Time away from forums

Oh true @creative_writer yeah that would've thrown me for a loop too. Glad he's getting referred out.

Okay your words make more sense now. Is it a trauma history thing? Maybe, I guess. Maybe it's also the tension between desire to help vs. desire to protect oneself? Sounds like it's left you quite shaken in any case. Were your supervisors supportive and stuff?

@creative_writer very legit, even after a few weeks it's still a relatively new relationship with your supervisor. The way I sort of gauge it is that if something is resurfacing a lot outside of work hours, or if it's continuing to pop into my brain after a week or so, it means I'm still impacted and need to seek external support. But like you, I take quite a while to process things, sometimes a few days to a week! So I won't know how much support I may or may not need until I've actually begun to process. And that doesn't always happen straight away either.

Hopefully, if you listen to your instincts, you'll be able to ascertain whether this is something you can move through solo, or whether you may benefit from piping up. And you don't even have to go to your placement supervisor, you could always talk to your psych or even buzz the sane line!

@creative_writer mm recovering from trauma-related desire for independence can be so tricky. Cos it's something you've had to repeatedly fight for I'm guessing, to keep yourself safe. So to try to go against that instinct can be soooo challenging. Baby steps though, you got this!

Empathy and warmth - antidotes to shame. Is there a way you could be warm and empathetic to the part of you that is feeling shame?

@creative_writer mm you've had to suppress, subdue, and ignore, quite a lot to protect yourself hey.

Mm I think it can be a tricky line to walk, because like... we're in a field where we are always encouraging people to be open, to talk about their stuff, and yet also do need to bracket and compartmentalise our own stuff to ensure it doesn't have the potential to be negatively impactful to clients.

But to my mind, I think one of the most important skills to have when working in MH is to know when we are not in the right state of mind to be providing care for others. Noticing that your reaction to that client has been a strong one is a strength, not a weakness. It means you can monitor (and nurture!) that part of yourself, you can ensure that if it does continue to linger, you may want to talk to your supervisor about it then, and you can now identify that this type of client would not be suitable in future. All part of the learning 😉

Good stuff, managing the mixed episode! Can imagine it was challenging, and obvs the depression has dug its heels in, but it won't last forever! Kudos 💜

Yeah no kidding @creative_writer been a hard slog for sure. How far through your placement are you now?

---

@creative_writer wrote:

I think I need to learn to cope with triggering situations.

---

Definitely a good recovery goal to have! So long as you remember that working towards 'coping' doesn't mean working towards 'being entirely unaffected'. In my experience, working on triggers doesn't mean they no longer trigger me, just that I've gotten a lot better at managing the emotional reactivity in response to it. I know you probably know all this but I'd hate for you (or anyone reading along for that matter) to feel like a failure because of still being impacted by triggers even after working on them 😉

Hi @creative_writer

I hope your sniffles haven't got any worse and today is going ok.

Sending lots of 💗💗