I’ve worked with Y for round about a year now and over this time I’ve witnessed the never ending chaos of her lifestyle. I have developed such a relationship with Y that on occasion she opens up about her past and tells me about some of the incidents that have brought her to where she is today.
Y talks about losing her mother to cancer when she was only 2 years old. She remembers her childhood being difficult and suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. In her early teens Y became pregnant with her father’s child which she later had aborted. She went through the care system and by her teens she had already developed a dependency on drugs and alcohol. Her two children were removed from her care whilst they were young, and this continues to cause her pain every single day. Her vulnerability has seen Y become involved in abusive relationships with a conditioned belief that she is better being in these relationships than being alone. In despite of her circumstances Y is an incredibly compassionate person who presents a level of strength and wisdom that never ceases to amaze me.
Y was recently diagnosed with cancer of the cervix. She has already had part of her cervix removed after being previously diagnosed with this whilst in prison. She has recently begun scheduled treatment of radiotherapy and chemotherapy and I have been supporting her to attend these sessions. During one of her sessions we spent some time talking in the hospital gardens. Around 6 months ago she had re-established a relationship with her family including her father.
The conversation I was having with Y around her re-established relationship with her father made me curious about how she feels towards him now. I was slightly apprehensive about revisiting anything that may upset her, but I sensitively directed the conversation to try and gage her feelings towards her father and what he did. Y began to talk about their relationship and there came an appropriate point where I was able to ask her about her feelings towards him. The way she responded I found quite remarkable. She told me the incidents from the past were never discussed and how she felt there was no point holding any ill feelings towards her father. She told me that, in fact, she actually felt quite sorry for him. She talked about his failing health and the fact he’d had two heart attacks over the last year, she talked about him with affection and talked about wanting to be around for him. She was concentrating on the right now and I don’t think it ever actually crossed her mind to hate him. As a worker this made me think very deeply about my own judgements and it made realise that I had limited myself to only see one possible rigid viewpoint; that a father capable of this act should never be deserving of forgiveness.
In my role as a support worker it’s necessary for me to adopt a non-judgmental attitude to work successfully with my clients. On a personal level though, it can sometimes be difficult to refrain from judgement. Working empathically with my clients, I often find myself considering what I may do in some of the circumstances they find themselves in. I often find it incredibly difficult to even imagine. The truth is I will never truly understand the choices my clients make but I have to respect the fact that there are personal reasons for these choices which should be ultimately respected. The truth is, as much as I can “imagine” walking a mile in another person’s shoes, I will never fully experience what it is truly like to wear those shoes. As support workers we are hopefully supporting our clients to find a more positive way to live, however, this journey of self-discovery is often a lesson for us both.