Bubble Girl: Learnng a lesson about Personal Space

Last Friday I visited Lucy McCormick again ( I will from here on refer affectionately to the school as “Lucy”), but this time I identified a new lesson that I am going to have to learn during my time there: Personal space.

Let me start by backing up two weeks... on the first day of class we did a personality workshop to get to know ourselves and the Beyond Borders team a little bit better. I swore I was not going to write about this experience, but here I am. The personality analysis broke down into 4 categories: Inquiring Green, Organized Gold, Authentic Blue, and Resourceful Orange. Through a series of questions and activities, one could tally up a score and rank themselves in each colour category. I ranked highest in Authentic Blue and Resourceful Orange (see Tina, I told you!), and I also scored a 7/7 on the extroverted scale (who knew?!).

What all this means: Authentic Blue means that I am people oriented, enthusiastic, supportive, ethical, and optimistic. Resourceful Orange means that I am action oriented, independent, creative, multi-tasker, out of the box. Scoring a 7/7 on an extroverted scale means that I get my energy through interacting with people, and essentially that I have no concept of personal space - well I have a personal space but I prefer that you, and you, and you, and you are sharing it with me, all the time!

So back to my lesson… All of the students at Lucy face challenges in their everyday lives. Many of them have to deal with the exacerbated challenges of a dual diagnosis, which can sometimes cause unique issues. As a brand new volunteer I am not privy to information about their various mental/physical/or health diagnoses. The challenge this presents is that I am not always aware of how to interact with one student as opposed to another – Especially in the case of personal space.

Many of the students are leery of strangers, and it takes them much longer to warm up to new faces. I am a new face, and I’m not there everyday, and when I am there I don’t get to see all the students all day long. I find that because I lack a real understanding of personal space I was sometimes inadvertently overstepping boundaries and agitating some of the students. I find myself getting frustrated in situations where my approach is not working. I get angry at myself for not being able to form immediate connections with all of the students. I have to learn to be patient, and I must develop a concrete understanding for what personal space means to others.

It was a challenge for me to be open and honest about my lack of understanding. its hard for me to admit incompetencies (see last week's post). But generally teachers and support workers were helpful in pointing out who I should and shouldn’t be too close to, and were great in terms of providing suggestions on how to work with various students. Facilitating harmony and connecting with others is an “Authentic Blue” thing. What I have to learn is how to connect with someone in their comfort zone, and not impose mine, so that we can create harmonious bonds that are positive, sincere and helpful.

Each one of these lessons is another step in the steep learning curve that this experience has presented to me. Realizing the many lessons I still need to learn is a welcomed ego deflator – I don’t know EVERYTHING. I am really beginning to comprehend how unprepared for a life “out there” I am (academia and western licing can be soooo comfortable). The learning curve is steep, and not without its challenges, but this is much better than stagnation. I’m enjoying this.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

*love*