So I’ll update on my awesome day yesterday later this afternoon.. but in the meantime, here is some awesome from Ben Folds..
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Although Chris Weber is 17—and could pass for 12—he feels like he’s waited decades for this day to arrive. The anticipation has even distracted him briefly from thinking about cystic fibrosis, the chronic disease that has ruled his life since he was an infant. On this afternoon, country star Vince Gill is clapping Chris on the shoulder, calling him “ buddy,” and handing him a guitar pick as a souvenir. “This one’s got a good song in it,” Gill says. “But it’s not as good as your song.” Healing Sick Kids Through Music, play on So the 30th was Gay Day. Actually it was Doctor’s day, but since 40% of the physician population is also Gay (at my workplace), I think it qualifies. Oh No You DIDN’T!!, play on So I went to a MYTHICAL MUSIC THERAPY CONFERENCE. It was freaking awesome. It also made me realize that probably one of the biggest factors separating me from my kids is my capacity for self care. I packed my bags and jetsetted to XXXXXXXXXX because I knew I needed to. I knew I needed to recharge, rejuvenate and hang out with a bunch of people from the XXXXXXX region (okay, this is just too fun.) Conferences, play on You know that you are becoming burnt out when you are thinking through your mind of all the things that you can write about that should be funny, but instead just make you tired and exasperated. I’m actually able to attend a regional conference this year, and I’m very excited about it. I hope that I will be able to re-energize and find some new motivation after two years of feeling like I’m floating out to sea. I don’t know how it is with the rest of the world, but adolescents can be especially draining. I thought I was pretty well versed in sarcasm, but damn. The sessions I will be attending thankfully have a few offerings that will be focusing on at-risk adolescent males, and while what I have been doing with my males hasn’t been ineffective, I’m just tired of it. While it may be working with them, I feel that if I don’t get the same feeling of gratification from a job well done, it’s not worth it. Most of my adolescents are of the sarcastic and conduct disordered/oppositional/borderline nature so I’m pretty happy about having some new things to bring to the table. Hopefully it will stop them from asking “Are we doing that music thang again?” (One would think that some of them would figure out that my presence might announce the impending doom of a music thang). But then on the other hand, maybe I’m just getting old and jaded. I used to be entertained when a budding antisocial personality disordered male walked on a unit and told everyone how he was going to get my phone number. I used to be entertained by the antics my kids could get up to, but now it just makes me sad that they are able to get up to them in the first place. My experience has taken away my coping skill and I need to get it back. I had a patient ask me the other day if I always wanted to do this when I grew up. I told the patient that yes it was, and then the response was “I’m pretty sure you hate doing it here”. Talk about a cue to re-evaluate your affect and management of stress. Yes, the unit this patient is on is particularly trying. I’ve had several patients try to sneak pencils out of group for self harm purposes, several disruptions, several being inappropriate with peers, and several just being straight up pains in my ass. In small doses, this behavior is funny, but my tolerance has gone down. Practice makes perfect. I will never ever be perfect. I never ever practice. I did an assessment today and actually had written a little song for it the day before. I had all intentions of rehearsing said song prior to the actual assessment, but it just never happened until 10 minutes before. I had another song that I wanted to use in the assessment that I had practiced some time before, but because of a block from my home e-mail to my work e-mail, was unable to print or even view until you guessed it, ten minutes before. I suppose it’s a positivething that I am good on the fly. It’s one of the qualities of a therapist that were harped upon while i was in school that I’m glad I managed to end up with. Half of the time, as I am on the way to retrieve a group, I’m not even sure what activity I am going to be doing with them. I judge by the group of kids available, the mood of the unit, and other factors. I tend to use the mistakes that result from my lack of practice as learning tools. (thanks thera-skillz) If I mess up I’d be like Okay, time to giggle at yourself and try again! I guess I’m roundabout telling myself it’s okay that I have no idea where my practice CD for my choir pieces are. Heh. We’re reinstalled. Today and tomorrow should be reuploading the site. Thanks for patience. DEATH TO HACKARS. Dr. White knew this was coming. Dr. White has been listening to me obsess about the merits of the circus for the past 30.5 hours. (yes, I only counted to appear more crazy than I am.)One of the awesome perks of my job is that I get to take my patients on trips. The trip I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for (literally, it’s amazing how much my workplace wants to not pay a dime for ANYTHING) is the circus! After pulling through on some donated funds, yesterday, we arrived. Yes, I live vicariously through my patients sometimes. I get to be a kid again at my job. Dancing to peanut butter jelly time, making happy and sad faces, playing with dolls, coloring, and going on trips, but I had not been to the circus since I was four years old (I had to call my dad to verify). It was AMAZING! The costumes and the things these people can do are simply astounding. If I had some of those costumes, I’d wear them every day. My kids loved it as well. For several of them, it was their first time ever going to the circus, and they were actually able to be kids again, which is often one of the biggest goals we can achieve. One of my patients was even pulled into the ring as a participant and ended up winning a video game! That’s what happens when your crazy music lady chats up the ringmaster All I can say to is this: If your patients are institutionalized, do everything you can to fight for normalcy for them. Take them on trips, give them chores and homework, but most of all, let them be kids. And for yourself, let yourself be a kid! I’ve been so stressed lately, I think I needed the circus to be that awesome to really let me release and get back to normal. So I was going to wait until next week to post this, but the Gods of Stumble Upon made me nearly fall off of my stool with laughter by showing me the best lyric analysis I’ve ever seen in my life. So I’m going to discuss my thoughts on lyric analysis and hopefully remember to link you to the page (not safe for kiddies or anyone without a bad sense of humor) at the end of this. As I stated in my last post, I’ve always been one of those people who is out to do everything better, out to fix everything, so on and so forth. Thusly, as an intern and student, my relationship with lyric analysis was a poor one. I saw it as the lazy man’s way to introduce therapeutic ideas when it could be done through more creative ways (song writing,structured activities, games). During my internship, I worked with a significantly less ill population than I currently do. Also a lot less heavy on the conduct disorders. Majority of my kids, I would guess, were depressed, some psychotic symptoms, and anxiety d/o’s. It’s been a while though, so I can’t remember everyone. What I’m trying to say, is that organizing groups and running them was relatively easy. With my current placement, not so much. Running a group with a patient from every section of the DSM is no easy feat, so when it came time to try and cater a bit to the higher cognitive needs of some of my patients, lyric analysis became my friend. At first I felt guilty. I felt like a failure. I felt dirty. I thought, maybe I can at least play the songs! But I know my kids, my trying to rap any more seriously than just along with the Ipod and the whole group would be derailed.My solution was to take a few songs, some country and some rock that translates well to guitar, and I play them when I can get the kids off the unit. I take these songs and make them into half songwriting experiences. They rewrite sections of lyric after doing the analysis. And you know what I’ve discovered? Lyric analysis isn’t half bad. I have to deal with some who don’t want to talk, but I’ve found that I’m pretty good at verbally managing a group. I’ve found that as much as I scribble my findings all over my copies of the lyrics, my kids always surprise me with something new. That patient that I initially thought (back in my days of interning and active participation and rar) wouldn’t benefit from lyric analysis, sits and listens even if he can’t read very well, and pipes up to say he or she agrees with what another patient said, and that they feel the same way, or that they like that line but for a different reason. It creates an entirely separate feeling of cohesion as compared to the active groups I normally do. I won’t lie and say that feeling spreads across the group as a whole. There’s always a few that think I’m the meanest bitch in the west for making them sit and do this, but they learn and come around. And here is the link I promised. The opinions expressed are not mine, they just made me laugh. Dr. White, I know you wake up before 9 am. |
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