Grief

I talked with  mom of a “unique needs" child today and she helped me understand a lot.  I need to let go of the idea of what parenting looks like and accept our reality.  Illyana is not quite your typical kid and she needs to be treated for who and what she is.  And I need to make her needs work for me.  Cheering for her is unnatural to me but she needs it.  Illyana is so socially motivated and I am an introvert.  We find a level that works for us.  And I might be cheering lots of things I never dreamed I would cheer for because that’s what my kiddo needs.  But the part that really got me is that I don’t just need to let go of my ideals, but I need to grieve them as well. This is not what I expected and its not what the majority of my friends have dealt with, but obviously it is what our adventure is.  Illyana may or may not grow out of her unique needs and we may or may not add other unique needs to who she is.  But she is perfectly Illyana.  I am still kind of in denial so the grief is still to come but its getting closer.  Maybe the grief will live quietly or maybe it will explode out (I’m kind of a one or the other type girl).  But when that grief does come, I already know today’s conversation will make it that much easier.  It’s not grieving my child; its grieving expectations that don’t match reality and moving on to accept and embrace our reality.  I’m in the perfect job for a unique needs child as I get to learn a lot about mental health and some healthy means of coping for all of us.
It really does take a village to raise a child (and support a mama) and I have learned how big and wonderful our village is in the last month.   Thanks for being part of our village

Calories

I’m frustrated. What else is new? As you know, Illyana and I spent 18 days on the hospital recently. All sorts of tests were ran and it was decided that there is nothing wrong with Illyana, she simply does not consume enough calories. Except that it took 18 days of trauma for this to be determined. She had a tube in her nose forcing formula into her. The tube had to be inserted multiple times because they struggled to tape it to her face in such a way that she couldn’t pull it out. She had blood work done three times. Eating became a bigger deal than I would like it to be. Our sleep schedule was disrupted. Daily she would be woken up after falling asleep by a medical professional needing something. At night she was still poked and prodded although she, thankfully, slept through most of those. She got even less sleep than she does on a regular basis. I had to hold her flailing little body down until she would relax into sleep. If she awoke in the night, she sought me out, seeking reassurance she wasn’t alone. And after 18 days of unknown territory, with stressful visitors, we were told to carry on as we were previously. Except those 18 days changed everything. Nine months of sleep training is out the window. Illyana is terrified if I am out of sight. She will still only fall asleep touching me. She slept through the night at the hospital. Last night she was awake every hour. Our routine is gone and we are re building it. But our routine also took months in the making. We took 2 weeks to get used to going to daycare. He went for half day last week but our getting there routine is gone. We are back to work/daycare tomorrow and I don’t know how our morning will go (let’s be honest, I never know, but I m even less sure now). We missed Illyana's vaccinations because we were in the hospital. Vaccinations have never bugged her, she’s always carried on with her life. This set has her with fever – is that the vaccinations, that she is run down or that it scared her more? I don’t know but fevers are not conducive to getting more calories in her as she doesn’t eat when she's not feeling well. Maybe the mot frustrating part is that I have been told to carry on with what I was doing. There is nothing medically wrong with her and physically, there is no reason why she doesn’t eat well. This means that there are no suggestions to offer us. The best suggestion is to cheer loudly every time she does something good eating. It is so unnatural and uncomfortable for me to do this. I get that she respond to social praise but it cant be the only way can it? I’m also supposed to eat the same thing as her so that she see me eating it and wants to eat it too. But shes on a high fat diet that I don’t want to be on. She doesn’t sleep so things like dishes don’t get done s much as I would like. I don’t want to cook two (or 3, depending on Nick’s diet)meals. I struggle to make meals as it is. Then I get told that all food is good food and I am a role model for my daughter in how I view food. Sure but adults don’t need the same fat and they wouldn’t be telling m it’s good foo. The whole give her straight fat is a bizarre concept to me. I feel so alone in this adventure. There is so much pressure to gain weight and eat enough food that I stress out when she doesn’t eat well. We are doing weekly weigh ins. What happens if she doesn’t gain appropriately? I still have so many professionals in my life but no one has any concrete suggestions for me. I have been trying g for 7 months, clearly it I not working! I get that it is me and Illyana the need to figure it out together, I just wish someone could help me. I feel like I’m failing. I feel like I’m failing Illyana. I need help but it I not something anyone can help with.

