Off The Deep End

Jane Wagner once said, ~See, the human mind is kind of like...a pinata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside. Once you get the pinata perspective you see that posing your mind can be a peak experience.~ Every person has experienced the feeling of losing their mind to the point where he or she isn't able to find it again. Yet, when a person is able to find it, parts of it are missing as if it went on an extended vacation and lost key pieces of luggage. Working in the asylum is a truly mind blowing experience for any new employee who doesn't expect to lose their mind on the first day, but they do. In some warped aspect, it’s like going through an initiation and if they return then next, they have passed with flying colors.

If you think about it, losing your mind isn't such a bad thing because it helps a person release pent up anger and/or frustration that has been building for quite some time. Being a youth program specialist, you lose your mind on a semi-daily basis and no matter how in control of your emotions you are, one will lose it. For it is simply unavoidable as kids will test the limits and boundaries of a person's sanity to the point where he or she enjoys seeing a counselor break under the pressure. Undoubtedly, we all have a breaking point and kids have that ability to find it, exploit it, use it to their advantage, to where we will scream out these six words which are, Have you all lost your minds!?

Working with kids, especially 6 and 7 year olds, repetition is part of my job that tends to get extremely boring and old. On any given day, words will be repeated over and over again, which usually never get heard. A person can literally tear out their own hair trying to get through to kids who sometimes don't want to listen. There are days where I just want to come to work with a tape record and just play the most repeated things that I have to say on a regular basis. Such things are stop running, get down from there or you will get hurt, tie your shoe before you crack your head open and bleed all over the place, and my personal favorite which is stop yelling when you are talking to me, I'm two feet away from you I can hear you just fine.

Let me ask you this question, have you ever been in a situation where you started to lose your mind, have lost it, or came close to losing it? Oftentimes it can involve family, friends, life, love, school, but more often than not one's own workplace can bring about craziness, as well as, madness. Every person deals with the pangs of potentially slipping into complete madness in different ways when it comes to kids. For a person like myself, I use sarcastic humor as a response to either a totally off the wall question that "my kids" ask me or something that happens that is considered funny which merits a sarcastic response. It's just a matter of keeping a sense of humor about it, when things just get too serious.

In retrospect, we've all met people that are either one chicken mcnuggets short of a happy meal or their lights are on but nobody's home. Ultimately, the world is one big insane asylum in which we have to figure out who is out of their mind or who doesn't have a mind to lose. Personally speaking, I'm about 75% insane and you know what I'm enjoying the experience of being the counselor that is considered kooky. Hey, I embrace my kookiness because it shows that the kids like me even though I lose my cool sometimes. In the end, every person has the right to go off the deep end every once and awhile; it's just a matter of not staying in the pool of insanity too long or you will be lost in it forever.