Another Hill to Climb

It's been over four months since we got married, and married life is much easier than I had planned.  I figured the first year of our marriage we would be having crazy little fights about the dishwasher and trying to get our budget in line.  I thought that all of the stuff I had been working for in my life would have fallen into place, and it would be what was in our house that was causing trouble.  Luckily, but ironically, it's more of the opposite.  I am back to realizing that the severely mentally ill population is just not the one for me.  I have been revisiting my journals, blogs, and essays only to find that I know I am not where I want to be professionally.

It hasn't helped that systemically where I am is a bit, well, unorganized, but I am finding myself unchallenged in someways and over challenged in others.  It's funny that the mental health field can be so stretching and diverse.  People sometimes say, "well, you're helping people", but sometimes being a therapist is more than just encouraging someone.  More times than not, I think therapy is about making changes and finding hope.  In small group for church, a new friend asked, "isn't it weird how community mental health is nothing like what you pictured you would do in school?"  The question stuck with me throughout the evening.  Intake paperwork, OTR's for more sessions, assessments, team meetings, and car trips to the doctor were never on my radar.  The time I would spend writing about a person rather than working with them almost seems to make the time we spend together so brief and less meaningful.

What I had pictured was....  I remember what it felt like to have a play therapy room where children came with their parents.  I remember engaged families who wanted to see change.  They showed for most appointments, had some insight to their roles, and were committed to the process.  My families weren't high in income, but they seemed to have some sort of investment in therapy.  They wanted change and they were willing to make changes to see changes.  I remember later nights with a mother who had escaped an abusive situation with her four children and I remember the conversation that last session when she looked back at her children's progress.  She cried and stated that for over a year all four of her kids were paralyzed with fear and seemed like they were reliving the trauma.  After eight months of play therapy, filial therapy, and family therapy sessions, the kids were blossoming.  With the children at the babysitter, she cried for two hours while we processed her own journey, her guilt and shame, her wishes for her children, her plan to get them there, and the joy she felt in knowing she had helped them by asking for help.

There was something wonderful about that old counseling center on 42nd street.  The old house had a sense of comfort, calmness, and separateness that most days I crave as the screaming kids, banging walls, and horrible bell systems seem to interrupt my children's stories of their lives.  Now days, I almost beg parents to come to session.  They have nothing to pay, no time to invest, and are only good at continuing to see the bad while still denying their role.  While I have moments of exception and days where I see a change, the majority of my time walking through community mental health has been a sad realization that change is a choice, and some people aren't ready to make that choice for themselves, their children, or their communities yet.

I think I am still on my journey.  I remember what it was like to have a sense of purpose as a therapist and not feel like a babysitter for angry children or a cab driver, lunch lady, disciplinarian.  I am getting that itch to figure out where this journey will lead.  I am getting closer to the top of another hill where the road will continue to lead down the next twist.  I think in some ways I will hate to let go, but in others, I need to for my own mental health.  I am plotting, planning, waiting for direction, but I will not stop.  I am not sure where this journey is leading but I am excited for the possibilities.  In the mean time, I am going to try and find the bright spots each day, even if I only spot a few...

I've never met a person, I don't care what his condition, in whom I could not see possibilities. I don't care how much a man may consider himself a failure, I believe in him, for he can change the thing that is wrong in his life anytime he is prepared and ready to do it. Whenever he develops the desire, he can take away from his life the thing that is defeating it. The capacity for reformation and change lies within.
~Preston Bradley~