Razor Wire is Beautiful in the Sunlight

Rabbit 2

2009-06-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

Doesn’t seem like I’ve mentioned my experience with stalking on the unit. Our newest psych, Ms. Eamon had a new patient that came in from his month at what I call Decontamination. This is a process where all new prisoners are taken upon incarceration, screened for appropriate security levels, and most important to us, investigated for current or incipient mental health issues. We get the Security 1 (lowest) mental health patients.

Mr. Newsome was a ratty looking, decrepit, probably younger than he looked, nondescript guy. Immediately he started sidling up to us on the yard about half the time we walked it. he apparently discovered who I was and started approaching me independent of Ms. Eamon, asking me about his parole options, even though parole was at least two years off for him. This quickly devolved into him stopping in my office on his way to hers.

When walking on the yard and being approached, you can keep moving apace, and the guys fall off pretty quickly. In my office, I have nowhere to go. I generally pleasantly redirect unknown visitors away from my door to who they actually need to talk to. I was not pleasant, but dismissive and curt with Mr. Newsome for his first visit. The fact that I even knew his name and he was not on my caseload and had been at the facility for less than two weeks was not a good sign. The second time he was lurking outside my door, I walked at him until he had to stumble backward away from me and sent him on his way. The third time, I believe I roared somewhat incoherently, followed him into Ms. Eamon’s office and made it bloody clear he was not to approach me or talk to me ever again.

Later that afternoon, as I we were talking about his earlier visit to the offices in the morning I hadn’t even known about, he strolled back into the interior offices, allegedly looking for something he had left in Ms. Eamon’s office. I backed him down the hallway, called custody and had him escorted back to his unit and left to talk to the Captain about dealing with this person. Our boss was out of the office and I was too irritated and freaked out to let it wait. I checked, and he has two charges of Assault to Commit Sexual Penetration, Indecent Exposure, and a couple of less exciting charges.

Unfortunately, his unit officer had given him verbal permission to come back looking for his possession. So, no Major Out of Place ticket could be written. He had not actually entered my office, so that was out also. Instead, the Inspector called him down, read him the riot act, told him he could catch a new bit for stalking if he addressed me or came without a pass to our offices again. Ms. Eamon transferred him to the male boss, and all was quiet for a while.

As the previous blogs suggest, I had a run of spending quite a bit of time in Seg. Seg has only a few cells, and the Custody person who usually works there is garrulous and talk and chat back and forth, knowing most of the guys are carefully listening to everything that is going on. It’s not like there is much else to do while you are sitting in a tiny cell, and it is usually better than listening to your own thoughts.

While visiting Mr. Biggs, I had to stroll the long way out of the office to get out. A movement caught the corner of my eye where no movement should have been. I glance over and perfectly centered in the frame of the meal slot is a penis and a hand. He wasn’t overtly masturbating, the best interpretation might have been scratching his testicles. I was a bit startled, but kept walking so as not to reinforce the behavior, if that is what it was, nor embarrass some guy who was caught unawares. Later that afternoon I happened to glance at the Seg board, and as you have already guessed, discovered it was Mr. Newsome.

I bounced it off of the Inspector, and he felt it was important that I write the ticket, although it would be hard to prove intent if we did not make eye contact and he did not speak to me. Four rewrites later, we have the best we can do with the sketchy events.

His initial interview with the Hearings Investigator struck gold, so to speak. He explained that the direction not to speak to me was so clear, that the only way he could think to get my attention was to wave his genitals at me. Which I guess worked, but not even remotely in the way he had hoped. He also mentioned he would be highly honored if I might wave mine back at him. Really, that hadn’t occurred to me as social possibility. He is now at a Level 4 (Level 5 being the highest), and I wonder who is receiving his attentions now?

As I was walking out today, my boss mentioned the fact that in the first 17 years he had been working in the prison, there had been no penis waving. And for some reason, I had my second in the first year. He quietly wondered to himself what this might portend…

In the Hole Yet Again

2009-06-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, one of my guys I’m fond of, but has a lesser place in the pantheon was caught smuggling illegal substances into the facility. Mr. Biggs was on a program that takes guys out of the prison and rents out their work to local governments. They mow grass, clean up cemeteries, roadsides, etc.

