Meeting with Jolene and reading a book called "The art of extreme self-care" is kicking my butt. I'm realizing that I have had in my mind "I'll do ___ when I graduate" regardless of what ___ was. I am, as Author Cheryl Richardson puts it, "the good girl". That has been my identity for so long I don't know any other way to live. My supervisor Becky says it's like taking on other people's trash. Put that way, I want to get rid of this habit. Now. Not that I want to be a "bad girl" over night or something, but I need to learn how to take care of me and my needs in the process of healing. That feels so foreign to the way I have been thinking, and reading this book is getting me to think about taking better care of ME. As someone in training for counseling, that's incredibly foreign, and I'm not sure that the 'Old Amy' (Aka- pre-stroke Amy) was all that healthy or had things figured out either.
I was feeling a few weeks ago like I wasn't doing something right if I wasn't connecting instantly to my clients at my internship. One of my supervisors pointed out that the counseling I am involved with there is very brief and crisis oriented, and that is not what we are taught at my school. She thinks that it's more of a problem with trying to put a square peg in a round hole. My experiences of what I have been taught aren't fitting this model of my internship because they are two different models. It feels like it doesn't fit, when really it is like comparing apples to pears- they're just different.
I've been reading this book, "Imagining Redemption" by David Kelsey. SUCH a good book, but it has been hitting too close to home on so many levels. I picked it up for my Theology class, but God has had other plans for it in my life. David Kelsey (the author) uses the example of a little boy, Sam, who contracts a rare disease and is in the hospital and in a coma for several months. He is changed forever, has cognitive difficulties, and his father has to grieve the loss of the little boy and the dreams he has held for him that will never be. It's my last paper for this class, but in writing the reflection paper, I'm realizing so many things that I need to still process. My family has had to do that too (grieving), and I've had to do that for the "old Amy" and some of my old dreams. Not that they'll never happen now, but just not in the time frame I had originally envisioned. I have become a wreck, an emotional basket-case, when I think of all that I have gone through in the last year and a half. I'm very grateful to still be here, and the second chance is great, but it has come at a very personal price. I'm very grateful that the Lord has given me people along the way that also have had to endure hardships and we can share what we have gone through together. I have started to go to a young Stroke Survivors support group, and found people there that have the same worries and fears that I have gone through. Finally there are other people there that get it. A piece of my heart that was longing for a home and acceptance has found a place to belong again. I've needed that belonging in so many ways. It's not perfect, but it's a start. A start towards healing & redemption.
And those are my thoughts for tonight :)
Love,
Amy Christine
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