ASD is a mess of a disorder.

When I’m trying to explain myself, it seems I get feedback on the wrong parts.

PTSD-SP doesn’t help this, either. (Jumbled + inability = no good.)

I learned from my writing group this facet as well – when we are trying to state our experiences as a piece of writing, sometimes it gets lost on people not only how to use it but what we’re trying to say. This is huge in mental health, I’ve found.

My social work professor commented on a follow-up email I gave to her as she offered feedback to me that a paragraph of my introduction I gave to the class may come off improperly; and I fixed it while also sending an e-mail that re-stated what I had already sent to professors, figuring perhaps it had happened the first time with that, as well.

She reflected to me that she could tell I’m not only a seasoned writer, but that she’s also happy to proofread for tone issues. It helped me tremendously.

I was glad she understood that I know how to implement feedback, and that I’m not asking her to re-write my posts, just tell me what sounds a little “off”.

I miscommunicate all the time to licensed professionals in a matter of my given verbiage/vocality/tone/pacing.

They know how to respond, though. My audience of fellow students is different.

My audience is not lost on me, but rather, wholly unknown to me at this point.

I feel comfortable in a social work class being my quirky smart self, and I often forget how a social work profession asks us to respond to where others are at. In a finance/business program, when someone may be ignoring your perspective, you kind of just say, “my experience isn’t that and here’s why,” and you two have a really cool talk on alternating data used and ethics. This is the frequent case; business classes love this facet.

I often forget that in social work, our values and ethics are more attached to our line of work than in the business world. (Many licensed helping professions are this way.) Many of the students may not admit this or do not know this. I am okay either way, and find both options equally viable. It just means I need to know someone’s career at the start.

When a course opens up by saying: “Talk about what may be challenging for you,” and I am really honest and say, I have been a victim to some of the policies this course covers and may have a hard time seeing the other side, but I do value the perspectives of others, it seemed to be lost on me when people’s views seemed only referential, from the textbook.

Social work offers a way to integrate ourselves into our practice.

I am honest, upfront, and wholly myself in my social work courses.

Sometimes it gets lost on people, the extent to which my argument is nuanced.

When people follow up and ask me for why I think I specific way, and I respond with my firm story and experience as well as integrated facts, it can get met at times with making people feel “unsafe”. I loathe the term.

It’s a fancy academia DARVO term.

It’s a fancy way for a student to say, “Eww, I don’t like the answer that I recieved and hated so much what I was told that I refuse to even validate her anymore.”

When one student says, “I feel unsafe by someone responding to my question with data and content I asked for, while never asking for my opinion,” a resonable department would ask if the student in question in fact did this or was maybe confused.

I read through the posts of my last course, and one thing became highly apparent.

The thing I never made abundantly clear in my introduction was why I was victimized.

See, the nuanced argument of “abolish police because they discrimate against SMI disablities and perpuate false sterotypes of those as violent crimes” is rare and a hard one to talk about in a course. It’s a highly technical and niche field of policy.

Some people who read my argument were thinking I was mad that police victim-blamed me. Realistically, I didn’t care about that component. In a real world case, where there wasn’t discrimination because of my PTSD-SP being fought for legitimacy, it would have been dismissed instantly. The prosecutor wanted to talk to me.

If you thought I wanted to talk to someone who I could discern was fighting the legitmacy of my SMI disability – while I was in the midst of an active trauma response that she was going to use to prove it was illegitmate? Oh hell no. Not a chance.

The nuanced argument was that I think the justice system is designed to discriminate against SMI disabled people. It just happens to intersect with DV policy, a lot.

I didn’t know going into it where people were from and what their role was from more than a sense of “here’s my degree and a role I’m doing while in school”. When people say they have a bachelor’s in something and are working an entry-level role, I often assume that the role is akin to anyone’s first placement in a business field.

I have since learned that social work is very value heavy. To me, the presentation of it meant it was simply a role to get experience from. To some people, it may have been clear that the company aligned with their values and ethics. To me, I understood it differently, as I have been known to quit a beginning job whose ethics I strongly disliked.

Throughout the course, I wanted to hear from a person whose experience and perspectives were unlike mine. I asked for her opinions on things and offered up a lot of context within my experience of these rules and policies.

Looking back, I can see where the phrasing didn’t come across as intended.

My excitement and passion may have sounded harsh and attacking.

I wanted to hear from a police worker what their thought was on why they found COT helpful for SMI disabled people. The one response she gave me of, “We have licensed professionals” will ring in my soul for decades as a sticking point of where the conversation can begin and promptly end.

And, really, once I got that answer, I stopped.

And maybe it was at this moment that my mind blew over. But somehow, it triggered within me a horror of being told all over again the things of the COT system. And I do not blame the student for not knowing what she accidentally did to me.

What I do know is some of our values and ethics show up in how we treat people who are telling us we have been harmed by them. And not all of us get it right.

I’ve only had one church ever get it right.

This school stuck up for me in (theoretically) saying, “No way is she the one at fault for trying to engage with people unlike her who are freezing her out. If they are going to treat her so poorly, then she deserves a safer classroom experience.”

The students who somehow took issue with me have been “removed” from some classes of mine, and I don’t really need to know why.

But I do know that lack of accountability is lacking a social work dispostion, and that’s a bummer for them. But I am only responsible for myself.

XOXO,

Dorothy B