Failed First Placement Interview

Tags

grief, interview, placement

I had my first interview for a counselling placement last week and I didn’t get it.

I walked out of the interview thinking I had blown and I had. I just needed to wait for the email which said that while they were sure I would make a fine counsellor one day and had made some insightful comments, I wasn’t sufficiently advanced in training to be let loose on their clients. I was free to come back to them later. It was, quite frankly, the nicest rejection letter I’ve had.

I felt it was all going wrong when they asked me if I could list stages of grief process, which given that this placement was for bereavement was a reasonable question that I could have anticipated and revised for. I got as far as five or seven stages of grief, depending on which model, that Kubler-Ross was the main model and then totally blanked. No I hadn’t read her, just summaries and discussions. She wasn’t the only person I hadn’t read.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance (or DABDA for short) are the main five, just so we know.

There was waffling on my part.

I got stuck on another question of are deaths due to ill health, murder or whatever the same (or some such wording). Every death provokes a different response so they are all different but in that sense they are all the same. Some deaths requires autopsies and police investigations and that complicates and distracts from the grieving process. Sometimes there is time to tie up loose ends and say goodbye first. So every death is the same but they are all different. Does the counsellor handle them all the same? Yes and no. Is that a yes or a no? I said it was both and struggled to choose one.

There were questions about organisational process. If the bereavement is done but there are other issues to deal with would I want to continue. Yes, but the organisation is for bereavement so you signpost on. Funding is for bereavement. Fair enough I said. Was I supposed to anticipate that or not? There were other such questions where I gave my personal view and added that it would depend on the organisation’s policy

How would I deal with someone who cried? Let them, pass the tissues, and if it brought tears to my eyes then let them cry too, but to show empathy, not to lose control.

Many many questions, for an hour. Bowlby, diversity, taking money, … Some I was fine with, others baffled me. I wasn’t really prepared. Why not?

I am not comfortable with interviews and it took me halfway through to settle in and say the right thing. On the one hand it was an interview, on the other hand it was like discussing counselling skills.

How was I with silence? Fine. I need to be aware whether it’s a good silence to let be or an empty one to interrupt. What do I interrupt with? I had to be prompted with “it’s not that complicated” before answering “What are you feeling, how are you” and other such check ins.

Could I challenge? Yes. What did I need before challenging? Trust and sufficient depth. Yes.

I wasn’t in course mode; I was in interview mode and I struggled to bring the two together. Once I got that I was better but felt that I just started the whole thing off in neutral. I gave the right answers eventually but went round the houses to get there.

So I need to do better next time. I have one application in and another I need to write and probably now other organisations to look for.

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A Hard Weekend

Tags

2son, autism, fear, journey, love, pain

I spent Friday going to visit 2son at his new school. They are very happy with him and he is settling down well. We then managed to spend a couple of hours together and he talked of his fear of getting depressed again and how he couldn’t accept his progress and how well he had settled in as he expected to crash. It was a difficult conversation but much better to have it although I found it so hard to not put my arms around him and never let him go. He is as settled as he can be.

It was a long day travelling, 16 hours door to door that I did by train. Whether it was the length of the day or the conversations I had with him I do not know but I spent the weekend feeling emotionally and physically drained. I felt a need to recover and recuperate, to curl up on the sofa and watch crap TV, so I mostly did.

I felt and still feel the tension in my body, a tightness in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. I worry for him but I also feel the parallels with my own journey. I am beginning to grasp the need to look after myself, physically as well as mentally. I want to do so more in terms of developing mindfulness and physical activity that I risk worrying myself about doing everything I have decided I need to do. Self care is so complicated. 2son has had a brief taster of mindfulness and apparently of yoga. He is very disconnected from his body and his mind and has a long way to go.

