2016

The Great Escape, CPTSD, and Depression

moocowinthecity 2016-12-26 1 Comment

So on Thanksgiving Weekend, Rev. Linda and I drove down from Buffalo to Long Island to pick up my mother. We had a network of about 30 people (online and irl) who helped us organize absolutely everything (from safe houses to transportation). We left on Friday morning and arrived Friday night, and on Saturday morning at about 7am we had word that the operation was a go. Rev. Linda and I high-tailed it to my father’s house, and Rev. Linda went in to help Mom while I stayed in the car (originally not intending to go in).

Mom sent me a text saying things were okay, and asking me to go to her studio to pick up a few things, and I dropped them off in the SUV. While sitting in the SUV my father came out, and I debated whether or not I was going to open the window (for safety reasons) but he seemed off, and shaky on his legs, so I rolled down the window. He put his hands on my face and said “I always loved you…but the business…” and kissed me on the forehead. It was weird, and it was creepy, and it was manipulative, and it was also a lie. My therapist would later say “I think your father’s refrain might be ‘I love you, but…'”.

Upon my father’s departure (to what I assume was the bar) we loaded up the SUV with my Mom’s things; and I saw my brothers. My twin was surprised to see me, my younger brother Sam was in shock. My twin’s wife was cordial (as she always is) and my younger brothers girlfriend gave me a big hug and we caught up a bit.

We put the dog in the car, and we high tailed it to the safe house.

From there, we had breakfast, coffee, and then went to my Mom’s friends house where she had been sneaking things to. After filling up the SUV more, I realized we needed to rent another SUV, and so her friend and I went and rented one (she had a special discount card) and we filled that up, and we hit the road: my Mom and Rev. Linda in one SUV, and me in the other.

It was a long drive back up to Buffalo, and when we got here, we were so fortunate that friends helped us unload the car…and in the coming week friends helped us get unpacked, and settled, and we are working toward our new normal.

I – personally – had been so focused on my mother’s transition, that I didn’t put in too much thought to my own…how my life was going to change..and so I am dealing with that now: I am happy to have it change, but it takes work to incorporate all of the new, moving elements (including a standard poodle, and what this means for my cat).

I am so, so, so thankful that I was able to pull a B+ in Interventions I and another B+ in History of Social Work & Policy…and I am thankful that I got a flying color review for my field placement…it has been, just, an incredible amount of time, work, and energy moving apartments, extracting my mother, working, going to school, and going through field placement (and now learning how to live with another person again).

So this has been an emotional rollercoaster, with lawyers, and family, and, and, and…but it’s also been interesting because one of the things my therapist and I have been working on is how to feel feelings again. I know I used to feel things…I would feel happy, I would feel sad, I would feel…something…but at some point, I started cognitively experiencing things…like, I know I should be happy because X,Y,Z, is happening…and it’s very had to explain, but I stopped experiencing feeling, and started cognitively understanding…and in working out the entire string of events that have happened, over the past year, it’s also going through and understanding the abuse that I experienced, and the abuse that my mother experienced, and the military related PTSD I left the army with.

So I’m working on that, and one of the ways she wants me to work on that is by writing, and another way is through a social work intervention which involves deep meditation, and bringing up an emotion, and then attempting to hold the feeling for as long as possible. With that, I’ve also just come out of a bit of a depressive episode, so that’s good.

…and this, by no means, is to say that things have been awful, or poor me: things are, actually, going fairly well, but it’s been a bit overwhelming, and there’s a lot to do, and a lot to work on, and I’m trying to get caught up on work from when I was moving apartments/extracting my mother/etc…but one thing at a time, and now, sleep…but moving forward…regular blogging, if nothing else, because I really, really, really need to begin to feel again.

An Hour & A Half to Go

moocowinthecity 2016-11-16 No Comments

An hour and a half to go of field placement (we’re in our prep period now but I’m ready for the last group); then home and food, a nap, seeing a client, and then my friend’s son’s concert before coming home, napping and doing more work. 9 more days, and then D-Day & a bit of a vacation. Tired. And exhausted. But happy to be so near caught up.

Bankruptcy & Divorces & Things of That Nature

moocowinthecity 2016-11-14 4 Comments

So I just submitted my G/L to my accountant so she can file my (much delayed) 2015 taxes, so those can go to my bankruptcy attorney (who has been paid, and is just waiting for my returns) so I can file my bankruptcy and get that monkey off of my back before Trump takes office in 2017 and reinstates debtor prisons for anyone in the districts…I mean…anyone not in his tax bracket.

