“I love you dear Liberty.”

Today’s post is going to stray away from my usual banter about my personal life and my twisted world. Today I am going to tell you about a client. This story makes me smile… sometimes it makes me scared… but it mostly makes me smile.

You see, I have this client, that for the sake of story-telling we will call Bob (names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved). Bob has suffered from a chronic mental illness for the last 20 or so years of his life. Bob is one of the people that I have the pleasure of providing services to on a daily basis. The quirky thing about Bob is the fact that he is eternally and passionately in love with a certain woman.

Bob will do anything to see this woman. He adores her. He admires her. He speaks wonders of her. He dreams about her. He admits to loving her (not something many human beings do… openly…). Bob’s lady, the love of his life is… drumroll please…

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.

Every day that this client comes to see us he politely asks for a picture of the statue of liberty. At first I (and a few of the other team members) thought this was the oddest thing to ask for… but we simply googled “statue of liberty” and found him an image. Did you know that today there are about 1,800,000 image results for this query? (Yes I checked… what can I say… I was worried we would RUN out of pics!).

What’s really funny is that Bob is very particular about his pictures. If we’ve already given him a picture he will remember and ask us to print him out another one. Some days he wants just face shots… other days he wants full body pictures of his gleaming beauty.

A few of us think it’s the sweetest thing in the world. Some of us (not naming any names Ms. L) even spoil him by giving him TWO or THREE pictures in one day! The weirdest thing about this all is the fact that no matter what kind of day Bob is having things always get better for him once he sees a picture of his lady liberty.

This dude reminds me EVERYDAY of my life (except for weekends… I try not to think about my clients on weekends!) that the simple things in life are what’s important…

I think I’m going to start printing pictures of Clark Kent on a daily basis for myself… who knows… Bob sees Liberty’s green skin as the most beautiful thing in the world… I could get used to the tall, dark and handsome cutie in prescription frames.

Until next time…

Your friendly neighborhood SW!

2 comments August 12, 2010

Ch… ch… ch… Changes…

I think we’ve established that I am a social worker. This is the profession I chose out of love and passion for my field. I chose it because my mentor really said it was an amazing field. I can’t thank her enough for introducing me to this amazing adventure.

Of course, every good has its bad. On a daily basis I am in touch with everyone’s emotions. My days are jam-packed with individual sessions and client interactions that are not only amazingly fulfilling but they are professionally enriching. I can honestly say that the actual “work” that I do is absolutely what I need to be doing. So where is the bad right? The bad comes… in all shapes and sizes… usually those shapes and sizes look a whole lot like humans. Worker humans not client humans!

So here I am completely adoring my job and my clients and there are all of these outside factors making it bitter-sweet to go to work. This week has been especially difficult as more changes are happening. This week we are saying goodbye to amazing friends who are finishing their internships. This week we are opening the doors to new counselors. Then on top of it all we have to deal with personality clashes that overshadow the real meaning behind this week; the real meaning behind the work that we do. All these changes are difficult. I can imagine if they are difficult for me… how difficult are they for our clients?

I’m pretty sure I’ve said before that I don’t like change. There’s a lot of changes this week. Some good, some not so good. So as I sit here and take a deep breath in I can only hope that all these changes turn out for the best. Now more than ever I am absolutely thankful that I have such a solid foundation at home. Being able to come back to a peaceful environment where I feel at ease is what I need this week. Some additional part-time entertainment is bound to help too…

Until next time…

Your friendly neighborhood SW.

1 comment August 9, 2010