I think the conversation I had with him reminded me of how far he has to go and that while the getting out of bed and going to college is brilliant, he also has to work on all these other aspects and learn to cope with himself and at this he is a mere egg. He will have to go through a lot of painful self examination, trying and failing at all sorts of things in order to develop ways to live that he can cope with and I think I’m just feeling heavy from the thought of what he has yet to go through. I love him so much and yet I cannot do this for him. He has to do it himself. But he is in a good place and there is much warmth from the staff and he is clearly well looked after. Choosing this place was my contribution. Now he has to work with the staff and make his.

About My Body

Tags

body, ignored, invisible

Having looked at my mindmap of self with my therapist, one area I found difficult to deal with was that of my body. So I’m endeavouring to zoom in on that part of my self and identify.

Starting at the very beginning, my mother breast fed me on a strict four hour schedule regardless of whether I was crying or screaming. She told me how hard she found it to let me cry.

As a child, the messages my body sent out were ignored. I was often car sick, which considering that all are holidays were made by car, was an inconvenience. My father would always want to go on, without a planned stop and it would take my mother turning around, seeing my green face and telling him that we really needed to stop. I learned to sit upright in the car, to not read, to stare out of the window at the far horizons and also to sleep through as much travel as possible. When I got older and there weren’t three of us in the back I would occasionally be allowed to sit in front, which affected me a lot less. My middle sister would also complain of feeling car sick so she could sit up front. Years later she told me she thought I was just pretending so I could sit up front too.

If I was ill, my father would come home and simply say “is she going to school tomorrow”, not asking how I was feeling but whether I was going in. I went to school regardless of how ill I felt and was sent home on more than one occasion when they thought I was too ill be be there. So illnesses were also discouraged as a personal failure. It also put stress on my mother having to look after me or my sisters and my father didn’t like that.

My father always put my mother first, in all things. He speaks fondly and admiringly of the four (?) times she put her foot down and said no to her. He would defer to her but never saw our opinions as having value, other than to mock and point out our errors. She was always beautiful in whatever she wore but I needed to put a pretty dress on to be told I looked nice. It also didn’t matter how fat she was whereas I got told I needed to lose weight. I felt I was well below her in the pecking order. This paragraph is stressing me out so I need to come back to this area later.

When it came to the cold seasons, the heating was not put on much. We were encouraged to “put another jumper on” and I did learn to layer up. It would be turned up if my mother insisted, not if we children asked. I still keep the heating abnormally low.

I’ve talked about the walking in the previous post but it was only when writing it that I realised that no other physical activity was ever offered or made available. I had PE at school but, other than the occasional family cricket in the garden or game of catch I remember little else. My mother did take me swimming when I was very young, but my learning at school was very sporadic and I mostly remember being ignored as not being able to swim (which makes you wonder what the lessons were for). I ended up being mostly self taught and a very slow swimmer. I did learn though and would disappear for several hours to our local swimming pool which was a lovely big Olympic one with proper diving boards. Only later did I realise how lucky that was. Now I love swimming but I really don’t like most swimming pools so I don’t go as often as I could. That’s a cop out and I need to think about that too.

I felt that my body was invisible or irrelevant, to be mostly ignored and not paid attention to. I didn’t have long hair (ever that I recall) although I sometimes grew it to shoulder length and so didn’t spend time plaiting it, styling it or messing about with it. I didn’t do dress up or make up. My mother never wore any. Very little attention was paid to my physical appearance and it’s not something I did with my older sisters either. I never watched either of them getting ready for a date or a party.

I also found puberty very difficult. My parents never talked about bodily functions and they certainly never belched or farted but stayed in control at all times. My mother told me about periods just before mine started and there was an informative leaflet as well. She later told me of how difficult hers were as she was the first to start them in primary school and they had to put in bins and whatever else in just for her so she was very embarrassed. Sex was not really ever discussed and by the time my mother got round to trying to talk to me about if, after having produced another leaflet, I had her in hysterics by telling her not to worry as I knew it all already. She told this to all her friends with whoops of laughter. I never learned to talk about periods or sex, to friends or partners and I suppose in some ways I am rather inhibited. Even writing this is hard for me.

