Appendix N -- Standpoint

Standpoint
Kendra Rhodes


“When I was finally able to…start to absorb and act on the self knowledge that then became available to me- I began to get well”(Palmer p.68). For Parker to say “get well” he is referring to his own healing from depression. I relate his terminology to my own “get better”. I try to “get better” than I was before I had the ability to “absorb and act on my own self knowledge.” That is my standpoint. With my ability, I’m the blimp above the metaphorical baseball game. The game is on pause and I’m taking notes for self knowledge.
In my first set of notes I will write about how my experience as a youngest sibling will be one of my obstacles to unravel in growing into a true helper. I will also explore how I react and carry some very difficult experiences from my childhood and how the viewpoints I hold can be damaging to my efforts in becoming a successful Human Services professional.
I have one older brother. He is four years older than I am. Growing up with my brother I always had someone to blame things on. I never liked to be in trouble or caught in a tough spot. I’m not witty or quick thinking. From an early age I learned to rely on attention and praise. Doing and being good at things, doing favors, looking good, being “cute”, all got me attention. When I wasn’t the center of attention, I figured out how to be there. A lot of the time it was easy. My brother was always in trouble. I think it was just as much of that label as anything else that has kept him in that position even to this day. Seeing him in trouble all the time, being punished and feeling miserable just reinforced for me that I didn’t want to be in there. I began to really see that if I did the opposite of what was getting him in trouble all the time, I got even more positive attention. I’ve always felt better following the rules. Even when I got caught breaking the rules, I had someone to blame it on, or tried. I only worried about myself, so I made sure I was taken care of usually through getting positive attention from a parent or someone in charge. That way, if trouble came up, I was the last one that was suspected. I’m not sure how much of this was conscious effort or a child figuring out how to best survive in the family.
Now as an adult, I still feel the constant pull to be the center of attention. I try hard to be good at things I do, and better myself when I see an opportunity. Being seen as (and feeling) good, capable, talented, even gifted, has always been something I value. I seek feedback from the things that I do and the people I interact with, usually by being very open and offering my own open and very real lines of conversation. I am very social and always feel good being the focus of a conversation. I value my appearance and how I portray myself to people. These are all things that have worked for me and I am comfortable with in my life. However, I can see where my tendency to crave the limelight and thrive off of feedback can be something to manage, if not overcome, in a helping profession. While I don’t see myself as extremely selfish, I do see how it will be a challenge to have a job in which the focus will never be on my situation, work, opinion…etc. Furthermore, the distinct lack of feedback about the efforts that go into any given cause in the Human Services field could quite potentially leave me feeling frustrated, lost, and not filled up in my work.
My acting in reverse of my brothers “trouble” behavior was just the beginning of me pulling way from what was being modeled around me in my life. I dramatically pulled away from how others in my family lived their lives. I was surrounded with people who were judgmental of just anyone different than “us” regarding race, religion, sexuality, or social class. Others in my immediate circle were in and out of legal trouble, affected by depression, feeding severe alcohol/ substance abuse and gambling problems and living with obesity and sometimes poverty. I did not have any one person who really modeled a healthy life for me. I also experienced severe sexual abuse 7 of my first 13 years of life. I struggle with feelings of “I’ve been there, too, and I got through.” I learn from Parker Palmer that “[W]e must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations –projections that serve mainly to mast our fears about ourselves- and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits” (p 29). In this case my fear is that my battle through so many struggles is not recognized for how hard it really was for me. My triumphs are cheapened because others with real bad experiences and environments don’t make it through so strongly. That would translate to my experiences somehow being fundamentally easier to get through than theirs.
In my attempt to separate my experience from the severe reality of those I may be helping one day, I try to imagine how I would have managed if I didn’t have the resources available to me. How much harder would it have been to become an adult? What if every corner I’d turned was a dead end? What if my path was crowded with sticker bushes? I feel like my time in the dark forest was just as miserable as the next person, but my path out of the trees was clearer than those same people. Did I make the path clear? I feel I did. What if it was already cleared? If I made it clear by my choices then, it seems, others should be able to do the same. I’m still proud of my path and how far I’ve come. I am proud to be first generation in college and that I don’t embody all the negative role models I had around me. I fear it will make me less proud or take something away from my struggle if I “let” someone else “get away” with not taking responsibility for their lives. Yes, I hate that I am one of those people who feel that making poor decisions is a reason people get into difficult situations in their lives. It’s not like I came from a family of heightened awareness. I have been on the edge of so many cliffs of bad decisions and felt my life begin the spin of the proverbial toilet bowl. I could be where so many of these people are at, had I not made some pivotal choices in my life. I call them “deals with myself”, and I stuck to them. Also, I don’t think I’m all that different from them. I’m not special. I just took care of myself and kept my head on straight. My question is… how do I uproot this judgmental standpoint?
From the time I can remember one mantra I’ve lived by is “not using a childhood as an excuse for where I am today” It used to really annoy me when I’d hear childhood abuse as a “reason” for people to be ugly. I still feel that way. In his book “Doing Good” Jeffrey Kottler sais “When you are truly honest with yourself, you are in the best position possible to confront some of the excuses you offer for why you don’t do so much more” (p 108). For me, this means some of the areas of Human Services that I say I couldn’t work because it just doesn’t feel right, I have no interest, or I just couldn’t get past my own bias, could very well be a possibility of great passion for me if I honestly evaluate my excuses and begin to shift my thinking. I, in essence, am living my very pet peeve. I’ve been using my past for an excuse for something I am today. My experiences have been my excuse as to why I don’t consider some aspect of this field. I will, however, always hold the possibility that I may not be cut out for certain jobs, but only after I am comfortable with where I have moved to in my own growth and acceptance of other peoples stories.
I know that inaction regarding my bias toward those trying to scrape out of horrible situations is not an option. I’ve begun to change that by honestly taking a look at myself. I relate to Parker Palmer as he recalls: “I had failed to understand the perverse comfort we sometimes get from choosing death in life, exempting ourselves from the challenge of using our gifts, of living our lives in authentic relationship with others” (p. 72). I feel myself still clinging on to these ways of viewing my own journey through hardship as a child. It’s easy for me to be judgmental and expect that others with similar experiences should have the ability to move through them as I did. It’s easy for me to ignore my ability to reflect and change my own viewpoints, because that’s hard. And slow. Now, though, I’ve started to change some of my standpoint, I’m pushing play on the game and putting in for a transfer of field positions. We’ll see how long it takes for me to walk from center field to first base.