Thank You

I want to thank my classmates and Prof. G. for making this semester outstanding.  This class has taught more than any other class I ever taken.  I have learned so much about social justice issues; However I have learned a great deal more about my self.  I will always treasure the time we spent in this particular class, as it has forever changed my outlook on life.  I am so grateful to have classmates who are deeply passionate and genuinely care.  Prof. Gerstenblatt has stretched my way of thinking and my way of acting within the my community and world.  Thank you Prof. G. for being an inspiration and for your constant encouragement to push my self just a little bit farther.  The lesson I have learned from you are invaluable.  Thanks again to each every one of you for this wonderful semester.

Group Presentations

The presentations presented this week were all very good.  I was impressed with each individual’s input.  Project H was very moving.  I could tell the girls actually cared and put their whole heart into the project.  I am glad this group plans to obtain donations for homeless outreaches.  I did some of my volunteer hours at the Arch, so this project touched my heart.  Like many of the young ladies in this group, when I first started volunteering with the Arch I was terrified of the homeless people.  I was fearful of being robbed.  I discovered the people at the Arch were not that different from me. I learned to really enjoy working with the homeless population.  After Work Activism did an excellent job explaining what they desire to do and how they plan to pursue social justice issues with the group in the future.  I had received several emails about AWA, but I did not really understand what is about, until the group explained the vision of AWA.  I honestly don’t have the time to be involved, but I appreciated their endeavor.  The executive orders were very surprising.  It is difficult to believe the governor has so much control and the people have no way of really making executive orders illegal.  This group was also impressive in its ability to overcome so many obstacles in doing the project.  While they may not have been able to present the “intended goal”, this group was very informative.   I also enjoyed the group about the education gap.  It is shocking how much difference location and social class make on the ability to achieve educational goals.  In all honesty, I learned more about the education gap from this group’s project than I did from a supposed professional on the issue.  Overall everyone did an excellent job. 

Social Justice

As I read the last few chapters in Adam’s social justice book, I noticed several chapters mentioned the need to unite, heal, and respect.  What exactly does unite, heal, and respect mean? The last few chapters helped me realize: All human beings must unite in respect for one another in order to heal from past social injustice issues and strive to become more socially just.

Unite: (transitive verb)   1. To put together to form a single unit

                                             2. To cause to adhere

                                             3. To link by a legal or moral bond

        (Intransitive verb)     1. To possess in combination

                                             2. To become one or as if one

                                             3. To become combined by or as if by adhesion or mixture

                                             4. To act in concert

Heal:                  1. To make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from aliment

                              2. To bring to an end or conclusion, as conflicts between people or groups, usually with                                     strong implication of restoring former amity; settle; reconcile

                              3. To free from evil; cleanse; purify

Respect:            Denotes a positive feeling of esteem or deference for a person or other entity, and also                                      specific                actions and conduct representative of that esteem

Adultism

Oddly enough, I still experience forms of adultism as at the age of thirty-one.  People assume that because I am not married and do not have children, I don’t have adult responsibilities.  Of course, I have responsibilities as do twenty-something’s, teenagers, and children.  Granted my respoabilities may not be quite the same as a wife and mother.  I am personally responsible for my households grocery shopping, errand running, paying bills, and keeping both my mother and brother on a budget.   I am not a wife; however I am a sister and daughter who are highly depended upon to take care of household business.  My brother considers me his personal secretary; I literally take care of all of his personal business.  My mom does help with budgeting issues, but for the most part it’s my job.  I clean and do the laundry for the three of us.  The only thing I am not responsible for at home, is cooking dinner, which I do cook dinner at least once a week.  So why do people with children and spouses or domestic partners think, I have less responsibility and thus more time to do homework and other activities?  By the way, I do understand children are time consuming, but that is part of the reason I have chosen not to have children yet.  Just because some of my classmate, made the discision to have children, does not mean I should be treated less “adult” because I made a different choice.

It is not just classmates, who treat me younger because of my lack of children.  My grandmother even treats me younger than my married cousins with children.  They are eleven years younger than me, but my grandmother tends to think of them as being older than me, based on the fact I am not married and do not have children.

I have probably been guilty of treating classmates and my younger cousins with adultism views.  Like our book states, our society perpetuates the idea that teenagers and young adults are stupid and less than older adults. It is perfectly natural and accepted to compare responsibilities without consider what choices were made that caused those responsibilities.  When you make the choice to become a partner and parent, you make the choice to take on the extra responsibilities that come with it.