Pain was also to be ignored and tears were never welcome.

More to come on this…

Was Walking Traumatic?

Tags

exercise, trauma, walks

When I was seven years old we went on a 100 mile walk around the foothills of Mont Blanc, doing ten miles a day. It was one of the last big holidays that the five of us took together. I loved walking on the snow and the crunch it made. I loved seeing women in scanty bikini tops and shorts, contrasting with the big rucksack on their back and shoes on their feet. I remember not feeling at all worried about walking until we were crossing a slippery slope with a sharp slide down the valley and my father told me how to dig my fingers in to the ice if I started falling. Then I got nervous.

But we had to prepare for this walk. We went walking at the weekends often and I couldn’t plead exams or homework to get out of it. I don’t hugely remember my sisters being there but they were. After a walk my parents would often have a pint or possibly two, whilst we three girls would sit outside, with maybe a lemonade and a packet of crisps to share. For the most part children weren’t allowed in pubs then, although I’m not sure how much my parents tried.

Our holidays comprised walks. Wales, the Lake District, Scotland. That was it, other than the visits to my grandmother in France. I remember nothing else of Britain from back then. Just hillsides, hills, paths, and putting one foot in front of the other. I remember going to the specialist shop to get my climbing boots, one of the few, if not the only time my father took an interest in buying me anything. They had to fit properly and they had to be worn in, until I became one with the shoe.

We walked in the dry; we walked in the wet; we walked in the hot and the cold. We would stop every couple of hours and my father would dish out a chocolate square each, maybe two, if the bar was big enough and the journey short enough. We didn’t carry water bottles. We could wait until we got there. There would be one to share so a swig each. We didn’t stop for toilet breaks either.

My father wouldn’t make any unplanned stop or diversion. If you wanted to look at the view, and there were plenty of beautiful views, you looked as you walked, in between watching where you put your feet down. There was no stopping to look at the view and the only time I got a chance, was if the map came out.

My father was also 6″2′, as it said on his passport. The reality was half an inch shorter and I suppose it’s even less now. But a man of 6″2′ has legs that are twice as long as those of a six year old. I had to put effort in to keep up and it was up to me to learn to walk fast rather than for anyone else to slow down. If I didn’t try to keep up then I would simply miss out on any rest and the chocolate. I’d have to wait until next time. So, like my mother before me, I learned to walk quickly. Something I kept up until I had babies and slowed down to walk at their pace. I never forced them to keep up with my and now it’s my father who asks us to slow down to let him move at his pace.

Did I protest at these walks? I think so but do not  remember doing so. Not that it would have done much good. I am told that I alternated between wearing only skirts or wearing only trousers, for months on end. Again I don’t remember this, not then. I had skirts for school. I do remember that no other form of exercise was ever on offer, other than playing cricket in the garden. My mother took me to the swimming pool and started to teach me to swim although I wouldn’t learn properly until secondary school and even then it was mostly self taught. Once I learned to swim I went to the pool on my bike in Brussels, spending as much of the day there as I could. I never learned to swim fast but I did enjoy the peace and quiet.

As an adult I sort of enjoy walking for pleasure but I don’t do it much, which sorts of suggests that I don’t, or at least not as much as I might. Over the past few years I have really tried to get into some form of physical activity, from going to classes to activities on the wii and they’ve all fallen by the wayside. I’ve tried going for short walks locally that I don’t have to prepare for as I think the whole planning the walk contributes to my lack of interest. I’m currently on my second round of 30 days Pilates challenge (ten minutes a day) which I’m doing before my meditation and that is working.  So fingers crossed.

