Anxiety and Frustrating Social Work

Anonymous 2m 609

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

So I started working for a company about a month ago that specializes in working with disabled people and everything started out fine. Spent hours in an office learning all the policies and such. From the start I told them I was looking for what ever hours they could offer me with the exception of one weekend a month for National Guard drill.

I shadowed two employees whom i would be taking over for when they would go on vacation. There was three easy going people who enjoyed learning new things and had fun and then there was one that made me uneasy. The client needed help with practically everything from eating to walking, changing clothes ect. None of which really bothered me, and they told me the client liked to pinch people.

At first that didn’t bother me too much cause I mean really how hard could the client squeeze if they are smaller than me? Well the person who works with this client showed me their scars, and when I say scars I mean they were all over their arms and their skin got ripped off once too. Holy shit, that got me worried, but I still wanted to try cause I like a challenge.

So, the first time it happened I was STUNNED by how much it hurt! And the client laughed and smiled. I realized the client enjoyed getting a reaction out of hurting people. I thought maybe I could avoid it, but because I had to hold the client anytime they got out of a chair it was impossible to not get hurt. I began having nightmares and high anxiety because I couldn’t defend myself from getting hurt.

So, I decided to tell my manager my feelings behind everything and request only working with the others. My manager didn’t say much at first then called me after work and asked if I could come in for a meeting. I wasn’t concerned and went in as asked. I was directed to a small room, sat down, and said to me that I needed to redo the training because clearly I didn’t understand the rights of clients. I was literally speechless. Walking to the door my manager said,”I’m going to print out ten pages for you to read and you will also receive a dollar less per hour.”.

I must of looked pissed because the manager starting looking worried. While the manager was out of the room there was a piece of paper in front of where they sat. So I picked it up and it was a letter for the president describing how I was planning on hurting the client. I had never been so angry in my life.

I never once stated I wanted to hurt the client, the client was the one hurting me! But here was this four paragraph letter to the president describing what a terrible person I am. The manager came back in to angry me with the wonderful paper they had written about me in my hand.

“What is this!? You can’t be serious, I clearly stated to you I wanted to work with someone else because this client has been hurting me and I don’t sleep at night.” The manager stumbled their words and at that point I stood up, opened the door, and said, “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

I’ve consulted many people and just about all of them say I can’t win this battle and I’m better off leaving. So I’m left with looking for a new job because of one shitty manager who has been in control of these clients most of their lives.

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