How It Went...um...Two Weeks Ago...

At some point I decided it was the client's issues that had to be dealt with and not mine. That seemed to take the edge off. There is a bit of adventure as well, travelling the highways to find the client's home, meeting the client and the constellation of relatives, plumbing the depths of the client's life, finding clues as to why the client wound up in the mess they're in. That all comes without effort to me, as that I'm basically nosy enough ask the right questions.

Lives unfold like blossoms once I get into their business. It's all rather fascinating. The challenge is to be of any use to them once I'm all up in their stuff. We therapists have an out...we can say that the client has to WANT to change if we are to be of any use. This is a true saying. But it doesn't absolve me of nervous fits. If all I have to do is worry about what I already do well, then I should stop worrying, right?

Of the other clients, for which I was procrastinaing, I finally called all their homes except one. All those others had disconnected phones. The one I omitted was a previous case where I had been booted off the case by the Mom because she had smacked the child up and left bruises and scratches. So I reported it, and she didn't take kindly to it. The child was in a different living environment now so I thought I'd re-take the case, but I realized that I was still upset by the past events, so I passed on it.

The agency wasn't upset it the slightest for the delay, and just started offering me other cases. I'm going to go ahead and believe that I do good work and that my anxiety is apropriate at certain levels, but not apropriate if it's going to cripple me. Plus, I can believe that I needed to take a break, and having done so, I have energy to take on new work.

And get this; I had a 2nd interview with my old company for the Perth Amboy position. Everything seems good, but my interviewer was mostly concerned that I live in NYC and would I be able to make it on time for work on the daily. That's when I learned that my job position had changed somewhat since I've been gone. (The changes implemented by the committee I was on before I left! What a hoot! So I knew what the changes were because we'd discussed them in Trenton and I had even made suggestions that seems to have come to pass. It was a blast listening to this guy tell me what I had not only known, but had a hand in inventing!) So the new job is more like paperwork and distance-supervision. That's way more appealing to me, since I plan on doing therapy in the other arenas. My fulltime job can be just me doing paperwork, and at night I take off my glasses, rip open my shirt, and expose the big red 'S' on my chest.

And get this--this morning, I had a phone interview with a BIG healthcare provider to do phone case management for the insured of that provider. They had teased me in January, and I had heard nothing until they did another mailing at the beginning of April. So I responded again, and went further with the process this time.

Wait, and one more thing.

The application for my NY license arrival in the mail on Monday. NY State finally got its' you-know-what together. So I'll be finishing that and sending it off as soon as I've made enough money to pay the pirate's fee. It still could take months for the paperwork process to finish, and then it'll be months to become a healthcare provider with NY insurance companies (if the present NJ situation is any indication) so I just take the fulltime work in NJ when/if offered.

If I get no fulltime NJ work (if for some reason they feel like they can't use my winning personality and saavy mental health knowledge ;-@) then I can still increase the hours with these at-risk kids, and keep the Starbucks job.

Quite a different story than that of a month ago, huh? I swear I don't know what went wonky, but if it happens again, I'm going to seek psychiatric treatment. I can't sfford to drop out of society like that again.

And now I have to show cause to the courts that I'm good for the money I owe by May 13th, and prevent getting evicted. This time, I don't intend on hitting anybody up for money, so my evidence better be good.

I had posted previously that I believed there'd be a Change, and here it is.

Hey Des! Still doing well, I see! Gave Bruce my e-mail addy, huh?

Me at 4/20/2005 11:48:00 AM

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