Rose’s Story

Rose’s Story

Kiana Stern

This story was very emotional for me to read, I experienced many emotions and had to take many breaks to give myself some time to think. I am an individual that gets very touched by stories and feel for people very much. Reading about what Rose had to go through made me feel sick and so sad for her, I wish I could’ve helped her when she was struggling, and I wish she had more reliable support, that she would have been able to lean on. My impressions of Rose initially were that I did not think she was very confident, I felt upset for her that she could have stood up for herself and tried to give her opinion on certain things, however I feel that she was very passive. I think another impression that I had of Rose was that I did not feel that she was very self-aware, as well as not taking good care about her own well-being. My impressions of Rose did change over the course of the story. I began to learn as I read through the story that Rose was not given much of a choice to voice her own opinion, or stand up for what she felt was right. It was also clearer to me later in the story that her family was not very supportive or her, and put many tasks on her, making them solely her responsibilities, and no one else’s. I was later more understanding that Rose may not be as good as being self-aware of her issues or herself because she had a lot going on in her life and was not given the opportunity to really think about herself and the way she was treated.

The element of the story that caused me to have such strong emotions and feelings was the process of Rose’s ‘support system’ that did not provide her with the help that she really needed. It broke my heart to read that she never really got the help she needed until 40 years after she had to go through all the processes that she went through. It also hurt me that Rose’s support system thought of her as being crazy, and thinking she was too problematic, instead of trying their absolute best to help her. She was moved around so much into different families, she was thrown into dealing with situations that she has never dealt with in her life before. These families did not treat her fairly, which was really upsetting to learn about. On page 9 of the text, this quote stood out to me most “When I started growing personal hair, she would come in the bathroom when I was taking my bath and make me shave my privates. She told me I had to because I wasn’t normal and my body was growing faster than my mind ever would”. “Bibb, Wanda "Rose". Rose's Story (Page 9). Waveland Press Inc.

There was a specific paragraph on page 33 and 34 that took out to me most about her taking medication that she was described, that was not helping her, but making her situation in her life worse, this broke my heart. “I never was a big eater, but every time I took the pill I was supposed to take a half hour before I ate, I would feel sick to my stomach and couldn’t eat at all. When I called him about it, he said I was supposed to take four a day of the other pills that he had given me, too. Since I hadn’t taken any of them yet, I thought it would probably help. They were marked “Valium, 5 milligrams,” but that didn’t mean anything to me, as I had never heard of them before. After I started taking them along with the ones I later learned were diet pills, I began to lose weight rapidly. I cried because I was hungry all the time and couldn’t eat hardly anything at all. I got to where I couldn’t sleep at all either and I was having trouble walking. I would be walking across the floor and just pass out cold. Bibb, Wanda "Rose". Rose's Story (Page 34). Waveland Press Inc. It is horrible and depressing to me that she was prescribed medication that could be risky to her life, I cannot wrap my head around why a doctor would prescribe a life-threatening medication to someone, without considering the situation more and keeping up with the patient! I cannot imagine struggling so much, being so frustrated with my mental health and this situation impacting my physical health too. It made me so upset that Rose was having psychology attacks from mentally struggling, as well as having physical conditions that she was having struggles with as well. It is so unfair that she was not given the appropriate support and guidance that she needed to function in a healthy way. Rose went through very rough obstacles with her mental and physical illnesses and I am very impressed that she pulled through in a strong way, with a new support system later in her life, who were able to give her to proper help she has been needing.

I cannot even to begin to explain my anger towards the social workers in this story. They made extremely unethical decisions that really pained me to read through. First, they looked at an overall span of the patient’s life, not looking deeply enough into their lives to further help them solve their issues. Some of these co- workers also had to audacity to send their patients to a poor community that had a low-quality hospital to take care of Rose and other patients. I feel that this is extremely wrong, and Rose had no money for care, as well as being given almost nothing to help pay for her needs. Furthermore, there were some social workers that were more professional and caring than others, but it is ridiculous that the majority of the social workers were so unprofessional and did not care enough about their patients. One of the most important responsibilities with having the occupation as a co-worker involves unconditional love and support towards your patient/patients and trying to help/guide them in a positive direction, with giving them the most effort that one can do.

I have some mixed feelings about the social work profession after reading this story. One part of me wants to be a social worker, with a lot of practice and experience to stand out and be the best I can to be to help my patients. However, on the other side, I feel that I would have an experience of feeling embarrassed that I would have this occupation, to in a way have a connection with this story in a negative way. The part of me that says to be a better social worker and learn from the past to grow for the future stands out to me the most at this point in my life. It breaks my heart that in the past, especially in this story, that social workers did almost nothing at all to help the individuals who needed their help the most. I hope to make up for the unexperienced and horrible social workers in the past (especially from this story) and being a great social worker, helping my patients as much as I can and more.