Seems like the weekend has been a series of feeling sick to my stomach moments and feeling really good moments. The former happen every time I think about my internship, which is not good. Last week I took half an Atavan two days in a row to take the edge off my anxiousness. That's a big deal for me because I've never used psych meds and for anxiety in particular I work really hard to meditate, breathe, exercise, be mindful and all that good stuff. I have these from back in December when I had a panic attack, but I never did use them. I have found I can take one at night and I will not only sleep well, I won't dream about the negative stuff that's gone on all day and wake up already freaked out about the coming day. Then half a pill keeps me a little more relaxed at work. I don't want to do this regularly though, and I'm hoping that if I can just get a good week or two under my belt, where I do well enough that P stays off my back, I'll regain my confidence and be able to move past this.
My other half has almost finished his itouch/iphone game and it's due for release in 2 weeks. He's had some setbacks, but is definitely now in the home stretch. The publisher is supposed to deposit money in our account tomorrow. Woo Hoo!! I alpha tested the game yesterday and was muy impresionado. Wow!!! I think it's going to take the app store by storm. =)
My sister's maladies have finally been identified. They are very scary, but amazingly have not had the more dire side effects the doctors say should have been inevitable. It's a huge relief for her to know the cause of her distressing symptoms, and now she can focus on taking care of the causal problems. So that's my three horrors resolved. Mom is not much better, but no worse. Entree is a veritable energizer rabbit; though a slower, skinnier one now. And my sis is going to be ok. Whew!! Oh, and another thing came along... my sister's dog tested positive for heartworm, but she's finishing up her first week of treatment and doing well.
Anyway, I am BOUND AND DETERMINED to be UP UP UP and not let this stuff trigger a depressive episode. It takes alot of conscious distraction, but heck, if I ask my patients to do this then I should be committed to practicing what I preach, right? LOL! My inlaws are coming some time next week... they're quite ambiguous about exactly when since they're driving down from the Great White North. I have lots of house prep to get ready for them, so that's a good thing to keep my mind occupied. No idea if I'll get to spend any time with them since it looks like they'll probably be here late on Sunday. It's a really bad time for both AR and me to have company, but we'll make the best of it because it happens so rarely!
Hope all my fellow bloggers are having a good weekend and good student experiences. This group has helped each other through so much... I want my regulars to know how very much I appreciate their support! And the irregulars, too. You all count. =)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Powering Through
Crimeny what a flipping WEEK! The thing with P got worse by far. Every Monday and Tuesday suck, then Wed is marginal and Thursday it's all better. I feel like I'm trapped in a cycle of violence! Honeymoon phase tonight... Gah. Things got bad enough the training director has stepped in and is 'adjusting' my supervision such that I don't go down in flames before the halfway mark on my first assessment. I've come to learn that I'm not the first intern to get sideways with P. Right at the beginning of the internship the training director said they were thinking about switching supervisors half way through the year, though they had never done that before. I'm beginning to understand why.
The actual clinical work is fantastic and I love it, but the paperwork and prison protocol is a nightmare and P is a micromanaging OCPD sorta person. "You told the patient he was to fill out this form when you should have said 'sign' the form" or "No, it's not team treatment it's treatment team" or even "You said case worker and it should have been case manager." These sorts of things are absolutely equal priority with whether or not my diagnosis is right and not having them absolutely perfect brings warnings of not being forensic material. JEEZE!!! I'm flipping new and P was gone for three weeks out of the first month of my rotation, so I lost all that coaching, assuming that it would have happened had P been here. Not sure it would. P's idea of supervision is to throw you in the deep end and then criticize you on a personal level when you flounder.
Tomorrow I'm off to didactics, which involves going to a juvenile court for the morning in another city. Should be fun, but after the 2 hour drive home I'm going to work for a few more hours to get caught up. Hopefully that will help break the ghastly Mon-Tue hell cycle from happening next week.
The actual clinical work is fantastic and I love it, but the paperwork and prison protocol is a nightmare and P is a micromanaging OCPD sorta person. "You told the patient he was to fill out this form when you should have said 'sign' the form" or "No, it's not team treatment it's treatment team" or even "You said case worker and it should have been case manager." These sorts of things are absolutely equal priority with whether or not my diagnosis is right and not having them absolutely perfect brings warnings of not being forensic material. JEEZE!!! I'm flipping new and P was gone for three weeks out of the first month of my rotation, so I lost all that coaching, assuming that it would have happened had P been here. Not sure it would. P's idea of supervision is to throw you in the deep end and then criticize you on a personal level when you flounder.
