2012

In the last few weeks, as Christmas crept up on me and as I completed the last of my classwork and exams for the semester, I have had a gigantic revelation.

I am going to be starting practicum and internships in September of 2012.

REPEAT: I will be a BRAND-FREAKING-NEW, TOTALLY INEXPERIENCED THERAPIST THREE MONTHS BEFORE DEC. 21ST, 2012.

You may be thinking to yourself, "So what? It is all a bunch of hooey anyway."

Well, the Y2K thing was a bunch of hooey that cost a few hundred thousand computer geeks millions of hours of manpower recoding, massive hoarding, mob-like behavior, looting, and worse. It didn't even happen, yet it was still a tragic event.

I have NO DOUBT that if we went THAT NUTS over computers crashing, that the looming social disruption over the potential END OF THE WORLD will cause much MORE disruption.

And then, the super-nutty, anxious, psychotic people are going to come to see me. Me.

I really wanted to work with SMI (Severe Mental Illness) like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Schizophrenia.

Can you IMAGINE the world of a paranoid schizophrenic around those months?!?

How am I ever going to prepare for this?

This is not normal.

Yikes.

helping

This particular post has been on my heart to write for about a week now, but things have been so out of control and hectic that I have not been able to. I hope that the delay did not remove any of the potency of the words, though.

Last week, I was really ill. I am not talking about flu-like ill. I am talking about not really being conscious except for moment or maybe up to an hour at a time. My fever ran between 101 and 103, my body hurt as though I had been ran over by a truck, and an infection had eaten away so much of my tonsils that the doctors decided it was pointless to take them out- they were already gone. I faded in between sleep and wakefulness, but was never really certain which state I was in as dreams were about daily stuff and daily stuff didn't stop because I was sick. I was exceedingly blessed on several accounts: 1. I had the presence of mind, when it was first really bad, to recognize that I was incapable of taking care of the kids at the moment. I don't mean it would have been hard. I don't mean it would have been miserable. I mean, I realized that even if I wanted to, keeping them would have been nothing short of neglect and endangerment. 2. I was able to, within a few moments, reach out and get some help. Help was accessible, help did not need explanations or even payment. It was there when I needed it. 3. Of course, I am exceedingly blessed to have been born during a time and in a place where antibiotics are readily available.

But this is about number 2 on that list. As these things do, the fever passed, the chills abated, my throat is still healing. However, as I was on the mend, I lay in bed praying about how exceedingly grateful to have been surrounded by such willing and able assistance. My mom came down to stay with the kids one day, a dear friend watched them another. Another dear friend shuttled them to and fro, and yet another made the family dinner when I could not. That is a sample of the people who were right there, and there were handfuls more who wanted to help but all my needs had been met.

What an amazing blessing.

So, I prayed, and prayed, and thanked Our Father for having surrounded me with so many, many people who were willing to be there for me when I really needed them. I contemplated this in prayer while thinking about another friend who was recently lamenting that she didn't feel right asking for or receiving help because she felt like relationships in her life would then become unbalanced.

"Could this be?" I prayed.

I surveyed larger helps and smaller helps that I had both given and received in recent years. My mom in particular LOVES to help. She loves to be there when we really need her to be. She thrives on ensuring that I, as her daughter, and the kids, as her grandchildren, are safe and comfortable. If helping is her love language, then refusing her help would be wrong. It would be the equivalent of telling Daegan, "No! I will not play with you! I will not hug you!" when quality time is HIS love language. By being gracious and accepting her help, I am allowing her to say to us, "I love you, and I want this for you."

What about the help I both give and get from my friends? Is that wrong? I do pay more attention when it comes to non-family about maintaining the balance... but I also know that things come in waves. A friend may have a difficult few months, and I don't hesitate to help. Likewise, if I go through a rough or stressful time, I never feel badly about leaning on the community when I need to.

But is it wrong? Are we supposed to stand independently on our own two feet, and deal with whatever needs we have in a private and inefficient manner? Am I less of a person for being so integrated into the community? Is willingness to help/ask for help a sign of weakness of character?

As I prayed on these issues, I felt God speak to my heart.

Sweet child. Remember how you feel when you help someone? You feel like you have shown that person your love for them, like you have had a moment to teach your children proper values, and generally feel like you are doing MY work. When you ask someone for help, you are BLESSING them with the opportunity to do the same. Imagine a world where no one had the opportunity to express their willingness to help someone they really cared about! When you ask for help, you are BLESSING someone, and it is a real gift to do so. You allow them to practice their values. You allow them to strengthen their core belief systems, increase their self esteem. I designed you that way- people are meant to live and work together! 

This message was so very profound, and so indicative of HIS love, that I wanted to pass it on. If you are hesitating to ask for help when you need it, don't hesitate any more. Allow people to do for you. If they don't or can't then... well, then they won't. So how can you worry about inequity?

Bless someone by asking for their help, even if it is something small. You may be amazed at how loved you feel and how loved they feel at the end of the exchange. 

PS. To all those who WERE my helping hands this week, THANK YOU. From the bottom of my heart. I feel incredibly blessed to have you in my life.

An Interesting Dream I Had Last Night...

The dream opens in CA, in a nice, grassy front yard with a large table and chairs. Around the table, eating a meal, are a group of people chatting cheerfully about the weather and about each other. It is known implicitly that this is a resistance group, although it is not known yet who they are resisting or if they are the villains or the protagonists.


Then, the bell tolls. Everyone quickly disperses. Very quickly, but not rushed. I tuck myself into an empty closet, but don’t get to the trap door to the hiding spot in time.

This is where we are introduced to the 2ND Creations. They look human, but average between 6’7” and 7”. They are exceedingly bright, and can pick up languages upon their first or second encounter with them. They are also extremely strong.

As I slowly closed the closet door so as not to attract attention, a female 2ndC came around and spotted me. She sent me a pitying glance, not malicious at all. “Come on,” she said. She picked me up with absolutely no effort, an indication of her strength.

I saw, as we were leaving, the eyes of the other resistance fighters peaking through doorways which they had also not had time to close. They looked scared, I felt reserved.

I was carried like an infant, tucked over her shoulder, until I reached a facility where they were taking all the resistance fighters.

There, in an encounter with a 2ndC, I was told the back story. God, seeing how pleased he was with his first creation, decided to make another species. This 2ndC explained that among their kind, there was a myth that God wanted to see which was a stronger creation, the first having been created to survive on faith alone and the second being granted a physical, communicative relationship with the Creator. So, among the first creation would be sent a child with all the abilities of an ordinary first creation, but with some special skill intended to give the first creations a weapon against the second creation.

The 2ndC had made a critical error and presumed that the child would be a little boy, so among the resistance fighters they were looking for a male child… their advanced intellect had one major flaw: it was designed to recognize and look for symmetry. They were expecting God to send back an incarnation of Jesus, his one and only son.

They never expected that what God had actually sent was his one and only daughter to save the world a second time…