I probably should preface this post by saying that it could be a trigger for people. However, it is something that has been on my mind since seeing the video and reading an article about a topic that has been under a lot of debate for years. You can read it here. First off I do want to say that I’m not a huge fan of abortion. When I was younger I was strongly pro-life due to my extremely conservative background and (I admit) a certain naiveté. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that the issue isn’t as black and white as many would like it to be. The story of this doctor in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama struck a chord with me. The fact that every day she goes to work with protesters lining the entrance of her practice infuriates me. No one (especially in a medical position) should have to fight in order to do their job and provide a service to the patients that is requested. One thing that struck me is that the doctor herself was a single mother with two kids before she even graduated from high school. She overcame so much in order to get where she is today. The fact of the matter is that people spend so much time an energy protesting something that really doesn’t pertain to them. They are not offering to deliver the baby, clothe the baby, financially support the baby, or even contribute in a meaningful way to the life of the baby. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not easy. I think that vast majority of women agonize over it before deciding. The reality of it is that that there are some people who are just not fit to be parents. They aren’t mentally, financially, or emotionally ready to bring a child into the world and raise it in a loving and stable environment. Adoption is an alternative but let’s face it, every child isn’t adopted and growing up in a slew of foster homes isn’t ideal. I was listening to the radio last week and a lady was telling the story of how she terminated her first pregnancy because she was going to donate a kidney to her boyfriend and she chose his life over the life of her baby as he was in acute kidney failure and wasn’t expected to live much longer without a transplant. My heart went out to her as she had to make a tough call and I don’t know what I would do if I were in a similar situation. My point is that I think that abortion is a necessary evil in the world we live in. Women deserve access to those services and providers that are licensed and able to perform the procedure safely without being harassed and demonized for their choices. I’ve worked with women who have had abortions and those that wish they had. It’s a choice that isn’t made easily. As I said before, I’m not a fan of it and I think it’s unfortunate but that’s the way it has to be.
Tag Archives: social work
Losing Isaiah thoughts
A few days ago I took some time to watch the movie Losing Isaiah. There was a certain sense of urgency as Netflix was about to take it off in order to make room for more movies. I first saw the movie at my grandparents house in Michigan. I remember renting it with my very own library card when I was 9 or 10 and watching it in the living room sprawled out on the very comfortable carpet. I remember being happy in the end that the baby was returned to his biological mother. However, this time I watched the movie with a different perspective. One that’s been informed by several years of being a social worker and working with families and kids. The movie brings up some interesting questions that are still relevant today. A mother abandons her baby in a trash can. The baby is born addicted to drugs because she used substance while pregnant. A kind social worker at the hospital he is transported to adopts him. She and her family raise him as her own. Meanwhile, the baby’s mother gets her life together after finally becoming sober and decides that she wants him back because he’s her child and she never received notice that her parental rights were being terminated. So there’s a lengthy court battle where bio-mother’s lawyer insists that black babies need to be with their black mothers. However, there is a marked difference between the income of biological mother versus that of the family that has adopted the child. The life that he lives with his adopted family is vastly different than the one that his bio-mother can finance. The movie ends with full custody being given to the bio-mother who soon realizes that she needs additional support so she reaches a hesitant agreement with her son’s adoptive mother. There are certain situations where I don’t think people should be allowed to have a do over. I don’t think that any child should be denied access to their family of origin but primary custody should have remained with the adoptive parents until the child was old enough to make a decision. I’ve met a good amount of parents who have adopted kids and then decided that they were too hard as a result decided to relinquish custody back to the state. I’ve worked with parents who have voluntarily given up custody of their children because they felt powerless and felt that their lives or the lives of the other children in the home were at risk. It’s a hard decision to make. My whole point is that kids shouldn’t be taken out of a loving, stable, and safe environment because their bio-parent decides that it’s for the best. There were other options that would have allowed Isaiah to stay where he was happy. Yes, children can be resilient and they can recover but there’s no need to inflict that trauma on a child and mess up his primary attachment so that he can be with a black parent. No reason. It’s cruel and unnecessary.
Monday
It’s once again Monday morning and I have to admit I wish it were Friday. I have a friend social media who calls Monday the root of all evil and I have to agree at times. It’s an abrupt ending to rest and relaxation and the beginning of another five days of stress. While I’ve had this schedule for the past few months it hasn’t gotten easier. However my tolerance has increased so I’m able to get more done when I get home instead of passing out on my couch. There’s an increased sense of dread when Sunday evening comes around because I know that Monday looming on the horizon. This morning I didn’t want to get up but I pushed through and got my 5am workout in. I’ve never been much of a morning person and while I’m forced to be at this point, it’s still not my thing. The Monday feeling is an indication that I need to reevaluate my life and keep my options open. Of course I’m more than ready to retire at this point but that’s not necessarily the most realistic idea. It would be different if the days I worked were equal to the days I got off. Maybe I’m in a “grass is greener” cycle because that was my last job. However the caveat was that it also included 12 hour shifts and a rotating schedule. But at least the countdown to the weekend begins again today.