Tomorrow I'm off to didactics, which involves going to a juvenile court for the morning in another city. Should be fun, but after the 2 hour drive home I'm going to work for a few more hours to get caught up. Hopefully that will help break the ghastly Mon-Tue hell cycle from happening next week.
Friday, September 18, 2009
SOOOO glad for Week's End
Holy moly, what a week! I got completely buried this week, and on top of that, got sideways with my primary supervisor - I'll call him P - and had a couple of truly miserable days as a result. I have come to the conclusion that an uneasy truce with P is about as good as it's going to get. We have very different viewpoints on many things, and it is very important to P that I follow his instructions to the letter. Having my own style is NOT allowed! Sigh... I spent 18 months in a practicum with a passive aggressive supervisor last year and now it appears I'm going to spend a year with a different version of same.
I love the clinical work, though... just LOVE my clients! Ok, well some of them aren't really that lovable, actually, but I love the challenges they pose and the fascinating views of the world I glimpse through them. Some are amusing, some shocking and some just downright surreal, but there is never a dull moment. If I didn't have to schedule, document in triplicate and jump through ten thousand bureaucratic hoops each day I'd be in heaven! Oh yes, and fend off obliteration of self-as-I-know-her by P. That's kind of a drag.
Fellow intern and I - let's call her A - are slowly working out how to have our own space and our own schedules while sharing a tiny office. This wouldn't be a big deal if we didn't have to see patients in there to the tune of 30+ hours per week (that's in 4 days since we have trainings on Fridays) such that one or the other of us is always displaced. Mondays are no big deal because lots of people work four, ten hour days so take Mon or Fri off, but the rest of the week there are packs of predatory psychologists roaming the halls waiting to pounce on the first empty desk they see. It behooves one not to spend too long in the loo or one's desk may acquire a squatter! Yeah... you could say the prison is a bit short on space for staff.
AR's game is going gangbusters. He and his partner signed on with a publisher this week and they are fronting him money, so we can stop raiding our savings for half the month's expenses for awhile! They were set to release the game this week, but ran into a persnickety bug, so now Sept 30th is the goal date. We are trying not to get too worked up about it, but this may go very VERY big! Of course it may not; thus the reservations. Sure would be nice not to be freaked out about money and lack thereof all the time.
I love the clinical work, though... just LOVE my clients! Ok, well some of them aren't really that lovable, actually, but I love the challenges they pose and the fascinating views of the world I glimpse through them. Some are amusing, some shocking and some just downright surreal, but there is never a dull moment. If I didn't have to schedule, document in triplicate and jump through ten thousand bureaucratic hoops each day I'd be in heaven! Oh yes, and fend off obliteration of self-as-I-know-her by P. That's kind of a drag.
Fellow intern and I - let's call her A - are slowly working out how to have our own space and our own schedules while sharing a tiny office. This wouldn't be a big deal if we didn't have to see patients in there to the tune of 30+ hours per week (that's in 4 days since we have trainings on Fridays) such that one or the other of us is always displaced. Mondays are no big deal because lots of people work four, ten hour days so take Mon or Fri off, but the rest of the week there are packs of predatory psychologists roaming the halls waiting to pounce on the first empty desk they see. It behooves one not to spend too long in the loo or one's desk may acquire a squatter! Yeah... you could say the prison is a bit short on space for staff.
