Shut the Fuck Up, part 1

I have been flaking off of my writing. Partly because I took a week off to enjoy the pleasures of 29 inches of incessant downpour in the rain forests of South America. We deluded ourselves a bit about the expectable weather.

Two days before we left, I had a group I was unsure about. I had been asked to do a presentation about anti-social personality disorder by one of the guys, Mr. Stewart. I have done this in individual, but never in group. It has been fairly successful in the individual format, but I was unsure about the group thing. I bounced it off our doc, and he thought it an experiment worth trying.

I’ve tried it; I’m over it, now. Never again. Seven minutes in I could see where it would end, but I had gone too far to back out. As I wrote the criteria on the board asking the guys to evaluate themselves, I could feel it was turning into a session of perceived judgment and disengagement. It ended with me putting part of myself out there for them, to try to bring it back. This backfired for reasons I now understand, but at the time were fairly devastating. After my return, we processed what had happened. I will remind you that this Thursday group is the one most important to me; the one that has more effect than it should on my self perception.

As the group progressed, the energy got pretty frenetic and out of control. They begin to tell war stories about their childhoods, and the scary things they did. Of course, this needs to be controlled. It is not what group is for. At the same time, I understand they need to talk about this on some level.

But it continues, and instead of processing, the excitement level increases, and I can’t bring it back. I attempt to define the difference between having a personality that involves emotional disengagement and lack of remorse, and simply behaviors that are outside the socially acceptable norms.

Suddenly I am watching them reveling in their criminal behavior. I don’t want to hear this, I don’t want to believe it, and I don’t want them to see this as their label. I feel frantic. They are no longer my guys. I am alone in a room of criminals and I suddenly am the evil symbol of Middle America. At the time, I did not understand how horrible this experience was for me, regardless of what was happening to them. But nonetheless, I responded to my own issues.

“What you don’t understand is you are the people I hung out with in high school…” I offered up as a way back.

And then it gets really ugly. Mr. Stewart leaps on that with anger I know is there but has never been directed at me before.

“So, you’re telling us we are the people you left behind, that you ‘grew out’ of.”

“NO!”

“Who thinks Ms. M. is saying we are the ‘bad boys’ she now thinks are shit?’

The majority of the group raises their hands. Horror.

I try again, “What I meant…”

Mr. Stewart interrupts and reiterates what he has said before.

We cycle through this a couple of times, and I am hysterical and rapidly leaving behind my professional self.

I remember telling Mr. Stewart to “Shut up.” They tell me I said, “Shut the fuck up.” I must admit, I meant the later, regardless of the actual words.

As soon as I said it, I was crushed, and I put my head in my hands and congratulated Mr. Stewart for being the first person in over 20 years who had reduced me to such a horrible statement. And I apologized. And I was almost in tears.

Somehow, this allowed them to stop. They did let me clarify my meaning, and left with at least a skeletal feeling of things being put back into perspective. But, at least to me, it didn’t feel done.

What a great way to leave on vacation. It wasn’t an open wound, but it was only bandaged, and we could all pray for the anti-biotic to keep the infection at bay.