Walk, Don't Run... directives vs. tools

A friend of mine on Facebook posted the following graphic on her feed the other day:

I found it triggering, mostly of memories from when I was in school. I was one of those sensitive kids, and in many ways I still am. I really don’t know why, but it is simply part of my make-up… and it’s not something you outgrow or unlearn when you are hard-wired that way.

Over the years, I have learned some coping mechanisms, but it never really goes away… and despite efforts to cope, sometimes that hard-wiring kicks in automatically and takes me by surprise. It also makes me feel like you have to explain to other people why I reacted the way I did to “X” situation… borne out of years of being misunderstood, ridiculed, or thought to be a weirdo.

Even though my family was a pretty safe cocoon, they sometimes would obviously not “get” me either. I think my Mom was wired a lot like me and did her best to prepare me for the reality of the “outside world.” But she didn’t want to completely protect me from it either, because I had to toughen up to a certain extent just to learn to survive… and treating me like a hothouse flower wasn’t going to achieve that end.

I guess the hardest part, apart from not having my feelings honored, was the lack of tools. I was told to “stop overreacting”, “stop crying”, “stop losing your temper”, etc. But nobody told me how to “stop”, never gave me the tools or helped me figure out the “how”.

One of the wisest things I have ever heard was from a Parents as Teachers educator, she asked rhetorically, “What does ‘stop running’ look like? Tell the child to walk.” What a huge shift in perspective for me, and it is so universally applicable. If someone had taken me aside and told me what to DO instead of what to stop doing… it might have been more helpful. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been less painful, but it would have made me, as a child, feel as though I had some power in the situation… rather than being just a victim reacting to the bullies harassing me… and left holding the bag of responsibility in the situation.

When you tell someone to just “stop” doing something, you only appear to be giving them control over the situation. Instead you are giving them a destination with no map or directions to get them there… and the implicit message that what they are doing is the cause of the harassment.

These people, children & adults, need help in recognizing what triggers them and validation that their feelings are okay, whatever they may be. Then they need tools to help them learn to deal with those feelings… be it walking away, asking for help, etc. They also need help in learning to gauge what is appropriate for a given situation.

Sadly, though, we often don’t have the time or emotional space to deal the issues another may have. It’s easy to say “stop that” but not as easy to teach.

Sometimes the ice pack isn't enough...

Today was a sad day as a school nurse. We had a child who has developed a rash on the face, arm and hand on one side. It was first noticed by the counselor, and then the next day by the school nurse and then today by me... and it's been getting worse each day.

The problem was that we needed to send the child home to be seen by a doctor before we could allow him back to school since we didn't know what the rash was. We couldn't get hold of the father and the grandmother's car had broken down.  The counselor called the grandmother to try to arrange someone to get the child, but nobody ever showed up.  The child got to me at 11:35 and was in the office until school ended at 3:40.

I called the grandmother just to let her know we won't be able to have the child back in school tomorrow and she described the pressure she is under. She has given the kids and their parents a home so they won't be homeless, but they haven't given her any sort of rights or power of attorney and accuse her of being the evil bitch grandmother.  So she's totally stuck between a rock and a hard place.  I just listened and gave her a kind ear.

Now we may have to hotline the family... not the grandmother, but the parents.

Mother's Day 2014... gulfs of time and distance.

It's been 8 years, 5 months, 25 days since my Mom, Gloria Alice Kirchhoff Gahr, passed away on 16 November 2005.  She was 74 1/2 years old. She was remarkable, but it still really wasn't enough time.  She was a storyteller, an artist, musician, family chef, gardener and so many other things... she was a Renaissance woman, always interested in everything, there was no concept or project or form of creativity that she was afraid to tackle.  So, our childhoods were magickal... as I'm sure you can imagine.

She was the youngest daughter in a family of 10 children with 3 girls and 7 boys. She was #8 of the lot, iirc. Among her memories of her childhood were cooking for her family when she was 5 years old, standing on a stool, because her mother had narcolepsy.  There were plenty of painful stories too, but we rarely heard those.  

Mostly we heard the stories of her and her brothers, Jack & Rex, running about generally being hoodlums... going down into a neighbor's spring house and throwing rocks at the windows to break them out and things like that.  Once she saved a chipmunk from her dog, an Irish setter, but not before the critter's tail was chewed off by the dog.  She and her brothers performed surgery with scissors and saved the chipmunk's life: she named him Stumpy and he lived in a coffee can filled with horsehair jack cut out of one of the horse's tails.  He had a little tin dish for water and when he wanted more, he would emerge and bang it on the floor.  He also would ride to school in her shirt pocket. Another favorite thing she loved to talk about doing as a child was to go to a clear Missouri stream and take a huge rock and put it in her lap. She would hold her breath and open her eyes to watch the fish swim around her, especially the minnows.

