Continuing what appears to be my new trend of updating this blog once a semester.
My last update was at the end of spring semester last year. Over the summer I started working at a treatment center for at risk youth. I HATED it there, and was so glad it was over. But I’m very grateful for the experience, even if it’s not the experience I expected.
What I did expect:
1)The work experience is going to look AMAZING on my grad-school applications.
2) I got to try out being a confidant for some very troubled people, to see if I would be able to handle the psychological toll of listening to someone’s most traumatic memories. Turns out I can handle it just fine, and even come up with some good advice at the end. Woot!
What I didn’t expect:
1) I LOVED those kids. I’ve never been very comfortable around kids, and I received many severe warnings about how violent and crazy and manipulative these kids would be and that I would probably hate them, but I needed to be careful not to show them my hatred, that I needed to still treat them like normal people. Turned out those kids and their crazy antics were my FAVORITE part of the job. If it was just being with those kids and listening to their stories about hanging out in their underwear as decoration while their gang-boss boyfriend sold drugs, and trying to explain to them why that is a slightly less than amazing relationship model, or listening to their stories about being abused by their parents and letting them cry and trying to find the right thing to say to help them let that pain go and move on, if that was all the job was it would be THE BEST JOB EVER! What made the job a pile of shit was my coworkers, who DIDN’T care about the kids like I did and really DID see them as disgusting vermin. I found that my job every day was trying to protect the kids and fight back against the bullshit system of that facility. There was only one other person who seemed to love the kids as much as I did which brings me to #2:
2) I met someone. His name is Korey, and he is the sweetest thing ever. I’ll do a separate post later to update you on how we ended up together. It’s a pretty hilarious story that involves a bitchy ex girlfriend who tried her damnedest to sabotage my job and a couple of kids from the facility playing mini cupids and trying their best to set us up. But the important part is that for once I chose someone based on friendship and comfort instead of just blind sexual attraction and I’m SO GLAD I did. After two months he ended up moving in with me. It was supposed to just be temporary, but I was SOOO not bothered at all by his presence here, that I just never kicked him out. After 5 months he continues to be the first person in my life that HASN’T annoyed the shit out of me AT LEAST once. It’s amazing, and is quite possibly my first remotely healthy relationship EVER.
3) I made some good friends. Most of the coworkers blew, but a few were cool and I now have people to hang out with in this shitty town full of meth heads. But I also made friends with a few of the kids and kept in touch with them once they left. Technically, that’s against the facilities policy, but I quit there anyway and while a lot of the kids were real assholes, a few of them were actually incredibly good kids who just had a shitty lot in life, and I knew I was gonna be worried sick about them if I didn’t at least get a quick message once a month to let me know they weren’t in jail or dead of a drug overdose in an alley. I am so grateful to have these kids in my life now. And it is such a huuuge ego boost to know that a message from me every once in a while helps them stay focused on whats important and helps them keep stay positive now that they’re back living in the shitty situation that drove them to a shitty illegal lifestyle in the first place. It helps me feel like I have a purpose in life and helps keep my own depression at bay, which makes me think that being a professional psychologist is not only NOT going to throw me into an alcoholic depression like I was afraid it would, but it might actually have the EXACT OPPOSITE effect. So that’s cool.
So then I quit and I missed my kids like crazy, but then school started and it was a WICKED INTENSE semester, so I was fully distracted. I had a pretty full schedule with a few too many hard classes scheduled all at once, including Anatomy, Statistics, and Physiological Psychology. However, not near as hard as next semester is going to be, but that’s going to be another entry as well. For now, I think that’s enough to get you roughly caught up on time.
Love from Meggo
Journey to the Good Place. 