Monday, June 9, 2014

Stalled and Slaughtered.

There's a late paper I should be writing well, several days ago, but I have little motivation. I really like my Treatment Planning class, and my Race & Gender online class hasn't started yet, but I'm behind on some assignments for Advanced Clinical Mental Whatever It's Called. I did manage to get a partner project in on time, which was good, considering my partner and I just took information from a paper I wrote last year and revamped a few things, he did a quick Power Point and we handed it in. I'm just doing the best I can to stay afloat.

Talk about a depressive episode.  Not suicidal, yet. Getting hungry, though.

And I know exactly why.

"Administrative Withdrawal."

The shaft. The heave-ho. Final Jeopardy and I lost all my cash. For a school that teaches how to support and nurture and counsel the mentally ill, they did a horrible job of seeing past my disabilities and giving me a fair chance at another shot to make things right, when they fucked half it up and I fucked half it up. So I'm looking for somewhere to go in the fall. I have a really good chance at getting into several universities. (No, my mother doesn't know. My son knows most of the story. I might even graduate sooner than I expected.)

I'd be a huge asset to any university who'd have me as a student, despite the fact that my own school saw me as a liability and my friends and I have several theories as to why they may have felt that way. Like Kate said, she'd make a fantastic doctor, but if she suffered an intestinal blockage while she was operating on someone, there'd be mayhem and lawsuits and money involved. The committee who interviewed me for the lynch mob knew that I'd had a mini-stroke in February. What if I was counseling a patient and had another stroke? Liability. What if I slipped into either a strong manic or depressive episode? How would that be handled? Their Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations left something to be desired, though I got extra time to finish assignments. But I was given no consideration for the myriad of other conditions I have, about which maybe I should've kept my mouth shut.

It certainly wasn't my GPA, which is VERY good.  I've never even gotten a C in a class. After this summer semester, I will have completed all of my graduate coursework for Adler and only have an internship and a year-long clinical practicum to finish to graduate. The school I'm looking at has my transcript and is evaluating how all of my credits would transfer over. I'll make an excellent counselor because I understand the mentally ill. I understand the stigma, the discrimination, the ill treatment, and the struggles the mentally ill endure on a daily basis. My diagnostic skills are excellent. I'm very good at extrapolating information to provide good therapy, which Adler knew. But I'm a strong personality, I make a huge impression on people, and while told to "stay on the down low" after last year's debacle, I didn't. It's not that I'm a trouble maker, but I don't take any crap from people.

What struck me as the most insulting was how phony the faculty was during the period between the hearing and the administrative decision. The committee members would warmly greet me. One even said, "It's nice to see you!" Seriously, dude? You KNOW I'm going to lose this appeal, but you're happy to see me? Screw that. I will keep going to classes this summer and finish my term, but after that, I *need* a placement for the fall. I can't take a semester off. I am passionately enthused about earning my masters.

It's mildly disconcerting that all of my favorite professors from Adler were adjunct faculty at the school to which I'm applying and quit Adler altogether to work at this university solely. Some were still getting their PhD's or PsyD's from this university, which is very nice. My best student therapist went there. I'd love to go there and bonus! It's only 6 blocks away from Guy's place downtown! We could meet up more than once every 4 months!

Guy went to Germany to visit his daughter for a week and didn't let me know until the morning he was leaving, which was rude, and surely he knew about it on my birthday, but maybe he didn't want to downtrodden my spirits. (It would have, BTW.) I had so much going on with school and Luke's 8th grade graduation that most of the edge of my separation anxiety from Guy being incommunicado was alleviated.

He spent 5 days with the spawn (how embarrassing for her) and then a couple days touring Frankfurt with Lady GuyGuy, who I wish he would have left there. I have a complex when they do things together, which I realize is irrational, and he doesn't belong to me, at least not legally, but it's unnerving nonetheless. I have these vivid delusions that they're having these huge romantic getaways when even Meg said, when they're together, they act like brother and sister, so what in hell am I so worried about? I had a dream the other night that he took me to the French Riviera. Wouldn't THAT be nice?

He did call just after he touched down back in the States, but unfortunately, I was in the one class I go to in person on Thursday afternoons. That's his MO. He calls to catch up as soon as he's on American soil and alone to talk. I did speak with him over the weekend, after I found out the news from Adler, and heard how wonderful it was that he was incommunicado for a week in Deutchland. For my birthday, he said he'd spring for a night seeing any act I wanted at the City Winery (where I saw Nez and Anoushka Shankar) with "a group of friends," like I have a group of friends. I know a couple of couples. And thus far, there's no one I want to go see there. But he said I have 12 months to decide, so I shouldn't be hasty. What if there's no one I want to see there in the next year?

Luke's graduation was great, even though it was held in a dark, dingy old scuzzy church instead of St. Paul, and was packed to the gills. The only time I started to cry was when all of the graduates stood up, faced the crowd and turned their tassels from left to right, signifying that they'd graduated. Then I lost it. I'm so proud of my boy, who's now a high schooler. We did get to shoot a few pictures at St. Paul before heading over to Messiah for the ceremony. He's taller than both I and his father, smarter and just as sassy. And looks exactly like me. He pretty much looks at me like this all the time:


That picture is certainly more PC to put on social media than this one of his head covered with the baptismal font at church. Super extra points for defacing a holy relic!: 


We'll see how the informational admissions interview goes at the other university on Wednesday, but my hopes are up, which pretty much guarantees I'll fail at anything I attempt. That's just me. But seriously, they'd appreciate me (and my $$) with open arms. Adler can suck it and once I get in somewhere else, I'll either consider litigation against them or badmouth them to everyone I know. Alfred Adler's rolling around in his grave right now over all of this, I'm sure. Where's the "Social justice" they tout so fiercely?



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