Self-care

Tried putting make-up on today and I looked like a scary ghost.

Now, I’m putting three fourths of the clothes I own into a box to go to charity. What I can say, that is upbeat/positive, is that my girls are LOVING digging through my old outfits, putting on make-up, and wearing big high heal shoes around!

I’m going to push myself to wear some weird styles this coming week. Therapists are allowed to dress bizarrely. At least I think so, from the past when I was on the other chair. I remember lots of brightly colored scarves and looked out of place.

Saturdays are often hard now. Everything from the week washes over me, and I feel about one particle of a million of what I imagine a person feels like coming home from a war. Or maybe one particle out of a billion? I don’t want to go so far as to compare myself to someone fighting in a war…just the process is similar. Like where you don’t feel it right away. Or maybe like a person in a car accident? While the car accident is happening, you’re not afraid…the way you will be when you try to get to sleep for the rest of the week.

While hard things are happening, I just handle it. I actually do. (This will be the braggy part)

“I’m surprised how well I’m handling this!” I’ll think to myself. “Look at you, helping people, doing just what you studied to do!” “Ha! That elementary school teacher was wrong. I CAN listen and pay attention.” I’ll see myself making phone calls to parents, social workers. lawyers, doctors. “I’m doing it! Advocating for the vulnerable just like we were taught at church.”

Then, the work week ends…and I’m driving home. I turn up the radio, but I can still hear all the sadness, women trying hard and getting stomped down, people with cognitive disabilities without rights, children abused, and some people with sadness or anxiety that they can’t shake without a discernible cause.

It rolls past me like a train. I can barely tell where one train car ends and another begins. Just this big blur. And it’s all tragic. A movie I can’t turn off.

Upstream prevention is rather a buzz word. Still, I think the concept makes sense. Protective factors include: Physical health, healthy relationships with family and friends, faith, engaging in meaningful activities, practicing gratitude. There are more…I’ve looked a several wheels outlining protective factors. The latest I’ve read can be found here: https://sourcesofstrength.org/wp-content/uploads/grant-writing-document.pdf

As well, my co-worker has been sending me information about Community Schools. Increasing parent/teacher relationships in more of a teamwork approach (if history serves me, I think schools have been this way and sometimes are presently…but must be drifting away from teamwork and becoming more separate entities (a buzz word for this is “Siloed”). Also, increasing communication with local health and other services/businesses: doctors, dentists, mental health, and internships at area businesses for the older kids. I have some immediate concerns about privacy, but I will read and learn before I panic.

All the best to you and your loved ones!

Terra Rose