AR's game is going gangbusters. He and his partner signed on with a publisher this week and they are fronting him money, so we can stop raiding our savings for half the month's expenses for awhile! They were set to release the game this week, but ran into a persnickety bug, so now Sept 30th is the goal date. We are trying not to get too worked up about it, but this may go very VERY big! Of course it may not; thus the reservations. Sure would be nice not to be freaked out about money and lack thereof all the time.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Not a Bad Week
Let's see... first off I think this past week went faster than any other on record. Yeah, it was short, thanks to Labor Day, but it was PACKED, and that made all the difference. I added more patients to my caseload and had one serious shocker during a case management session. I'm pretty unflappable, but with this population sooner or later there is bound to be something that will catch anyone off guard. This one sent me looking in the DSM for 'batshit crazy' but I couldn't find it. I'm sure this guy had all the criteria though. Yowsa! I am currently taking comfort in the fact that it is very rare for lifers to serve anything less than life. A very good thing in this case. Somewhere between now and our next session I'll relocate my empathy - I always do. This person is very sick, but what he did to get a life term in prison... damn! Despite the shock the case is fascinating, as were pretty much all of them. I had a fun dance with a narcissist and am feeling pretty good about the outcome of the session. I 'got' someone in a way he hadn't been gotten before, so that was nice. And I managed an insane schedule with all the institutional regulations entailed without any major train wrecks. A good clinical week!!
Friday was didactic and it was an all day Rorschach training. Our Training Director happened to be the instructor and she absolutely rocks! I'm so excited to be working under her tutelage! And always there are the wonderful examples that people who do these for a living have to offer. "It's Panama because Panama sounds like sandpaper being dragged across the grass" Um.. right. One of the interns from another site got seriously hassled for wearing the wrong clothes to didactic. It is on the outside of the fence, but still on prison grounds where level I inmates work, so the same rules apply. He had to go to town and actually buy new clothes, the poor guy!
Then Friday I got an e-mail from a person I've been trying to contact for months! He is the author of the instrument I want to use as a measure for my dissertation and I was lamenting ever getting hold of him. His note was brief but cordial and he said that I may use his instrument and to please let him know if I find anything interesting. W00T! This has been a major irritant so I am over the moon to be cleared for takeoff, so to speak.
And oh yes, I learned that a very dear friend who has been struggling to get a post doc was placed this week and will be much closer to me for the next year. Yippee!
The cat is doing ok, and seems to be eating a little better, so that's a relief. Now the only flies in my ointment are that I feel ikky this weekend and that wild pigs rooted up our entire yard; front back and sides! Yep, I'm serious. We have javelinas crossed with big domestic pigs that run wild here and breed prolifically. They do enormous damage to the environment, not to mention to our septic system and our water pipes! We're having a stake out in the morning at O:Way Too Early since we heard them squealing and grunting around 5:30 this morning. A few years back this happened and shooting a single pig was enough to make the rest of them stay away from our property for many years. We have some neighbors who want the meat and who have permits, so will try for a repeat performance of last time. I hate to do this, but I'm not up for having my leach line ripped apart and having to put in new pipes.
Friday was didactic and it was an all day Rorschach training. Our Training Director happened to be the instructor and she absolutely rocks! I'm so excited to be working under her tutelage! And always there are the wonderful examples that people who do these for a living have to offer. "It's Panama because Panama sounds like sandpaper being dragged across the grass" Um.. right. One of the interns from another site got seriously hassled for wearing the wrong clothes to didactic. It is on the outside of the fence, but still on prison grounds where level I inmates work, so the same rules apply. He had to go to town and actually buy new clothes, the poor guy!
Then Friday I got an e-mail from a person I've been trying to contact for months! He is the author of the instrument I want to use as a measure for my dissertation and I was lamenting ever getting hold of him. His note was brief but cordial and he said that I may use his instrument and to please let him know if I find anything interesting. W00T! This has been a major irritant so I am over the moon to be cleared for takeoff, so to speak.
And oh yes, I learned that a very dear friend who has been struggling to get a post doc was placed this week and will be much closer to me for the next year. Yippee!
The cat is doing ok, and seems to be eating a little better, so that's a relief. Now the only flies in my ointment are that I feel ikky this weekend and that wild pigs rooted up our entire yard; front back and sides! Yep, I'm serious. We have javelinas crossed with big domestic pigs that run wild here and breed prolifically. They do enormous damage to the environment, not to mention to our septic system and our water pipes! We're having a stake out in the morning at O:Way Too Early since we heard them squealing and grunting around 5:30 this morning. A few years back this happened and shooting a single pig was enough to make the rest of them stay away from our property for many years. We have some neighbors who want the meat and who have permits, so will try for a repeat performance of last time. I hate to do this, but I'm not up for having my leach line ripped apart and having to put in new pipes.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
I Love my Job
This past week I met 7 of my casework patients and saw all my individual patients. It was fantastic! All the anxiety about what and how and to whom faded away as soon as I sat down with the people face to face and began talking. So far I'm not frightened of any of my patients, which is good because after reading some of their files I was worried how it would be to sit with them. As with the juvenile offenders, I found no connection between their crimes and my ability to establish rapport or be empathetic. A couple are making power plays, but that's to be expected in this population and especially because I am a woman. A couple are just delightful, which means I'll have to be extra cautious about my work with them.
