Personal Reflection Paper
September 25, 2013
BSHS/345

I have had a lot of problems growing up, issues that I felt so alone in, trying to reach out to someone that was never there, lead to a lot of issues in my adult life, things that I still struggle with daily. Trying to figure out a way to cope with daily problems is very hard for me to do, also to communicate with the ones I love is very difficult and this all started at a young age. From a very young age, really as far back as I can remember, I have had a problem with myself inside and out, I was never good enough, not intelligent, pretty, skinny enough, always hated how I looked. I am not too sure where it all came from, maybe the fact that I grew up in a family that drank all the time or my parents divorced when I was a pre-teen and I pretty much raised myself, with my mother working multiple jobs so she can keep a roof over my head and food on the table and my father never coming around because he was to busy with woman and doing hard drugs to really care about me. I cannot to this day be happy with myself, I remember back in high school the only way I felt better was when I was drinking and smoking, rebelling against any type of authority, which I believe to this day I do the same thing, I always felt that if I could just be free of my own thoughts I could be happy and I aloud no one could help. Even sometimes now I wish I was a balloon, that was let go in the sky, just floating higher and higher until I was out of sight, although I have people that love and care for me, sometime I feel like there better off without me. I can only really think of one thing I am good at that I haven’t messed up, and that’s being a mother, I take what happened to me at a young age and make sure I do not do the same thing to my children, I want them to grow up feeling loved and supported and most of all confidante in their own skin. What I need to learn is how to stop invidious comparison, it is not healthy to be so negative all the time, I need to learn how to love myself, so I can treat the ones around me the way they deserve to be treated. When reading the “Flexibility in Seeking Solutions”, I learned that people need to validate their strengths, learn to love what you have and all the strong aspects in your life, instead of dwelling on what is wrong or what you do not like, take those and improve. The way you can improve the things you think cannot be changed or what you do not like is to take your strengths that you know and change your outlook. Be positive on your strengths, instead of being so harsh or stuck on what you do not like, once you can see that you are not the only person that feels this way and you can accept all the good things in your life, you as a person can start improving on yourself and what you would like to grow to be.

According to "Understanding Vicarious Trauma" (n.d), “Vicarious trauma is the process of change that happens because you care about other people who have been hurt, and feel committed or responsible to help them. Over time this process can lead to changes in your psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being”. Vicarious Trauma, is something that happen over a period of time, from things happening in your personal life and also what you are hearing on a daily bases with your clients. Working in the human service field can put a big weight on your shoulders if you let it, there are going to be many clients that you work with that have gone through awful things in there life, and you as a human service professional are there to help guide them into healing, fixing there mental emotions. As a part of this work a professional could possible carry that weight from others lives, if they let that happen. Vicarious trauma can over a period of time change the way you see yourself, others and even the world, which could affect your spirituality, by witnessing violence through these people seeking help