Milestones

Parenting is hard. I am 9 months in and still feel like I have no idea what I am doing. I question myself daily. Sometimes, the cause of my frustration is a lack of sleep and then Illyana is a goofball when I just want to get things done (diaper changes are the major cause of this - I want to clean her up and she wants to roll around and play). But other times, I think it is wondering if she is developing normally and if she's not, is it because of something I am doing or not doing.

Illyana sees a whack of professionals, including a pediatrician, physiotherapist, the infant development program, and is on the client list for the speech and language pathologist and the occupational therapist although she has, thankfully, not really required their services yet. She sees all of these people because she had a feeding issue at 3 months, which involved a hospitalization while they figured out exactly what was going on. We learned a lot in that visit and the follow ups which happened. It was a small thing that required more adjustments on my end than anything.

I appreciate all the help these professionals have given us but I sometimes think that they make things harder on me.

Illyana is slightly behind on her development. I don't think it is anything to worry about. She's so smart and active. She's just Illyana. I also know that all babies develop differently and at their own pace. Milestones and development trackers drive me crazy for this reason.

Every time we get vaccinations there is a checklist. At 2 months, she missed one of six items. At 4 months she missed a little more. At 6 months even more. At six months, we also completed the ages and stages questionnaire and Illyana only was low on her gross motor development which was expected with her feeding issues. But looking at the vaccination questionnaire, I couldn't help but feel like we were doing soemthing wrong.

Earlier this week, we did the 9 month questionnaire. Illyana was 8 months, 3 weeks. We were not doing well on it. I said "no" to a lot of questions before it was suggested we do the 8 month test. We did much better on that scale but had two new areas come up that Illyana is "behind" on.

The thing is, if we didn't have all these professionals around, we would still think our baby is the perfect little girl she is. Instead, I look at these checklists and wonder what I am doing wrong. Should I be doing more with her? Should I be teaching her things I am not? I follow her lead, I play with her. I wonder if there is something "wrong" with her.

I know in my heart that she is just Illyana and I see her as the perfect little girl she is. I see a goofball with a big personality. I see a strong willed little girl who will take the world by storm. I see a little girl, determined to army crawl as fast as she can around the whole house. And I know she is perfect. But she falls into the "needs monitoring" category in two of five or six categories, and in new categories from where she has previously been "behind".

I also struggle with the professionals giving me suggestions on how to be with her, how to help her. Sometimes it feels like they are saying why is she doing this? What are you doing to make her like this? Which is maybe what I want to hear since I often feel like I am failing her anyways.... its hard to have professionals involved. It's hard to see the checklist saying she's behind and then hear (even if only internally) that it is something you are doing.

I know these questions have been asked since the beginning of time and I know that anyone reading this will say that Illyana is fine, I'm doing a great job and all that. And I know all those things. But when a child is not meeting milestones for any reason, it becomes extra hard to smile. Illyana is days away from her 9 month birthday and there are things on the 3-6 month checklist that I cannot say she does. I don't know how to make it better for her.

Sometimes, I want to walk away from the professionals so that I can just enjoy my perfect baby girl but I know that they are important in case we reach more critical levels. I would rather her be seen and monitored, and early intervention applied if needed than not be seen, or be on waitlist for years. It's just so hard, seeing her not meeting the milestones on a piece of paper.

Parenting is hard. I feel like a failure but she looks at me with such love. I see the milestone checklists and we work on the things we are missing. But she is perfect, in every way and I wouldn't change her for anything.

Life is a Juggling Act

Long time, my blog.  I need somewhere to talk about life: raising my family and growing up, so I am back!


This weekend Nick picked up 2 overtime shifts. This meant he worked 22 hours in 2 shifts and that he didn't have a weekend.

I found myself frustrated that we didnt share time together, that I was the only person awake with the baby. I was tired and wanted my husband's support. I wanted some alone time and it didn't happen. I felt frustrated that he chose work over his family.

But this goes both ways.

