Author: Aziza Rasheed

CORE VALUES

At this time in my life, my core value is my sense of humor. In my heart of hearts, I believe my sense of humor is top tier.  They say food makes the heart grow fonder, for me I believe laughter is food for the soul and mind. Telling a joke here and there keeps me light on my feet in any environment.  When someone else tries to put a smile on my face I oblige, I know what it takes to try and make a sad or angry person smile, so I’m a good recipient for others when I’m down and they make an effort to cheer me up. Smiling is the antidote to someone else’s day, so I don’t mind sharing that emotion on my face or my sleeve for that matter.  Laughing and smiling is warm and inviting!!!

I value having a sense of humor in my day-to-day hustle and bustle in my career choice. I have to stay light on my feet and open to any traumatic experience the public may throw at me at any moment. When one of us is given a hard way via phone or ambulance we can wheel each other back in with a good hearty laugh. Sometimes I can engage my patients in the shenanigans too and take their mind of their own very serious but not to life threatening emergencies.

A Smile equals caring in a sense, frowns can be infectious too. So, making people smile in turn makes me smile as well, I feel accomplished like I’ve just made your day a bit brighter. It’s satisfying to know that someone is now feeling mentally a bit better. 

Try telling someone to open the front door to let E.M.S. in and to put all animals away and they say well I don’t have a husband so NO animals here, the patient themselves just opened up a portal, a gateway to shift from very serious to soft and pliable. You’ve just opened up to allow yourself to breathe and chuckle with laughter from the heart. Laughing for me shows that I am still human and young. I want to say some of my patients and coworkers appreciate it too.

Writing will take my jokes to a whole new level of being me. That would mean I gave the jokes extra thought, like a script. They’d be well thought out and even help them not to be too offensive and dry. Sometimes jokes can come out harsh because it’s in the moment and not given much thought. Being offensive and rude in a professional setting may not blow over too well. I’m trying to talk people off the ledge, not onto one.

Imagine if we were able to say how we feel and have a good laugh and understand about our silly or serious intrusive thoughts that truly wind up being far-fetched, our thought process and communication wouldn’t be so tedious and scary because we’d know that we are in the moment and the intentions would not be to hurt one another nit would be to educate and inform one another of who we are and what we feel instead of being rigid. 

One day in September of 1991 a little nine-year-old me entered third grade. I loved school so much. I was proud to get dressed in the clothes that my grandmother and mother brought me. I was dolled up and ready to learn. I was never afraid to enter a new class and meet new teachers and students.

My third grade Teacher Mrs. Allen seemed pretty cool. She wore glasses and had long mixed blonde hair and was heavy set. I remember coming to her class hanging my coat up and BAM being shoved deeper into the closet by a male student named Alvin. I was pushed into the dark closet with the doors slid closed.

I was scared and confused and angry. I can’t remember how I escaped the dark closet. I most certainly remember coming out and throwing a chair across the room to disturb his laughter and after pushing me in the closet. What Alvin didn’t know was I’ve seen my mother pushed, kicked, and punched and appeared defenseless to a man who was not my father. She never fought back; it felt like eternity until my mother finally left for good.

Unbeknownst to Alvin this little girl VOWED to never ever little a man, boy, male baby to lay a hand on me in this life id always fight back. I threw that chair with a vengeance, and I was aiming to take Alvin out. Sad part is I don’t recall Mrs. Allen jumped in Alvins face the way she scurried across the room to jump in mine.

To this moment I can still smell her coffee riddled breath and her 4 eyes piercing my soul throw the tears that I couldn’t control. At that moment I knew I was in a lot of trouble and had no way back. Mrs. Allen was on a mission, and she reported me to the special ed committee. I was hysterical and embarrassed. I just wanted to be heard, I didn’t want the trouble that seemed to come to me at that moment. 

From that day forward I never returned to Mrs. Allen’s class. I was placed in special ed with two teachers and all the other kids who looked just like me.3rd,4th, and fifth grade were spent in special ed. And to top it off I was still bullied. I ate at different tables, played gym at different times and barely saw the friends I made in regular Ed. In order to be removed from the special education rasta, I needed to be tested out. No matter how great my behavior was, my academically inclined mind had to be mature enough to comprehend the curriculum. I worked so hard on that exit exam, because I didn’t want to be embarrassed in my new school for the sixth grade. I had to ACE that final test to be released from the 10 kids to two teacher’s classroom that felt like jail and punishment, I felt like a stranger in all three grades in special ed. I was a social butterfly trapped in the matrix of children I felt I had nothing in common with.

Being a bully in any school is hard when one doesn’t have the coping mechanisms to alleviate the stress and pain that comes with it. 9-year-olds feel stress and pressure too and sometimes adults don’t realize that until they do something drastic, like using drugs or hanging themselves. I’m grateful to my mom for putting me in the right spaces for counseling at school and in the local hospital and that I was open to embrace the interaction with counselors who really cared.  Sometimes it really seems like no one ever notices the bully until the victim strikes back.