Reading about complex trauma, one of the responses of the body is to freeze and to learn to stop moving, as moving probably will cause issues. Staying hidden and motionless is the best defence against whatever might happen. I wonder if this has stayed with me and made me as physically lazy as I possibly could be, although of course I was very active with children. Now, though, it’s my choice and I’m choosing not to. I recognise that I need to move more and am trying, with a bit of gardening, a bit of Pilates, the occasional walk. The experts say that yoga is best for trauma and I have to think about whether I’m going to give that a go rather than my lovely Pilates Robin (find her at The Balanced Life) who is engaging and non-judgmental.

Putting the link together of healing mind and body explains partly why I’ve been feeling that this has been a journey parallel to therapy and will hopefully motivate me to keep being a little bit more active. There is a greater clarity to what is going on inside me but I’m still rather fed up of it all.

Complex PTSD

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C-PTSD

typically the result of exposure to repeated or prolonged instances or multiple forms of interpersonal trauma, often occurring under circumstances where escape is not possible due to physical, psychological, maturational, family/environmental, or social constraints.

Judith Herman, 1992

Yes!

It’s All About the Money

Tags

benefits, budget, council tax, finance, housing benefit, loss, money

I thought I was having a bad day when I just read a Facebook post from an acquaintance who announced the loss of his son in an accident this morning. There is nothing like genuine bad news to make you realise that your problems are totally surmountable and irrelevant.

Having said that, I’m going back to me, whilst feeling for a family in grief.

Over the last few weeks 3son has revelled in his work and getting paid for the first time. It was late and he’s still waiting for a payslip. Housing Benefit have been most interested in his apprenticeship and have informed us that he now owes £98 odd a week in rent. The facts suggests the figure should be more like £75 but when have facts got in the way.

Today I got the announcement from Tax Credits about my current entitlement which has now plummeted after having lost 2son and now 3 son. It’s not quite in single digits but it’s close.

I also received Council Tax bill which has swapped from my having overpaid by £300 to being under by £600 as they seem to have wiped my single person discount for the entire year rather than when he started work and by charging the full whack, which I’m not sure is correct.

3son threw a bit of a hissy fit when I said his portion of the rent was £100. I didn’t expect it to be that much. He’s calmed down but it doesn’t exactly incentivise him and I haven’t mentioned council tax as well. I now feel churlish if I ask him for a financial contribution towards food and bills, which was the rent he was looking forward to paying.

I also, quite frankly, feel scared about the reduction in credits/benefits. These are the sums I will have to sustain us on over the next two years while I complete my training as a counsellor and can get a proper job. I’m also thinking of ditching one of my part time jobs now, because I can’t get motivated about it enough to do it properly and I can’t make myself care. I may have to get myself a part time job to make up but I only don’t see how I can fit it in. I haven’t sat down and really looked at how much I will have coming in and what I can cut. I was allowing myself an evening of feeling a bit sorry for myself before facing up to reality.

I knew this would happen but it seems to have happened all at once and housing benefit have got it wrong yet again but we have to pay first and argue later. I feel that I’m getting so close to almost starting a new life with a proper job and independent children and all that jazz but all of a sudden I am wondering how I’m going to make it financially. I don’t want to have to go back to penny pinching and I do know that I’m really lucky not to have been that badly off for the last however many years but I’m tired of fighting my case and arguing for benefits and tax credits that I am entitled to. Bank errors are never in my favour.

It does however all fade away in comparison to losing a child. I feel bad for writing all this but this is what is making me feel bad right now and the whole “my pain is lesser than your pain” argument might be true but it doesn’t actually diminish my pain. But still, my heart goes out to a family who will not sleep for many a night to come.

Another Fine Mess

Tags

beds, project, swept away

Well here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.

…says Laurel to Hardy, on more than one occasion.

I’m not even sure how it started really but all of a sudden I end up buying new beds and mattresses and I’ve committed to helping paint our large bedroom. All of this will necessitate re-organising furniture in bedrooms and performing a three-way desk swap. And the temperature is going back up so doing any of that is going to be fun, fun, fun in the sun.