Nick was frustrated that I was annoyed he was working 2 overtime shifts. He will get paid for an entire extra week of work on those 2 days. The only money coming into this household comes from him working right now (that's what sharing EI does). He says it's a month of daycare paid for in one weekend of work. Its our groceries. Its Christmas dinner for the family and gifts for the family. It's important.

Both arguements are valid and important. It's not every weekend he works overtime and it's been a long time since he did a double overtime shift. I have asked him not to take double shifts for a while, that it is too hard on our family unit. He said ok. At this point, Illyana gets excited when he enters the room but doesn't wonder where he is when he's gone. Soon she will be used to the routine that she sees Daddy when we get up and before she goes to bed. When she is older we can explain that Daddy is at work (and Mommy will also be at work sometimes). But we both still miss him.

Life is a juggling act. Money is necessary for survival. Family is important for everything. As partners, we need to find a balance that works for us. I learned this weekend that him working 22 hours in his weekend doesnt work for me. But I also remembered that he didn't take the shifts because he didnt want to spend time with us. He knew that he was giving up his weekend, giving up time with Illyana and his wife.

This is life. It's beautiful, messy, and complicated. We make decisions in an instant and sometimes it's the wrong decision. We love, learn, change and grow. And hopefully next time we both make better choices. But at the end of the day, there is always love 

Systemic Reform Required

Our system (health, justice, social development, the whole deal) is failing us.  Today I write with a heavy heart.  Today I write in utter disbelief on what we have to deal with.  I write in frustration for the barriers that exist. 

My clientele are homeless or marginally housed.  They are low-income and many are unable to work, for a variety of reasons.  Many struggle with addictions.  Many struggle with disabling conditions of mental health.  Many struggle with both addiction and mental health.  Most have horrific stories that involve sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, neglect.  Many grew up in foster care.  Many of their families struggle with similar issues.  There are two and three generations of families that frequent our doors.  There are many clients who have diagnosed or undiagnosed physical or mental conditions, such as FASD, Autism, generalized intellectual delay or physical ailments. We have a handful of clients who are wheelchair bound, and more who require the aid of a cane to get around. Our clients are from multiple nationalities, including Aboriginal.  They are seen as less than human, “scum”, worthless members of society, wasting resources, undeserving of support and services, to describe just a few of the phrases I have heard them described as.

Many of my clients do not have a family doctor they can see about any ailments they have.  Many have recently been “fired” from their family doctor.   The stories coming from our guests is familiar: their long-term doctor retired and the new doctor decided they didn’t need their pain killers (it’s an addiction not really required).  These patients, in pain and suffering withdrawal from the powerful narcotics they have been using for many years, escalate and tell the doctor that they need their prescription. They are “fired” for escalating and most likely raising their voice in frustration. They are “fired” for being a junkie.  And within a month, these people take more drastic measures; normally looking like attempted suicide because they cannot live this life anymore.  We call 9-1-1 to help them.  In my experience, the first (and only) responders are the RCMP, who cuff the individual and maybe take them to the hospital but more likely take them to cells.

Without a family doctor, and unable to go into health establishments for “inappropriate behaviour”, our people are left only with the Emergency Room at the local hospital.  The experiences at the hospital have a similar ring to them as well.  “I waited for three hours for them to tell me I am a degenerate and unworthy of their attention.  I waited three hours for them to deny me services.  When I questioned them, stating I am in a need of medical attention, they tell me they will call the RCMP to have me removed”.  I hear things like “they told me my condition did not require medical attention, but I never saw the doctor”.  This happens to males and females, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginals.  It is more noteworthy when we have a guest who is actually seen at the hospital and not just sent away without receiving any care.

There is a distinct lack of services available to the people I serve.  The unit for psychiatric assessment and stabilization, which includes management of chemical withdrawal only has eight beds and the beds are normally full.  We have been told in the last couple of months that chemical withdrawal is no longer a treatment they can provide.  That means that there is nowhere in town that can offer detox services.  We have a centre called “Mental Health and Addiction Services”.  Our guests that have both mental health and addiction issues are turned away at both ends.  Mental health cannot treat them if they are actively using.  Addiction says that they psychosis they experience is not an addiction issue but a mental health issue.  (I do not see why the two teams cannot work together and help find a solution to the problem!).  Our guests also have their files closed at Mental Health and Addiction because they miss appointments.  I understand that the case loads are heavy, but having an understanding of mental health issues or addiction issues will tell you that appointments are hard for people to keep.  These clinicians make no effort to come to the client.  They then have to go through the entire intake process and wait for a clinician to be assigned to them, thus ruining any relationship they may have had with their previous worker.  It is a new thing every time, including telling their story over again to someone they do not know or trust.

