It's a Setup!

Some of us are not supposed to make it. Not in a survival of the fittest way, but in a very deliberate way. Our country is set up in such a way that the very systems we are supposed to rely upon to make us Harder, Better, Faster, and Stronger, are the same systems that are built to be the demise of those of us on the lower end of the totem pole, monetarily. I kind of just recently realized that I think I am one of those people. I'm a little behind, I know.

I grew up in what I now understand to be New Money. My mother had a bachelor’s degree from a college in Mexico and was a homemaker. My father does not have any college degree (I’m not even entirely certain that he graduated from high school. I know he got kicked out a lot). My dad was a professional singer for a long time, and then worked in marketing in the casinos in Atlantic City. He made a lot of money that way, and we had a beautifully landscaped home with a swimming pool. Money was a non-issue growing up, and I always assumed we had it in abundance as a kiddo.

Obviously, this was not the case. Despite my father’s success, my family spent a lot and I’m guessing we never really got ahead. My father still works, at age seventy. My mother has worked retail for the past ten years – she is fifty-nine.

As for me, I chose a career in the social services, always believing that what I do is more important than what I make. I’m in my second Master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania, making my graduate school price tag over $200,000. If I’m able to make $60,000 a year, I’ll consider myself lucky. So there’s that.

In addition to the astronomical cost of my education (which has been invaluable and made me a much better human, don’t get me wrong), I’ve become intimately familiar with the cost of healthcare for those of us that have to pay for it. Student health plans are required, and cost $3,000 a year. I just got a bill for $150.00 for a routine dermatology appointment. After I’d given them my insurance card. So…what that card is good for, I’m not entirely sure.

My friend Josh lives in Poland. He recently told me about the high cost he is paying for his graduate education - $4,000/year. I’m paying that amount per class. His wife got over a year off for maternity leave. Seriously. Go Poland.

Looking at my future, I’m afraid. I’m not a person who can dictate my life choices based on money, but I don’t want to ever feel as though I don’t have enough for basic needs, or for preventative health and dental care, or to keep my car running well. I don’t know if I’ll always have enough, and I don’t want to have to work eighteen hours days in order to have enough. This makes me sad, and nervous.

In talking with some other students at Penn, I’ve found out that many of them have no loans to speak of – that their parents are paying the entirety of their tuition. This blows my mind. Maybe these are the real privileged folks? Or maybe they, too, will eventually run out of money. I don’t know – but they’re about $200,000 head of me, and that’s got to be worth something for them.

We live in a nation that is set up specifically to keep a certain number of people afloat, in a big way. For those people, this is the best place on earth. They will continue to have a cache of money that self-recycles, and so they will also have access to the very best services and resources in the world. I think the rest of us are tricked into paying out the nose for quality, only to realize that we will never have enough to fully catch up. This keeps us at one end of a spectrum, and allows the big money to concentrate at the other end. I realize none of this is revelatory. It just makes me feel unsafe in a way I haven’t before, and I felt I had to comment. Anyone else?

 

Lost in Translation

Community Service Centers were based on a wonderful idea. Mental health in the 1960s and early 70s was coming to a new place, a place in which the individual was going to be considered based on their own unique life experiences. Simply, a young  African-American kid in rural Georgia would be treated differently than an elderly Caucasian man from Philadelphia. The neighborhood would be part of the solution, working in conjunction with professionals in the Service Centers to create services relevant to the consumers being served.

The beauty of CSC's was dampened somewhere in the execution. At that time in history, there were almost no minority practitioners due to continued issues with racism within education and employment sectors. That left mostly White practitioners serving some communities that were made up of 100% minority populations. This stacked the odds against practitioner-community collaboration from the very start.

Beyond this, those that designed the CSC's were not the same people that implemented the plans. Ultimately, mostly White, affluent practitioners were hired - this population of workers was unable or unwilling to connect with the diverse populations of all the CSC's. When the consumers and the workers found that they could not come to consensus, issues of racism, classism, and general cultural incompetence created a lack of trust and disappointment within the communities, and the CSC's failed to fulfill their promises.

Behind many failed attempts at greatness are truly pure intentions and phenomenal ideas. The problem lies in the execution - the resulting sculpture is not at all what the sculptor intended, although the original design was amazing. I think this has something to do with ideas becoming too big, and with the hands actually implementing the procedures being too far away, sometimes states or countries away, from the minds that designed them. Too lofty, too large, too far.