Discipline vs. Abuse
Recently there was a video making its rounds on social media that showed a father and son. The father starts off very calm explaining that his son had been acting up in school and that he felt some punishment was necessary while also teaching his son to defend himself. Then the video starts and I have to admit that I fast forwarded to the end as soon as I saw how bloody it was because (at times) I’m a sensitive soul and I always hate seeing people get hurt. The video showed the father boxing with his son. I use “boxing” loosely because it looked like someone of superior height, weight, and experience beating up on someone. The father didn’t hold back and landed multiple punches to his son’s face. The end of the video showed the father questioning the son while the son was obviously still bleeding pretty badly asking him if he would act up again in school. I ran across a follow up article on the video today and you can read it here . Basically, the father was arrested and the son was removed from the home as a result of the video. Let me say first and foremost that what the father did is pretty much the definition of physical abuse if you want to get technical. When a child discloses something like that to me I’m mandated to report it because of my profession and license–whether I agree with it or not. I’ve reported child abuse on multiple occasions as it’s been a regular part of the jobs that I’ve had. In no way am I endorsing the father’s method of parenting but I have also witnessed the opposite where parents stay up all night in shifts because they are terrified that their child will kill them in the middle of the night. I can assure you that being scared of your child and what they are capable of is terrifying. Neither option is ideal by any means. However, in addition to beating up his son who was clearly unable to defend himself, the father took it a step further and posted it on social media so the whole world could see (literally). He mentioned the son’s classmates and teachers as well in the video. That’s pretty humiliating and public shaming as a form of discipline is a horrible decision. But we also have to be honest. A startling number of kids these days do not have any respect for authority figures of any sort. There are too many horrible situations where there has been a conflict that involved an authority figure (law enforcement officer) that turned deadly for no reason at all. Also, by the same token there are also situations where someone was compliant and still ended up “mysteriously” dead. I guess my point is that you can’t really win these days. I think that the father had good intentions. He was trying to teach his (almost) adult son about making better choices and respecting authority and he ended up in jail himself with his child being removed from his care. I don’t have a solution to the problem but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve posting a video of a child being hit in the head until he’s bleeding profusely. There has to be another way.
The tendency to overthink
Recently I had a very long conversation with a friend of mine regarding a similar experience we were having. Don’t get my wrong, I’m glad that I chose my particular career path. Social work/counseling is a good fit for my personality and I genuinely enjoy helping others. However, one sees things in a totally different light when you’ve studied human interactions and behaviors from an academic point of view. When you’ve met with hundreds and talked at length about their personal challenges and relationship woes. The way you perceive the world around you changes when perfect strangers feel comfortable walking up to you and sharing details about the personal life and current problem because (apparently) you have the “trust me I’m a therapist/safe person” face. One thing my friend and I discussed was how hard (somewhat impossible) it is to separate professional knowledge from actual emotion in personal relationships. As a therapist you question everything. One’s hidden motives, past history, emotions, and body language to come to a conclusion on the best course of action to help them. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to take anything at face value in personal relationships and the tendency can be to overthink. If overthinking was a professional sport, I would be a pro. I love connecting the dots and making sense of complicated and complex information. It’s a great professional skill to have, but using a professional skill for personal use definitely has a downside. I think it comes down to taking it a day at a time and becoming okay with not knowing all the information up front. Which, by the way, can be very frustrating but also necessary to cultivate a healthy balance.
Social Work Month
I ran across this blog and wanted to repost it. March is Social Work month and while I don’t work in direct care as much, I have a lot of respect for those that do. When I was in school, I had grand dreams about the exciting life of a social worker and it definitely is. But there are ups and downs like any other profession but there’s always an opportunity to make a positive difference despite the many obstacles. It’s a thankless job at times but someone has to do it.
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I’ve been neglecting this blog in a big way recently. Some days, it’s really hard for me to get the motivation to write. But I’m trying to get back to updating regularly. I’m trying to find my way back to my passion that has gotten lost in the day-to-day shuffle of life. This month is […]
http://paigereitzsocialworker.com/2016/03/20/social-work-month/
College Life Reflections
One of the features that I enjoy on my most used social media site is the one where you can see what you had posted on that same day in years past. Not too long ago I ran across a status I had written describing my excitement of starting college and classes. Looking back, it feels like it happened a million years ago. I remember agonizing about what my major would be and feeling torn between social work, psychology, and music. College was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was great because I had the opportunity to meet new people, manage a schedule, and experience life in another structured and sheltered environment that was in a lot of ways like my home life. I learned a lot about assertiveness when I had to challenge grades with certain teachers. Before graduation I had to advocate for myself when it came down to required classes for graduation and I found a loophole and used it to my advantage. I learned about discipline and while I never perfected the art of studying, I learned about the benefits of procrastination and racing to meet a deadline while still delivering a quality scholarly work. College taught me the importance of time management and balancing conflicting priorities. The untimely deaths of several of my classmates reminded me of the importance of appreciating and living life to the fullest. Looking back, there’s not a lot I would change–except maybe being a bit more open minded and allowing myself to have more fun instead of being in the books all the time. Ah well.