I’m excited to have it done, and I’ve been living on only a debit card since January of this year, and things are going much, much, much better….thank God…but this needs to be done and over, so I can enter 2017 fresh.

There’s been a ton of changes, and if I haven’t been online, or talkative much, it’s mostly due to that (and grad school…but mostly the changes that are in the winds).

While this is to go no farther than those in this very secret friends group, I’m glad to still have the LJ platform to write and to vent and to introspect and to vocalize…but still privately…so I can process everything that’s going on.

So, with no slow build up: my mother is getting ready to divorce my father (which he doesn’t know yet) due to his years of refusal to treat his mental health issues, his ongoing abuse, and his continued alcoholism and drug addiction (for more, see my entry on when my dad and I parted ways a few months ago). What this means is that I’ve moved apartments, and my Mom is moving up to Buffalo to come live with me.

The biggest silver lining is that I now have an apartment with an actual home office, that’s about 8x the size of my last apartment, with a full sized kitchen…and my mother loves both cooking and doing laundry, so there are some positives.

However, for my mother, this is all very traumatic, and there’ll be work to do (on her part) with a therapist. I told her that once she’s settled here in Buffalo, and she has her routine (she’s going to be a docent at the zoo) and she has her pension, and she has her social security, and she has whatever it is my father’s going to pay in alimony…then she can decide if she still wants to live with me, get her own place, whatever. But, in the meantime, the two of us will be going through this transition together.

Rev. Lind and I are heading down the day after Thanksgiving to pick my mom up, and if I weren’t so tired I’d write more…so I need to head back to sleep, so I can get up again in a couple of hours and handle some things…but I’ll write about the whole super-mossadnik-esque drama later.

Anyway, here’s to transitions!

Election Reflection

moocowinthecity 2016-11-12 No Comments

So I awoke at 5:30am on November 9th to hear the news.

This past week in Interventions I, our professor, Denise talked about the importance of “then what” (i.e. you’re not going to smoke…then what are you going to do instead?) when setting goals with clients.

I am not, I cannot just accept the results of the US election as if they don’t impact me, my right to exist, my friends, my friends’ right to exist, my family, my classmates, my colleagues, my neighbors, or my clients…so there are a lot of then whats, right now:

I’m going to redouble my efforts to expand Food Gnomes and continue to feed the hungry. I am also going to move forward with getting the Food Gnomes Potluck program to bring people together for meals and conversations off the ground. We need the mutual support and that’s always better over broken bread.

I am going to continue to volunteer with the UBSSW at Friends of Night People because I foresee a much more difficult four years for them than for myself.

I am going to once again start teaching sex education, not just at conventions where we have flashy titles like Gay Sex: 101 but wherever possible and appropriate because knowledge is power and empowerment and wellness and safety…and because curriculum changes may be coming.

I will call all of my clients by next week and schedule some longer sessions with them, so they can process their fears about reduced Medicaid and other entitlement programs.

And, more importantly, I am going to go into my field placement each week bright eyed and bushy tailed and do everything I can do so that all of my students, of every background, know how much they matter, how much they are valued, how happy we are to have them there, and how much they have a right to be there.

Changing Leaves

moocowinthecity 2016-10-15 No Comments

So we are well into the start of the Fall semester (and year two of three of the MSW Part-Time Traditional Program). Classes are going wonderful!

This past summer I took Motivational Interviewing, Psychopathology, Theories of Organizational Behavior & Leadership, Diversity & Oppression, and Professional Writing and Documentation for Social Workers.

This semester I am taking Interventions I, and History & Policy of Social Work. I am also three courses away from being able to apply for my CASAC credential, which is an incredible feeling!

I have also started my foundation year field placement in the Cheektowaga-Sloan School District. On Wednesdays I function as an MSW Intern doing School Social Work at the Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School. We do group interventions (using the Theraplay Model) for youth. I am running groups for students who need support in developing their social skills, for students with ADHD, and for students who are having problems modulating their emotions and dealing with appropriate ways to express anger. We also do observations, and provide other interventions/support to the school as necessary.

Thursdays I function as an MSW Intern in a clinical role at the Family Solutions Center at the Woodrow Wilson Elementary School. Using Solutions-Focused Brief Therapy we provide team based clinical interventions and counseling for individuals, couples, families, parents and their children, and anyone else who is a resident of the school district that feels they can benefit from our services, free of charge.

It has been an absolutely incredible experience so far! If you have some time, check out some of the work that we’ve been doing to integrate Covey’s 7 Habits of Happy Children into our work!

And at the urging of my task supervisor…I will be working far more diligently to keep this website (and my portfolio) updated!

#FieldPlacement #MSW #UB #UBSSW