So. I propose that we all pay attention to the small ways that we can do something about the little things that we see happening around us, and fill in those holes with our own hands. I've noticed that West Philadelphia lacks for therapists, and I'm initiating a private practice in the area for the teen population to try to fill that hole (and do my work that I love, of course). I can see that's done how I hope it should be, how I envision it to be, because it's just me. It's a small idea and I think I can make it happen.

What are other holes we notice? How can we fill them? What brilliant ideas can we implement within the space of our own communities, our own streets, our own homes, that might make a lasting and worthwhile impact, tiny though it may be? This seems important to me. Isn't it though?

On Stewardship

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in...

On Black Friday, holiest of holidays for many, my boyfriend's mother fell asleep at the wheel and crashed her car into a guardrail. As I write this, she is in surgery having some of her broken spinal bones fused together, while her family waits to see what's next. Because her family is sometimes my family, I guess I'm waiting, too.

We went last evening after Ryan (said boyfriend and partner) got out of work to visit her at Lehigh Hospital. Ryan's father and sister were already there, on cell phones and making themselves useful with a water-dabbing contraption. Ryan's mother was laid out on a table, head pointed up at the ceiling and braced so as to not move any precious bones around. She looked banged up and scared. Ryan told some stories and spent general time with his family. I became small controller of my immediate universe, as I am always apt to do in semi-crises, and asked for fluids and pain medications and anything else that didn't look like it was being done by the nurses, and openly judged the hospital staff. It's how I contribute.

I love this little family, and I am hyper-aware right now of how their lives are likely going to change from this event. Ryan's mother is always moving; he calls her a "busy-body" in the very literal sense of the word - she is never sitting still, and is always doing for the house or the church or the family. For the foreseeable future, that won't be happening, and I can't hep but think about how that will impact Ryan and his father, and his sister's family. When one part of a working system stops working, every other part either fails to work as well, or accommodates itself and changes too. This leaves room for learning, love, and personal development, as well as frustration and resentment. The chips will fall where they may; I have no idea where yet.

I realize the event will likely change me, too. My partner's response will elicit changes in me. My time and skills may be called upon for certain things, and I'll have to do what I think is best for the situation, including what is best for Ryan's mother and family, and what is best for me. I am aware that those things may not always be compatible with one another, and I'm interested to see what kind of person I'll be in this situation.

I know how to take care of other people very well, I've been doing it forever, I was my family's go-to helper for years. I renounced helper around age 21, when I became so sick with help that I was forced to attend to myself (this happens to unskilled helpers. I really do think Penn needs a class on self-care. Really). I've spent the past eleven years building on the art of helping myself: first, hearing my needs, then responding to them as though they were someone else's, then becoming important enough to myself that I responded to them because they were mine. I've been working on the nasty business of guilt for the past several years, and don't expect to be through with that one for at least a decade. But I'm active with it.

So this might be my first opportunity in this work on the care of self and others to see what happens when the two are brought together - what it looks like for me to give and also set boundaries, to juggle both the care of the self and the very present and constant care of someone else. I really have no idea what I'll bring to the table here. But I do feel willing, and I'm encouraged by that.

A final thought: My belief in God has morphed into something that I realized today looks more like this: I'm not much for the idea that there is someone upstairs controlling events and making thigns happen or not happen. I think all of us down here do a good job of making both terrific and terrible things happen and not happen. But when they do, I do think that God presents itself in the opportunity to respond, and to be stewards for one another, and for ourselves, and also that learning the art of this stewardship might be the whole point. I hope it is.

Hyperverbal

http://www.youtube.com/embed/h7SSMTKGO1M

So, above is a link to a performance by the Spellbound dance company. Do watch it; it's beautiful and amazing to see. I saw them this weekend, and am still affected by the experience. Haunting, powerful, and familiar. All those good things that art performances should be.

The performance I saw was described as an expression of lack of verbal connection in our culture - so many "empty words" said, with humans trying to reach one another in whatever ways they can think of, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so. This theme is highly familiar and highly relevant to me. My focus and priority over the past five years has centered in on connection, to such a point that a day without real conversation feels false and lazy. I am tireless in my efforts to be heard and be understood, amongst my people, and, in smaller ways, everywhere else. I've found that the world is very scary to me without this process, which is funny, because there was  time when intimacy and vulnerability were the scariest things around. I doggedly pursue the privilege of being vulnerable anywhere and everywhere. I don''t feel myself otherwise.