She also loved the holidays... that is when the magic would really happen. We were so cocooned with love and family at that time of year, those memories are perhaps some of the happiest I will ever have. Mom in curlers running around madly on Christmas Eve making cookies and prepping for the big Christmas Day dinner... and going to midnight service... coming out in the cold air in the peaceful frosty dark.  And then opening presents and the bustle of family in our always tastefully-decorated home... it was just warm and cozy, my memories are sort of soft-focused... and feel like a cozy merino wool sweater.

There are so many stories, just pieces of her life.  She is with me, I know I am an awful lot like her and I'm glad.  She had a great sense of humor, with a sarcastic edge.  She loved to sing.  Her garden was her true joy... she so loved planting seeds and watching the baby plants grow. Her flower gardens, that surrounded the rock and brick landscaping that she accomplished herself... were always the envy of the neighborhood.

She also loved to paint and sculpt.  I have several of her creations and absolutely treasure them. They could never be replaced. She painted what she saw and remembered in her mind from her Southern Missouri childhood... trees, streams, covered bridges, old barns... and always in her style.

Her intellectual curiosity was never limited by her high school education or being a suburban mom of the 1950s and 60s, she always was a great reader.  She loved to read almost anything... especially history and novels. She had a huge collection of the Reader's Digest Condensed Books.... and would devour them when they would arrive.  She never stopped learning.

This small tribute is exactly that, small, in comparison to who she was... and was to me.  One memory seems to spur another... and I could write for years about her.  I just wish I'd had a few more years with her... maybe she should be the novel that I write.

As a mother this Mother's Day, I am missing my kids. They are wonderful people and I'm proud of them. My own daughter has her own daughter now... and that little enigma is amazing. I get to see her next week and I'm about to burst over that. And I get to see my son graduate from high school.  The years do roll on.  

Well yeah and two months have gone by.

Life has been good, just busy lately. I'm still processing the drek of "That Evil Place"... I wish it would stop. Really don't want to keep dealing with an oozing wound that doesn't seem to want to completely heal over, but I guess PTSD is like that.

It's weird, though I believed in PTSD, and I knew that many different life stressors could kick it off, I have never been so well able to identify it in my own self and situation.  I am well assured that things are going just fine in my temp job situation... but I am still worried that someone is looking over my shoulder and scrutinizing every move that I make. I think it's going to take some time to shake that uncomfortable feeling. Lack of constant and direct feedback makes me very nervous now.  If I was screwing up majorly, I know the folks where I'm at would tell me... but that niggle of doubt and discomfort is still there...

So really, I am viewing PTSD much like I view the perception of pain in different people. What might not bother me that much could be debilitating for another.  What one situation one person can brush off with ease may not be so "brushable" for another.... though it may seem like nothing to me, I don't know the whole of that other person's story, so I really cannot judge.

So things like PTSD are on a continuum and a very individual thing.  Maybe others could have gone through what I did at King County with less damage to the soul and psyche, but that damage is what I sustained, being who *I* am.  It is heartening to hear the co-workers with whom I am friends acknowledge how awful the place is. It is also heartening to simply be accepted for who I am for the most part where I am now.  It's okay to be me, myself and my fleas.

I just wish I could turn off the tap o' crap that gushes forth from time to time.  Despite all this, I am very happy. Life is open right now with our impending plan to move to Portland... I just don't know exactly where I'm heading. Back to school, most likely, really looking at becoming a Family Nurse Practitioner or getting back into something birth-related.  I just still am not completely sure what I want to do when I grow up.

One thing that continues to confuse me is when people tell me that I inspire them when I just feel like I'm blundering through life.  I am always flattered too, but I'm just living life and doing the best that I can.

The Lump in my Throat

It catches in my throat
A hate I cannot swallow
             or spit out

It's like a hardened ball of phlegm
Independent of myself
I feel it   -AND-   see it

A concentrated hatred of
     -ivory towers
     -smug superiority
     -turf war politics
     -those who need to inflict misery on others

It will continue to catch
Until it finally dissolves
Of its own accord. and with time.

Where do we do we go from here...?

Well I am almost a month out from losing my job, and in retrospect, I think it's probably the best things that could have happened to me. It gave me the gift of time... room to breathe, room to be, room to stop, time to spend with Mark as he arrived and began his adjustment...  so I hope that was good for him.