Casework is really social work, which is not my specialty, but I'm learning the ropes in terms of services and resources as fast as I can. Thankfully some will prefer to use this time as mini-therapy sessions. I'll be setting up for my first psych eval next week too. Just getting consent to begin with, since it's a 3 day week and I don't have time to do anything more.
We had another Friday didactic and I got to know my fellow interns a bit better. They're a great group and I love the intellectual stimulation. I also learned that once can do an automatic 3 year loan deferment without cause, which changed my whole future perspective! Our institution has a loan repayment program and is increasing the number of spots next year. I can't apply until I'm licensed, so I think I might try for an informal postdoc at the local forensic mental hospital to get the more forensic training offered there (more testing and some court work) and then transfer back to the prison after I license to pay off my loans (the hosp doesn't have the repayment program). It's all just daydreams at the moment, but they're different daydreams thanks to this new info.
Nearly everything in my life is up up up, but there always has to be at least one cloud in the sky. My oldest sister is married to a terribly manipulative and abusive man. She has been cut off from the family for about 15 years, but 5 years ago she began sending holiday cards and has been gradually more in communication with us. Now suddenly her husband has gotten involved and sent a really nasty couple of letters to me, full of mixed messages and veiled threats. I had forgotten how sick and twisted their relationship really was and over the years began to doubt whether maybe I'd misinterpreted the whole situation somehow. Nope, thanks to my training I can now see it even more clearly, and it ain't pretty. As a matter of fact, the suspicion that I had all those years ago has been confirmed beyond a doubt. My BIL is not just abusive, he qualifies as a psychopath. Delightful. I can add him to the family roll of people with this nice set of mental traits. At least now though I know how to avoid being played.
Always some damned thing, isn't there? But that's ok, this really isn't new, it's just coming back around, so I'll simply set clear boundaries with him, let her know I love her and I'm here, and walk away. Life is too promising and too full of good things to dive back into this mudhole.
Casework is really social work, which is not my specialty, but I'm learning the ropes in terms of services and resources as fast as I can. Thankfully some will prefer to use this time as mini-therapy sessions. I'll be setting up for my first psych eval next week too. Just getting consent to begin with, since it's a 3 day week and I don't have time to do anything more.
We had another Friday didactic and I got to know my fellow interns a bit better. They're a great group and I love the intellectual stimulation. I also learned that once can do an automatic 3 year loan deferment without cause, which changed my whole future perspective! Our institution has a loan repayment program and is increasing the number of spots next year. I can't apply until I'm licensed, so I think I might try for an informal postdoc at the local forensic mental hospital to get the more forensic training offered there (more testing and some court work) and then transfer back to the prison after I license to pay off my loans (the hosp doesn't have the repayment program). It's all just daydreams at the moment, but they're different daydreams thanks to this new info.
Nearly everything in my life is up up up, but there always has to be at least one cloud in the sky. My oldest sister is married to a terribly manipulative and abusive man. She has been cut off from the family for about 15 years, but 5 years ago she began sending holiday cards and has been gradually more in communication with us. Now suddenly her husband has gotten involved and sent a really nasty couple of letters to me, full of mixed messages and veiled threats. I had forgotten how sick and twisted their relationship really was and over the years began to doubt whether maybe I'd misinterpreted the whole situation somehow. Nope, thanks to my training I can now see it even more clearly, and it ain't pretty. As a matter of fact, the suspicion that I had all those years ago has been confirmed beyond a doubt. My BIL is not just abusive, he qualifies as a psychopath. Delightful. I can add him to the family roll of people with this nice set of mental traits. At least now though I know how to avoid being played.
Always some damned thing, isn't there? But that's ok, this really isn't new, it's just coming back around, so I'll simply set clear boundaries with him, let her know I love her and I'm here, and walk away. Life is too promising and too full of good things to dive back into this mudhole.
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