In lieu of this, I have become aware of the importance of language and dialogue in my life. This is something I wish were different. I am always feeling the need to explain myself, or tell on myself, almost. It's as though my thoughts need to be said out loud in order for them to be legitimate. I have such respect for people that can communicate in silence or choose their words carefully but still carry maximum impact. I hope to get to that place myself sometime.

However, I would argue that this profession creates a need for language. There is a pulse inside me that needs to be released to maintain personal health and not break under the sadness and hopelessness of some days. Or, a joy that demands to be shared on others. There is a need to push back vocally to avoid getting absorbed into the day-to-day mess that's witnessed in psychotherapy. In this way, too, words prove necessary. At least for me.

But seeing this performance, I felt embarrassed by all my talking. I think I assume that other people won't understand my emotional state unless I lay it out explicitly, and I wonder if maybe this is foolish. Or maybe it's more foolish to expect that anyone could "read my mind" unless I'm completely forthright. But it's worth looking into - how we are talking to each other without saying anything, and the many ways that might take shape. It certainly leaves wide open spaces for art, for dance, for music, and for silence, within the space of psychotherapy.

I Am The Cheese

I am not the most popular person right now.

I'm interning at a charter high school in center city, working with a fairly incredible group of kids in pretty impossible situations. The challenge is good, and I look forward to spending time with the kids each time I walk into the building. It's valuable work.

Having worked as a school-based mental health consultant at a high school for five years myself, I know the ropes of high school mental health well. I am confident in my abilities to do what's necessary for the kiddos, and generally I know what that is. I worked under an incredible supervisor in my position at Great Valley, and honestly have no want/need for someone to fill those shoes. My approach is somewhat arrogant, I know, but really it comes down to: just let me do the work.

Of course, this is not making me any friends. I'm winning no popularity points at my internship. The counseling director where I am placed has now requested to meet with me weekly to help guide my education; as he and I have disagreed on more than one occasion about how best to address a problem, I believe this to be a way to keep dibs on me, more than anything else.

My direct supervisors are genuinely great people, and I like them very much. But they are trying to lay low to remain in the good graces of the school staff, and any waves that I make impact them, and so they are always asking me in various ways to please just stay out of things, or please just don't say anything. And then I say something, and I know, once again, that I am NOT making friends.

This situation is hard. I'm back in school because I needed a license and wanted a more versatile degree, but I already have a Master's degree in the social sciences and I've been practicing for almost ten years - in  high schools, in nonprofits, in outpatient, in inpatient, as a crisis counselor, in  hospitals, in my own private practice...I've been PRACTICING. And I feel like someone's taking away my right to do so, because of this weird intern/student label, and I'm pissed, and I'm defensive, and I'm upset. And, I suspect, mildly to moderately unfriendly.

In this, there is learning, always learning, but less about how to do this job and more about who I am in the context of this job. I take my craft seriously, and I am good at it. I am a hard worker and a loyal advocate to my clients. But. I think I am also intimidating, and maybe a vaguely bad team player. And in being direct and resolved, I am not very gregarious or fun. I think that's a big piece of me, as practitioner. And coming to grips with that reality is, I think, the most important thing grad school has taught me so far. And that's all for now.

Community Matters

I have thought about re-committing myself to church in some way often, at least once or twice weekly, for years now. I never have particularly liked church, and as I find myself having evolved into a religion-is-generally-a-bad-idea-for-me type of human, I really couldn't reconcile going somewhere that was specifically religious. I thought maybe an Episcopal church would be a lovely experience, but my nonbelief snagged me. I tried going to a couple Unitarian churches, only to find myself accosted by flowery poems by various inspired congregation members, and even subjected to an improvised interpretational dance. So that was out.

Church appeals to me solely because of the hole it seems to fill, single-handedly, in communities. The bringing together of people trying to be the best versions of themselves, to lend a hand to one another whenever they can, and to give back to the small spaces where they live, love, and work. That this niche is filled by the church an mostly only the church baffles me - why is this idea so tied to organized religion, which can be so divisive and illogical? Why aren't all of us getting in on this idea just because it's a beautiful and inspiring thing?


Church without a church surely would include potato sack races.

I feel the need for this kind of community togetherness more and more as I age. I see people creating it however they can - mostly people creating community by making families and building babies. Since my own uterus still is in no way interested, I'm looking for the creation of something else...not a church...not a family unit...maybe an "intentional community?" In a non-hippie way. I'm bad at sharing. But just an intentional getting together of loved people, encouraging the best in each other and giving each other space to be just as they are?

