What's Up Susan?

Hey there....wow....what a week I have had. I am now doing my own assesments, evaluations, diagnosis and setting up appointment for intake. It's alot, I know but I am picking things up much quicker than any of us expected. Normally in one month, one can usually say they know how a person is, what makes them tick, how they 'roll'...well, I can say I now know how most of my co-workers and superiors 'roll'. My buddy Dawn is calling it 'The New Zoo Review' and she is very dead on the money. I have never seen such a variety of personalities....very STRONG personalities..in my life.

I am the third person in a 3 counselor staff...well four if you count one dude who doesn't do regular stuff....I want so badly to go into detail but that isnt a smart thing to do...suffice it to say that I am paying my dues by being treated like a retarded, ignorant person who knows nothing and is available to be talked down to, about and my feelings are disregaded as being unimportant. Such is the life of a new employee. My goal is to learn my job as quickly as possible so I will need to have as little contact as possible with superiors. That appears to be how it works there. Everyone is doing their own thing, not interacting much unless we are in a staff meeting. I hope to reach this level soon. Being treated like an ignorant underling is good inspiration for learning as much as I can as quickly as I can.

It is my weekend and I enjoy these days off so much. I am having second thoughts about my second thoughts. I need this job. I am not going to make any life altering decisions until after I have begun to get paid. That starts on the 1st of September. Once this happens, I am sure my attitude will change. We can do all sorts of things we didnt' think possible if there is a paycheck involved, right? As it stands now, I am an indentured servant, working for free...well, not for free. I am being paid by gaining valuable knowledge of how it is to be a drug and alcohol counselor. I am being given excellent examples of how NOT to be daily.

One is not supposed to dominate their 3 hours IOP groups by talking about themselves, continously, repeatedly and endlessly. One of my co-workers does just that. These poor clients are forced to sit in a room and listen to this man go on nd on about himself, his old life, what he did to get high, how he got high, where he got high and who he got high with. It is as if he is reliving his addictive lifestyle daily. As far as I know, reliving and glamorizing those days is not a healthy way to a serene sobriety. Glamorizing the illegal and immoral aspects of our pasts is not healthy. Neither is talking about ones self for 3 hours when there are people sitting there wanting to talk, to share their experiences in getting sober. This is the whole reason for having 'Group therapy'...for them to be able to communicate with one another, giving feedback and process their issues together, leaning on one another for support, guidance, input and feedback....but to have to sit there for hour after hour, unable to get word in edgewise must be so frustrating. I cant bear it myself and I am not paying any money to be in there. If I had been forced to pay $3,000.00 for intensive outpatient therapy and was never allowed to speak, I would be taking names and numbers and taking steps to correct the situation. As it sits, these people dont' really want to be there to begin with, so not having to be put on the spot by talking about their feelings is probably just fine with them. That takes them off of the hot seat and allows them to just sit there, blending into the background while the center of the universe carries on ad lidum.....ooops I did what I said I wasn't going to do. I had better stop now.

I haven't heard from my number one fan in a few days...I hope they are doing well....(wink wink)
Talk with yall later.......

Do You Know This Person

Tell me if you recognize this person.
They have already:

Been there,
done that,
seen it,
invented it,
worked it,
ate it,
fucked it,
smelled it,
tasted it,
walked by it,
owned it,
bought it,
sold it,
had it,
got rid of it,
found it,
smoked it,
snorted it,
shot it up,
choked it down,
drank it,
spit it out,
found it,
lost it,
painted it,
wore it,
created it,
lived in it.....

And they love to tell you about all of it. Nothing you have to say registers with them. They are so busy waiting for you to take that one breath when you finish your sentence so they can talk to one up you. They didnt' listen to you....they wanted to talk. They wanted to be better than, faster than, smarter than, bigger than, more powerful than...it is exhausting to talk with them because you start to buy into it. Your heart starts beating faster and you are trying to stay focused and just talk but you know they are waiting, like a lion...waiting to pounce on your last word so they can show you up.

