Confessions of an Over-Analyzer

That is what I am drinking right now. After four shots of espresso, you are likely to find me engaged in an in-depth internal dialogue about the meaning of life, but I have decided to put my rapidly firing neurons to good use and write a blog entry instead.

Every time one of my residents asks me how I am I respond with a clichéd “can’t complain” –but the truth is, I really can’t complain. Sure school and work can get me down at times, but there is something so incredibly uplifting about getting up each morning to do what you are meant to do.

Field work is going well, though it has been rather humbling lately. Every once and a while I need to be reminded that I am a student and this work is not easy to do. Still, my expectations of myself can be unrealistic at times, which I fear makes me come off as arrogant, because I look like I believe I can “do it all.” I don’t know it all. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realize how much further learning I need to do. Like I said…it is humbling!

But it is also very exciting. I have four clients now, all with serious and persistent mental illness, and on Thursday I started my first group. Tomorrow I am going with the residents on an apple/pumpkin picking trip and I’m pretty booked throughout October with groups and activities. Hopefully I have the time and energy to write about it on here.

On Friday the policy track students met for our first monthly seminar. I am in the Integrative Geriatric Mental Health Policy Program, which is great because I get the benefits of the policy education with the added bonus of working closely and clinically with a population I am devoted to. This week, those of us in the IGMHP program met with Kim Williams from the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance. The GMHA is doing some wonderful work with contemporary aging in New York, especially with people living with mental illness during the aging process. In the next few months I will be working closely with the alliance on some advocacy and policy work. Anyone interested in elderly mental health and contemporary issues in aging should definitely look at their work. As many of you know, advocates can always use more voices.

I also finally went home this weekend. We went pumpkin and apple picking, had an extravagant family dinner, baked cookies and pies together, and spent some quality family time doing absolutely nothing. I can’t find words to explain how refreshing it is to go home again. It was definitely just what the doctor (or therapist I can’t afford *wink*) ordered. And luckily the holidays are fast approaching, so there is a lot of family time in the not to distant future.
There is so much more I want to write about. I want to talk about classes and clients, presidential elections and bailouts, social issues and personal ‘ruminations’ and more. But for now this will have to do.
Thanks for reading!

I haven’t always wanted to work with the elderly. I bounced around between all sorts of populations—from adolescents to the dually diagnosed, children to the chronically ill. I wanted to help everyone.

In the end, however, I fell in love with gerontology.

But the truth is, when I first started working with the elderly, it was for all the wrong reasons. I was a nurse’s aid in a hospital in my hometown and I loved my elderly patients there. I thought they were “adorable” and “sweet.” It meant the world to me to make my patients feel comfortable and loved, but I was going about it all the wrong way.

You see, there are two prevailing stereotypes about the elderly. (1) That they are “grouchy”, “crotchety”, or stubborn and (2) that the elderly are cute and helpless. The astonishing truth is that, like all human beings, the elderly display of full spectrum of personalities. They are every bit as unique as we are. And this is why I want with them.

What brings on this somewhat rambling entry? This New York Times article. You must read it because we are all guilty of this. Words like this still slip from my lips all the time. There has to be a better way to connect, to engage, to comfort, without demeaning the people we are trying to help.

Working with the elderly often stirs the most maternal parts of my soul. I want to soothe with kind words and a gentle touch. I feel compelled to take their pain from them. When I worked at the hospital, this approach was accepted, encouraged even. And it felt right. But if this article is accurate, and I really think it is, a real attitude change is needed in healthcare. There are other means of being compassionate and empathic without infantilizing our elderly patients. I am learning that respect for their independence and dignity goes a lot further than my maternal approach ever could.

I also know it is a lot easier to stay professional when you are counseling someone across a desk than when you are changing the brief of a gentleman who has soiled himself. There is this incredible feeling of intimacy that comes in medical settings, a feeling that elicits a dissonance in healthcare workers that can only be addressed by connecting, often maternally, with their patients. Is this wrong? According to the New York Times, it is. In my heart? I’m not as positive.

But I do know that I have felt demeaned because of my age countless times before. I am young. Yes. But I am not foolish, inexperienced, rash, immature, or irresponsible. If I hate being stereotyped and discriminated against because of my age, why would I subject my clients to those same misconceptions.

Here is the incredible truth—all people are different. Some clients appreciate the “sweeties” and the “good morning gorgeous” comments. Other clients think it is humiliating. I guess we just have to feel it out for ourselves.

until then…

See you later, sweethearts.

