her time management. The evil bitch monster from hell started screaming in my face and posturing at me. She eventually went up to the intervention unit where she demanded that I give her a hug. When I refused, explaining to her that I would not hug her after the way that shed been treating me, and that when she was having better behavior I would be happy to give her a hug, she sat down in the middle of the hall and started screaming. I just walked out. (it would be different I this was not a daily attention seeking occurrence). Later, my co-worker D.V. Called and told me that she spent the next 45 minutes crawling between and around his legs. She then started licking his shoe. Gross.
She's fricking 18 and DECIDES to do this for attention.

Matching socks

This morning I let my extremely low functioning client with severe paranoid schizophrenia into the storage closet to pick out clean clothes to change into after showering.
As always, she ceremoniously opened each drawer one at a time, methodically riffled through each in turn, and closed them. By the end she has a collection or garments that you're not sure how she's going to formulate an outfit (yet she always manages to come out fully dressed).
Then she goes to the sock drawer, where all the socks are singles. She stares pensively at the socks for several moments and then picks a sock out. She then will very slowly pick up other socks and hold the two together, seemingly to carefully consider the combination, discarding the second sock into the drawer until she has found a combination that suits her - albeit not usually matching.

Prostitution for 400 please

The other day we had a phase group for a client (phases are the clients progress in therapy). When a client is applying for their phase II, they must complete a series of tasks including writing their life stories, making a road map of how they've gotten to where they are, facilitate a therapeutic group about their primary issue to their peers, and presenting/defending their phase to their treatment team.
This clients primary issues are prostitution and abuse(which of course go hand and hand). She read her life story, which depicted a traumatized child who was raised transiently in motel rooms, pretending to be asleep while her mother serviced her Johns in the next bed over. A child who was molested by her uncle at age 5 and was prostituting by age 12, and arrested for it at 13.
We then played 'prostitution jeopardy' which while was entertaining and educational, prompted some disturbing commentary and discussion from our hypersexualized kiddos. The comment that stands out to me the most was 'I hate it when men abuse me. I don't even really like it when they rape me". Even after eight months here those comments floor me. Their childhoods were so starkly different from mine that I don't know if I will understand the normalcy of this lifestyle for these girls.