I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow, it is my final semester of college. This semester, I have a pretty comfortable class schedule. No class on Fridays and my only class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is Yoga. Technically, it's "rest and relaxation," but lets be real, it's yoga.
Two of my classes are not meeting with an actual class and I'm just doing them independently with my professor. One of those classes is my internship which I'm doing at The Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children (find out more about them here). However, my internship wasn't starting until the 3rd week of school.
So for the first two weeks, I was bored out of my flippin mind. I would do all my homework rather quickly and then just be bored. Really really bored. But I have good news.
I STARTED MY INTERNSHIP TODAY!
Ask anyone that I talked to last night and they'll tell you that I was a nervous wreck. I had no idea what to expect. I also had to wear grown up clothes which I was not too happy about. Being a professional is hard, yall. So after an hour and a half of trying on outfits, picking the first outfit that I tried on, and getting my bag all packed, I was ready for my internship. I felt like a little kid going off to school for the first time.
You know how some people teach their kids to swim by just throwing them into a pool (which is not recommended)? That's kind of how my first day went. The main thing that took up my time was observing a forensic interview. One of the main services at The Advocacy Center is the forensic interview. This is done so that children don't have to tell their story (involving physical and sexual abuse) multiple times to multiple people. They talk about what happened and they only have to relive the trauma once. It's set up in a way to be comfortable for the child and more like a conversation than an interrogation. The interview takes place in one room while we (interns and CPS workers) listen and observe from a TV in a different room.
The interview today was with a 6 year old girl. Her parents were divorced and in the middle of a nasty custody battle. CPS had been called a ton of times and there were signs of physical abuse on the girl. She talked about her life at moms house, at dads house, when and where dad "pops" her, and all the details of the abuse. As you can imagine, the interview was hard to hear. According to other interns, this was one of the more tame cases. Working with physically and sexually abused children, I'm sure I'll hear/see way worse. I was feeling a little overwhelmed, to say the least.
When I was telling different people about my first day, they kept telling me, "oh, you'll be doing this for your career. You'll get used to it." I don't want to get used to it! The day I get used to seeing children abused is the day I'm desensitized to it all and most likely, the day I will step away from the job. Unfortunately, I know that child abuse will most likely never be eradicated. But each day, we're helping individual children. For that day, we might be the only people that truly listen to the child. The only person they can trust for the time being.
So now I'm sitting here with my first day as an intern complete and lemme tell ya, I'm so excited about. Don't get me wrong, I'm nervous. I know it'll be really stinkin hard. I'm sure I'll leave certain cases that tear me up inside and make me furious. But I know I'm supposed to be working with this population at this organization. I'm excited to see what all I learn in the next few months!
Oh. And I'll be 22 in 11 days which is totally strange.
