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Submitted by Awen on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 11:18pmPheebo you are very sweet. I have noticed you can be apologetic when you talk about your life. That's considerate and I want you to know that I personally don't ever feel you are hogging the attention or saying anything out of context at all! So please know that I LIKE hearing about your problems at work and stuff becauss often times you are talking about stuff I have trouble with too and to hear you are struggling with it, makes me feel normal! And it also helps me to hear how you see it and what you are doing. It helps me to hear this stuff. So please don't worry. I hope I didn't embaress you. (I don't want you to think I am judging you! No shaming allowing here!) I just wanted you to know how helpful your disclosures are for me. It is an honor to hear about this stuff.
Yeah I have two degrees in nonprofit stuff and it is HARD because I think a lot of people get into social work because we are bleeding hearts who want to help - and get into an underfunded system. So suddenly we have 100 people we want to help but CANNOT because there is no money. So then the clients you are trying to help start screaming at you about why isn't there this service or that service or why must they wait so long, as if you can actually wave a wand and make it all work for them. Personally I started saying, "it does suck! You are right and i have been working my ass off to get that for you, but the state/city/feds (the truth) cut the funding and we don't know what to do. There is an advocacy group though and I am sure they'd love your help in getting this fixed, so if you want their number please tell me, because we have to get that fixed." And when I call my Medicade worker, who always calls right back and is friendly, I tell her how great she is and she sounds startled and says "I have so many clients, i always feel like I am not helping enough" and I say "you treat me like a person and i appreciate that." Social security gave me a worker who is a bitch and doesn't get back to me. I know how bunrt out they get and the good ones I want to be nice to so they stay! So when you get a helpful person, remind them that they are helping you so they stay.
I personally don't like working with adults or overprivillaged kids. The only people I liked working with were homeless preschoolers. i like research jobs and journalism and organizing things and grant writing and making things because I am alone and can just do my work. I am terrible team player due to my anxiety and high standards.
Hey Awen, thanks for what
Hey Awen, thanks for what you said to me, can't remember what thread this was about, but anyway it is timely because I was just feeling like I had been too open, not so much in this group but in my stupid blog where I have perhaps said way too much and may go back and do some editing...feel like I have put too much identifying stuff in there, and also perhaps I have not censored myself enough and there are lurkers who judge me for what I am feeling and expressing...well perhaps I am too sensitive, and misreading stuff that has been said in other forums. But anyway, for now I don't have time to edit, so...it will have to just sit there as evidence of all the nasty things that I think.
I have been absent in many of the threads, may do some catching up soon. So many things have fallen behind. My apartment is littered with little notes to myself, I have to gather them up and try to make sense of things. Got a phone message from the WRAP program today, haven't returned their call yet, but planning to...not sure if I can arrange time off at work to do this though, or if it is the right time for me. I mean, with my med withdrawal and other stuff I feel slightly off-balance as it is. But likely they are just calling to get me fitted into the waiting list, so I will definitely call them and talk to them about it.
Yeah, that is a good reminder, to be appreciative of the people we deal with in stressful professions who actually go out of their way for us.