We had a woman who had a heroin addiction, and was using heavily.  She knew she was in trouble.  She tried to get into the psychiatric treatment ward, whose mandate states the unit is “to provide psychiatric assessment and stabilization, including management of chemical withdrawal” but was told there were no beds.  She called the next town and put herself on the waiting list for the detoxification centre there.  She wasn’t sure how she would get there but knew she needed to help herself.  She overdosed several times, requiring the use of a defibrillator.  She showed up at the homeless shelter and asked us to clean the wound caused by one of the defibrillators.  The wound was infected (I did not see it but a nurse who works with us described it as the grossest thing she has ever seen).  We told this woman she needed to go to the hospital for treatment.  She said she couldn’t go there again, that she didn’t receive treatment in the past.  We sent a staff member with her and she had the wound cleaned and was given antibiotics.  The doctor at the hospital gave a referral for medical supplies so that she could clean and dress her chest wound herself (or, I guess, have the staff at the homeless shelter do it).  As she couldn’t afford to buy the supplies, she had to put in an application to the Ministry of Social Development for emergency medical supplies funding.  The hoops that had to be jumped through to keep this wound clean!  It was a good thing that we were there to help her because there were a lot of steps to getting funding to provide the supplies needed.  It wasn’t even a week after we learned of her infection that she passed away.

We had a man who had been living in his own place for about two months.  He came back to the shelter incredibly sick.  He was delusional and hallucinating.  He was weak and barely able to walk.  He was coughing up blood.  He said he had been to the hospital and they had run some tests.  He said he was supposed to come back in a week.  Our staff took action after a couple of days of him being sick and went to a doctor’s appointment with him.  The doctor told us he had pneumonia and gave us a prescription.  He continued to get worse.  Our janitorial staff reported there were pools of dried blood under his bed.  We took him to the hospital for more tests.  His EKG was way out of whack, his heart was not working properly.  It was our nurse who took him to the hospital.  She thought he would be admitted that day.  He wasn’t.  He was sent back to the homeless shelter.  That same night we had to call an ambulance for him.  He died two days later.

We have a young woman who wants to get help with her addiction.  I watched her struggle to say clean for a week while trying to get into treatment.  A staff member and her attended the hospital with the hopes of getting into the local detox and were turned away.  This young woman then called the next town and put herself on the waiting list for detox there.  She called them daily looking for a bed.  She wanted to get clean and knows she cannot do it on her own (and that we are not qualified or capable to help her in the current setting).  She waited all week.  Then the chance was gone for a while.  She has tried to check herself into the psychiatric ward at least another time since.  She came back to the shelter in tears.  She was called names and put down by the nurses at the hospital.  She was told that she had refused treatment last time she was in (she had waited several hours and had left because she had not seen a doctor yet) and that they weren’t going to waste their time with her again.  Defeated, she told me that she would never go to the hospital again because it wasn’t worth her dignity. 

We have a young man who was admitted into the psychiatric facility for a week.  When he was released from the facility, he came and talked to us about treatment options for himself.  He got himself accepted into a treatment facility in a different part of the province for young men.  He did everything on his own, with our encouragement and guidance.  He applied for extra money on top of his disability cheque to buy his bus ticket and the supplies he needs to attend this treatment program.  The Ministry of Social Development was happy to pay his bus ticket and his food/clothing allowance but balked at the intake fee required by the treatment centre.  It is a private treatment centre so they refused to pay the fee.  Frustrated, he told me he should just hang himself.  I encouraged him to hang on, to let us make some calls.  Our staff called the treatment centre, advocated for him, praised him for taking all the steps on his own, and the treatment centre agreed to take him without the intake fee.  This young man is over the moon happy that he is off to turn his life around.  This is my only success story today.