But even beyond my beautiful friend base, I long for something else, something bigger. I live on the line of Powelton Village and Mantua, and many of my people live in West Philadelphia proper, and these areas all speak to me. Beautifying these areas appeals to me. Meeting and working with my neighbors appeals to me. Giving a service to the community (I'm thinking low-cost mental health services, since that's my deal) appeals to me. Church-y, community-building concepts. Minus the church-y space.

So that's what simmering inside me right now. I'm hoping it's a seed that will take shape and grow into something interesting and worthwhile. Because it seems like a need, right? For communities, for friends, for families, for neighbors, for me.


What does your community look like?

Molasses

I’m in a period of my life that feels very slow. Days seem longer than they have since I was in high school. I find myself for the first time in eleven years with six, seven, sometimes eight hours of “free time” to fill after I’ve completed my workday. I am sometimes astonished to find that I’ve gone for a walk, written half a paper, and made a homemade dinner and dessert, and it’s only 8:30pm.

Being a student is the greatest thing that’s happened to me since chocolate and cats.

I reflect on the past two years with particular interest, wondering how on earth I suffered through a two hour commute each way (read – a total of four hours of commuting daily) to a job I mostly hated, leaving home at seven AM and arriving home at seven PM. Going to bed just two hours later so I could get up at five thirty AM to maybe exercise or eat something unprocessed. Those were the unhealthiest two years of my life, a time of depression and feelings of hopelessness. I consider the two years that I get to spend in school to be a reward for those two years of total crappiness, a sharp breath of cold delicious air after a trek through a flat, hot desert (ok dramatic, but really – that’s how it feels). Aaaaaaaah. Scccchhhhhoooooolllll.

Yesterday during the break for my History of Social Work class, I spent some time talking to a classmate, Mimi. I like Mimi a lot. She is smart, and asks good questions, and seems self-possessed and motivated. We discussed settlement houses (we’d just been learning about Hull House), and what a modern settlement-type house might look like here in Philadelphia. We had the idea to talk with some other classmates and banter ideas back and forth, and maybe come up with some ideas about the needs of our city. As usual, I felt the small flicker of excitement torch in my belly when discussing potential creative outlets and the social sciences (and the combination of the two!) and promised to email Mimi. And I will.

My 25-year-old self already would have. The email would be sent, and others would be invited into the discussion, and a blueprint for the meeting would already have been made. I am historically a person who is on top of everything, two steps ahead. I get things done – I got things done.

Now it feels a lot different. Since the slowdown, my little burning idea has joined a small grocery cart of thoughts and interests floating around inside me that will be tended to in good time. While the excitement remains, the sense of urgency is muted. Rather, there is time to take a look at what I’m doing at any given moment, and just breathe it in and enjoy it, and it feels healthier than the marathon I was metaphorically running for so long, healthier by far. Life slowed down is savory, and I’m sucking it all in.

                                                   Grad school - as good as vacation.

Only Heart

I have recently found myself in the very sad predicament of feeling pretty much Godless. Not that God has abandoned me, or vice versa, but rather, that God has stopped having much relevance in my life. I've found myself afflicted with the same growing cynicism that most of my community has - the undeniable feeling that religious affiliation and practice seems silly, and oppressive, and generally counterproductive to the greater good. Rituals, traditions, and practices seem a waste of time - trite and useless, and showing a certain weakness. Prayer becomes rote, and we arrive at something that looks like I am God, and God is me, and so there it is. Or at least I have.

I was meeting with a client today, a sixteen year old girl that identifies as Muslim and keeps herself mostly covered from head to toe. I asked her when she became Muslim, and she said committed to the faith at age six, because at that age all the most beautiful people she knew were Muslim. I inquired about the reasons behind wearing the covering, which has always seen so oppressive to me  and seems to hide so many beautiful Muslim women. She explained that to her, the covering makes women more beautiful, because it allows the public "To see only our hearts. To judge us only by our hearts."

This gorgeous sentiment rang so honest and wise that tears stung my eyes.

