As I reflect on what I read from the chapter, I struggle to put my feelings into words. A lot of it is anger… anger that there are people in this world cruel enough to do such atrocious things to a child. My first glimpse of this reality was at the start of my work at the residential treatment center where I am currently still employed. Part of the job consisted of going through the files of our children that detailed some of the experiences that they went through before being admitted to our facility. Every binder that I opened up was essentially guaranteed to be heart-wrenching. There were children that had been thrown out of moving vehicles, others that were made to sleep in laundry baskets, and many who were sexually abused by their family members. I remember being asked about the backgrounds of the kids that I worked with and me thinking that in order to depict just how heinous and unimaginable some of the stories were, that the most appropriate reply would be to say that it was "the type of shit you only see in movies".
Not too long ago I was faced with a significant struggle in my journey as a social work student. I was completing my internship at the Travis County Correctional Complex doing some work for their programs department. The work consisted of working directly with some of the inmates there, whether it was one-on-one sessions with individuals or group sessions dealing with things like PTSD or anger management. One of the individuals that I was meeting up with had been incarcerated for driving his vehicle into another and killing the family inside of it. Sometime after we began meeting, I found out that my father had been hit by a drunk driver on his way to work, back in El Paso. I was suddenly inundated by a wave of resentment toward the individual that very well could have taken my dad’s life. And yet there I was, meeting with someone who had done just that. During these meetings, we often laughed as he shared anecdotes with me and as I often found opportunities to self-disclose in order to build rapport with him. I wondered what the family members of the victims would think of my meetings with him and then attempted to imagine how I would feel about another social worker having similar meetings with the man that had hurt my dad. These feelings grew stronger, and they persist. I constantly think about how we as social workers are expected to work with clients on both sides of the spectrum. I was working with children who had endured years of abuse and torment like Sandy for half of my week and then working with inmates at the correctional complex who were potentially there for the mistreatment of a child.
Reading about Sandy’s case brought back these feelings. Seeing how she wandered the apartment for hours as her mother lay dead on the floor and how the milk she attempted to drink poured through the slits in her throat — it was such a heartbreaking story and reminder of what we can expect as social workers. Children who come from backgrounds so chaotic and stressful that peace and quiet instill fear in them — what a horrible thing to envision. And yet, what I struggle with most is the notion that the type of individuals I worked with at the correctional complex are the same misunderstood and neglected children that I work with at the children's home that just never got the help that they needed.
Not too long ago I was faced with a significant struggle in my journey as a social work student. I was completing my internship at the Travis County Correctional Complex doing some work for their programs department. The work consisted of working directly with some of the inmates there, whether it was one-on-one sessions with individuals or group sessions dealing with things like PTSD or anger management. One of the individuals that I was meeting up with had been incarcerated for driving his vehicle into another and killing the family inside of it. Sometime after we began meeting, I found out that my father had been hit by a drunk driver on his way to work, back in El Paso. I was suddenly inundated by a wave of resentment toward the individual that very well could have taken my dad’s life. And yet there I was, meeting with someone who had done just that. During these meetings, we often laughed as he shared anecdotes with me and as I often found opportunities to self-disclose in order to build rapport with him. I wondered what the family members of the victims would think of my meetings with him and then attempted to imagine how I would feel about another social worker having similar meetings with the man that had hurt my dad. These feelings grew stronger, and they persist. I constantly think about how we as social workers are expected to work with clients on both sides of the spectrum. I was working with children who had endured years of abuse and torment like Sandy for half of my week and then working with inmates at the correctional complex who were potentially there for the mistreatment of a child.
Reading about Sandy’s case brought back these feelings. Seeing how she wandered the apartment for hours as her mother lay dead on the floor and how the milk she attempted to drink poured through the slits in her throat — it was such a heartbreaking story and reminder of what we can expect as social workers. Children who come from backgrounds so chaotic and stressful that peace and quiet instill fear in them — what a horrible thing to envision. And yet, what I struggle with most is the notion that the type of individuals I worked with at the correctional complex are the same misunderstood and neglected children that I work with at the children's home that just never got the help that they needed.
I know right! I felt so much anger and frustration too at the thought of that sweet little girl roaming her apartment waiting for someone to rescue her. What kinds of things must have been going through her mind? How painful must it have been for her not only physically but emotionally as well. I wish this shit ONLY happened in movies.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to hear about your dad. Is he okay? I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for you to work with that individual. It's hard to manage that kind of countertransference, especially when the incident was so recent for you. I don't know if you've read Perry's book in the past but there is a story in chapter 5 about a boy named Leon that really stood out for me and reminded me of your experience here in this situation. And I agree with your sentiment about our work as people who empower, support, and advocate for those who are vulnerable victims and those who are coldhearted perpetrators. Of course, we know that a lot of those in the latter group are a product of their environment. More than likely they are also victims of some sort of abuse, but that doesn't invalidate the feelings we may have toward them. I think it's just important to remember what we're there for and to try to be as objective as possible while providing a safe and supportive environment for them to open up to us.
Julio,
ReplyDeleteThe way you integrate your own experiences as a developing professional into your blog is so powerful and helps me think about the text’s applications in my own professional journey. You have made such salient connections between your father’s terrifying experience, the children you work with at the RTC, and the adults you met with at the Travis County Correctional Complex. This is a skill that I hope to continue developing within myself—I often battled with my own professional use of self when working with students as a CIS intern, and often felt judgmental of adults in their lives who had let them down, abused them, punished them unfairly, or neglected them. Reminding myself that these parents, caregivers, teachers, and others may have experienced similar experiences of abuse and neglect and were only working with the tools they had been given helped me immensely. It can be such a vicious, violent, retraumatizing cycle, but having the capacity to step in with compassionate understanding and objectivity takes bravery and perseverance. Thank you for modeling this and openly sharing your struggles with this cycle.
Your comment, “Children who come from backgrounds so chaotic and stressful that peace and quiet instill fear in them — what a horrible thing to envision” also resonated with me. I loved how Perry summed this up: “we tend to prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.” I found myself thinking about my student clients and the youth I worked with at the RTC. So often it seemed that these adolescents (and younger children as well) would work to create patterns of interactions that resembled relationships they had with past abusers, bullies, parents, etc. in order to reassure themselves, search for some kind of validation of their traumatic experiences, or relive/act out past events. While these occurrences were difficult for me to identify at first, as I developed deeper relationships with them I was able to step in and explore what it was they wanted/needed in the moment alongside them.