We have a young man, who struggles with drug induced psychosis (so no help from Mental Health and Addictions because he is the classic example of how the teams cannot work together to help him – is it addiction or is it mental health help he needs?).  When this young man is escalating, the only choice staff have if they are unable to calm him, is to call the RCMP on him and have him removed from our premises.  We try not to call the RCMP on him, as it is a breach of his trust in us as people who are on his side and want to help him, but sometimes it is for the safety of himself and our other guests that we have to make the call.  Last week this young man was called into the RCMP by a community member.  The RCMP were able to get him admitted into the psychiatric ward for 24 hours under the Mental Health Act.  When he returned to the shelter he was incredibly upset that staff would betray him like that.  We assured him that we did not make the call but he was unable to believe us.  Yesterday he assaulted a staff member while in a state of psychosis.  RCMP came and picked him up, and took him back the psychiatric facility.  He was turned away at the door.  RCMP told us that they could hold him for a couple hours but that they would have to release him.  Because he has put our staff safety at risk, he is being denied access to the only home he knows, the shelter.  We cannot allow him in as he is posing a safety risk to staff and other guests.  Our Executive Director is thinking we might have to charge him with assault so that he does jail time, as that is the only safe place for him right now.

This system is broken.  A mentally ill man, who is suffering right now, has been kicked out of the only place in town he is comfortable at all.  He has nowhere else to go.  We are the only shelter.  He does not have healthy family to live with. He is unwell and is unable to maintain his own house.  The psychiatric ward will not admit him.  Mental Health and Addiction say he is not their problem.  Our only option is to have him thrown in jail!  That is the last place we want him to be.  It breaks all of our hearts to have that decision made for us.

It is not the first, and it will not be the last time our guests have to do jail time because of their addiction.  Are there treatment options while they are in jail?  If he does his time can he not get the help he needs while there?  It doesn’t seem to be that way.  Our guests return clean.  Within a couple days they are back into their addiction.  I realize our facility does not help these guests to stay clean as there are so many addicted people around that it can be easy to fall back into the lifestyle. 

We need somewhere where people with addictions can go when they are ready to make a change.  It needs to be immediate access.  At least once a month a client tells us that they are tired of their lifestyle and want to make a change. They tell us that they are heading to the hospital to check themselves into the psychiatric unit.  About three hours later, they return, frustrated, defeated, and often having used their substance of choice quite heavily.  When they get turned away they feel like they may as well enjoy their substance because they can’t get off it on their own anyways.  We had a man who wanted to go to detox.  By the time we were able to get him a bed in detox, and even drove him to the centre, he didn’t want to go.  He was back in town the next day.  I asked him what happened.  He told me “I wanted to go on Tuesday.  By Friday, I didn’t want to go, so I came back”.  When someone wants to make a change in their lives there needs to be immediate access.  People need to be treated with dignity and respect.  They don’t need to be told they are wasting resources.  They don’t need to be called names.  My clients are as entitled to proper medical care as you and I.  I know that the one day I visited the same Emergency Room as my guests do, I waited three hours, but I saw a doctor, he was patient and he did his job.  I expect the same treatment for my clients.  My issue was probably less pressing than the issues my clients show up with, because I know for most of them, previous treatment tells them they will be treated poorly and they only go if they absolutely have to.

It is not okay.  The system is not okay.  Our guests are discriminated against from every angle.  They are on social assistance (and half the world thinks they should be drug tested to receive any money to live on).  Social assistance does not pay enough to live on.  They are addicts and have mental health issues, which is something that scares the general population. (I will admit that before I knew anything about mental health or addiction, it scared me a little too).  Society looks on our guests with disdain.  In conversations we hear a lot of “them vs us” – those people do blah, blah, blah.  Our guests are ignored when they go places, or treated rudely and threatened with RCMP.  In the six months I have worked at the shelter, our people have been told they cannot hang out here but over there.  This changes the next month and they get kicked further away.  Currently, they are allowed to gather on a sandbank on the river.  I am waiting for an accident where one of our guests falls into the river.  We are looking for a new facility as ours is beyond repair.  We have a location in mind, but our neighbours, Mental Health and Addiction do not think we are good neighbours.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if Mental Health and Addiction could see what we see in our guests, and be close enough to make meeting the client easier for the client?  I did not expect resistance from agencies I see as on our side, our partners.  Our guests have stories that will break your heart if you are willing to listen.  Our guests deserve the same treatment you and I expect.  I am so frustrated for them.  The system is broken and our guests suffer the most.