One of the most meticulous guards, who knows I am connected with this guy, made it his business to track me down at lunch and tell me, “your friend,” got busted bringing in drugs. Apparently he is in Seg, now, awaiting investigation.

I check his ticket out and it is grim. He was hoping for Parole. He explains to me his thinking and what he owed on the unit and that this maneuver would set him free from his debts. He accrued a debt. His brother did not put enough money in his account to meet it. Now the debt has trebled, and the gang holding the debt suggests he bring in $2000 worth of drugs in to meet it. How he imagined he could smuggle it in his underwear during a strip search evades me, and in fact evaded him.

Instead, he is in the hole. He has no other tickets; odds are he won’t be ridden out elsewhere, but he has this smuggling/substance abuse ticket that makes him look rather bad to the Parole Board. He wants out for his children. His five year old daughter believes he is someplace else on the planet “working” which is why she is not with him, but can talk to him.

He is forlorn. It is possible he will catch another felony for smuggling. No point in telling him this, learning it from the Hearings Officer will be soon enough. He tries to put a brighter face on it by recounting his bunkmate who was paroled after a series of fairly serious tickets, and I suddenly suspect Mr. Biggs was bunking with Mr. Stark. I ask a few questions to ascertain it is Mr. Stark. We toss this idea around for a moment through the meal slot, and I end the conversation and retreat to the Seg office to write my note in the Log.

Halfway through the note it occurs to me why Mr. Biggs didn’t just tell me his bunkies’ name. I checked with him, “Mr. Biggs, you didn’t tell me who you bunked with because you only know his nickname (Highboy), and didn’t want to let me in on that bit of information, hmm?” He blushes and nods. So careful of my sensibilities and potential naiveté.

My Mother Doesn't Write..

2009-05-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Mr. Borsch is back. He is not leaving the prison system, the stuff I got through the mail was wrong. So here is his story.

He is 19, and on his second bit in the prison system. His family was vaguely functional for years. His father stayed at home, for some medical reason I am still unclear about, and his mother worked. He was the youngest of five. His father didn’t really take care of the home as much as he required the children to clean and mow and cook to support the mother that worked. Then when Mr. Borsch was 11, he died. Gone. Not much in some ways when he was around, but he created order out of chaos.

The mom continued to work, but she couldn’t make chaos order. Things began to fall apart. Mr. Borsch stepped up to the plate and began to cook and clean as a pre-adolescent. He explains to me his older brothers were already leaving, and his sisters were, “being girls.” He kept the house running and then at 14 began to bring money into the household. He told his mother he was working construction. Actually, he was selling drugs. She was so desperate she decided to pretend to believe him.

School started to get out of control. His older brothers had set the tone through their violence and misbehavior. He described himself as being peripheral, and then beginning to be a force of fear in his small town school. He labels himself as a, “bully.” But as I push into this, he was, in part, protecting the geeks and freaks of which he was one. Preppy and Jocks were his targets.

So, at 12, he gets slapped into an alternative school. If he doesn’t get his homework done, he does three days in juvie. When he got pissed at somebody and flung a pencil at him, he was in juvie for three weeks over Christmas. He had just made enough money to bond his older brother out of jail for the holidays.

This last bit was Uttering and Publishing. He found signed, unwritten checks. He wrote them out enough to have the pseudo-father he was living with, his fiancé, and his mother and sisters had a mind bobbling Christmas, and then he came back to prison.

When they brought him into prison, his mother and fiancé were frustrated and angry. In the past months, his fiancé has taken up with another man. His mother made up with him in the jail, but now it has been four months since he has heard from her.

He explains when he lived with his girl, or lived with his mother, he made different decisions. To have somebody who cares and expects something from him helps him not to make stupid decisions. I can see this is a role I might be able to take on. In some ways it soothes me.

After vomiting this entire story to me over most of an hour he shares with me his current custody status. Some group, which he won’t give me details about, has betrayed him; they have, “stabbed me in the back.” He wants to know why people he cares about do this to him. We talk a bit, but I know that he is asking me if I will do the same. Promises are useless. Time is the issue.

He should go now, count is coming, and I excuse him. He doesn’t stand up. He has three pending tickets which is news to me. If they are all found true, he hits the point level where he rides up to a higher level of incarceration: he leaves.