There is so much that I don't miss about that horrible place... the stress, the hours, the attitudes of certain people, the meanness, talking to people endlessly about salmonella, the feeling that I never knew what I was doing.

I guess there was a reason why it all happened... at least I like to believe that. True or not, it is comforting and helps me make sense of such an awful time.

I also need to pull some positives out of it. I got to the Pacific northwest. I got 2 new friends. I am closer to some old friends. I have processed a lot of old stuff. I'm not in Missouri anymore. I have other new friends. I'm getting to try out school nursing.

Then there is the gratitude. I have the support of so many friends around the world. my husband is here with me... and the kitties are too. I have enough money. People have been kind. I like it here. I am happier than I've been in a long time and excited about life and the possibilities that lie ahead.

I can't say that I'm not angry or hurt by what happened, but I'm choosing carefully how much I dwell on those emotions. I was ill-used by King County, but it's over. Honestly though, thinking about the county, seeing the logo, etc puts a really bad taste in my mouth. It's going to take a long time to get away from that feeling.  I honestly hope that those who follow have it better than I did.

I am both excited and nervous about the school nursing gig that starts on Monday. I think it will be a refreshing departure from what I've been doing so long.  It will also stretch me and reawaken some dormant nursing skills.  I honestly kind of glad that I took the temp gig instead of a permanent one for now.  It's also nice and close to home.  I will cover about 3 schools.  I have that job until June and then I will be going to Ft Knox KY for my summer Army training and then it will be time to find a new job.  

Just kind of letting the journey unfold.

And yes, they threatened my nursing license too…

I didn't put this out there so publicly, but now that it has come to naught, I feel it needs to be stated.  Not only did I get fired from the most toxic job I have ever held, I also had a cloud hanging over my nursing license, they really couldn't just let me go in peace, they had to make the special torture last with one last threat.

When I was canned, they told me that they had filed a complaint against my nursing license with reassurance that “these things rarely get investigated or become anything.” The reasoning they gave is that they had to cover the county in case of liability. I also spoke to the union representative who said that they used to do reports on nearly every nurse’s license and that she had to send them the state regulations and tell them to cool it.  What this tells me is that they have quite a history of filing BS complaints… and the next thing that pops up in my mind is “The why do it?!”

I think that “Why” question is the one that really sticks in my craw.  With as personal as the firing was, it just seems like it’s another way for them to twist the knife and feel like they have power.  There is also an element of them playing C.Y.A. and trying to convince the world that their feces is odorless and made of solid gold…. and that they train people well too!  No matter the reason, I have more pity than anger for them. 

The reason I was given for the complaint was a vague “you gave wrong information over the phone” to someone on 2 occasions.  I have acknowledged my mistakes all along.  I’m not perfect, and they said I didn't have to be perfect, while the unspoken subtext was that I did have to be perfect. One of these occasions I remember and I called to correct the situation as soon as I was aware of it.  The other one, I really don’t know.  However, the letter I got from the state yesterday said, “The Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission received a report about an alleged failure to satisfactorily learn and perform duties as a public health nurse.  After careful consideration of the information received the Nursing Commission decided not to investigate because there was no violation of nursing law and it is considered an employer-employee issue.”  That is rather different, IMNSHO.

Unfortunately, I have had to mark “yes” on some job applications when asked about complaints against my license.  I had to be honest. However it shows that their petty, vindictive action has had some lasting effects that may have cost me some interviews. I cannot prove or disprove this, any more than I can about my being in the military being part of the reason that I was fired.  I just don’t understand what exactly would make a person or organization act in this manner unless it was warranted.  The good news is that I can now answer that question “no” on future applications.

Because of everything that I survived in that 3 ½ months, I am a bit bumped and bruised, but I will heal and I will prevail. They cannot take my dignity, they cannot take my soul.  They tried to tear down everything that was important to me, because they didn't “approve” of something… who I was, where I was from, my Army service, perhaps my very existence on the planet… I will never know.  In almost every situation I have done fine with people using my quirky charm, even those I haven’t liked a whole lot… but this was the rare instance and for whatever reason, there was no way I would have or could have ever fit into their special little corner of hell.  For those who have known me a long time, I will say that given a choice, I would return to the dining hall at Rhein-Main before I would the Seattle King County Public Health Department… the latter of which has earned the special distinction of being the worst job I have ever had.

I know I’m stronger for the experience.  I also know what is important to me.  I will take the gifts and walk away.

Please be kind to yourself and others.  Gentleness and compassion go a lot farther than vindictiveness and revenge.