Getting out the upsetting emotions
The Relational Worker
The feeling of being normal, on one hand, and being valued, on the other, rubs off on the sense of self. It is the foundation upon which people begin to reveal themselves.
The uncovering of self involves getting out the upsetting emotions, some of which have been forever hidden. A worker captures one of these moments:
With using the tablets, she kept having periods when she would use that much, that she would go unconscious. She’d end up in hospital. We’d wonder if she was going to survive. And I went to see her one time in hospital, and she… We just started talking, and then she said, I’m really worried because I keep coming round and I really don’t care. And I haven’t… I don’t care and I’m worried that I don’t care.
Being available and suspending judgment encourages the opening up. A worker tells me what this means:
As a nurse I was trained to nurse people and help them, but I realised in the work I am doing now people don’t actually want me to do anything. So when he would tell me things and he still does, he wants me to know really rather than anything else. And after I realised that, I felt a lot easier that I didn’t have to keep doing things too. Just being there witnessing stuff is quite important.
Eventually the workers become emotional outlets, external conduits for the grief, the breakdown of relationships, the shame. It can happen suddenly and in unusual contexts, as this worker explains:
We went to his last court hearing, and he was just talking. It kind of struck me because he was talking about things that I’ve never heard him talk about in the past in regards to how he felt. He lost a brother. He lost his parents. For the first time, he just talked about it, like, Miss, this is everything that I’ve been holding in kind of thing. I don’t know what caused it, or what happened, or what I did to have him just talk that way, but after that, it was kind of like we just grew closer.
