brick-by-brickwego

[brick-by-brickwego]

I worked in direct care for a few years in group homes caring for individuals with disabilities. My coworker and I who both worked overnights on different days at the same house became good friends and over time we were convinced there was a ghost in the house and also knew that a client passed away shortly before we both started working. We would hear sounds and footsteps when it was utterly impossible due to clients physical abilities/limitations. We would wake up to locked med cabinets wide open when we knew we locked them the night before. Lights on when we knew we turned them off. One day my friend/coworker told me a story from the job she had before.

She said she worked at another care facility where two staff were on for every overnight shift due to the number of clients. There was one client who was elderly, had never walked nor talked, and was always hooked up to monitors at night to ensure she could breath properly every night. Then one night they heard footsteps in the hallway outside the staff room. No monitors had gone off so they were really surprised, they go to the hallway and there is said client, standing, and she goes “boo, did I scare you”.

They are both in utter shock, they get the client back to bed none the less, hook all the monitors back up, and continue on with their shift. In the morning the client is dead.

Real life ghost story. Scariest thing I ever heard and I think about it constantly.

[brick-by-brickwego]

come on brain yip yip

[brick-by-brickwego]

I thought I always hated the color pink. And then I remembered one day that in 11th grade I wore this really soft pink camo print button up to school and was really nervous to wear it but gave it a shot because I loved it, but two girls made fun of me, whispering about how I looked like an ugly flamingo with how red my cheeks were and how pink my shirt was, they thought I couldn’t hear them or see them looking, but I did. I went home and threw that shirt in the back of my closet to forget about it and never wore it after even though I loved it.

I don’t hate the color pink. I hate the way others tell me I look in it.

I hate the feeling of being vulnerable and made fun of.

Words matter.

[brick-by-brickwego]

I work in a kitchen and the other day my coworker asked if I wanted him to grab me iced coffee from the walk in cooler so I said sure, he comes back with two quart sized containers filled with ice and coffee for us

[brick-by-brickwego]

Every now and then I remember when I was in high school, some people started jokingly calling the “popular girls” the “plastics” like from mean girls, because tbh they WERE super fake and mean, even to each other. They started embracing the name, calling themselves that, and some of the girls are still friends to this day, years after college, and still call themselves that

[brick-by-brickwego]

Remember in 1993 when Jurassic Park was like…the end all, be all of special effects?

[brick-by-brickwego]

[brick-by-brickwego]

High school: your teachers teach you how to address a college professor appropriately, format the body, and make a professional signature.

College: “me sending complex email with my ideas on how to solve an issue in lab which my professor asked for help on, *including heading, body, signature**

Professor: “lol”

[brick-by-brickwego]

A couple years ago we got a 47 inch flat screen Vizio tv for Christmas, a few days later my brothers accidentally shot the tv with their air soft guns that they got for Christmas. Now we have an orange pixilated bullet hole in the middle of our tv that people always ask about

[brick-by-brickwego]

do you ever get so annoyed at everything that you start to get pissed off at even little things like a spoon clinking against a bowl or sounds of people talking  

[brick-by-brickwego]

[brick-by-brickwego]

professor: *teaches 5 chapters in a 50 minute class* Does everyone understand?

me:

[brick-by-brickwego]

When I was a kid I grew up on a farm, one of the things we would do for fun was tie twine string from bales, to pop bottles filled with rocks, and then we’d throw the bottle up into a BIG tree, we’d do that over and over till the bottle got stuck, then it was a game to try to get it outa the tree, cuz you knew your parents were gonna be like WTF are you doing if they saw a twine string hanging from a tree

That was what we did for entertainment

[brick-by-brickwego]

Direct care jobs are not easy

They are described as helping a person with their everyday life things such as getting dressed, cooking, going outside to do things etc.

But what they don’t tell you when they start, what your friends don’t always tell you

-Is the hard part

When your clients have mental illnesses and might have a behavior that becomes violent, or when they can’t understand the full extent of something you need to tell them such as “no, there’s not enough staff on tonight for you to see that movie” so they break down and scream and cry

When a client is nonverbal and can’t tell you what they want but clearly need something as they are moaning or acting unusual

When a client is afraid and try’s to hit you, bite you, kick you and succeeds, or doesn’t succeed, you’re left shaking

When no one tells you a client you’ve worked with for a year on and off and really cared for passes away and you find out via email at 11pm at home alone

When you’re the only staff member on for the day working with 3 new clients all of whom don’t feel comfortable with a new staff yet to let you help them with their cares so they yell at you, refuse to get ready for bed, threaten you

When you have to take a client grocery shopping in your car and they grab your steering wheel not even knowing what they are doing, and when that same client runs away in the grocery store while everyone is staring

When your client’s nervous tick that’s uncontrollable is to scream every ten seconds

The list goes on

I love my job and the people I work with

But I go home stressed almost every day

I do feel happy knowing my clients are happy

But also it’s hard facing so many hurdles when all you’re trying to do is HELP

[brick-by-brickwego]

I wasn’t asked to a single dance in high school and didn’t have a serious romantic relationship until I was 22. And like, yeah that shit hurt when I was younger. I had a lot of fears that I was unlovable and that I didn’t deserve to be happy. And every time I would try to talk to anyone about it, the conversation became, “you’ll find someone”, when it should have been, “you don’t need a relationship or a date, you’re lovable & complete & beautiful on your own”.

So yeah, please normalize young people not dating, and please stop shaming them for it. There’s more to life than romance, despite what the media wants us to think.

[brick-by-brickwego]

“Too many people are faking the funk.  I was at the club the other night.  And I’m scrolling through my Instagram and I see a post from a girl I know.  And she’s at the same club.  And in this photo she’s holding up a bottle, acting crazy, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world.  But the club wasn’t even rocking like that.  It was a Thursday.  So I look across the room and there she is: sitting down, looking bored, scrolling through her phone, and clearly faking the funk.”

[brick-by-brickwego]

Me when a door is heavy and Im weak