Career Contemplation

I have a dilemma.  It’s not really a dilemma, but it is to me.  I don’t know what I want to do.

I did my practicum with MCFD.  It was a good practicum, I liked my co-workers and was liked in return.  They had nothing bad to say about me.  All things you want in a practicum or any employment opportunity.  However, I remain unsure that child protection is something I want to do.  Now I am looking for work and have two MCFD jobs where I have made or will make the short list and have a good chance of getting on.  But I remain unsure if I want them.  I have a lot of reasons, I am just not sure they add up to enough. 

Reason 1.  I love volunteering.  In many ways, this is reasons 2, 3 and maybe 4 as well.  I need to connect with my community, since I am planning to stay here long term.  I want to get re-involved with Girl Guides and even sent the email in last night to see how I could volunteer.  I also need to make my own friends in the community.  Nick’s friends are great and we all get along, but they are Nick’s friends and I want my own.  I have always struggled with making friends, and volunteering has provided many of my closest friends.  The problem is that I see Girl Guides and MCFD as a conflict.  It is technically not, and many people at MCFD are involved in children’s lives outside of work.  I also know that work should not dictate how I live my life (although MCFD does ask certain things, which I totally understand).  My problem is that I don’t think parents can easily separate Jenna the Child Protection Worker from Jenna the Guide leader.  I think that some parents might pull their child from my unit, and there is not a lot of other options in a small community.  I think that parents will think that I am always judging them.  I don’t think people understand that every adult in this province is legally obligated to report child abuse.  I don’t want the girls to suffer because of my career choice.  The other problem I see is when a child in my unit becomes involved with the ministry.  Obviously she cannot fall on my caseload, but does it cause extra stress on the family that MCFD is in their lives in many ways.  What if I join a unit and there is a child already involved with MCFD.  I have talked to many people about this, and wrote it up as an ethical dilemma as part of my practicum.  I have had a discussion with my friends on Facebook about it.  I have had a discussion with one of my team leaders at MCFD.  My social work friends say that it is not a problem at all.  My friends that are parents (and not social workers) say that it comes down to my ability to separate my job from my volunteer.  I think it doesn’t matter if I am able to, it comes down to what parents are able to do.  My Team Leader told me that she originally tried to stay on volunteering but found that she felt it was a conflict in the end and had to stop her volunteer activities to keep her career.  She is the only person that has seen where I am coming from on this.  Nick tries to understand, but he doesn’t see the conflict I feel.  I think I have decided that I cannot work for MCFD and volunteer in the community.   This is a personal choice, or problem or whatever it is, but I just feel uncomfortable doing both.  Without volunteering in the community, I don’t know where else I am going to meet people and make new friends.  MCFD gained a reputation as baby snatchers (they have changed their practices now but reputations tend to remain) and I feel that people are not going to want to be friends with someone that can take their child at any time.  I know a friend of mine thinks that I judge her parenting and is just waiting for me to betray her.  She openly told me this.  I can only imagine how other parents feel about MCFD involvement in their lives.  And it is just that, I will always be MCFD.  I know co-workers at MCFD told me that their extended family always tell their kids (joking or not) that they have to behave when their aunt is there because she can take them away at any time.  I am not sure I want to start my time in the community “hated” by parents.

Reason 2 (or is it 5?).  The best part about social work, is working with people.  MCFD doesn’t provide any direct services to people – they use community agencies to provide services.  It is community agencies that work with the parents to improve their skills, work with children to gain a routine.  The role of an MCFD social worker is to ensure the child is safe and refer to community agencies.  We interview children but do not become a part of their lives in any way.  I LOVED working at the house in Kamloops because I was working directly with the people.  Yes, there were chores and things I didn’t like so much, but I loved taking the people to their activities and being a part of their lives.  When I interviewed for that Team Lead position for adults with disabilities, I kept thinking to myself, I don’t want to be the team leader, I want to be the community inclusion worker.  I guess I want to feel like I am making a difference in someone’s life, and I want to feel important.  I fear that with MCFD, I will feel more defeated than important.  Yes, I know that is a very selfish answer. 

