what bothers me...

As I was reading my oh-so riveting book on group therapy this morning my mind often wandered. One of the places it wandered to was the query of how adequately some of my fellow students are prepared for real-life people with real-life problems. Some of them have led a very sheltered life where the worst experience in their life or lives of their circle are things that for many of us are no more than psychological slivers.

I wondered how they would react if I were to pull my chair up in front of them, look them in the eye and tell them stories about my family. About how my sister's 17 year old son LL, in the 2 weeks before I went up to visit, beat his father. The first time with a large wrench because dad took away his motorcycle after he got in trouble with the law (again) for jumping over cars on the highway. About how LL killed a cat on my sister's voicemail to let her know how pissed he was that she wasn't home to give him cigarette money. (And truth be known, I don't have any doubts that this boy will kill someone someday, and it will probably be a family member) Or how about when her oldest was a baby, how she would be so angry at him for peeing in his diaper that she would turn the stove burner on and hold him over it until his butt blistered. Would my peers be able to believe these things were real or would the defenses in their psyche protect them by convincing them that these were just lies inteneded to shock? Would they break down, unable to hold the psychic weight of the events? Or would they take it in as everyday human experience? (it happens on tv all the time, right?)

And then I wondered how frakked up a therapist I will be for being able to hear these things without any real emotion. I expect these things from certain members of my family. Don't get me wrong, I am horrified by them, but I am also emotionless about them on a certain level. It takes a lot to shock me, to rock my psyche. Is that a good thing, or is it a bad thing? The truth is, I don't have the slightest idea, and that is the part that bothers me.