Good Friday 3

Third Friday experience was Mr. Stewart.

He was in group on Thursday, and became, for the first time enraged at me. He wanted a specific medication we could not give him. I told him again, it wasn’t going to happen. His face shifted from prison dead eye into a full Marquette, and he was actually raising his voice at me which has rarely happened at all in my past year. I do know the difference between somebody yelling in my vicinity and directing it toward me.

In the midst of his tantrum, and before it could be settled, the siren went off for Mobilization. They all retreated to their prospective housing units and we went through the irritating process of 90 minutes of interruption in our work day and sitting in the Muster Room twiddling our thumbs.

So I have this lovely Friday, and Mr. Sotheby has left and I have a bit of my afternoon left for catch up. The sun is shining and a breeze is blowing the papers around on my desk. And Mr. Stewart is suddenly standing in the doorway, clutching a pass and a book I had leant him.

“Uh, do you have a minute? I have a quick question.”

I nod and he pulls the door closed behind him and sits down.

“I was wondering if you changed my meds after we talked yesterday?” and there is no dead eye, let alone a Level 5 glare. He appears vaguely sheepish.

“No, Mr. Stewart, we hadn’t finished the conversation, so I hadn’t talked to the doctor.”

“Well, okay, thanks Ms. Mclain.” And he doesn’t move.

“Mr. Stewart, you didn’t come in here to ask about your meds.”

“Yeah, I was really angry yesterday…”

“Do you know why?” (This may seem to be a simple question, but it is the essence of both insight and cognitive therapy. The standard answer is to stay right on the suface, acuse us of malpractice and simply being stupid, stubborn State employees, lacking in compassion and common sense. This attitude allows him to fire his rage and excuses him from any responsibility. This has been Mr. Stewart’s standard approach for the balance of his life.)

“Yeah, I think so. What do you think?” He is looking at the pass in his hands, turning it over and around.

This is a bit of a cheat to ask me to answer the question, but he came on his own to straighten it out and I’m tired.

“Why I think or what you think.”

“What you think,” and he looks up.

“You felt we were withholding treatment, which in fact proved that we don’t care about you and everything up to this point was a farce.”

He nods and his face doesn’t even flicker, so he had figured it out on his own. It was probably important that I cared enough to have thought it through also.


“And I came to make sure you weren’t angry at me,” and he holds eye contact and watches carefully.

And this is one of those moments where it all comes together for me. He not only processed what had happened to him, but he was brave enough to try and resolve the potential rejection before the weekend so he didn’t have to stress about it. He knew it would bother him and potentially wind him up, but he took control and did something healthy.

“And you said you thought I might need a little anti-psychotic, like you’d decided I was fucking crazy or something. I’m afraid the more you get to know me, the crazier you’ll think I am. I worry about that a lot. I mean we have a pretty good relationship, you know a therapist fucking client relationship and I don’t want to fuck that up.”

He swears an amazing amount when he is feeling emotional.

It’s nice to know he also thinks we have a pretty good therapist fucking client relationship. I agree.