Do you know this person? I do. I don't let myself get wrapped up into the competition because I know I won't win. I know I am never going to say anything to this person that is going to make them say, "Wow, that's cool. I've never heard that before."...or, "I didn't know that."...Never gonna happen. How could it? They already know every fucking thing there is to know on this planet.

After you figure out who this person is, you can just sit back and relax, knowing you are never going to get a chance to talk or finish a sentence so just sit back and enjoy the show. They eventually have to come up for air at some point.

Here is a good tip to test yourself to see if you are really listening to a person or if you are just waiting for them to stop talking so you can bombard the conversation with your brilliance....check where the tip of your tongue is. If it is resting, relaxed on the bottom of your mouth, in its little cubby hole tongue spot...then you are truly listening. But If it is pointed, with the tip pressed right behind your top front two teeth, well then my friend...you are not listening. You are waiting to speak and not paying any attention to what is being said to you. You cannot be ready to talk and be actively listening at the same time, it is impossible. Anyone who says they can do this, is lying. They are conversation sabateurs and they are professional and don't ever try to win because unless you are one yourself, you are not ever going to be able to connect and have a meaningful conversation with this person.

Here is how you respond to a person like this...First I have to ask you a question...How does a southern girl say "Fuck You"? Give up?.....they say "That's nice"....so when they stop talking and are looking for your response, go soutern on their ass and say "That's nice" (even boys can use it)

I AM A DRUG COUNSELOR FOR REALS

I AM A PRACTICING,WORKING, GROUP COUNSELING, ONE ON ONEING, EVALUATING, ASSESING, FULL FLEDGED, STATE APPROVED DRUG AND ALCOHOL COUNSELOR INTERN!!!

This week I start one of my own groups, and I will be slowly giving a case load, one patient at a time. The other counselors will slowly start filtering their people over to me and then as new ones sign up, we go on a rotation basis.......CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I AM WORKING AS A COUNSELOR. They gve me my new cards last week but they made a printing error and had me on as being a domestic violence expert (or something like that.) hell, when they laughed and said ,”Well, I guess that was a mistake, you don't know anything about that”.....I wanted so badly to say to them, “I have forgotten more about domestic voilence than most people will ever know” but I didn’t......I just smiled and handed him back the card and will get the new ones this week.......they say

Susan Martin
CDPT
Chemical Dependency Professional

Isn't that great? I didn’t think I was ever going to get a job......now I have to get my paperwork in order with DOH and I will be set. It’s a long story about that......i would love to share it with you but in a conversation. It is long and drawn out and hard to type.

I wish Dad and Mom were around to see this. I bet Joni (stepmonster)is so pissed off that I am doing something good and productive with my life. I have a career......not a stupid job. I am a counselor......god. I know now why we get 3 day weekends.....its because we need them. This is draining as hell, but we get time to reboot......all day Friday all I do is sit in my jammies and sleep, nap, rest.....then I feel better for the rest of the weekend......I am so proud of myself. I will be on payroll by the end of this month, instead of October like they first told me. They thought it was going to take 90 days to train me...I have picked everythign they need me to know in order for me to start working in one month...well, it will be one month on the 16th and I will start being paid on the
17th or the 24th. I am just so pround I could bust. I dont remember being proud of myself much in my life.

I have had alot of emotional support from my little sister in Tennessee, Peggy Sue. I also have had lots of love from Dawn, as much as she drives me crazy.. I Love her to death. She is the child I never had and as long as I continue to think of her that way, it's all good. Yeah, I get mad at her and rant and rave...but at the end of the day, there is no person on earth who knows me better than she does and she can say (and get away with her life when saying them) things to me that no one else can or would.

I love the weather today too. It is cool, raining and perfect for me. NO hot, steamy, humid god damned day. It has cooled considerably since last hell week. This time last week it was already 90 degrees.
ok, I have to get ready for WORK. Bye!

Hey Mom..Look At Me Now!!!