However one set of bunk beds we got shortly after we moved in here 16 years ago, passed on by a friend who also had 4 boys. I can’t remember where the other set of bunk beds came from but they weren’t new either. They did all get new mattresses at some point but they weren’t expensive. It feels like an extravagance but it’s not really and it’s well deserved.o

So 4son who has the largest bedroom in the house that all four used to share, and now only has to share with 2son in the holidays now gets a triple sleeper, which is a single on top of a double, as well as a reasonable mattress. 3son gets a small double and his big brother will have to sleep on the sofa bed when he comes round. 3son was moaning that his bedroom was inadequate, failing to remember how excited he was to first get his own bedroom, which was my study.

I didn’t need a project to take me through the holidays. I have got enough to do and wanted space to do nothing but that seems to have gone. On the other hand these are changes that will do us all good and it’s not as if anyone is leaving home anytime soon.

A Drop in Temperature

Tags

heat, motivation, work

It is amazing what a drop in temperature does. I think I only woke up once last night and managed to get some proper work done this morning that desperately needed doing. Yesterday afternoon 2son tried to teach me a game and I really struggled to make any sense of it as I was tired from the day and the heat. Also I didn’t really want to spend an hour or two focusing on something that didn’t interest me, even though it is really important to him. I managed half an hour before I had to go out for the evening.

I have done some work which felt good and it got me to thinking about work. I had three nasty things on my mind this summer: 2son’s funding, which is sorted; benefit dispute which is actually progressing; and lastly a work project I don’t want to do. I still don’t want to do it. I considered resigning and then I thought about the hours I do and the fact that I need to keep a minimum of 16 hours work a week to qualify for tax credits and I couldn’t do that without this particular job as well. So I can’t unless I go to the trouble of finding something else and I really can’t be bothered.

I need to get my head round it, accept that I need to do it and get on with it. But I’ve been saying that for a few months now and nothing is happening. I finished my course two months ago and I’ve still done bugger all on this project. I can’t blame it all on the heat. There is a hump I need to get over after which it will be all right but I can’t quite find the motivation to get to the hump.

Ten Drops

Tags

heat, rain

This is possibly the hottest day since the last hottest day. But it was all right as there would be a thunderstorm at the end of it which would hopefully cool things down. It didn’t happen. There were about two claps of thunder and ten rain drops. A few hours later there were another ten. Then we had a good five minutes of rain. This did not make up for the month or so without any.

I’ve discovered that the best thing I can do in these hot evenings is to retire to the garden and watch a film on the tablet once the sun has gone down. I don’t have any garden lights as I don’t really sit out in the dark but inside is too hot.

I noticed my American expatriate explaining to her American friends back home that we don’t have air con as we don’t really have heat like this for more than five minutes. This summer is clearly different and it is affecting all of Europe. Not that climate deniers will learn from this. It is certainly bizarre being in England and knowing that it will still be hot tomorrow. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but still hot.

If I didn’t have to do anything that required thought then it would all be fine. I’m sure that brains actually melt in the heat as my capacity for rational thought just goes out the window. Well, I’m blaming it on the heat anyway.

A Barbed Moment

Tags

letting go, moment, repeating scene

I did something silly which marred what was otherwise a splendid day.

I’d planned for some spare time before collecting 2son and went for a walk on a small moor which was lovely. On the way back I got side tracked and caught up with a couple of guys and didn’t overtake them.

I was feeling slightly concerned about direction but sort of assumed they knew where they were going and we ended up back at the main road with a fence topped with barbed wire in the way. I was going to walk alongside it but they decided to help me over.

I should have just said no.

I didn’t because they were being nice and I didn’t want to seem like a wimp. But there was no way I could clear the fence and I didn’t. I now have cuts on the back of my legs that are not nice.

More to the point though I feel like a fool for not just saying no thanks, I’ll walk on. Plus of course I haven’t quite let go of it and am replaying it in my head. It happened. I wish it hadn’t but it did and it wasn’t the end of the world. Let go.