Inside My mind.
A walkthrough with madison sawyer
Madison Sawyer.
Growing up is a bit hard to describe, i’ve been told my brain has blocked out periods of time and affected my memory in the long run. I know i’m only 18 but my memory is similar to that of someone in their elderly stages of life. Its weird explaining my life because it doesn’t seem like much but its been a heavy weight for years. To get into it, my mother is my best friend. Though during my adolescence we didn’t get along very much. I was struggling with many personal issues that I felt I could never own up to. My mother lost her brother to suicide/substance abuse a few years before I was born. And I couldn’t connect with her because I was facing those same issues, and I felt ashamed to be around her since I knew how much pain that caused her. It was hard living in a box, my friends offered no help since they were in the same boat as me, and I never dared to express those things to my parents in fear that it would “break” my mother. Now to hop onto my dads emotional bandwagon. From the day I was born to my last year of elementary school, my dad was not around. And this was due to how extremely sick he had been, my father ended up having to fight 2 different stages of cancer, as well as leukemia and melanoma. So my childhood was fairly busy. Mom constantly would drive to LA or SD, depending on what hospital he was at, and I would have whatever after school activities I had those days since I couldn’t always go. We spent our holidays apart or at the hospitals, my strongest memory is the nurses getting me one of those large prepackages easter baskets and hiding it in my dads hospital closet for me to find.
“Health is not valued till sickness comes.”
— Thomas Fuller
This is my father, mother and myself pictured with the crew of “The Ride That Got Away”. My father was featured in episode one, telling his story of how he donated his 1974 IH Scout to charity while he was battling cancer.
Since he wasn’t around very much, we honestly haven’t had any way to properly connect on a person to person level. Nowadays he is quite busy doing work with whatever he has going on at the moment. Its a rocky relationship in all fairness, my dad struggles from PTSD and bipolar disorder from all his treatments and medications he used to take. And I have my own set of fun things going on internally, so we tend to buttheads frequently. Now more about me, I crumble under stress. Honestly I cannot handle stressful situations very well and my family is very well versed in being nothing but pure stress. School in itself is its own category of stress, since it is my first semester I am still getting a grip on how everything works, like this blog for example! Sometimes I think that since i’m so used to stress, I put myself in stressful situations or make some situations stressful because i’ve learned to thrive under that energy. Personal relationships tend to take a turn for the worst, I subconsciously overlooked peoples “red lags” and it ended up making my life more difficult. So about a year ago, I dropped my friendships and my life wasn’t so hectic anymore. For a short while I struggled thinking I was a loner and I had no friends, but i’m honestly okay with that now. Me and my boyfriend spend a large amount of time together and he’s really the only company I need as of right now. When it comes to making friends, i’ll wait a little while and hopefully meet more mature individuals!
6 cats in total: Bosley, Charlie, Norris, Claude, Duke, Earl
I spend most of my time with my baby boys. Having 6 cats is a full time commitment. Not to mention I half own a little girl with my boyfriend, so 6 and 1/2 cats total! My cat collection started over covid, a friend of mine who used to live 2 streets down had a pregnant cat and offered to give me a kitten for free. Thats how I got Bosley, the short hair black cat in the bottom right corner of the photo above. Charlie, whose the blob laying under the stool, is the 2nd cat we got. He was supposed to be similar to Bosley but is about 2x his size and a giant dust bunny, my mom joked that she would return him and I almost balled my eyes out. It wasn’t a funny joke. We got Norris and Claude at the same time, they were a bonded pair. Although we only initially went in to get Claude (the light gray laying on the couch), I had always wanted a cat that was similar to a siamese. You cant see him in this photo, but Duke is our 20 pound big boy of a maine coon. And finally, Earl is the white maine coon and the last cat we have gotten. They’re all special in their own little ways. But my lord they are such a handful. My current routine is doing college work at home, the house chores, taking care of all the cats and then seeing my boyfriend once he’s off of work.
In all honesty, I still struggle with things that have occurred in the past. The past is a funny thing, it has a cruel way of never actually going away and being irreversible. I will say that i’ve been over to get a fair share of things, but there are still some old situations that manage to get under my skin. My life has been one huge set of equations that sometimes I answer properly and then sometimes I mess them up. Giving advice is one of my specialties but I don’t always listen to it myself. On the off chance that I do, its easier to help someone else than yourself. Hopefully with the classes I am taking, i’ll be able to learn more on how I can grow at a more consistent rate. And on the topic of classes, I am aiming to my a psychologist. And I believe that if I have a substantial understanding of social work, it will benefit me in my line of work. For example, if I have a young patient whom I see frequently, and they divulge that they have a social worker. It makes me happy knowing that these fields of work can benefit others in life. Like I had previously mentioned, my father was prescribed what I would consider “hard medications” to deal with the pain and PTSD of his procedures. He was an angry man during my childhood, and ended up seeing a psychologist as a result of everything. I have to thank the person who he spoke to, because without them, I can very confidently say that our family stability would be on even rockier ground if he did not have someone who he could speak to. As a family we can only provide so much with out words. And sometimes it takes the words of a professional to get through to someone, and provide the help that they really need. This is what i am hoping that I can do for some other family. I want to be the person that helps people and families stay together and not fall apart. Because I know how difficult family situations can be, and how important it may be for struggling members to have an outlet where they can release all their pain.