Lost in My Own Pain

This has been a very difficult week for me.  The subject matters in all my classes have been very heavy.  I have been in contact with my father, for the first time in over a year.  If you haven’t put the pieces together, my father was extremely abusive to me, my brother, and my mother in every way possible.

While talking to him on the phone last night for two hours, for first time in years I saw him as a person who is deeply hurting.  It is easy to look at him as a monster and allow my anger and hurt to block all human qualities from him.  However as he talked about being alone in the hospital, scared of dying and realizing he had no family, I felt his deep pain and could view as a human being.

What am I suppose to with that?  Do I allow him into parts of my life?  Do I completely forgive his past and choose to move forward from today?  I have a million questions running through my head and a million horrific memories that still scream out with excruciating pain.  I feel lost and confused! 

Homophobia

Homophobia is a subject close to my heart and it makes me extremely angry and frustrated.  If you have read my other blogs, you already know my brother, Jason is gay.  What you don’t know if how much homophobia has affected his personal choices.  Jason was married to a beautiful woman, Angela in his early twenties.  Jason knew he was gay; however a few of our pastors and leaders at our church convinced him if he would get married and live a heterosexual lifestyle he would be freed from the demonic spirit that caused him to desire sexual relations with men.  I personally think these individuals are complete morons!  Jason desperately wanted to be a minister and a “Godly” man.  So against my pleading and hours of conversation, Jason proposed to his best friend Angela.  Angela knew Jason struggled with homosexual desires; however she too believed Jason’s sexuality would change once they were married.  Obviously being gay is not a choice, so getting married did not suddenly make Jason straight.  Jason and Angela filed for divorce after two years of marriage.   Angela remains single because she is afraid to get involved in another relationship.  Jason still struggles with the loss of his best friend, Angela and how much pain he caused her

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My point is homophobia within our church caused Jason to make a terrible choice.  Homophobia in essence devastated Angela.   I also lost Angela as a friend.  We were friends before Jason married her and became much closer as sisters-in-law.   Homophobia hurts everyone involved, not just the homosexual individual.  Trust me; I have been deeply wounded by people who claimed to love me as result of having a gay brother.

Body Image

Chapter 68, The Body Politic in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice is very interesting to me personally.  In spite of the fact I am now very much overweight, I once struggled with an eating disorder.  I really struggled with writing about this time in my life because I think people who see me as I am know will never believe me. 

With that said, I will attempt to allow you guys a small glimpse into my personal battle with a combination of anorexia and bulimia.  It actually started with a bleeding peptic ulcer.  Due to the blood in my stomach I vomited frequently and lost a little weight before my physicians were able to diagnosis the ulcer and treat it.  I gained the weight back, which made me think I could get really skinny by vomiting.  So I started purging everything I ate or drank.  After a few months, I would go for several days without eating or drinking at all.  My senior year of high school, I missed over forty-five days of school because I was so frequently hospitalized due to dehydration.  Because I missed so many days, I had to go before the school board and convinced them to allow me to graduate.  The only reason I was not forced to repeat my senior year was that I was an honor student with a very high GPA. I continued my pattern of starving and purging until I was in my early twenties.  I was sent to Scott & White hospital in Temple, TX at the age of twenty and spent several weeks attempting to get better.  The physician told my family, I would probably not live; they could not help me because I was unwilling to be helped. 

Shortly after that I was involved in a severe car wreck. I suffered a closed head injury, which caused me to develop severe migraines and other medical issues. I spent months in physical and cognitive rehab, which made it very difficult for me to keep up my eating disorder routine.  I would love to say, I learned to eat health and quite purging and starving myself because of some inspirational insight.  However the truth is, I quite because it was too difficult to keep up with my routine and deal with constant severe neck and back pain and atypical migraines.

My family and I are fully aware; I have the potential to develop an eating disorder at any given moment.  I attempt to keep myself from that temptation by remembering the excruciating hunger pains and how weak I felt.  My fear of developing another eating disorder is what has kept me from dieting at all in the past.  I recently started weight watchers in hopes to get back down to a health weight.  Thankfully I have a few friends that know my eating disorder history that help me not get too carried away with my dieting attempt.

We as social workers must keep in mind; things are not always as they appear.  No one in our social class would ever be able to guess I struggled with an eating disorder just by looking at current physical appearance.

 I decided to include a few pictures of myself when I was much smaller.  At the time of both of the pictures, I was already beginning to gain weight.  At the height of my eating disorder I weighed ninety-six pounds and was five foot seven inches tall.

Jennifer Bliss age 19

Jennifer Bliss age 21