Welcome to my Office!

Sit down, make yourself comfortable, let's talk for a bit.
No, that's OK, you don't need to shut the door, let's just let the breeze blow through.

Since you're my very first client here in my new office, let me explain the office policies:

• If you should bump into another client coming in or on the way out, just nod and give each other a polite greeting. There's no need to trade life stories in the waiting room.
• For now, I'm letting all comments be anonymous. Whether or not Google will let you be Anonymous, is completely out of my hands. And as long as I don't get spammed, I'm not doing word verification, either. I hate that on other folk's blogs, so I'm not putting it in here.
• I'm also not doing comment moderation, for now. If any commenter should flame, or otherwise be unkind to another commenter, I may have to start that. So please, don't be the cause of me starting comment moderation.

That's pretty simple, nu?

The purpose of this blog is to help you, the reader, with any problems of the type that my training and experience in Social Work and a variety of Social Service agencies qualifies me to help with.

Right about now, if you are not a regular reader, you might be asking, "Well, just what have you done that makes you think you can help ME, Miss Smarty Pants?" I would answer that I have done work with Alcoholics, Drug Addicts, Parolees, the newly diagnosed HIV+ and the end-stage AIDS patients and their families. I have helped retired folks, who were living on fixed incomes apply for Medicaid benefits that would pay for their Medicare premiums, deductibles and co-pays. When you're 70, trying to live on $700/month, having those medical bills off your shoulders can be a literal life saver! I have also shown the grown children of elderly folks living in nursing homes how to save Mama's house and still get Medicaid to pay for her Nursing Home care. And it was all legal, above board and I was a State employee when I did it. Did you know that if your spouse needs Nursing Home care you have one year to transfer ALL your jointly held assets into YOUR name without penalty?

How about this one? I used to give Safer Sex talks to groups of strangers. SO I can help you talk to your kids about HIV, STDs and Teen Pregnancy. I can tell you where to go to find the latest stats for your state on all three, but since most teens think they are bullet-proof and immortal they think it won't happen to them, that probably won't do you much good. But, I have some tricks up my sleeve that might work. Email or leave a comment for me and I'll be off and galloping on this subject. It's my favorite hobby horse.

The drugs and alcohol experience I have has served me well in my own fam. I can trace the addiction in my family back 3 generations. Two of my siblings are effected. I somehow managed to dodge that bullet. So far, all of our children are relatively unscathed, too. So bring on the addict and alcoholic relative problems, I've heard it ALL before.

Since some of my time with Parolees included time working with Sex Offenders...I can handle listening to your tales of sexual assault, incest, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse. Bring it on. I can say, "there, there", but then I will tell you what you can do to start healing, and how to get OUT of that situation if you are still in it.

I've done some grief counseling. Being 52, I've suffered my own losses as well. I can honestly say I KNOW what it's like to lose someone you love. There are many strategies to deal with loss, not every one works for every person, but I can help you find the ones that will work for you.

So, what do you say? Ready to come back for another session? Hey, at least the price is right!