Emotional Rollercoaster…

Good Day Folks…
(Sighs…) Where do I begin….Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Ok, I’ll give you the good newsJ. I made my very first treatment referral today! I’m talking about the whole shebang…referral form, letter to parent, log book, contact with the agency, etc.... (Thanks for the support Natalie!). I was thrown out into the deep treatment waters and I survived! O yea, O yea! I feel…like I’ve just helped someone and to tell you the truth, it feels good. So, now….the bad news….

The Strengthening Families Coping Resources group ENDED LAST NIGHT!!!....(sad face). I was so blown because I wasn’t expecting it to end, especially since my group was so excited about coming back. The reason it ended was because one family didn’t come and the 3rd family dropped out. That just goes to show that no matter how great your idea is, sometimes things may not work out as planned but “you gotta work with whatcha got”…and that’s what we did.

The “Doe Family” arrived……Wait, lets rewind <<<<<<<…..Justine (Prevention/Community Outreach Coordinator) and I went to pick up the food for the meeting and let me just say that we were amazed at how much time and attention that was put in the preparation of this meal (there was even a little note in the box). Special shout out goes to Carma’s Café located at 3120 Saint Paul St! All the specialty sandwiches were placed neatly in individual, labeled bags for convenience; we had soup, chips, tea fixings, salad and my favorite….CUPCAKES!!!! I was so tempted to keep them for myself, but I knew that if I were to walk in with frosting on my face, Id be caughtJ. The staff members were really nice too. Oh yea, the good thing about the cupcakes is that I still got to eat most of them because a good number of the BCAC staff members are doing the Ultimate Biggest Loser weight loss competition…so they’re all eating salads, special K bars and lean cuisines. More for me!!

Before the “Doe Family” came, I was saying to myself, “How in the world am I going to interact with them…the kids hardly talked last week.” Thankfully we had a great team and we all worked together to get the job done. They came in and we began our ritual…the ritual NO ONE seemed to want to do…the ritual they agreed to do (sighs). So, the smallest child decided to sing the alphabet song…(short and sweeeeet!). We went on to discuss family moments and they made a poster board together for display. All through out this project the oldest daughter seemed very, very uncomfortable and withdrawn. I was getting aggravated because I just thought she was being difficult; especially when she didn’t want to take a picture with the family beside the poster. The brother was very upset as well because he didn’t understand why his sister was acting that way. He just thought she wanted to be a “Goth” and she was just being complicated.


We moved on to plant the family garden. The garden…was the most nerve wrecking thing for me because the youngest daughter had SO MUCH energy…she was literally all over the place. All I could think about was “dirt shower”. (Mind you, I’m not a big fan of dirt). To my surprise, she did better than I thought, but she did man-handle the flowers though :0). I admire her mother’s patience.

Ok, so …the mother tried to talk to the oldest daughter, but she wouldn’t talk so she asked her if she would write it on paper…she agreed. Come to find out, the daughter was having flashbacks of previous trauma incidents and they were flooding her mind. Can you say CRISIS INTERVENTION? Talk about intense. There were tears and mood changes…the whole nine. I felt kind of bad for being aggravated at her earlier…I didn’t know. This is why it’s not cool to judge a book by its cover. Thanks to Ruby and Kyla…two awesome social workers, the situation was addressed. I’m not sure what happened because I was attempting to entertain the youngest daughter in the other room (didn’t work).

Needless to say, I just didn’t expect all of that to happen, but I can say that BCAC is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get…

Peace & Blessings,
TMP