Religion can be a weapon, of this there is no doubt. It is a weapon that can break apart buildings, crush spirits, and build walls between us. It is there in hospital rooms, preventing loving partners from being together in sickness because they are of the same sex. It is splashed on signs in city sidewalks, tearing young women apart who are making the brave and personal choice not to bear their pregnancy, whatever their reasons. It is thematically there in amateur videos posted on youtube for the world to see, prompting shame, embarrassment, ager, vengeance, death. It is there and it is there and it is there, hurting so many of us. Used to hurt eachother, it is there, everyday. One tires of this. I tire of this.

But then, someone like my client says or does something profound, and I remember how my own spiritual experience was shaped and nurtured by that foundational and simple premise of love - a love that feels so powerful that sometimes you believe your heart is showing right through your chest. A love that might convince you that a small piece of you is made of something greater, something pure. Godliness. Love. Heart. And in these moments I'm reminded of why I'm doing all this in the first place...something like a calling...a dedication, in spite of everything, that I can do no other...I find SUCH comfort, and such joy, in this.

Everybody Hates a Tourist

When I graduated from college, I had the very un-unique experience of identity diffusion - I had all sorts of feelings and ideas about myself and about the world, and wanted to transmit them in a way that demonstrated just how crucial! and important! and innovative! they were. I chose to do this by disavowing myself of every privilege I had grown up with, and committing to a "spiritual" lifestyle free of material goods and desires. I moved in to a house in Upper Darby with several close friends, gave all but a couple of shirts and pants away, stopped shaving anything and stopped wearing shoes (I don't know what prompted the no-shoe decision). This adventure lasted about 1.5 years, some of the best and worst years of my life.

But I think we all know how this story ended - eventually, my spiritual period culminated in a spectacular nervous breakdown and a slow climb back to the very vain and material-loving human I am today.

In class this week we discussed the origins of social work and learned that the majority of early "Friendly Visitors" were wealthy White women who were scratching their collective philanthropic itches by reaching out to provide moral guidance to people they considered below them - in economic class and in social propriety. I think this description turned the stomach of many of us - me included - and pushed us to ask....."is that who WE are? Is that who I am?"

                                                   A Friendly Visitor comes knocking...

Where does compassion end and condescension begin? I have long known that I have my very own place in the mental health community, being a consumer of mental health services and recognizing my own struggles with phobias, anxiety, depression, moodiness, and profound moments of self-doubt. I take solace in having my own story; there's something reassuring in knowing that if many of my clients knew my personal history, they might embrace me as their own. I am a broken and reinvented and re-broken person.

That said, there are a million ways I am unlike my clients. I am a person of extreme privilege - aside from gender, I find myself at an advantage in every way - socioeconomic status, race, education - I err on the side of privilege in all of these areas. It is undeniably part of who I am, and can be changed no more easily than turning my skin green or making my eyes blue. These are all my parts.

I am not a bored, rich woman looking to fill up my empty spaces by saving the world. I will not worry that this is the case. But I'm not a poor, marginalized person in need of a great deal of help, either (at least not right this minute). Being aware of the privileges I have but never earned keeps me honest and aware in my practice, and in my life. I will have to do this each day, every day, if I presume to have anything to offer to others.

 I could never go back to Upper Darby and pretend to belong. I don't, and another nervous breakdown would render me useless to everybody (and I'd prefer not to have another for a good long while). So I take a hot shower and I buy expensive chocolate and I wear clothes I like and I watch some television and I use the air conditioning. And I am grateful, and I don't have a nervous breakdown, and I am okay. And all of this is, mostly, just fine.

Small Matters of Great Importance

One of my oldest and best friends is a linguist. When I lived with him for a couple years in 2002, he’d excitedly talk about language the way that I guess I must talk about psychology, throwing around Chomsky the way that I reference Seligman. His love for language alluded me, but having passions for topics that bore other people to tears kept us talking late into the night, many nights.

I thought of him this week as I tried to wrap my mind around what’s been happening in a couple of my classes at Penn. I’ve felt myself become frustrated and offended in classes in ways that have surprised me. While I used to be an avid debater and loved a good argument in my teens and early twenties, I’ve quieted down considerably in my thirties, opting instead to stay silent unless the situation really calls for a clobbering, and even then trying to clobber in only the most helpful and effective ways….

