My outreach worker thinks I don't need my cloth helmet

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My outreach worker thinks that I should be able to leave my cloth helmet that I dyed a bright metallic blue and painted a peace-sign onto at home. Every time I leave my comfort object at home, I feel jaded, forlorn and downright cynical and miserable. I don't feel like myself without wearing my comfort object. I feel disassociated, jaded and like my insides are dried out when I don't have it with me. I'm not very easy to get along with if I leave my favourite hat at home. The books on the Holocaust aren't helping much, either. All for the crime of liking both Germany and the 1940s, I have to fit in and be miserable just to make my outreach worker happy. There are some moments I think that I'll get my free will back if I die and go to Heaven and that's the only way I will get it back. What should I do? Thank God, we're not together every waking hour of every waking day.

You do you. You aren't hurting anyone with your personal choice of head gear or your love of Germany. (And stop reading about the holocaust, there is absolutely no need to traumatize yourself further.) You shouldn't be making yourself miserable to fit in - no matter what.

If your "support" worker isn't supporting you, find another one.

I'm sorry you're going through this, it's pretty clearly weighing on you.

That said, I think you're probably misattributing your outreach worker's motives. Their job isn't to get people to be what they'd personally prefer, their job is to help people reduce their struggles.

I wonder if maybe a different/more low-key comfort item would be a reasonable compromise? If it's less in people's faces, fewer people will draw negative conclusions. Fewer conflicts would resolve the outreach worker's concerns, meanwhile you still have a viable comfort object.

I don't wear Nazi symbols. I could buy a metallic bucket hat and turn up the front of the brim. Anything to quiet my mind so I can sleep at night. This is what I've done to my hat. Of course it's not enough, but oh....well. I guess I'll be hanging around the cenotaph at my park where I belong for now.

There is nothing wrong with your hat

I first thought the same as what you said in your spoiler text, FXE, when I read about CR's situation with the hat in a different thread.

An outreach worker encouraging a supported person to read about the holocaust sounds a lot like they are trying to educate a person on why it might be bad to be associated with world war two Germans.

I'd be curious how many people see that hat and think 'stahlhelm' in the first place.
You'd think the prominent peace symbol would be clearly understood.

Even if it immediately clicked that it's an army helmet, it doesn't look pro-militarism, it's really hard to make a negative conclusion about it at all. Maybe calling it a hippy bucket hat will change how she views it.

She seems like she could be picking the wrong hill to die on, so to speak, even if she's operating with the best of intentions. Your choice of headgear isn't hurting anyone and really isn't something that should be a source of trouble. If she's placing too much emphasis on your choice of hat vs. other elements that lead to conflicts she's just causing undue distress without any realistic hopes of improving things.

She might also be blaming the hat for some other issue that causes you conflicts, thinking that leaving the hat at home will leave the problem at home. If that's the case, learning to manage that issue better will help make it clear the hat isn't a problem.

Unless your mindset becomes more belligerent when you're wearing the hat, it's probably unfair for her to blame it.

Then again, you can not wear it when dealing with her but wear it other times you go out.

Is she otherwise decent? If she isn't doing a good job of providing support it might not be a bad idea to ask if someone else is available. They might click better with you.

It's definitely an angle that needs to be considered, even if it boils down to her making incorrect assumptions about what he knows about the time period and the actions of that regime.

If definitely seems like since I don't think you're evil I'm going to assume you're uninformed without realizing other explanations beyond those two exist. It's a condescending way to give someone the benefit of the doubt while avoiding having to dig deeper.

I agree with this post completely.

I like the idea of calling it a happy bucket. and I will keep wearing it.

I'm sorry that your outreach worker doesn't understand what you need to feel like yourself. My guess is that she is thinking that other people might be more accepting of you if you don't wear it, but there has to be a balance. That's a common problem with social workers and other people who are supposed to be helping: they think that their job is to help you assimilate, whereas you might be better off being yourself than trying to fit in.

I like the hat. If you are more comfortable wearing it, I see no problem with wearing it. I don't really understand the holocaust connection, at all.

Maybe there is not even a connection in terms of our outreach worker, maybe they just want you to not rely on the hat? I personally don't see a point in that unless it becomes an actual problem for you.

I like your hat. It looks like a bucket hat and I've got two of them and no one has ever told me to leave mine at home.

I hate when people try to change people like this. It's disrespectful to say the least.

When I was in a secure children's home a similar thing happened to me. They took my clothes that made me feel safe (because I lived as a boy at the time) and tried to make me into something that I'm obviously not.

You just wear your hat CR you're not harming anyone and it's really cute on you as well.

Your support worker might not in fact be a sweet pea.

Yeah she might be a dried up old prune

I would like to thank you all for your support and responses.