Sunday, March 1, 2015

Revisiting Vulnerability on a New Stage


My first day of school picture...the excitement
was equally matched by fear and anxiety
  So, I realized that it has been far too long since I have posted anything, and I helped get myself inspired by reading over the things I have put out there.  This tends to be my pattern when I am getting ready to write in my journal, and given the nature of what I have published on here over the past couple of years, it's not surprising that I would do the same with my blog.  I am amazed at how raw and honest I have been with those of you that follow along and read this.  Some of you I know and spoke with on a regular basis through everything, while others I have not seen in years...maybe there are even a few who I have never met.  And yet, I wrote about things that are sometimes stigmatized, and often times are kept hidden.  It is strange to look back on after such a long absence, maybe because I have stepped away from this practice of public vulnerability. Not to say that I have stopped being vulnerable.  I am still working on it every day, and I have spent the last year learning to vulnerable in a relationship again.  I think the step back from public vulnerability has more to do with jumping in to an incredibly overwhelming first year of my professional career.  Being a school counselor, and being brand new, makes me question what I put out there.  I am grateful to work in a district that I do not live it, but even that distance does not get rid of this sense that I am always under investigation.  And I am very aware that this blog is open to any and all who happen to stumble across it.  So, I question how vulnerable I can be while still being trusted as a professional.  Which I find to be incredibly ironic, seeing as I strive to help kids open up and I preach the strengths of vulnerability.


   Sometime around December, the superintendent of my district tasked the counselors with spearheading a Mental Health Awareness initiative in all of the schools for the month of February.  The focus was on erasing stigma around mental health and educating students and staff on signs to look out for within themselves and those around them.  Our main message was that stigma can only be addressed by allowing ourselves to talk about mental health.  Yet, part way through the month I found myself overwhelmed by stress from my job, and feeling my own mental health faltering.  And during a month spent on telling others to talk about it, I felt ashamed that I couldn't pull it together perform at unreasonable standards I had set for myself.  When there is so much stigma surrounding mental health, mental illness, or really anything suggesting that we are less than perfect...I can't blame others for wanting to stay quiet.  I guess I hope that my willingness to lay it all on the table will help others feel a little more comfortable.So, this is my attempt to talk about it again.

One crazy adventure and more to come
   I will work on writing on here more often.  I forgot how healing it was in a past, and I am grateful to those who have followed along with words of encouragement.  I am not sure what this blog will look like, besides the crazy adventures I find myself in, I also hope to talk about my journey in learning who I am as a school counselor.  Don't worry, I will throw in some stories from the students I work with for comic relief.  Like the time when one of the 5th grade boys pulled a "that's what she said" joke and I had to give him my teacher glare while I silently laughed inside.  Or the other time when a high school student blamed me for ruining her senior year because I wouldn't change the classes that she had requested to be in last year...wait that happened twice.