You see, I used to be this shy little girl afraid of knowing new people. Within a setting where I don't know anyone, I would be the one that sits quietly, not speaking unless spoken to. I didn't know how to initiate conversations with people nor did I know how to get others to talk to me, to like me, to perceive me in a way that I want to be perceived. We're all human, we all want to be liked by others, whether it's popularity within a social group or giving the right impression to someone you just met, we all want to put ourselves across as a likeable person.
Initiating conversations seems to be a skill I kinda... developed through this year. I never knew where to begin? You're placed with a stranger, you know nothing about each other, how do you start a conversation with this person as well as putting yourself across as a likeable person? There's so many things involved. Interestingly, you might have noticed you exhibit more than one personality in different situations. When I'm here, typing this post, I'm exhibiting a different sort of personality than I would at a club for example. Or you could argue that these are not separate personalities but rather they all make me who I am. It's just, I'm intentionally suppressing certain aspects of my personality (one personality) to fit societal rules and conventions. Or maybe I'm trying to make people like me by typing in a way that is intellectual rather than paragraphs of internet speak. Who knows? I don't really know.
But to avoid diverging from the topic, the ability to talk to strangers is really something I value now. From the year I spent in the care home, communicating with residents with dementia who might not even know what I'm saying to them, who might forget me after every time they see me, who for every week is their first time meeting me even though I've been visiting for 12 months... You can imagine how scary it is being them. I've learnt way more from my volunteer experience than I do taking a course at university. You could even say, I value the gift of being able to talk full stop - which leads on to why I want to do speech therapy.
This morning (or afternoon rather), I woke up thinking why I want to career into a profession where I have to talk to clients on a daily basis. This led to me reflecting on the person I used to be, when I was shy and generally unable to initiate conversations with strangers, I would've been satisfied with a simple office job, an admin job, a job where I don't have to directly assess, advise or interact with people. But beyond that, do I want to be stuck behind a desk forever? I'm not belittling anyone's job here, please don't take offence if you are someone who does work behind a desk on a daily basis. But on a personal level, I realised that I'm no longer the little girl I once was, I'm no longer someone who is afraid to talk publicly - this year has changed me, it has changed the way I see the world, the way I see certain people around me, it has led me to re-evaluate my life, what do I want to do? where do I want to be in 10 years? I'm quite happy to talk publicly, give presentations or whatever, talk to strangers. I've made decisions and thankfully I haven't regretted any of them. The things I put first in my life today and the things I used to put first in my life last year - I can really see the difference.
I haven't had the chance to talk about my placement much, I know I said I would but there are certain things I'm sworn to privacy such as what patients talk to me about I'm not really supposed to reveal. But I'll let you guys know that it's amazing to get clinical experience if you want to profession into something medical. Speaking to patients throughout the day when I volunteer is something I really like doing, I'm starting to really like talking to people in general. There was a friend I knew, he's much older than me but when he told me he loves talking to people, inside I wondered why and how - sometimes being surrounded by people is really suffocating for me - you know when you just really need that alone time. But hearing about his life experiences and what he's done made me realise that you can actually learn a lot from talking to different people. I've certainly learnt a lot from the type of people I've met in the stroke unit. There are new patients every week to talk to which makes the placement much more rewarding. It's quite sad when you hear some patients have no relatives to visit them often, when you have nothing to do apart from sitting around and taking medication, it's not really fun. Some of them even talk about the frustration of having to share wards with other people, they deal with not being able to sleep properly because they're not in an environment that they're used to, they have to deal with other patients that snore etc etc. I'm just glad some of them are really talkative, there was this really nice old man who I spoke easily to for half an hour about his life, his hobbies, his family. I mean, at first, I was worried about invading his privacy into his private life but these people seem to be glad to talk about their family especially and their children and grandchildren.
One of my greatest fears was actually communicating with people - ironic isn't it when I want to go into a profession that involves talking to random people. I guess you could say I'm almost there in terms of conquering this fear. I really envy people that can talk to others so easily.
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