As part of this reason, I am pretty sure I will be offered a casual position with the Emergency Shelter.  They basically told me I had it as long as my references checked out.  This would start as casual, and involve graveyard shifts. They hinted that there may be positions available in the near future though.  I started in Kamloops as casual and had a position before I finished my training hours.  This job works directly with the population it serves.  Meals are prepared for the people, beds are provided.  Workers get to know the individuals and what works for them.  MCFD workers have such a heavy caseload that they never get to spend the time getting to know the people they are helping.  In this way, taking the Shelter job and seeing where it goes appeals to me a lot more.  But I have also heard that some people get only a shift a month working there, and that is not going to work for me at all.  In our discussion yesterday, it came up that people who got on at MCFD found working at the shelter afterwards to be a conflict and had to quit the shelter.  The Shelter offers lots of trainings to their staff, many of which can be applied to many areas of life, such as Suicide Prevention, Mental Health First Aid etc.  MCFD obviously has a lot of training too, but it is less transferable in my opinion.  However, I have heard that people who have worked at MCFD (and even just done their practicum there) are highly employable because the training at MCFD is so good.

There are of course, reasons that MCFD is a better choice.  Both of the current positions offer benefits and vacation (one job pays both out as it is only part time).  The Ministry is one of the highest paying jobs in social work.  I know that I could stay for many years and am not going to lose my job because funding gets cut or something dumb.  The Ministry can always use more employees, but there has been a hiring freeze in the part.  Nick likes the Ministry because it is stable and safer.  He worries about me working with homeless and addicts.  He thinks I will become too attached and get hurt if they relapse.  He has a point, but I think social workers get hurt in any job.  You can become too attached to a client at MCFD as well.  It’s part of being a social worker to find out your boundaries and enforce them.

I am still working towards my FASD Support Worker Diploma.  A better paying job will help me pay that tuition easier than a casual job.  If I am working full time and doing a course, I might not have time for volunteering anyways.  I have signed up to take a course starting at the end of September and plan on taking on in the spring semester as well.  The ministry is typically a two year commitment (unless you don’t pass your probation), which gets me much further in my schooling.  But I had kind of decided to forego the “good job” in order to make friends.

I know that I do not have any of these jobs yet.   But I just don’t feel like I will be happy at the ministry.  In my practicum, I came home tired every night and half the week didn’t want to go to work.  I know that the student role and the employee role are different and I will have more to do.  I will have my own caseload and get to make decisions instead of doing paper work for other people.  And if I get the job where doing paperwork for other people is my role, at least I know ahead of time what that entails!

I cried when talking to Nick about what to do earlier today. I don’t think it was a “the ministry will make me cry” cry but more that the ministry might take away other chances to make friends and I am lonely cry.  I am not that lonely, I don’t do people well at the best of times, but this week I am feeling lonely and I want something to do that forces me out of the house.  I know a job will help with that as well but I just feel like I need my own life and don’t know the best way to go about finding it.  I know that soon Nick’s fall activities will start and he will be home less often again.  I want to have things to do as well!

I guess I know I need to go ahead with the process for both MCFD jobs, and see what happens with the shelter as well.  I just feel so conflicted about getting an MCFD job, whereas I think that any other social work job would not cause the same torment inside me.  I have never really been in a situation where I could pick and choose what jobs I got (and I am not there yet, but there is a lot of thought about it!).  I don’t know what my dream job might be.  I don’t know what I want to do with this social work degree, but I know it was the right degree for me.  I haven’t said it in a while, but I felt like I fit in for the first time in my life when I entered the BSW program.  I found people who think the same way, who feel the same way.  Part of me wants to explore more social work options – that is another reason why the shelter is appealing right now – it is something new that I get to try.  A new population with things I have never experienced.  But can a girl who has been sober her entire life help an addict?