I don’t know if there is ever a “good time” to get sick…but I know that this weekend was certainly not it. All my plans for the weekend-- the three papers I was supposed to write, the process recordings gone unfinished, the laundry still festering in the corner--were pushed to the wayside and replaced with cough medicine and hot tea. Not to mention that in 6 days I am going to be the Maid of Honor at my sister’s wedding and I can barely get out of bed.

So now I am trying to do damage control. What classes do I have to go to? Which can I miss? How can I finish these papers and still make them coherent and, dare I say, A-worthy? And with all I have to do, how can I recuperate in time to stand up for my sister on the most important day of her life?

In case you can’t tell, I’m feeling a little stressed. I am going to try to get some sleep and write a better entry in the morning!

This is perhaps the greatest compliment I can give New York University School of Social Work:

I am still here.

When I graduated last May from NYU Undergrad, I had the world at my fingertips. And despite the many renowned schools of social work within my reach, I chose to reapply to and attend NYU Social Work for my MSW.

This decision was not a difficult one to make. For all the frustration that NYU in general has caused me, I have been continuously impressed by the Silver School of Social Work. The faculty and administration are extraordinarily intellectual, yet down to earth and always willing to help. It is the kind of school community that a student like me has always longed for--an engaging, accepting, and energizing environment.

But with this honor comes responsibility. In order to reap these benefits, to fully comprehend how incredible the School of Social Work can be, you must be willing to challenge yourself. Get involved. Ask questions. Make yourself known. In the end, like everything else in life, school here is what you make of it.

What brings on these meandering, slightly clichéd thoughts? I have recently been attending the NYU Social Work’s Department Chairs Committee Meetings as their student representative. Never one to pass up an opportunity, I jumped at the chance to contribute in important school dialogue and decision-making processes. The committee meets biweekly with the chairs of each department (Human Behavior, Practice, Policy, Research, and Field Learning). Now that I am participating in these conversations, I have a new appreciation for how much the faculty and staff at NYU Social Work value student feedback. They pour over student evaluations, thirst for more responses, and actually initiate change based on what we say!

This brings me to what I really want to write about today: intellectual stimulation. Anyone who has taken a SW course at NYU knows this phrase well…it is on every course evaluation we complete. And sadly, it has yielded increasingly disappointing results in my time at NYU. Through my position on the Chairs Committee, I have been able to see just how poorly our courses have been rated in “intellectual stimulation”

And, in the spirit of transparency, I have been overly critical in this category myself. I believed that it was my professors’ responsibility to challenge me. And this is true…to an extent. I expect stimulating curricula and thought-provoking discussions. I expect a didactic atmosphere where questions, dissent, and discourse are encouraged. I expect passion. But in the end, I know that it is my responsibility to answer the challenge. The only one who can truly “stimulate” my mind is ME.

I suppose I am calling on us to “step up” as students. If a class isn’t challenging you enough…challenge yourself to make the most of the class. If you want discussion, you must be willing to discuss. If you want new knowledge, you must be willing to do the reading.

I would like to hear other’s definitions of “intellectual stimulation” and its place in the NYU Social Work classroom…please email me, leave comments, flag me down, etc.

This morning (one of the rare mornings I was actually on time) I stepped out of my boyfriend’s apartment into the vestibule that leads out of his building. The door to the main hallway locked behind me before I could realize that the door to outside was missing a vital component--its handle.

So there I stood. The door behind me locked… the door in front of me stuck closed. And it struck me how incredibly symbolic this situation was. I’ve been thinking since about how that foyer is sort of like my life right now.

I should warn you, in case you can't tell, I tend to overanalyze situations.

Being an Advanced Standing SW student is sort of like being stuck. College is behind me. Adolescence is behind me. The 16 years of education it took to get me to this point are all behind me. And in front of me is the scary real world I have been hearing about for so long. Work. Bills. Whatever happens between work and bills (I still haven’t quite figured that out).

Right now I am in this semi quarter-life crisis where I am stuck between these two doorways…locked out of the past but still confused about how exactly to open the door in front of me. Apparently, it isn’t as simple as just turning a handle—you actually have to have resourcefulness, determination, and maybe even a little bit of help from others…(in this case, a frantic call to my boyfriend)

I think these ridiculous thoughts are coming from my sister’s wedding this weekend. Seeing how content she is makes me want to break down the door in front of me and rush into the real world full steam ahead. Suddenly I am looking at jobs on www.friedsocialworker.com and telling my boyfriend how I want him to propose to me. I am planning the décor of my new place and the cat I am going to get when I graduate. I have all these grand plans and absolutely no clue how to make them happen.

Now, I won’t kill you with suspense---I used my MacGyver-like skills and incredible ingenuity to escape this precarious situation and still make it to class (albeit 20 minutes late)…which, I think, means I am going to be okay in the end after all.