Never A Dull Moment

Working in a place like the Youth Center, one can either have a positive or negative effect depending how lone that person has worked there. For a person like myself, it's more positive than negative. Some days it's like working in a nuthouse and the inmates are running the asylum. As one approaches the hallowed halls of the Youth Center, one can hear the echoes of screaming, crying, whining, and mad laughter and that is just coming from the staff. Along time ago, I one said that a person will never be the same when you first start till the time you leave and it still hold true. In some aspect, there are some similarities in working in a youth center and in an insane asylum.

For instance, every insane asylum needs to have their resident oddballs, nutcases, weirdoes, and lunatics. No it's not the kids I'm talking about; it's the staff because the kids have gotten to us mentally. In my line of work, one will get a handle of which kids are harmless and which kids have that Dr. Hannibal Lectre mentality. It's the mini-Hannibal Lectres that have current and former employees starting to hear voices. But it's those current and former employees that talk back to those voices that one was to worry about. It's just a matter of not showing any sign of weakness in front of these so called "inmates" because you, they have you in the palm of their tiny little hands.

With every insane asylum, medication is a big part of mellowing out those that may go bonkers and start a rampage of madness that one police in riot gear can stop. Working in a high pressure job involving kids, one's medication can consist of daily doses of nicotine that helps tremendously in one's stress level. Also medications such as coffee can, in some way, have a calming effect though one will be wired and somewhat act like Rain Main for a couple of hours. But the best medication that helps in times of utter chaos is listening to music because it drowns out the madness that surrounds the insane asylum within.

In an insane asylum, you will find an assortment of interesting people who don't think they belong there and believe they are in the right state of mind. In my view, we as counselors don't want to be at work half the time and we're never in the right state of mind due in part to kids constantly in our ear every day. Several months ago, I said you have to be totally insane to work in a place that will mentally eat you alive metaphorically speaking. Fortunately I am already nuts and even though it's a job that is both mentally and physically tiring, it's a job that I love to be a part of because you never know what is going to happen next.

In life, we will encounter people that think we need to seek professional help because one thinks we're either nuts, crazy, strange, and/or weird. But think about this, there are people out there one knows or have come across that are nuttier, crazier, and/or weirder that each of us. Last night I was to be rewarded with a lap dance by several female co-workers for a job well done putting together a dance routine for "my kids" earlier in the afternoon. There's never a dull moment when a 250 pound man, my best friend, out of nowhere gives me a lap dance that will cause me to have nightmares for years to come and probably have myself committed to the nearest mental institution.