I believe the issue that’s got me so disgruntled has little to do with the actual topics or debates at hand, but rather, the language surrounding those debates. A reference in class to a transgendered person as “he-she” had my jaw on the floor. Using the term “food stamp people” to refer to welfare recipients was equally as daunting. More subtly, though, are the assumptions that I’ve recognized flowing through these conversations. The assumption that prisoners are violent, for instance. The heinous assumption that all recipients of public aid are manipulative and lazy. The assumption that women who do not want to have children or who are not naturally nurturing have had some kind of early trauma that’s negated their innate drive to parent. All have been suggested in one of my classes and met with acceptance, as if these were valid differences of opinion, and not what I read them to be: reflections of stereotypes, classism, prejudice, and ignorance.  I’m angry even now, reflecting upon it.

If we don't spend the time reflecting on how we think, we run the risk of losing touch with ourselves and losing sight of the values that compel us to act as we do.  I admit that I've neglected to do so for the past couple years, when I had neither the time or energy to take good care of my mind or body. Since re-entering school and re-engaging with my thoughts, I find myself happier and less depressed, centered, and feeling more in-tune. I suspect that this is a healthier way to be, and makes me better at what I do.

Here’s the deal: How we talk about people is as important as what we are saying about them. If there is not a base level of agreed upon verbiage with which to have conversations about current social issues, then I would argue that those conversations should not be happening (certainly not within the context of a social work class, anyway). If young social workers cannot be brought to task regarding their own assumptions and ignorance, why would any client want to work with them? Why would a social worker expect respect in return for condescension?

So to my friend Josh, I concede - language is important. So important, I think, I’d suggest having a class at Penn just addressing language – how to talk about populations and current issues with respect, kindness, compassion…clearly this is lacking, and effective social work cannot exist without it.

The Weight of Space

I am very sensitive to my environment - the way it looks, feels, smells. I've filled our home with bright, colorful art, pretty ceramic pieces, and strong, modern black furniture. I play music to reflect my moods, which change often - Otis Redding one day, Ingrid Michaelson the next. If I could keep plants alive, I'd have a house-full, for that green, oxygen-rich air they produce, but I settle for delicious smells from Anthropologie candles and homemade baked goods. My house is almost always messy because I share this space with my family - Ryan and our two kitties - but it feels like home.

The way a space looks and feels communicates volumes. Space can facilitate learning, peace, kinship, in the same way it can foster anxiety, depression, and low self-worth. An environment intentionally created with love will produce the same. An environment filled with tension will reflect as much. A space can demonstrate one's value - the wealthy are privileged to have big, airy spaces in safe neighborhoods, while the less-than-wealthy are relegated to tiny and cramped spaces with bars on the windows.

 This sentiment is communicated not-so-subtly at Penn, where I am paying tens of thousands of dollars to learn and grow....just taking a look at the Wharton School of Business in comparison to the basement classrooms in the Caster Building (where I take all of my social work courses) communicates perfectly who the money-makers are and which population is top priority.

I'm wondering what it does to one's psyche to never occupy a space that communicates a positive message. I'm thinking specifically of the kids I work with at my internship site - foster kids from the bad parts of the city, that are greeted each day by a school in a dirty building with half-painted walls and no regulation of temperature. I'm wondering if this commute to an ugly place from a ugly place takes a toll - tells the story that, even though staff here are smiling and saying a better life is possible, someone still couldn't bother to spring for printer paper or tissues or pens, or take the time to paint the walls to completion. The building feels defeated.

If it was true that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed in this country, than everyone would have that message communicated to them, in all ways, in every space they fill. Neighborhoods, schools, community centers - maintained with pride and intention. This does not necessarily take money, just mindfulness and concern for ourselves and each other. I have no other thoughts about it, other than it seems like a very possible thing to achieve on a small scale, everywhere. How can we bring our desired mindsets to life in the spaces we (and our community) occupy?

Ten Things I Hate About Me

It is probably not a shock that many people that seek degrees in the social sciences have in some way been stumped themselves developmentally and/or emotionally. In fact, I would urge anyone in this profession that can't recall some kind of major bump in the road to consider why they are really here. The very best practitioners I have met are the ones that are open and up-front about their own broken-ness and keenly aware of the messes in their own lives. I myself am a dweller-in-the-mess type, but do not always willingly embrace this fact.



