Motivated by Abuse: Journey to Becoming a Counselor

Over a deviation of history, child abuse was perceived as a private rather than a societal concern (Afe, Emedoh, Ogunsemi, Adegbohun, 2016). Child abuse and neglect is what is motivating me to become a counselor. Unfortunately, I endured abuse and neglect in my youth. In addition to the emotional abuse, I grew up with an alcoholic father with acute depression and anxiety and a mother who suffered from schizophrenia and also was deteriorating from a past divorce with my father. Indeed, It was not healthy witnessing the perpetual battling between my mother and father, thus influences in my future student practice of professional counseling. Not only were my parents physically and emotionally abusing each other, they were physically and emotionally

I was deeply confused on what was happening between my parents. I pleaded to my mother if I could remain with her for the weekend, as a result of declining the question for reasons related to working over the weekend to profit more income. Unfortunately, she was not receiving any child support from my father, due to never asking for it. Why I would plead to stay with my mother was due to the brutal eight hour chores my father had in line for my brothers and I. In the winter, we would heat up the tractor and all jump into the wagon to go collect wood for the wood burner. I started hauling wood at six years old, Jonathan started at the age of five, while my two oldest brothers, Paul and Luke started to use the chainsaws at the age of ten. My brothers and I were nervous when my father was sober as to the reasons of him becoming irritable, which lead to physical violence. Afe, Emedoh, Ogunsemi, and Adegbohun quoted (2016) "The battered child syndrome" illustrated clinical indication of child abuse and affirmed the importance of medical diagnostics in the field of child protection. Sadly, child

On a positive note, these horrific events will benefit myself for future best practices. Although, I am thankful for my past due to the events that motivated me to peruse my education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. In fact, a person with reasons to become a counselor can be due to a past event where they participated in assisting a friend with a difficult time or like myself, who needed help (Why Become a Professional Counselor? | CACREP, 2014). By that being said, my professional expectation is to improve the lives of the populations requesting help. After gaining experience of being a client in a counseling setting, I desired to grow as a counselor. Therefore, my dream is to achieve an education in clinical mental health counseling to rescue children who have/are suffering from neglect or abuse. While supporting these types of clients, I will experiences countertransference. Thus it does not only have to be children I am counseling. Nevertheless, adults who experienced a difficult past and are still haunted by the memories. Ultimately, Another population I would assist are the patients affected by Schizophrenia. Witnessing the actions performed from my mother at a young age, has influenced myself to do the research based on how to operate towards this group during those behavioral situations. Due to my fathers behaviors with drug and alcohol abuse, I would