Confessions of a Disillusioned Child Welfare Worker, Part Three: Victimhood

Content Warning

As I stated in my introduction to this series, I want to explain to you what the past decade in this field of work has felt like. I would not be doing this story justice if I did not tell you the worst of it.

The reality of a social worker is that we are often witnesses to some of the darkest parts of this world. We are touched by this darkness in a variety of ways, directly or indirectly. We are asked to hold this in our hands and in our hearts. This part of the story will mention experiences such as sexual assault, child abuse, overdose, and suicide.

I speak of these as a witness to others’ experiences. I will not equate my pain in hearing about or seeing these tragedies to the pain of those who have lived them. I will admit I have more perspective in this area now than I did years ago.

This part of my story is the one that shattered me into pieces. It is the pivotal moment, or perhaps the series of moments, where I was broken into two parts: who I was before and who I am after. This truth is one you can pick up and put down as you need to. Though I will admit, I am still learning to put it down myself.

The Beginning

At 18 years old, I got a job working the overnight shift in a youth shelter. I started at $18.09 an hour and I was grateful for the opportunity. Even today, not much has changed in the value we assign these types of roles in our society. A couple years later I transitioned to an outreach role with children and youth who had been sexually exploited. I will always remember my first office up in the loft of that shelter.

I have been struggling to summarize these first years of my social work life. The more I reflect on it, the more memories come flooding back. Instead of telling you everything that happened, I will tell you what it was like for me. It felt like I had opened the gates and pain came rushing in like a tidal wave. I felt like I was on a hamster wheel; for every girl who turned into a woman, another 12-year-old girl took her place. I plunged deeper and deeper into my work trying to keep up. I tried to work hard enough that it would make a difference. I so desperately wanted to feel effective.

On July 16, 2019, at 21 years old, I sent an email to my mom and dad. It still feel it in my body while I read it. My stomach tenses, my eyes well up. With the passing of time I would no longer be able to articulate how I felt with such accuracy. I will share some excepts with you here:

I'm tired of operating this way in a world that really doesn't [care]. I'm tired of caring about how people feel and what people need when no one else seems to be all that bothered. I am sick of people telling me "I could never do that work" and "Maybe you need to take break" when no one else understands or cares what goes on in the world. Everyone chooses to turn a blind eye and I am literally over here screaming at everyone saying IT'S NOT OKAY and WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE WILLING TO SACRIFICE MYSELF FOR THIS.

I'm hurt because I don't even feel like an adult and yet I feel like the only adult who cares enough to be bothered when things that are happening aren't right or fair. Honestly I'm disillusioned and it doesn't give me much hope.

I have been screamed at and I have been spat on… Almost every day when I come into work someone has been raped, someone has overdosed, someone tried to kill themselves… someone tells me that they have never felt loved and they don't think they deserve love. Everyday I see children who have been violated, abused, and discarded… And everyday I am like a sponge soaking up all of that pain. And it hurts me, and I cry all the time.

It's not a mystery to me that I am falling apart.

I remember clearly how isolated and disconnected I felt from everything I had ever known. In my personal time, I would cry, sleep, and snap at people. My understanding of the world had fundamentally shifted and there was no going back. I was destroyed by the slow and painful realization that by my measures of success, I was a failure. I could not save anyone no matter how hard I tried.

That was what burnout felt like for me. Burnout was not an abstract concept to me in this moment; burnout was being at the bottom of a dark hole where no one could reach me and pull me out.  

Here lies the inspiration for the title of this post: victimhood. I saw myself as a martyr. I painted myself as a victim of my circumstances, and in doing so, I stripped my own power away. At a certain point, it became about me. It was only recently that my wounds had healed enough to be able to look back at myself from a more critical perspective. I still hold great compassion and respect for this version of myself. I am also grateful to be able to see things differently now.

I left this job after 4 years. I acknowledged that I had nothing left to give. I acknowledged that I was a worker who now avoided the people I was meant to embrace. I had become a version of myself that I did not recognize. In the next portion of my story, we will talk about why it took me so long to leave.

Signed,

A Disillusioned Child Welfare Worker