Daily Prompt: I Am a Rock

Daily Prompt: I Am a Rock.

As I was looking at todays daily prompt, it resonated with me because one of my problems is asking for help (I guess you could call it a problem?).

Maybe, it all boils down to one thing – communication.  I am not the best at it, although my husband has helped me greatly in that area.  Pre-children when I was working full-time as a PTA, I was cranking out treating patients, at least two per hour.  Of course we had several highschool kids that were our Aides.  Basically, their job was to make us (the therapists) look good.  The therapists treat the patients while the Aides operate like a well-oiled machine and predict our every move.  Patient arrived? Oh let me set up on heat and stim.  Is the therapist finished with that patients treatment? Let me grab an ice pack.  Does that patient need help with their exercises? Let me grab a weight for them.  Those kind of things seem pretty intuitive, but to a kid in high-school who is checking their phone every five minutes in the bathroom, or leaning on a treatment table not really doing anything to help the therapists look good, it would piss me off.  So, in my effort to be professional and not lose it with some of these kids in front of patients I would end up doing their work too.  Sometimes, it took more effort to direct the Aides to do something, baby-sit them to make sure it was done correctly, than to just do the dang thing myself.

One time, we had an Aide that literally walked around the treatment area in circles. I am not lying when she walked around in circles trying to pretend that she was working.  We, of course, had to chat with her about all the time she spent leaning up against a table.  Because I was catching on to her new strategy, I asked her to please keep track of Mr. So and So’s exercises for me.  “OK” she replies, continues walking around the room, and never once documented anything, she took more effort to pretend she was being useful than actually being useful. Aghh, and she wasn’t being defiant either, she just had no initiative or brains therefore she sucked at her job.  It took so much effort to keep on an eye on her I wondered why we kept her on board at all.

Asking for help will probably always be struggle for me, maybe it’s my pride or my ability to articulate what I need.  I will say, that when help is offered, I take them up the assistance now.  It makes the giver feel good which is a benefit for me as much as for them.  People who love you need to feel needed as much as I need to be strong.  Just because I accept help does not make me any weaker.  This really hit home when I realized I looked ridiculous trying to manage two infant car seats while carrying in a few groceries.  It’s not demeaning to accept help, Kelly! Slaps head.  Thank God my neighbor ignored me when I said “no, I’m alright.”

Ever since then, I have been accepting more and more help from others, although I am not perfect. It will take time, and working on communication, probably for the rest of my life before these little things are mastered.