Negotiating Academic Week 0
CW: Sexual assault, therapy, survivor stories.
Today is day four of the busiest week of the year for me at work (I work in Higher Education; itās Fresherās week). I am exhausted, in bed at 8:30pm, cuddling a hot water bottle and gently crying into my housemateās catās soft head. Welcome to academia, Facebookās time-hop so cheerily reminds me; one year ago I was doing all of this for the first time and I was so unprepared for the deluge of clients, sporadic support, and confusion about my slightly-made-up-but-now-really-integral-to-my-HE-institution job role. This year I was so much more prepared; my calendar, planning and mental health filled in, checked off and checked up. Yet here I am a year on, still completely wiped out, and feeling like I donāt belong. The day-to-day imposter syndrome has now largely gone, but at times of high stress like this, I feel that I canāt access my emotions fully; as though I am looking at them through a screen. This evening, the screen is also on fire and I am calmly watching it burn, haha, but anyway...
I am covering someone elseās job at work and I keep talking about this with so many people... to the point where I donāt actually know how I feel about taking the role on. Well, I was āvolunteeredā for the position, but that isnāt the focus here. I have told some people that I am happy about the role (namely those people that I am working with while I cover the role) because I like to make people feel better, and that I am not inconveniencing them... and then I have told other people (my colleagues) that I am exhausted just thinking about the additional hours that I will undoubtedly be taking on. I am not entirely sure how I actually feel... a year in, I am starting to gain more confidence about my ability to do this job, and to do it well. I feel like I have got better at listening to my clients, referring on more efficiently, and having the confidence to occasionally impart wisdom to first-year clients (!) Thanks to the beginnings of clarity in my role (and my personal life too) I feel like I have dreams and aspirations again.
Maybe I should talk about those. āFocus on the positivesā is such a tired quote, but perhaps it is only tired because we hear it so much; humans being what they are, and needing to be reminded to remind themselves what they really want to do in life.
I want to be an art therapist. Through an obvious confluence of my own experiences of counselling and therapy, and my love of art, I have found myself drawn to pursuing this career.Ā
I have never wanted something more. I feel like I have been drifting through many ideas, past many potential career options, but none of them have sat right until now. As a person who was raised in an eclectic mix of pink dresses and stripey football strips, and has come to identify as non-binary (aka Enby), it was a little like the feeling of wearing a full suit for the first time as an adult, when my options had always felt more skirt-restricted.Ā
I have always enjoyed supporting other people, nurturing and listening to my friends and family, learning about what makes folk tick, how to process through the intimate complexities of life, to talk about the big questions, and to dedicate enough time to the smaller ones. My family are not the best at being open with each other like this, despite individually being important support networks for many other people, so I think a fascination of other family units that did talk frankly and with a tender openness has fascinated me into embracing this way of being, of pondering.Ā
I always thought I would be a teacher (I would be a 4th generation teacher if I got my PG Cert), and I see the role of an art therapist as one related to teaching, or perhaps tutoring. The therapist guides the client with an open, reflective approach, providing some answers, but mainly asking questions to which there are often no definitive answers. From my limited experience, I have also found myself learning a lot from my clients, which is also an incredibly important, and sometimes overlooked, part of teaching. The tutor should never carry the attitude that they are beyond learning something new from someone younger or less experienced than themselves. This is how we remain open to change.
My most recent therapy was 12 weeks of support in the form of one hour a week one-to-one sessions. This is the hardest I have had to work in therapy, although as I become more resilient to my issues, the more intense and underlying issues become harder to ignore, and then, therefore, must be addressed, so it is logical in this sense that I have to work harder as I progress. The focus for these sessions remains the most difficult topic I have had to encounter in any intervention; my past experiences of sexual assault. As a victim, (now tentatively using the label of survivor) I knew I needed to do this, and I have felt huge benefits already from putting the hard work in, to reflection, to directly confronting the unpleasant facts of what happened to me, and most importantly how to move forward in a healthy and constructive way. I was tired of being in stasis. (Perhaps a future post will explore this a little more)
I want to help other people do this. To progress, to come out of the mental and physical stasis that is being trapped by your issue, whatever form that takes. For two people (client and therapist), couples, families, or a small group of people to meet and to put in the hard work and confront themselves. To come out the other side, still aware there will be difficult days, that this is not a linear process, but with the overarching feeling that there is another good day to be lived. Another fine cup of tea to be drunk. Another person to meet who is happy that you walked into their life, and you into theirs. āHealerā is probably the most appropriate phrase here, yet I feel that it doesnāt necessarily cover it. I do not feel like a healer in my role; perhaps this is because I generally refer my clients on at present (and am not fully qualified-yet!), although I do follow some of my clientsā journeys, and I occasionally get to see them grow to their potential and to become the āmostā of themselves that they can be. I think that I feel this way also because I do not feel healed by the therapy, counseling, or other interventions that I have experienced myself. I feel changed by them, and better for them, but the feeling of ābetterā is temporary, as I shift through phases of ābetterā and āworseā. The āworseā is easier to navigate thanks to the tools that I have learned to wield to negotiate my mental health and my issues, but all of these tools do not make me feel healed. I feel protected; as if I am guarding those open wounds that are past traumas, sensitive spots of my personality, my shortcomings, my fears. They do not shrink, they do not scab over, but they do not get worse any more. Protector is a good word... training others to protect themselves, that is definitely a goal. A dream. A positive.
Maybe it will get me out of bed tomorrow morning. I do hope so. JLB
Today I am listening to: https://listen.hatnote.com/ This is what they say about themselves: āListen to the sound of Wikipedia's recent changes feed. Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions. Pitch changes according to the size of the edit; the larger the edit, the deeper the note. Green circles show edits fromĀ unregistered contributors, and purple circles mark edits performed byĀ automated bots. You may see announcements for new users as they join the site, punctuated by a string swell. You can welcome him or her by clicking the blue banner and adding a note on their talk page.ā I have found it incredibly relaxing, easy to write to, and very unobtrusive if you are looking to write down some initial ideas on a subject.