I mentioned in my first post that I have a religious past, and this is a huge piece of who I am. My religious upbringing was the design of my grandparents, Pentecostal faith healers that lost a daughter in her twenties and deemed me the prodigal stand-in. Under their tutelage, I began speaking in tongues by age two. Before ten, I had stood in the middle of a highway with a sign urging people to come "get saved" in a large tent revival. At that revival, Kenneth Hagan pulled me out of the audience and prophesied over me (in tongues- translated, of course) that I was going to lead many people to Jesus, and that everyone would "shut their mouths and listen to me" (I have this recorded on cassette if you don't believe me). By thirteen, I was laying hands on people in church and they were falling over and flailing around. Every significant developmental stage was marked by some kind of Christian rite of passage gone awry. I found a list that I made when I was a child with a list of "goals"; among them, seriously, was to "blow up a Muslim temple". Another, in a later journal, was to take a bullet for an unsaved stranger so I could die a martyr and that person would find Jesus.

My grandparents fucked me up real good.

As a teenager, my method of practicing my Christian faith was brilliantly devised, although I was blissfully unaware of what I was doing. I played the therapist, from as early on as I can remember, to everyone around me. This included peers, teachers, hairdressers, my own parents, and my boyfriends. Everyone. This tactic allowed me to be popular with absolutely everybody, to feel great about myself, to feel I was being "an example", and to feel useful in the world. It also, upon reflection, gave me absolute license to completely avoid what was happening inside of me, and in my day-to-day life, because I never ever had to talk about it, and nobody ever felt the need to ask. A therapist doesn't have a private life to their clients. I pulled this off for YEARS. I have some very fond memories of being loved by people who knew absolutely zero about me.

This has a predictable ending. Eventually, the jig had to be up because my body just wouldn't allow me to keep it going. I began to get sick all the time with all the crap inside of me (literally and figuratively, sorry I know, gross) that I wasn't addressing. Since then, I've done self-work, and made alot of self-repairs, and continue to do so. However. I feel like the meanest, most awful human on the planet, alot of the time. Because part of that work has meant NO THERA-PIZING outside of the workplace. Essentially, I've given myself the freedom to say exactly what and how I feel within all of my significant relationships (and sometimes just randomly, too - this does not always work out well.) I am sometimes tactless. I know people have found me intimidating. And I am incredibly, outspokenly selfish about my wants, needs, and my time. I have so much guilt about all of this I cannot even begin to express it. But it is authentic, and I am healthier this way. So I stew in the guilt, daily, and continue to be me. Who is sometimes a bitch. A big, un-Christiany one.

I have reconciled myself to the reality that this will be a lifetime sort of thing for me. That maybe in my forties or fifties I will feel zen enough that softer, more lovely things will come out of my mouth more often, and I'll be patient with myself every time they don't. Maybe by my sixties I'll embrace my crotchety-ness along with all my positive qualities and be one of those confident older women with great humor and witty soundbites, like my Nana. Maybe not. Either way, I'm committed to remaining honest about who and what I am as much as I can, at every opportunity.

I have the great fortune of knowing many strong, outspoken, complex women, of all ages. In this I find encouragement and hope, because I sometimes see glimpses of myself in the women I admire and think that maybe I am a bunch of great things, and am liked for some of those great things. The things I am now are mostly me, not mostly martyr, and I am still surrounded in love - really and honestly this time.

The Real Deal

 

Circa 1997, a story came out in the newspapers in Ocean City, New Jersey, announcing the arrival of a guy that was walking through town in the middle of a pilgrimage. The papers quoted him claiming to be on a Jesus-Journey of sorts, trekking barefoot up the coast with no places to stay and no money, relying only on the mercy of people that offered him free food and shelter. As a young and idealist teenage SuperChristian, I was immediately starstruck. I excitedly drove up and down Stagecoach Road in Marmora, looking for Jesus Man, with a sandwich and an apple. When I finally tracked dude down and offered him my picnic in exchange for conversation, he rejected the food because he'd been followed around by people like me all day and was stuffed. I don't remember what we talked about, so I'm guessing his personal theology wasn't that earth-shaking. But I do remember seeing him on the local news, too, and him reporting that he had stayed in different homes offered to him by community members when he came through.

Mike McIntyre's book The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America explores a similar theme, with a Trusting Young Journalist exploring the country, banking on only the goodness of everyday folks to meet his needs. I read the book in my early twenties, and finished the read feeling inspired and superior and sure that yes, if a random Jesus Man or Trusting Young Journalist came through my town, I was just the kind of Kind Stranger to offer them a homemade sandwich. And an apple.

