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Memiors of a listener
INTRODUCTION
I am training to be a counselor which involves a lot of reflective work. We are encouraged to keep a diary to help us write really long dissertations about how we have grown as a person and as a counselor. Names and such have obviously been changed but i want to point out the significance of the 'Dog lady'. I volunteer on a helpline as part of my training and she is a regular caller - who just happens to live very close to me - a point that probably doesn't stand out in this extract. The reason i have posted this is because i have to choose some diary extracts as coursework soon. This is an example of how i usually write my diary and would appreciate any comments regarding how it flows.
Extract
My attempts at avoiding the 'Dog lady' hadn't been very successful. Almost every shift I was on started with me taking her calls. At first I was a bit dubious about talking to her because I got the impression she wasn't particularly keen on having me as a listener. I was always expecting her to ask for a supervisor when she heard my voice, but so far she hadn't. When i thought about her i had mixed feelings. On the one hand she was the 'ice breaker' to starting a shift, getting my mind into gear. However, i was getting increasingly annoyed with myself as i felt i was using the same expressions all the time: "Oh, that's good", "You've been busy then" and "Uh-hu" - the last probably more so because she wasn't the clearest speaker in the world, especially once she had taken her medication. I found it a struggle to think of new things i could bring to the calls and knew it would be something I would have to look into.
My second suicide call happened a over a year after my first. I was ready for it this time since the supervisor had also been talking to him previously on the same shift. I had been de-breifed that he had slashed his wrists and didn't want any help so that gave me a chance to think up an approach i could use on him.
"I've just slit my wrists, but i missed the pulse-bit" he started.
I jumped straight in, fully confident i could handle the call. I was pleased with how i sounded - no nervousness (even though i was aware of being listened to by the supervisor), completely genuine and ready to hear the worst.
"Yeah, my friend Dave told to me to do it. He says i dont follow the rules so i have to die"
Personality disorder - this should be interesting. I enjoyed talking to them. It was a surreal experience for me to hear first hand, people talking about imaginary friends or having multiple conversations with the one person.
"Everyone says Dave isn't real and that i'm paranoid. He doesn't like me very much and always wants me to hurt myself"
The supervisor had told me the guy was in one of two hostels in the area and if i could find out which one he was in we could call the hostel and tell them that this guy was trying to commit suicide.
"Are you alone?" I asked
"Yes, completey" he answered
"Sounds like there are other people around you?" i coaxed. He wouldn't bite.
"I don't want to tell you" he said.
After ten minutes of gently trying to extract all sorts of information out of him I decided it was time to be blunt. "Are you in a hostel?"
"I don't want any help!" After a silence he told me the bleeding had stopped. "Can i read you my suicide note?" Without waiting on an answer he sped-read through an extremely detailed account of Dave. He was going so fast that all i could make out was that Dave bullied him and when he was 14 Dave made him kill his dog because he had overstepped boundaries. I'm sure i heard somewhere "of the cult" mentioned but he was proceeding so fast that i didn't want to put him off reading his note - it was important to him.
I heard some sort of alarm or buzzer in the background and it seemed like his cue to get off the phone.
"I need to go hide my arm - i dont want them to know i'm bleeding"
He didn't call back again that night. Despite failing to get a postcode from him - i felt alright about the call. I never expected to be able to stop him but i felt completely comfortable with how i handled it. I think i would have been less ok if i knew what the actual outcome had been but like so many of the calls, i thought we would never find out.
As it happens, i discovered through another supervisor that the caller had called back a few times after that event. Turns out he was a regular self-harmer so would probably have not been a genuine suicide call the night i talked to him. I was intrigued to discover if he would become a new regular to the helpline.
Module two of training was when we would start being assessed on our counseling skills. Having missed the first class, I wasn't particularly keen on jumping into a video-taped skills practice, feeling a bit out of touch. I also had acute stomach pains and wasn't focusing much on anything so i chose to sit back and observe some of the other's attempts.
Having your brain freeze during calls is difficult enough. You desperately wrack your brains trying to think up appropriate, helpful responses and usually miss the next thing the caller is saying. I hadn't experienced that for a while myself, I could always think of something to say. Though difficult, i suppose the pressure is taken off because the only person who is fully aware of your struggle is you.
My biggest fear during training was that I would take brain freeze in the presence of many witnesses, like in the skills practice sessions. Thankfully, that nightmare situation unfolded as i observed and not when i was participating.
One of my classmates elected herself to take on the speakers role and i automatically diverted my attention to anything else in the room. I found her quite critical - it was a trait i actually admired in her. She was honest. She also volunteered for another helpline - one which had more face-to-face contact than i had in my post so she was very good at attending to speakers herself. Confident, funny, open - the list seemed endless. On our first meeting i had been subjected to her honesty and wasn't in a rush to repeat the experience.
Her victim this time was a women who i had talked to very little. The one time i had managed to do some skills practice with her she had told me she didn't know how to respond to patients where she worked and she found it uncomfortable when they told her their problems. I knew exactly how the scene was going to play out - it was like watching a car crash in slow motion.
I sat in silence, willing her to speak during her taped session with my nemesis. She responded with nothing. 'Say her humor is a defense mechanism, tell her she keeps retracting on whats she's saying...say anything!!"
"I feel like she constantly criticizes me" the speaker offered. 'This is it' I thought. If it were me i would challenge that remark - is the criticism constructive or dampening -ask her!
"So you think she's being..." the listener hesitated "...critical?" If i didn't think it would draw attention, i would have repeatedly banged my head - or hers - off the table.
The session didn't go down too well with either side: the speaker burst into tears feeling she hadn't been listened to or understood and the listener quietly died with the humiliation of it all. I chose to take it as a template of how not to interact with a speaker when being recorded.
Last edited by lilacstarflower : 01-26-2008 at 03:32 PM.
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