I also know a lot of my issues boil down to a lack of self-esteem and confidence.  This is a problem I have always struggled with.  It is clearly not getting better now!

This was mostly a rant to get my thoughts a little sorted, but opinions are always welcome!

Healing Happiness

Facebook very helpfully told me I had a mental breakdown six years ago.  It wasn’t obvious, as it was just a picture.  But, it is a picture I took when I was feeling lost.  I had quit my job and got on the next bus out of town.  I felt destroyed as a human being.  My depression was at one of it’s worst (it would get worse almost a year later but it was rough).  This post made me laugh in a way, but sad in other ways.  That was my life.

I don’t want to dwell on that.  That was a rough year or two in my life.  I made bad decisions and ended up in a bad place.  We have all been there.  We move on.

I have spent the last couple hours thinking about that.  I took a depression/anxiety/drinking test for school today.  Obviously, I don’t have anxiety or a drinking problem.  It also said I don’t really have depression.  I had been thinking about reducing my anti-depressants again this spring.  I think with that knowledge under my belt, I will try.

My life today is pretty much perfect.  I just finished two years on my second degree program, and for the first time in my life, felt like I fit in.  I have made amazing friends in that program, and I am sure that they are lifelong friends.  Those of us that made it through still smiling at each other are meant to be.  I am so thankful for everyone!

I am about to start a practicum that could challenge me to my very core.  I am a little nervous, but also excited and proud.  If I am able to excel at this practicum, I could have a job with the ministry for a while.  This would play well into a FASD role in my future – a program which I have just started another course for.  Ideally, I could end up doing a couple years with the ministry and then do a practicum for FASD and be perfectly qualified!  I feel entirely ready to start this role.  And if it doesn’t work for me in the ministry, well, I still have a BSW and am about to embark on an amazing journey.

I made a decision to make things work with Nick in October.  We are about a month into living together, although it has been a little gradual as I have been out of town.  Nick and I obviously have some things we need to work out as we have never lived together or even close enough to have our lives entwine.  We are falling into a good routine.  Sometimes we have communication breakdowns, but we are working through them.  A month in and it feels like the right decision.  I am settling into Quesnel.   I have bought a resident pass at the swimming pool.  The course I am taking for FASD has a project where I have to commit to change during the course.  Nick and I have decided to make healthy living our goal, and we are doing it together.  I can’t think of a better way to start our lives together than becoming more healthy, together.  We will be doing exercise together (or at the same time – I will go to the pool and he will go to the gym in the same building sometimes).  I am happy to see this being forced on us in a good way!

I learned the other day that my problems from a decade ago where maybe all in my head.  I hated the girl I was in Wells, but from the sounds of other people’s experiences of Wells, mine were nothing to write home about at all.  I hated myself for whoring around a little that summer.  I blamed myself for exposure to HPV and hence cervical cancer.  In my head, everyone knew what I did, and I was important enough to remember.  Nick’s tattoo artist is a man I knew in Wells.  When we were introduced last week and I said we knew each other from a summer in Wells, he drew a complete blank.  At some point in the night, talk of Wells came up.  I listened quietly as the group talked about their own escapades.  There was talk about the couple having sex in the pathway on a tarp; of naked group bathing; the intense amount of drugs, and the random hook ups.  These are not my memories of Wells.  I know there were drugs, and I remember witnessing some hook ups.  I did not see the majority of what they talked about.  This made me feel a little better.  No one knows the girl that had a rough summer.  Everyone else has very similar, if not more, of the similar experiences.  When I told Nick this, he asked how I possibly did not see the same Wells as what the young people of Quesnel know about.  He asked what my experience of Wells had been.  The question was left hanging – what did I feel so bad about?  This has been an interesting development in my world.  Hopefully that means I can finally move forward from that as well.

So yes, Facebook, I had a mental breakdown six years ago.  Since then, I have been to Ghana twice, got a CELTA certificate, taught in China for a year, finished (almost) a BSW, and found a man that while we don’t have a lot in common, I think is worth fighting for.  And this girl, who had a mental breakdown a year ago, is in a great place!

Thanks to those of you who stuck out the last six years, and those of you I picked up along the way.  You are so wonderful and I love you so much!