She Persisted Project

Saving Herself - ThoughtsOnPaper

The strength and triumphs of a woman doesn't solely rest on how many battles she has won. Nor is it measured by the distance she has between her competitors. It's not dependent on whether she trampled on her oppressors or not. Does it matter how many lives she saved? Does her value equal to how much her gains multiplied? Is she any less if no one has ever heard her voice?

Six years ago, a Vietnamese woman sat across me for her appointment. She was in her early fifties. Like other Vietnamese clients her age in my caseload, she struggled with English. Apart from the communication barrier, she was also ill, both physically and mentally. She had a litany of woes that made me think that God was in a foul mood and decided to pick on her.

It was was common amongst my other mature-aged Vietnamese clients to have seen the face of war. She manifested the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I saw how she trembled in fear, shaking her head and holding her hand out as if someone was about to attack her. When I ask what was wrong, she'd shake her head or shrug. I looked at her, wondering how was I meant to help her find work. She couldn't speak English. She wasn't mentally sound. She was not "job ready." I had to put her in an activity to address the language barrier at the very least. So, I suggested for her to take English classes. The suggestion brought a reaction I didn't expect. She spat out words I couldn't understand. Studying her expressions and body language, it was clear she wouldn't have a bar of it. It wasn't long when she rolled another long list of woes in the form of boxes of medication, and some sort of test kit. She pulled out a thick wad of medical documents from her bag, expecting me to explain them to her. This was something I couldn't help her with. All I could advice was to return to her doctor and get an interpreter to explain it. She would gesture to her stomach and grimace in pain. I assumed was that her discomfort concerned the digestive or reproductive area.

This was the scenario every time she came to see me. As I went through her file, I'd see her tremble in fear, ready to protect herself from the ghosts projected by her trauma. Then she would ask me to interpret her medical documents. Through body language she would explain the pain in her stomach. She showed me a test kit again. Unlike in the previous appointments, I finally took the patience to go through the contents of the kit. It was a screening kit for bowel cancer. From there, I knew we were wasting each other's time. I was the wrong person for her to see. I couldn't help her.

My job was to help her find work, and she was not ready. No English. PTSD. Likely to have cancer. How? I couldn't stop making appointments as I had to service her. It was also part of the conditions to receive unemployment benefits for her to see me. She had to get off my caseload, but still be able to receive her welfare. The only way to do that was for her to get a medical exemption. She had to address her medical issues first. It took several appointments for her to understand what she had to do. It was a relief when she finally got that exemption. One less person to worry about.

When one has done the job that I do for many years, they learn to detach and shutdown. We need a strong invisible wall between the client and ourselves. That wall had to be strong enough to put Great Wall of China to shame. While we had to be fair, we still had to be target-driven and compliant. She was a number on the caseload who wouldn't do our statistics a favour. That's all she was. A number.

A year went by, she came back. I groaned when I saw her name on my appointment list. I already knew that I won't get her into employment. I already assumed she won't consider doing an English course like last time. I didn't consider linking her with in-house interventions either. I already assumed rejections for any expenditure requests for someone who won't work.

So, the moment she sat at my desk, I called the interpreter and went through her file. I updated her paperwork. As I went through the routine, I noticed something different. It was as if the woman who sat before me and the one I dealt with a year before were not the same person. The frown that lined her face due to confusion, fear, and pain wasn't there. She had a smile and energy that was infectious. She was receptive to what I had to say, and she was trying to speak English.