The 15-Year-Old Who Changed Everything

I come from a world of privilege. I grew up in a suburban city with a small town feel. My folks were high school sweethearts and bought their current house before I was born. My family has seen very few divorces, no juvi involvement, and no problems with substance use (or at least none that were talked about). When my dad’s friends come over, there are impromptu jazz jam sessions. Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a sitcom where everything wraps up neatly in the end of every episode with hugs abound and hopeful music rising up in the background as the screen fades to black and the credits begin to roll.

When I first finished college I worked in a residential home for youth in state custody. Coming from my background, it was hard to understand the kids that I worked with. I would never dream of talking to my parents or other adults like that. Why didn’t they just understand that the sooner that they buckled down and followed the rules the sooner they would get more privileges? I received training on how to work effectively with the youth and as I learned their stories I began to think that I understood. But it wasn’t until now, seven years after I first stepped in the door at that first job, that I think I might actually be starting to get it.

Last weekend I met the fifteen-year-old who changed everything. Chad is the little brother of a friend. Said friend and Chad recently moved over 1,000 miles away from the city that Chad grew-up in. Before moving, Chad was living in a crack house and once sold his father a glob of wax by telling him that it was crack. One week after leaving, Chad’s father and best friend were both in jail for different offenses.

Chad made me realize how complex the lives of the youth I worked with are. When I talked to him sometimes I was talking to a fifteen-year-old but most of the time he seemed at least twenty-one. How he would have hated to be placed where I worked! The rules and lack of autonomy would have smothered him. He would have been one of the kids who I accidentally found myself in power struggles with. He would have thought that I was naive and stupid.  But sitting there in my friend’s living room we were both just people talking about TV. 

Burn Out

Whoa, that was quite the hiatus.

Blogging about homelessness is depressing. You watch the same stories of funding cuts and rising numbers of people who are homeless cycle through over and over and over. New programs sprinkle in optimism but it starts to feel like nothing is changing. Eventually, I burnt out.

Burn out is a huge hurdle for human services. Energetic people, especially young people, come to human services with a sense of optimism. They are going to save lives. So many of them walk away, bitter and confused, after only a few years. Nobody ever told them that they wouldn't be doing the saving. Their supervisors didn't teach them to leave their job at the door when they went home at night, if they had supervisors.

When I looked at the tags I've used in the past, I realized that "self care" was never one of them. Maybe because I wasn't doing a good job of it myself? I'm one of those optimistic young people who is at greatest risk of forgetting to put my own self care first.

This time, I'm going to try blogging as a form of self care. Even with all of the depressing stories, blogging reminds me why I do the work I do. It's not so I can help "those" people, it's so "they" can help me.