Crap. Again. How do I keep getting involved with this story? He is so young. He has started to be less skeptical of where I come from, and now he announces his imminent doom. It is too early in the relationship for me to tell him that he needs to stay with me. I think we go there, but he is fragile and easily spooked. But I have no option. I stop to think how to phrase it. He watches me and tells me to just spit it out. So I do.

“if you come into therapy with me, I’ve learned over the year I’ve been here, the only way I can help you is to care about you.” I check him and he is following. “So if I do this, and you do something to get yourself ridden out, it causes me a huge amount of sadness. I can’t keep doing that. If you want to work with me, you need to stop collecting tickets.”

I watch him cross over from wary to becoming one of my guys. Can he stay with me? The moment of electricity sits. It is close to count and he has to go across most of the yard in the next ten minutes. I start to shoo him out and ask if there are more questions.

“If your son was in prison, and you were angry, but talked with him about it in jail and said you would write… what would keep you from ever writing him?”

Monday Blues, Part 1

2009-05-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

It’s one of those days I’m just not sure I can tolerate the grief anymore. In the “Real World,” people leave treatment in a number of ways. The most common is they fade away when the acuity has passed, or they never return after the second or third session. Once in a great while somebody just disappears in the middle of something intense, but this is rare. I also don’t usually suffer from the feeling they are wandering off into the wild with no support or expectation of it.

I haven’t written about Mr. Stark in the past few weeks as I’ve just been too sad. He was granted parole, and we had a few days before he transferred out to prepare for this transition. This was in the middle of a huge art extravaganza at our studio, involving 20-50 people daily for two weeks. It was also in the middle of my father being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and a limited number of months left to live (we are still waiting for confirmation of this opinion). I received the paperwork on a Monday morning, first thing, and my heart sank.

He has been working hard, making difficult progress and was at the brink of what felt like a turning point: a change in how he was thinking and dealing with his emotions and fears. We both assumed, due to his flurry of tickets earlier in the year, that he would be flopped. He wasn’t. I should have given myself a day to process, but I didn’t. I called him out to tell him the news. It was possible he would be gone in two days, we needed to do some preparation and I had paperwork to complete. It didn’t feel like I could wait. Besides, he would be so excited. I was greedy for the opportunity to tell him myself. Although I was disappointed and worried and the timing could not have been worse, I knew it would balance out with his amazement and anticipation.

He walked into the office, I assumed, wondering why I had called him at such a weird time, or even called him at all. I put on happy face, glowed at him, waggled my eyebrows and reached out the paperwork declaring him free. He sank into the chair, looked balefully at the paper, and told me he already knew.

“I’m not ready, Ms. Mclain. It’s too soon.” His face was still, his body limp, and he wouldn’t look at me. This is a guy who is constantly moving in session. Shifting, hooking his leg over a chair arm, laughing, angry, pacing. No movement. Just an overwhelming despair that flooded then met with my own exhaustion and regret and inundated us both.

I got up and shut the door. He looked at me then, for the first time, “I guess I’m here for a bit?”

I nodded and told him I’d cancelled the remainder of my morning. We had to figure out how to seal off treatment in a way that could hold him safe. What had just happened is the one person he had come to trust and rely on was being precipitously removed from his life, another relationship ending in pain and ashes. We mostly sat for that hour and were sad, talking a bit about what needed to happen, but being quiet most of the time and just sitting with each other.

He does this thing with his arms and hands, where they become completely tense and energy filled. At some point during therapy I finally asked about it, and he told me this was a way he channeled his rage and fear and desperation out of his body: a sign of his emotions overflowing. It is something to do with his arms and hands that didn’t create violence except toward himself. I lost count of how many times this behavior manifested on this Monday.

He rose to leave just before count, and stopped at the doorway as I was looking at my hands trying to wait until he left to vent my own frustration and fear. He stopped in the doorway.

“Ms. Mclain, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m leaving.” Silence, I don’t even have the strength to wonder what comes next.

“I really care about you; you’ve become really important to me.”

What do I respond? Where is the boundary? What does he need? What is true and real?

“Me too, Mr. Stark. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be crying.”

“I know that, you didn’t need to tell me.”

And he is gone.

Good Friday 3

2009-05-10T17:26:00.001-07:00

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.

