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13 August, 2005 - 1:22 p.m.
Closure

Aaah. Closure. It's a wonderful feeling. That's pretty much all I have to say. I hate feeling like I'm in the middle of something and I don't know what's going on. Now I know. And I feel better. (I told y'all that I'd have to wait until he got back to make up my mind.)

12 August, 2005 - 10:59 p.m.
in other news...

Philip Klass died. He was a big UFO debunker. We studied some of his stuff when I took that class on UFOs back in undergrad. Man, that class rocked. And yes, I am a nerd.

But it's ok. I live fairly close to a state where you can't say BREAST on the radio.

10 August, 2005 - 11:40 p.m.
a benefit!

When I was about 12 years old, I went to get my hair cut with my mom, like always. A woman looked at my hair and said, "better dead than red", which made me feel pretty good, as a redhead. Lots of people make assumptions about redheads. Like, "you must have a temper." Or "You're Irish!" I don't really have much of a temper, but I am Irish by heritage. But I'm also Scottish, German, and Norweigan. Finally, there is a benefit to my redness.

And my fight against Dr. Phil is still on. I would also blame him for this.

09 August, 2005 - 10:42 p.m.
who wants some drama?

I got my second reprimand at work because of things that I didn't say. I'm getting tired of the misguided game of telephone. Nobody asks "did you do this?" or "did you say this?" or even tells you where the information is coming from. They yell at you and literally state that they don't care if it's true or not. It's really bringing me down. I was told to reconsider whether or not I want to work in this field. WTF? Uh. Yeah. I want to do this. It's all I've ever wanted to do. My midterm evaluation was filled out by someone who's never been to my groups or seen me with patients. It's all a misguided game of telephone. I emailed my advisor because my needs as an intern are not being met. I asked if he would consider letting me go somewhere else. He said no prob and asked if I had any suggestions and if anything else was going on. Here is my response:

I'm having a bit of a rough time, but I felt determined to stick it out and finish up here. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the limited amounts of supervision I get. I'm ok with my midterm evaluation (which I will bring to you), but I don't understand where the information came from. No one has come to my groups or seen me working with patients, so I don't really get how I can be evaluated on things people haven't seen. I scored "average" or above on everything, so it's not the rating that bothers me. It's that it seems that I am rated on hearsay and I'm not getting constructive criticism even when I ask for it. I feel that I would benefit from more structured supervision, because everything I'm learning, I'm learning on my own. I'm handling the workload and the stress pretty well and I'm definitely doing a lot better since L moved out. I'm sure that if I had enough money to get there and back every day, I could finish up and be fine with it. I haven't had an income since Spring semester ended and my resources are drying up quicker than I thought.

I got reprimanded by TheBoss today (MySupervisor is off this week) because a patient complained about something that I supposedly said. I didn't say it or anything like it (and I don't understand how the statement was attributed to me) and I was told by TheBoss that she didn't care whether or not I said it. It feels like that game "telephone" that you play in elementary school where things people say get retold until they are unrecognizably distorted. But it doesn't matter whether I said it or not, because she's counting it as an official reprimand, and after the one when I first started here (and you came down for an extra meeting with me and MySupervisor), if anything else is reported (true or not), I'm out of here. I'm pretty irritated about it, but I'm still working positively. If no one supervises my groups, how can they account for the quality of my work? If a patient states that I've said something, how can I defend myself or truthfully deny it when my side doesn't matter?

I have had compliments from the MHTs that sit in on my adolescent groups, but I don't think that anyone asks them about my performance. I've been told that I engage well with the kids and that I keep them interested and that they actually learn things in my groups. I've had compliments from patients as well, that I do my job well and that they can tell I'm not here for the paycheck ("unlike some people", is usually what goes with that) and that something I said has helped them learn to cope better. I feel confident in my abilities, but I often wonder how much more I could improve with better supervision.

I was hoping that somewhere in MyCity would have a spot open for me. Maybe C* or even the CounselingCenter on campus. I could email (director) about that later on today. As rough a time as I'm having at MyInternshipSite, I love what I'm doing and I feel good about it. At the end of the day, that's what matters and that's what's been helping me with the stress of everything that's going on here.

**End** Money and the lack of supervision have been bothering me. I've made sacrifices for this internship that are no longer seeming like acceptable alternatives. I literally ate a five pound bag of potatoes (baked) for a week because it was cheap. I ate spaghetti for a week. I ate a pot of chili for a week. I am no longer willing to put myself through this sort of thing for this internship because I am not getting what I need out of it. I just can't do it with a clean conscience. Above all, I follow my conscience.

So yeah, I'm looking for a new site and I'm hoping to get the drop on the administration. I am hoping to meet with my advisor in person to discuss the situation. I am hoping that the fact that I am not the first one to have the same problem at this place will make them consider not sending interns to this place. I have been placed on some sort of watch at the site, meaning that they have someone who is not a counselor and who has no experience in therapy attending my groups so that they can verify whether or not inappropriate things come out of my mouth. I am glad for it because it gives me a witness who can back me up. I wish they'd had that the entire time because I need feedback on my performance. I do wish it was someone who has done counseling, because I need that. I would think that, as a business, it would be in their best interests to watch their interns carefully.

09 August, 2005 - 10:31 p.m.
chronic sense of failure

"The Western psyche, it seems, is increasingly vulnerable to feelings of alienation, longing, emptiness, and unworthiness....We feel unlovable and we carry that feling with us to all of our intimate relationships along with the hope and expectation that such relationships could somehow erase that preexisting feeling. As children, we sense our parents' inabilities to relate to us, their tendencies to treat us as objects or reflections of themselves, and we personalize their inattention, attributing the lack of connection to our own failings."

How trie. I see so many people reliving their childhoods in their current relationships and trying to compensate for that lost sense of love. Including me. Could be why I take it so hard when I get blown off or why rejection bothers me so much. I have this feeling that I've failed in some way. I don't know when that lack of connection became failure in my eyes. In fact, I've been carrying around my little notebook at work with "Rejection does not equal failure." and "Failure is only a change in options." written inside the front cover. So apparently, it is something that has crossed my mind before. I don't know how it came to be that I am a failure when a guy no longer wants to see me or when a relationship doesn't work out.

I feel like I'm reliving this sense of failure I get from my relationship with my father in my relationships with guys. Like, when they're not receptive to me and my efforts, I really beat myself up emotionally for it. I've always done it. As a child, when my dad didn't seem to care and I would work hard to get his attention, I felt like it was a failure on my part and that I wasn't good enough. And so it continues into the present. Maybe knowledge really is power. Maybe because I know all about it, things will change. I don't want to relive this pattern for the rest of my life. I need to learn to depersonalize these issues.

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