Community Experience

For my community experience I interviewed someone that works at the mental hospital. They said that it was an amazing experience working there and that they have seen many miracles as well as many tragedies. She told me many stories. One of them that really stuck out to me was the story of a 12 year old boy who was a light to the other people there. She said it was amazing his positivity and how he reached out to everyone there. She said they have a meeting where everyone was able to get up and tell a little bit of their story. After each person was done talking to young boy would raise his hand and tell them that they were amazing tell them not to give up hope or tell them that he thinks they are strong. 

She told another story about a girl there who was struggling with drug addictions. She told that she had lost all of her friends because they thought that she was going to steal money from them and that they didn't trust them anymore. She said she loves her friends and that she would never steal from them and that she has never stole from anyone except her mom. She said that her friends mean so much to her and she would never do anything to hurt them. She said she feels so lonely with no friends and that she wants to kill herself. This was disrupting because I know it is easy for me to lose trust in people and I realize know how much that can hurt someone. It was also disrupting to me to think of how this girl is being deprived of her basic human needs, She needs friends and love like all of us and in a time when she is struggling with a drug addition is the time she needs it most and this is the same time where she loses it. It made me think of all the girls in my high school who when they got pregnant they lost all their friends, or the girl who was popular before she pulled her hair out and had to wear wigs. I thought of all the people I knew and how when a tragedy happened to them everyone around them abandoned them, and I was a part of that abandonment. 

Another story she told was a girl who was struggling with severe eating disorders. She told how she would lie all day long and what she would do to fake and stage meals. She said that she wants to cut her fat off her body and that she has suicidal thoughts all the time and that they never stop. When the school called her parents to tell them that she wanted to kill herself and that it was very severe, her parents said, "oh no, she's doing it again?" This broke my heart. I feel like one of the only things anyone could do to help her right now is love her, and she isn't getting any love from her parents, where she needs it most. 

I think what was the biggest disruption for me through all of this was the common link of these people feeling loneliness, abandonment, and helplessness. They didn't feel love from anyone, and almost every time they had lost their friends. The risk in considering this for me was challenging my faith. As an LDS youth I was always counseled to choose my friends wisely. I was told to choose friends that had the same values as me and to stay away from those who were making bad decisions. This is a big disruption for me because I can see truth in how friends will affect our decisions but at the same time after hearing these stories I feel so conflicted as to what to teach my children. I know that we can have such a great influence on our friends and that our friends that are making bad decisions are the ones that need us the most in those moments. It is risky to consider this conflicting view from my religious upbringing but I think it is worth considering and really pondering. 

In my classroom I know that I will have students who will struggle with all of these tragedies and even a lot more, I know that a lot of times I will be unaware and I want to always give love to my students, as much as I can. I want them to at least feel love in the classroom if not anywhere else.