Good Friday 2

2009-05-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Second afternoon appointment was, as usual with Mr. Sotheby. He walked down the hallway with me in front of his buddies getting store. I have this new little ritual. My office opens directly into the hallway now, instead of being part of a suite. When I leave it, of course it needs to be locked. I had a couple of days where three of my guys objected to the fact that I was opening the door for them. It wasn’t right, me holding the door for a man.

So now, I unlock it and take two steps back. Most of them get it right away, and most of them hold the door for me rather than going in first. Mr. Sotheby is familiar with this ritual, and he got to perform in in front of a myriad of people from the neighboring unit getting their store in the hallway. I hope it was a positive perception rather than one of me dominating him. I’m pretty sure it was the later.

As we were walking toward my office I caught him fiddling in his pants. As you might imagine, this can be a sign of something totally inappropriate. I was a bit surprised and gave him the horrid older sister raised eyebrows.

He opens the door for me, and rearranges his pants. He has a tape in them. A song he wants to play for me. It’s an underground rap group from Detroit, and the song is the one most close to how he feels about his mother. I should have written the title and artist down. I’ll try to remember to do it and add it into the blog.

Anyway, it is brutal and sad. His mother’s birthday has just passed. He is thinking of her. He askes me how my weekend was, and I hesitate. As always, he immediately picks up any sense of something hidden, maybe a lie, a betrayal. I tell him we just got the news that my father is dying, sooner than later. As I stare out the door, I talk about the timing of this event. My sister was in town, and we were having a weekend long music event on our farm. I talked about receiving the news and the fact that my friends, whom I loved just passed me around from one to the other all weekend. Even though they could not change the news, or take back the future, they helped me hold my grief and bear it better. The same reason I wanted him to trust me with some of his pain.

Offering up this much of yourself is controversial. It is standard practice to keep yourself totally separate from your patients, offering a virtually blank slate. This doesn’t seem to work with these guys. They need something of you to connect to, to trust. So I jumped off of this cliff. When I turned back to him he was holding his head, wiping his eyes and looking at me. The first serious sense that I had reached through to him since the day he said he needed to talk about his emotions.

Good Friday 1

2009-05-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

Friday was amazing. Three emotional scores in a row, and I came home on a therapy high.

The first was a young man from a small town. He has been in the juvenile and now adult system since about the age of 11. He is on his B prefix at 19, and sat rigid and sad in my chair. He kept ma’aming me until I started to feel about 90 and asked him to back off it a bit. I did my orientation spiel, including the my few weak, ubt usually effective comedy lines. All I got was ma’amed. About 20 minutes into the hour I couldn’t stand it any longer.

Usually, I get the paperwork done, and then work on the engagement. But he was so sad. He had been on the unit for two days, hanging in his cube, avoiding interacting with anybody else. He had not “checked” me out, and didn’t know what to expect.

He had gone into his local mental health about six months before he caught this last bit. He needed to talk. Instead they threw some medication at him and sent him back into the street. He sold the medication, and remained isolated and full of pain. Another betrayal by the system.

He talked with me a little bit. As soon as they threw him into the County jail system, his fiancé and his mother both stopped communicating with him. He has been with the fiancé since he was 14. She is apparently now with some guy named Dave. We’ve made a beginning. I hope I can find a way to help.

A Journey

2009-05-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

I have a guy, Mr. Inato (previously Mr. I) who was taken off of the unit, probably long after medical should have been involved, to the local hospital. His labs indicated that he was at the edge of death. He was in one of my groups, and two weeks went by without him. I was only able to look at a modicum of information about his physical status, and was completely sure he was dead.

In group, they asked, and I told them to pray to whatever god they held dear. I couldn’t give them additional information as it was confidential. Mr. Stewart, who lives across the hall from him offered up he was completely incapacitated when they took him out and pissing blood.

The next day, he is in a wheel chair in Control. I see him an inelegantly blurt out, “you’re not dead!”

He wasn’t, but was still very weak, and needed a wheelchair to get around. This means he needs to have one of the other guys push him to meals and med line and so forth. And it’s not like this other guy just stands around like a butler waiting on the whim of Mr. Inato to cart him around. I needed to speak with him about his meds and didn’t want to go through the whole production of dragging him. I could leave a massage with custody, but I don’t want them responsible for communicating medication issues. Besides, I could just walk down the hall, into his unit and tell him.

