Your reflection

To get you started, think about the following four questions:

• How do I see myself now?
• What am I most proud of?
• What makes me happy?
• How would I like to see myself in the future?

Before trying to answer these questions have a look at the following examples, which show how Alana and James answered them.

We know that Alana has completed a Level 1 in Hairdressing and is progressing onto Level 2. Have a look at Alana’s table to see what Alana hopes for the future and how she sees herself now.

Think about the following questions:

• Do you identify with anything Alana is saying?
• Do you have anything in common?
• What is different about your situation and how you feel?

Now look at James’ table and listen to him describing his experiences.

Table 1.2 James’ table

Download this video clip.Video player: wam_s1_james_1.1.1.mp4

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Transcript

James

Ok, so my caring role began properly when I was 40, I’m gonna be 46 in July. My mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when she was about 75. She’s 80 now. She’s recently gone into residential care because the disease and the illness has progressed to a point whereby she needed to be in a safer environment than independent living.

How it changed my life I suppose was extraordinary. I mean I literally went from having a very busy career, working quite hard in my 20s and 30s, following college and what have you, the usual route, to finding myself in this position whereby, you know, suddenly this terrible illness had arrived and we needed to be there for her. She lived about 35 miles away from me initially, and I would go every weekend and I did that for about 20 months, taking food. One of the manifestations of her illness was that she stopped eating, so it was very important on a practical level that she had food arrive at the house and to try and encourage her to eat. Of course, what happened was, she then…I would go away, and she wouldn’t eat during the week. So, anyway, after about 20 months as I say, we then decided to move her very close to me so she moved into a bungalow about 500 yards up the road and I worked then full time for about 2 years, but even that wasn’t enough, I needed to spend more time I think than the full time job allowed me to. So, a year last March, I took voluntary redundancy after 15 years in one organisation that I’d been with and really to allow me more time and I was very lucky; I secured a post in NEWCIS shortly after for part time work and that allowed me then to be able to take her for hospital appointments, to doctors’ appointments, just do the practicalities of day-to-day whilst also trying to have my own life a bit with my own, you know, kind of, relationship and home, etc. But it was a struggle, even then it was quite a struggle, because I think with any chronic illness which is terminal and only going one way, inevitably it gets worse, it gets harder, so things didn’t get easier they became more difficult, I suppose.

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Now fill in the boxes for yourself on Activity sheet 1.1 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]   that we have provided for you. We will return to this activity in Session 5 so you may want to keep a copy of your table.

OR

Open your Reflection Log and go to Activity 1.1. Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.

If you are working in a group and would like to share your answers, do so now.

This activity asks you to think of the various roles you have in your life and what these involve.

In the previous section, we heard about Christine’s experiences of caring for her son, what it has taught her and how she feels about it. Have a look at Christine’s list of the roles that she now has in life, and then listen to her talking about these in the audio clip.

Figure 1.4

Download this audio clip.Audio player: wam_s1_christine_1_2.mp3

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Transcript

Christine

My name’s Christine. I look after my son who’s 19 in September. He has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and other complications with it, such as cardio myopathy, inoperable scoliosis due to his cardio respiratory function and complex learning difficulties.

I’m naturally a caring person anyway, very, very caring, very touchy-physical, kind of cuddly kind of person. Qualified nursery nurse, which I fell into at school because I wasn’t academic so I ended up looking after the pre-prep children, taking them swimming and you know spending time with them in the evenings and stuff like that so I kind of fell into nursery nursing. Love nannying, just being a mum really, substitute mum. Then had a long time to wait to get married and to have a child and, I don’t know, I find it very hard to call myself his carer because I’m his mum.

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The example above shows how we have different roles in life. We all have many roles in which we use a variety of skills and abilities.

Think about the following questions:

• Do you have anything in common with Christine?
• Have you had to deal with some of the same difficulties?
• Do you have goals you want to achieve?

In the previous section we also read about Claire and her role caring for her mother and her partner. Have a look at Claire’s table where she describes her many roles and what she does.

Now define yourself at the present time, and the roles you fulfil, in Activity sheet 1.2.

OR

Open your Reflection Log and go to Activity 1.2. (If you forgot to save your Reflection Log, you can open a new document.) Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.

If you are working in a group, you might want to share your answers and discuss your roles with each other. Similarly, if you are working one-to-one with a mentor, use this time to tease out some of the ideas above.