Bar None reflections 2

A few days into my internship I developed a close relationship with resident CD (I’ll be using resident’s initials to protect their anonymity). CD is a thirteen year old boy who has been bouncing around different foster homes and group homes for his entire life until he finally got placed at our facility due to his mood disorders and sporadic aggression. At first glance, he seems like a healthy and well-functioning teenager who loves to goof off. He does magic tricks, tells jokes, and dances to michael jackson music, and always brings a lot of energy to our unit. 

He and I connected quickly during my first week with the boys. He showed me his magic tricks and then I taught him some of my own, making sure to tell him to practice plenty before attempting to trick his peers. I think he came to see as a friend he could trust. Often we would walk the grounds (Bar None is a large facility with acres of woods and little lakes) and his imagination would run wild and he would talk about how he could control the wind and communicate with the sun god who he called “Celante”. The vividness of his stories and the speed of his thinking impressed me, and I would play along with his imagination. I did not expect the residents to be so quick to accept me, and I was glad that I was forming real relationships with them.

When I talked with the other counselors, they described how CD was more stable than he had ever been in his life. His aggression was reduced, and he was a generally positive force for the other boys. Because of his improvements, they decided to try reducing his medications. CD was on Lithium, a mood stabilizing drug. The results were immediate. His irritability increased dramatically, and his imagination which used to be a positive force now seemed to captivate and control him. All day long he would spew gibberish about his imaginary friend, and CD would take on multiple different personalities, asking me to call him different names at different times of the day. His mood went from warm and trusting to angry and very untrusting of authority. 

Throughout the day his mood will change dramatically, so sometimes he welcomes me and at other times he will call me mean and a liar and will rant about how he is stuck in the most terrible place. It has been tough to keep my personal feelings out of this situation. At times it does hurt when he yells insults at me, but at other times we connect again and he sees me as his friend and as someone who cares. 

While the reduction in his medications revealed a sad truth about his mental state, I am still positive about my interactions with him so far. Our goal at Bar None is to ensure that the residents feel safe and cared for in their environment, and to get the residents to realize that they can trust adults despite their very difficult past experiences. I think I am in an interesting position, being the youngest counselor at the unit, and I hope to continue to develop caring relationships with the boys to help them heal.