Happiness and Crisis Workers
I saw this CNN article and found it pretty relevant to my life because I work in a crisis type of position. You can read the article here. One thing that was interesting was the fact that many social workers and crisis counselors report that they like their job. This wasn’t surprising to me because despite all the craziness and unpredictability of my job, I don’t mind it. People get into a helping profession for a variety of reasons. In my case, I can’t NOT help people and I figured that I might as well have a job that allows me to do that. I’ve had stressful jobs in the field of social work before, but nothing comes close to the emotional drain from crisis work. It’s the kind of job that make you want to take a month long vacation after every shift. However, it’s also meaningful and you get the chance to encounter people from various walks of life and separate those who truly want help from those who don’t want any help. The article noted some great ways to deal with the stress that comes along from constantly working with people who facing some pretty big life challenges. There was an article I read not too long ago about a email that was intercepted from a social worker to another that contained some inappropriate humor that caused a public outcry. While the things crisis counselors deal with is not a laughing matter, sometimes you have to see the humor in things. It’s similar to the whole idea of laughing instead of crying as you see the dark side of humanity over and over again. It’s the kind of job that has really high highs with lows that are just as dramatic. The ability to disconnect is so important in this kind of field and I think it’s the reason why there’s an abundance of impromptu happy hours between colleagues who work in the field. All that being said, it’s a fun but hard job and I honestly believe that to have longevity in this type of field you have to have a pretty effective way of taking care of yourself so that you don’t get burned out.
Self Care
For the past few years I’ve been one to associate happiness with a geographical location. Namely foreign countries and the southern region of the United States. However, I think that that is also related to my occupation. From the moment that I say I’m a social worker the usual reaction is, “I could never do that, it’s such a hard job.” And I agree that it is. My undergraduate experience with social work was varied and included working with felons and patients on hospice. It was then when I had to work hands on with others when I discovered that people are a lot more complicated in real like than they are in textbooks. Thankfully, I had a very well rounded experience in college that gave a pretty accurate depiction of the field. I knew that I didn’t want the stereotypical job of a county caseworker and I wanted to focus more on the counseling side. Somehow I found my way to the mental health field and have stayed in some capacity ever since. The thing about mental health is that it is the opposite of predictable. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, it’s stressful and it’s real. But it’s also rewarding. However, it takes a lot out of you. I’ve heard stories that have been horrific and have talked to hundreds of individuals who are experiencing their own personal crisis. That’s why this field is so notorious for burn out and people who are so overwhelmed with their job responsibilities that they’ve given up completely. There are some days where I wish I could publish some of the stories I hear because truth is stranger than fiction. One of the best things about traveling is the physical distance between myself and the daily chaos I work in. It’s like a breath of fresh air and a chance to finally relax to some degree and not think about work related things. Self care at its finest.
Power Perspective
I’ve always been a person who has had respect for people in power. I also think that it’s possible to have power without being in a position of power. In our world, many times power comes with money. The more money someone has, the more their opinion or perspective is respected. Because of this power, they can also influence others to a great extent. Power can also come from the set of initials behind or before your name. Initials like “M.D.” “J.D.” or “PhD” are generally more respected than “B.A.” “B.S.” or “M.A.” A few weeks ago I received a professional license that I’ve worked toward for the past 6 years. Along with credibility, one of the things that this license allows me to do is to sign a piece of paper that can hospitalize a person involuntarily for a certain period of time for evaluation. While there are certain parameters and guidelines that dictate when this option is appropriate, I get the opportunity to use my clinical judgment to see if those guidelines are met and I sign a piece of paper that can turn someone’s life upside down. My decision affects a lot of people including parents whose child is being taken out of their custody. Family members, friends and other people involved are all entities who can be impacted by the decision that I made. The thing about power is that it can be used as a means for good or for evil. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but it can be misused and mishandled. This can be especially true when people who are insecure are given an extremely large amount of power. All their decisions are made through the lens of their own self-identified deficiencies and the results are usually disastrous. I think that this is one of the reasons why it’s important to know who you are because power will only magnify your true character and your flaws or strengths will be showcased in your decisions.
Alisha's Angle 