I am doing it~!!! I am working as a chemical dependency counselor. My new boss is very pleased with my rapid progress. I should be running my own groups by the end of this month...meaning I should be getting a pay check too. I have been working on a volunteer basis...which explains why they always laugh at me when I ask "Would it be alright if I went to lunch?" or "Could I possibly take off a half hour early?"..they laugh because I am not on the payroll, nor am I an employee so what i do, and when I do it is my call, not theirs. But in my head, I am an employee and I should ask permission to go home early. However, it shows that I have great respect for my superiors and that when I am on the payroll, they can expect professional behavior from me.

I love this work. It is getting much easier as time progresses. I am pooped on days off however. I slept late yesterday and had very little energy to do much of anything. It felt so good to be lying on my couch, watching TV and NOT feeling guilty for not job hunting. Also, the NOT worrying about what am I going to do when my trust fund runs out because I cannot find a job...I don't have to worry about that anymore. I WILL have a retirement like my mother had planned. I don't have to keep taking money out of that instead of putting money back into it. That is going to become my IRA or my 401K. I don't know if I will have one of those at this job. Here's how badly I wanted it. I DIDN'T EVEN ASK WHAT THE PAY WAS OR IF THEY OFFERED BENEFITS!!!! I just wanted to go to work so badly, those things weren't important to me.

I know once I start getting paid, it will be quite nice. One of my co-workers explained to me why we don't have fancy office supplies. She said, 'Susie doesn't spend any extra money on frills which is why she can afford to give us awesome paychecks." I didn't ask her what she was making, but I have paid attention to this field on line and the pay offered to beginners is always over $15 per hour. I HAVE NEVER MADE MORE THAN $12 AN HOUR AT ANY JOB IN MY LIFE. I had just been given my 'raise' the day before I was fired at Celebrations Catering. I never even got to see it on my paycheck. I am so excited to start getting paid.

The training I am receiving is pricless to me. I feel like I didn't even go to college because NOTHING I learned in there is being used here. NOTHING. Not one thing that we paid to be taught is being used causing me to wonder who it is that puts together the cirriculum. We were only giving one day, one credit for "Assesments and Evaluations"...THAT IS ALL WE DO, ALL DAY LONG!! It is the most important thing we could have been taught and instead of getting an entire quarter on it, we got 8 hours. I have no idea whose brilliance is responsible for that, but I am going to write a letter to Edmonds Comm. College to give them my opinion of what I was taught and how useless it has been for me in the field.

For any of you who don't know me, my saying that I am going to write a letter means nothing to you. For those of you that do know me...you know how serious I take my letter writing. I have been writing letters to express myself all my life. In High School I wrote what i called 'Not quite letters". They were written when I was upset, excited, in love, in hate...when ever I was having a serious feeling and didn't know what to do with it. I had learned by experience to not write those letters and actually give them to the people they were written about. I had made that mistake and it cost me greatly. I had a counselor that suggested I write my letters but just put them in a box and then enjoy the feeling of release while not hurting anyone. That box I used was decorated and very full by the time I left my moms house and took it with me.

Since then I have found a new hobby which is writing letters to the Editor of my local newspaper The Herald. To date, I have had 38 letters published since 1986 when I wrote my first one on how upset I was with the new law making it illegal to ride in the back of a pick up truck. I have some of my best childhood memories that were in the back of my dad's variety of pick up trucks.

Now I am just rambling. I do write letters, I write them for my friends when they need a good letter written to their...oh let's say their boss, x boyfriend, soon to be x boyfriend/girlfriend....ramdon businesses that displeased them in some way...it is a hobby of mine. I Love seeing my letters published in the newspaper. I keep hoping the Herald will offer me a column...with this name 'As Susan Sees It" or.."The World According to Susan"....I'll keep ya posted on the results of that. According to my new best friend (aka Annonymous) I cant interest anyone and my writing sucks..so...we'll see.

Back to my subject. I have been too busy to write in here much but now that I have a few hours...I love my new job. I was having doubts as to whether or not I had made a bad choice...but I didn't. I Love what I have chosen to do with the rest of my life. I actually think I will be good at this. People are already telling my new boss that they like me and can't wait for me to start my own groups, that they want to be in them. Now, that's a great idea I hope she listens to.

OK friends...I am going to go grocery shopping now. I'll talk with ya later