i'm being put on a course at work

i have absolutely no info about this course, i don't even know what it's called

everyone calls it The Diploma and people who have done The Diploma speak in exalted terms about The Diploma

i start a week on monday

at least i got some warning, one of my colleagues did it last year, he didn't know he was doing The Diploma until the day of The Diploma

all i know is The Diploma sessions happen every monday for two months, and the people who do it end up forming incredibly strong bonds with their group

you know like those stories of people who share formative experiences together and have unbreakable lifelong bonds

it sounds like that kind of thing

ok i got some more information today about The Diploma

turns out it's a SIX MONTH course not two months

the full title is "Diploma in Therapeutic Child Care and Education"

i have been told to be 'defensive' as other people on the course from other work bases can "project a lot of negativity" onto people from my work base

and there is indeed an hour of sitting in silence at the end of the day which i have been told to "utilise"

can't wait to join a cult

i am also required to keep a 'reflective journal' during The Diploma

apparently i will do well because i am "quite calm"

i was gonna take a week off masto but remembered i have to toot about The Diploma on monday

had my first The Diploma session today. i don't know what to say. i'm still processing what just happened

the first half of the day wasn't too bad, i thought i knew what i was getting into when one of the consultants posed the question "where have you come from today", and somebody ventured to reply "do you mean where have we come from physically, or internally within ourselves", and the consultant looked thoughtful and said "it is up to you how you answer the question"

the second half of the day began with the consultant setting us the task of creating a rota for two people to present a case study each week. he gave us 45 minutes which set off alarm bells in my head

45 minutes later, we have a rota, but there is icy silence, one member of the group says she feels like being sick and wants to run out of the room, we spent the next 90 minutes analysing what happened

someone suggested that one person could oversee the rota and text weekly reminders to everyone. most people disagreed. the consultant said that this was because we couldn't bear one person to be in a position of power within the group. the group immediately bit the head off the consultant, saying that in fact we were concerned that one person would have that level of responsibility and that they could end up shouldering blame that wasn't theirs. the consultants sat quietly with lips pursed

it felt a bit like someone had died. i spent 20 minutes working up the courage to tell the consultants that i thought they had designed the exercise precisely to see if it would cause distrust and discomfort within the group, and that it felt like we were lab rats. the consultant did not respond. he did eventually say that perhaps we found it unbearable to voice any kind of feeling, much less to understand it

The Diploma: Weeks 2 and 3

last week was fairly uneventful, apart from the bit where one member of the group piped up that all the recent terror attacks were a sign that we should "rejoice when these things happen, because the bible says the endtimes are near"

this was the day after the las vegas shooting

she was met with stony silence

she was then shut the fuck down by another member of the group who had grown up during throughout multiple conflicts in kurdistan

the three men all sat together, on the opposite side of the room of the (male) tutor, while the women lined the outside of the circle, which somebody noticed and commented on. then they noticed me, not sitting with the other men, and said "oh, sorry, and james, who's somewhere in the middle". i *think* they meant geographically.

in today's session, bible mcrapture didn't say anything inflammatory but she was wearing some sort of knitted bra on her head

in the afternoon, two people had to present case studies, after which they were made to sit outside the circle, facing away from everybody, and remain silent while we dissected and critiqued their presentations. nice

today's diploma was pretty good, some highlights:

when somebody asked to change the clock (which hadn't been adjusted for daylight savings), the consultant replied "there is no time in the unconscious"

when talking about videogames as escapism, the consultant said, entirely seriously, "videogames can be a form of masturbation"

we also had a lengthy discussion in the group about the deeper symbolism of children whom poo

also today someone made another comment, for the third time so far, about the "three men" in the group and pointed at the three other guys

i don't know what to make of that

i mean props for their deduction but i suspect they might just not notice my presence in the room at all

i typed out some thoughts about today's The Diploma session but decided not to toot them. let's just say today's discussion was problematic, and in classic james fashion, i stayed quiet and didn't challenge anybody >_<

in today's The Diploma, we used the reflective session at the end of the day to unpick the division between members who contribute to the group and members who don't speak. i am not exactly known for speaking my heart in groups of relative strangers, and as soon as the division was acknowledged i sure as shit wasn't going to speak up then.

one person said she hated when we sat in silence, and that "james hasn't opened his mouth all day". she was angry. even though i'd spoken at length in the morning session, and made observations during her case presentation in the afternoon. so i guess i've been positioned as "the quiet one" regardless of the reality of how i present within the group, and if my contributions to the group aren't going to be heard or recognised, then you're damn fuckin right i'm going to stay quiet

today's diploma was the james goes under the microscope special

in the morning check-in i said i had a very "fuck it" attitude lately, and after some prodding as to why, i said it was my birthday at the weekend and that put me in a bad mood all week

someone told me she felt the same in her 20s but "it gets better". at the end of the day she apologised to me for saying that? the consultant suggested she was apologising to me on behalf of the group for criticising me last week for being quiet

then someone else said i looked down and she didn't like to see me not smiling, and i'm like, uhh that's just my face??

then someone asked me why i didn't like birthdays, she had this fantasy that i'd had a bad childhood. and i'm like no it's just anxiety over being the focus of everybody's attention, yknow like you're all doing RIGHT NOW (ok i didn't say that last part)

but oh god it was excruciating and i was shrinking into my chair desperate for anybody to change the fuckin subject

anyway now i'm going back through my adolescence trying to find the point where i started hating my birthday and What It All Means

oh also at one point we were talking about using humour with the kids and the consultant was like "humour's great, but you have to be careful you don't use humour to avoid thinking about sadness", and i'm like um i gotta stop you there bucko,

then i went home and bought a big box of weetos as a treat and it turns out they aren't vegan so that's fucked up

oh that was another interesting thing from today's The Diploma

lots of people have dropped out and there's only three men (or thereabouts) remaining. today one of them didn't show up, so the one remaining guy sat next to me for the first time, as though i was the last resort before heaven forbid he should have to sit next to a woman

i am fucking sick of this organisation's inability to use the name and pronouns of a young person in our care

either the adults don't bother, or they only make an effort half the time, or they get the name right and the pronouns wrong, and today someone literally called them "man-slash-woman" and "[name]-slash-[deadname]" and people chuckled

it is part of our primary fucking duty of care to this child

and i shrank into my seat and said nothing, of course 😣

and a few weeks ago i overheard the two consultants on the course having a conversation at lunchtime about this young person, saying that his decision to transition is inauthentic, he's only "trying it on", he's presenting a false self to distance himself from his past. this led to a generally TERFy conversation

the kid can try on whatever fuckin gender he wants?? he'll work out what's good for him faster than two old men in tweed

i got subtooted again in today's The Diploma

in the reflective session at the end, somebody said that she would like to hear the thoughts of the "quieter members of the group" (i.e. me)

the consultant said that the "quieter members" might feel emboldened by her having given us "permission" to speak

ironically i was just about to say something before but after that i sure as shit wasn't going to stick my neck above the parapet 🤐

today was the last day of The Diploma

in the morning session i spoke about how i dont know what my job is any more. im an """administrator""" who cant get any administration done cos i keep chasing children down the road and getting kicked and punched and doing restraints. anyway the group gave me some nice words of encouragement to go be a musician so i guess i'll do that

in the second session we were each asked to draw a picture that represented our trajectory through the diploma, then the rest of the group interpreted it

everyone else drew themselves climbing a mountain or reading books or crossing a river

i thought it was meant to be abstract so i drew, uhhh, well, look at the picture i guess

the group variously interpreted it as light coming in, light going out, emptiness, hollow, vinyl, also one person thought it was owls. that was my fav