So, fast-forwarding to today and looking at this from the eyes of a thirty-something that shook Christianity (but kept a tender appreciation for the Jesus figure), it becomes apparent that, duh, um, these guys had no trouble getting help not because they were faithful and believed in people (both lovely things), but foremost because they weren't actually homeless. Because actual homeless people sometimes are dirty or mentally ill or hurt people, and most people, including me, don't invite others into their homes or hand-make sandwiches for people that are potentially dangerous or scary. And so most of the time, even by the very best of us, the people that really actually need or desire help are ignored in favor of those people or things that can make us feel good at little or no risk to ourselves.




How, as practitioners, to bridge this gap? To start, I think its important to be very honest with ourselves about the populations with whom we choose to work. It is essential, to be a good practitioner (and really just to be a good person) to stretch beyond our limits and invite in populations that are entirely "other" in order to learn and grow.

At the same time, its important to acknowledge our areas of weakness and limitation, and address these areas directly, rather than avoid them out of embarrassment or fear of appearing incapable (my very greatest fear). If we grew up privileged, we need to look at that. If we grew up in an area with very little diversity or are from a higher socioeconomic status, that's very relevant to the work we might do with with people that experienced the opposite of those things.



In doing the work on ourselves, and in taking a frank look at our limitations, fears, prejudices, etc, we can show a little respect to the people with whom we will work - the real deal people, not the Jesus Man or Trusting Young Journalist models. It is my utmost belief that this is owed and essential, at the Very Least, to those people, and to ourselves.

Committed

 

09-09-2012

Entry One

Sometimes I have to sit with my anxiety for a much longer time than I am comfortable before being able to identify the culprit behind the sensation. Since I tend to live in a general state of anxiousness, it’s not always clear when the something that is tugging at me that is specific in nature, as opposed to the general self-renewing freak out that is “Oh no, I’m alive, and also an adult person expected to be able to navigate daily life fairly independently and with a reasonable amount of competence." Which is scary, obviously.

 

 So anxiety prior to beginning a Master’s program in a field similar to that in which I already hold a Master’s degree, at the age of 32, without working simultaneously (was anyone else aware that a decent grad school currently costs circa $120,000? Cause that’s a thing that’s true.)  seemed self-explanatory in its inducement of awesome excitement, coupled with some periods of self-doubt and fear. Except that I’ve come to think that’s just not really it.
 

 For all my talk of loving my profession and also the shining little life I’ve been painstakingly cobbling together since forever, I am a person who has made a variety of choices that allow me to commit myself, fully, to almost nothing. There are the obvious things, in that I have not married or had any children or bought a home (it is becoming really obvious, though, that most folks my age have done at least one of those things, but not everybody, so…phew), but there are other things, too. I’ve had a different address on average every two years. I’ve tried out a variety of hobbies, from painting to cooking to trapeze. I have no steady religious affiliation (more on that, I’m sure, in later entries); even my haircut changes so frequently that sometimes people who knew me a few years ago no longer recognize me. If I didn’t have a nagging phobia of public transportation and international travel it’s conceivable that I might be nomadic.

 

 My work, and my impenetrable positive regard for the kids with whom I work, has been the only sentiment in my life that I can safely say I have never questioned; it never flags. Having the privilege of sitting down for an hour while a young person shares his or her life with me remains more appealing to me than a plate of chocolate chip cookies. And it always has.

Which is why, at 32, after working as a professional in the field for eight years, I am finally acquiescing, and claiming a thing. I’m committing myself, with schooling and interning and more letters after my name and $120,000 (in loans, obviously) to this thing, this work thing, and saying as assuredly as I can that this is THE thing I’ll be doing, forever, as long as I am working, and probably as long as I am alive because I’ll make like no dollars and have a shit-ton of loans. Committing. Hence the huge-time anxiety, I’m fairly certain.

                A few years back I was talking with a client about codependency, in lieu of his attempts at connecting with someone in his life that just wasn’t healthy enough to do it properly. He said that his attempts, though exhausting, were obvious and non-negotiable, because he had a place in his heart that he tended to with his work on this relationship, even though he sometimes got very little from the other person involved. He kept on going to fill up that little empty space in his heart, whether he was validated, or not.

                I know I’m alluding to being codependent on my work (and it’s very likely that I am, although I kind of suspect all social workers are), but I relate to the fact of a hole inside my heart that is filled up by the work that I do, and by nothing else.  I trust myself in this one aspect, to do this one thing, for as long as I can, because it’s something I have to do.  And that is something that makes me fearful, but I believe that is also something that makes me very lucky.