Shut the Fuck Up, part 2

After my return from South America, I understood this issue was not yet resolved (you need to read Part 1 to understand what is happening next). We needed to spend a group in meta-therapy, discussing what had happened two weeks before.

I started the meta-group with my own experience. I explained I had walked into group knowing that one or two of the guys met the criteria. I was also pretty sure what their response would be, which was pretty nondescript. When you are anti-social, you are not so worried about the label, by definition. I thought I would bring a sense of relief to the rest of the guys. It would clarify my belief in them, isolating only the problem behaviors.

Instead, they saw what I was saying in a much more negative way. Mr. Stewart was first to identify the feeling I had experienced, “Ms. M thinks we’re a bunch of fuck ups.” He was unable to come back to this bald expression of what he thought was happening, but clearly, this was it.

As I process I want to get back to the Ms. M. thinks you’re fucked up notion. But they can’t stay there; they need to go to where I lost control….

As I talk with them now, I am better able to find my own space. I realized and explained, as the group continued, I felt further and further away from them. Suddenly, I became “other.” I can’t tell you how uncomfortable with this I am. It is not what I think of group. I know that I am different, and my life has taken another path. I so desperately (I wish this were not the word) I need to not be placed as “other.” My feelings for them are intense and loving. So I take a chance, and put my own vulnerability out there.
Of course, this was the focus of everybody’s memory: my loss of control.

The group stopped me in my reiteration of the experience, asked me to repeat my statement, and asked Mr. North to do an interpretation. Interestingly, Mr. North, who was there for the first half hour, had to leave for a group essential for his parole. He had missed the critical incident, so he could be a more objective observer, which he tends toward, anyhow.

I will take a moment to express my intense satisfaction that the group going in this direction, it is precisely what I wish of them, regardless of the taxing it does on my soul.

“What you don’t understand is you are the people I hung out with in high school…” my statement.

“What do you think she meant by that?” Remember, Mr. North has not heard Mr. Stewart’s interpretation.

“Well, it sounds pretty, well, judgmental. If she was a guy I would get pretty pissed,” Mr. North carefully opines.

“Yeah, I’d a fucking had to kill her,” Mr. Stewart states in an angry, tight voice.

I don’t get it. Although they let me explain, I still don’t get the strength of the response, something that could override the months of time we’d spent together and trigger such an outpouring of anger and fear.

Apparently, there is a history for many of these guys, both in the Outside World and here. Friends, family, other staff, in an effort to “bond,” or some such, give the message, “I was like you, so I understand you. And then I got my shit together. Why are you still such a fuck up?” I’m still not sure I’m quite right in explaining this. But the clear point was I had somehow appeared to dip my foot in this river of condescension.

The reality was that the strength of the relationship kept them all from walking out at the initial session. In that light, it spoke to an amazing testament of their tolerance.