Why Social Work?
A big influence on my interest in social work is because of my current boyfriend. He had a very difficult childhood when he was growing up and because of everything that was going on in his life he ended up having a social worker. And this person became a pillar in his life, someone who was consistent throughout all the inconsistency. My mother has also reminded me that many people, specifically children, in the world have social workers. And that this field of work is very important, and without it, a lot of children would struggle endlessly. This is the facet of social work that appeals to me, being able to be there for a child who needs someone that doesn’t provide any type of disappointment. My understanding on ethics in this field is that as a social worker is to respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person. Social workers treat each person they work with in both a caring and respectful fashion. You are to be extremely mindful of all individual differences, as well as cultural and ethnic diversity.
Social workers do a lot in this world, and their work may not be recognized and talked about to the extent that it should. I am grateful for social workers, they held my partner together and i’m sure that without them he would have struggled and suffered more than he already had to. I thank all the social workers and their hard work, and I hope that one day I can provide the same comfort and ease to others as they did for him.
Danelle Shellikoff
Hi Madison, I have also been told that I blocked things out. There are parts of my childhood that I can’t remember, and it was all around when my Dad was battling cancer. I think it is so interesting how they do things to protect us. In these past three years of my life, I have not had very many friendships either. I thought I was a loner as well, but I found out I just put my own peace first. Reading our classmate’s blogs, I find that we all have an experience that has guided us toward social work. I battled alcohol addiction and am currently three years sober, and the biggest thing that helped me get sober was counseling. I was trying to figure everything out on my own, and I could see things more clearly with the help of my psychologist. I wish you luck on your journey, and I’m sure you will help many people on your path as a psychologist.
Madison Sawyer
Our brains will self preserve whenever they see fit, and thats something that i’ve always found to be interesting. Life has an interesting way of making us stronger. And we tend to see the growth long after the hard times have dissipated. And I agree, every person has their own set of struggles and we tend to use them to our benefit when growing throughout life. I’m proud of your accomplishment, things like that aren’t easy. I wish you the best of luck on your journey as well.
Dilyn Martin
Hi Madison, your comment on how your boyfriend inspired you to go into the Social Work field piqued my interest. I feel like other people can inspire you to do things, which makes you want to actually do it. I too, want to be someone that provides that sense of secureness to people, whether it be in the Social work field or psychology field. Your story really spoke out to me, since you and your dad have a rocky relationship. My dad and I also have a rocky relationship, and I struggle with that all the time. Thank you for being honest about that.
Madison Sawyer
Acquiring inspiration from others will be a skill that many people, including ourselves, use throughout life. We can grow from what we experience with others, wether its on a personal scale or something bigger. To this day me and my dad still struggle. It can be quite tiring since I wish that our relationship could be better. But i’ve come to understand that this is just how we are as two individuals, and we aren’t guaranteed to always get along just because we are father and daughter. I hope that you an your dad can find some stability, just how i’m hoping the same thing for myself and my father.
Michelle Trahan
Hi Madison, having a parent with a serious illness(es) is difficult, especially when said illness is hard to understand. Bipolar falls into the hard-to-understand category. A great resource I am reading is Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder by Julie Fast. Have you heard of her? If not, you should check her out if you get a chance. Julie has bipolar and gives sound advice and examples of how bipolar thinks (or doesn’t) and what different types of episodes may look like. Her information has been instrumental in helping me navigate a few personal relationships of mine.
Your awareness of yourself is growing. That in itself is powerful.
Madison Sawyer
I have not heard of her but I will definitely give that a read. Especially if it can give me some insight that I myself have not been able to see. Thank you so much for that recommendation! Being aware that he isn’t always meaning of what he says and does can be a bit like being on a rollercoaster and dealing with whiplash, I try my best but I don’t always understand. If this book has been able to help you, then i’m sure it will be able to help me.
Hailey Luder
Madison. Hi! I want to say how amazing it is that you’re able to open up like this, I know that can be a very hard thing to accomplish. I want to commend you for being able to talk about it the way you do. In some ways, I relate to your relationship with your mother, so we have that in common. It’s also fair to say that I am also not one for a lot of company. I do think it’s fair to say that we all struggle with things from our past, though some more than others, and while it can be hard to work through it is definitely worth it. Some days I feel like I’m having to beat my own mind off with a stick just so I can try and get some peace. But, working on things daily, and in healthier ways than I probably do, can make great improvements on your life. I wish you luck in your endeavors. – Hailey L.
Madison Sawyer
Thank you, it honestly has taken time to comfortably talk about these things. Motherly relationships are great from what i’ve experienced, I am very glad my mother and I have grown closer over the past few years. And i’ve come to learn that sometimes small company is more benefiting than large groups. Beating your mind with a stick, I like that phrase. Its interesting how our mind sometimes acts on its own accord, not always bringing the best things to light and it takes a personal craft to fend it off. I wont claim to have great mental stability, its similar to the ocean, sometimes it makes me nauseous and other times its calming. But its great that we work on these things, hoping that it all can only go up from here.