Guest Blogger Coll: Well, Duh continued

Coll posted this in response to my last post, "Well, Duh." Thanks, Coll -- response follows.

Coll said: I think that there are a lot of reasons that working in this field is wonderful for some of us, and awful for others, and I think what you say is part of that.

When you study psychology and mental health, they usually teach it to you as if it's a science; and certainly a fair amount of it is. But when you come into contact with patients, it's also about who you are, and I think that makes it as much an art as it is a science. Me, I love that. I love that both sides matter.

It didn't take long, out of school, to understand that it's a myth that only people who have their shit totally together can do this work. That was a major relief, trust me. It's even better when I see that some of the stuff that could get underfoot in my life can work for me on the job.

My social life has involved some trainwrecks; let's say, some ... difficult women, with resultant whiplash of the heart on my part. Nothing I feel very bad about, but enough give me an interesting story or two. Now, I find myself working very comfortably with an inpatient group of women.

It can be tricky; I'm a male working on a ward full of women. The estrogen alone can make me crabby every month. But it has been four years, now, and it's generally been a good experience, both for me, and, I hope, for them. At least, for the most part, they trust me, and believe I'm working to keep them safe and help them work to get better. And that's no small thing.

On my first shift, there, I took a group of them out for a smoke break. One of them looks at me, and asks, "So, how's it feel to be out with six crazy women?""Well, it's more efficient than college," I said. "Then, I did it one at a time." I'm smug about being able to come up with that quip on the spot, but I also think of it as the start of a working arrangement with people who don't always have much reason to trust men. I like them, with occasional exceptions, and I hope that the fact that they can see that helps the work.

And I've noticed something. I've noticed that whatever lingering part of me has this wish to help women who don't really know how to take care of themselves ... that part of me gets to do it where it can be channeled into something useful. And, because it's not my personal life, I don't seem to get tangled up in my own stuff. That's not as simple or as easy as I make it sound, but if you work in this field, and you've thought about yourself, as you have, M, you probably know what I mean. Hope so, anyway. So, when I run into it away from work, I don't get pulled in. Or I haven't so far. And, like you, I keep learning things about myself. I love that.

I don't need crazy at home; I gave at the office.

Madeline says: Thanks, Coll. I remember having these conversation with my own therapist while I was in graduate school in which I would worry that I was too crazy to be a social worker. I'm sure you would agree with me, Coll, that you do have to have your shit reasonably together to work with psychiatric patients if you want to to be effective and responsible. I'm going to challenge you a little, though, because I think we all get a little tangled in our stuff from time to time -- whether we act upon whatever we get caught up in, or whether we bring it home with us -- or not. I think it's an inevitability. But believe me, nobody -- but nobody -- has their shit totally together.

One of the more obvious ironies you clue into here in the real world (as opposed to grad school) is that if you're worrying about whether you're crazy, you're probably not. Neurotic, yes, but not crazy. One of the less obvious ones is that spending your time ruminating on whether and to what extent you are crazy is both a total luxury and a total waste of time. Postmodern rhetoric as to whatever "crazy" might actually mean aside, (I've gotten tired of the recurrence of cheesy song titles and lyrics in my posts, and am now switching to the phrase, "postmodern rhetoric" as my leitmotif (while simultaneously winking at both the reader and postmodernism itself with witty, self-referential asides, thus reassuring us all that I remain a postmodern girl; I think it'll make me seem smart)) I'm not the least bit concerned if my patients are crazy or not -- I'm concerned with whether they can function or not. Craziness vs. sanity is totally irrelevant. I'm just looking for people's lives to work for them a little better.

I like to tell myself, when I remember those conversations with my therapist, that I didn't mean "crazy" in the severely impaired sense, but rather as self-deprecating short-hand to express actual anxieties over specific vulnerabilities that could get in the way of me and my patients. Or maybe I was just wasting my therapeutic hours staring at my navel. Who's to know for sure? As they say, what you see depends on where you sit.

Madeline