So I waited in my office for somebody in a uniform to walk by so I could snag him as an escort. It didn’t take long, and one of the Sergeants stuck his head in my office. I asked to accompany me, explained what I wanted and we went briskly down the hallway chatting, into the unit, past the unit officer, and to the very end of the second hallway. I was pleased I hadn’t dragged him out as he couldn’t have been further away from me unless he had been in a totally different building.

I knocked, went in, crouched down to the bottom bunk, gave him my message and talked for a moment. All’s well, he understood and wasn’t upset or otherwise put out. I stand up, the Sergeant guarding my back smiles and we turn to leave. And the passage is blocked by the bigwig custody in charge of the building and the unit officer, with about four of my guys lurking not-so-innocently in the background. Her eyes are bugging out of her head and her eyebrows are waggling madly around on her forehead. Apparently she had decided there was some kind of emergency; apparently related to the noise I made as I walked down the hallway with my heals (I am always noisy, so I don’t get it), and the fact that I had unit command with me. Her passage in turn had set the whole unit buzzing, and I had to soothe all my guys as I made my retreat, carefully not laughing at her misplaced excitement.

Gay is gay

2009-05-07T14:53:00.001-07:00

Crappy day today. I suspect I’m beginning my PMS cycle. But the guys were incredibly irritating, needy and whiney. My regular Thursday group is struggling with a new member who has been overtly gay and is now using Christianity to “fix” himself. I find this concept repulsive and distressing. My belief is gay is gay. It is what you are. For us to judge somebody on this proclivity is tantamount to judging somebody for the color of their skin. I have a little bit more flexibility for judging on what you’ve done.

Ms. H points out that many of these guys have been sexually abused by men. This fact makes their tolerance very low. Perhaps those who have been sexually abused by women have the same intolerance, but I doubt it. Teaching tolerance is what she suggests, and what I attempted today. I must admit, of the seven, only two were virulently anti-gay. Two were trying to help me process and two stayed out of it. I just cannot tolerate that kind of hate in the group. It belongs in the yard. I can’t possibly kick the gay guy out; but that leaves me with kicking the intolerants out. Again, a decision without a clear right choice. I guess I just continue forward.

This guy has experienced years of this kind of response, and he is totally capable of fending it off and keeping himself cocooned and safe. It’s not like this makes me happy. It breaks my heart. So today is a breaking my heart day. One guy left early as he could not tolerate the conversation. Do I delve into their own abuse, do we need to go that deep?? Is this group dying and I need to make some change?? Crap.

How do I fix everybody? How do I keep them all safe?

Character Catch Up

2009-04-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you following the embedded stories in this blog, let me catch you up.

Mr. Stewart was saved from riding out. (Read previous few blogs) I was able to do this by cashing in chips not yet in existence. The day he was let out of seg was beautiful out, and I called him in to read the riot act before group the next day. I didn’t think I could tolerate him in group if I didn’t have a moment to vent my frustration on him. It was his one free day on the yard before three weeks of Top Lock (where you can’t even leave your bunk to pee without permission) and Loss of Privilege (where you can work and pee at your discretion, but are otherwise contained to your bunk). The first night out of Seg he received a letter from a friend.

A mutual friend of theirs, somebody he had known for over 20 years had killed herself. She had a period of significant sobriety, gone back to school, graduated, found employment, and then been sucked back into the drugs and laid down on the railroad tracks. This is a favored way of death in this area, something the Amtrak people must dread with every fiber of their being. She lived for 20 minutes after she was crushed into some mass of tissue and shattered bone. I leave you to imagine his response. It was poorly timed, but as one of my coworkers mentioned, at least he could show me the letter and obituary. He was not in a foreign place with no support.

Mr. Rose is back as of night before last. Two stints in the hospital and one in an intermediate care center. He came back nominally stable, and refusing treatment. As fragile as he was, he is not allowed back into the yard until I clear him. As he came in late, he spent the night in Seg, and I saw him in the morning. Five days without meds. He comes back to a yard where he was threatening people and left a legacy of incipient violence, and now he needs to walk back out. If you’ve read me for a while, you can imagine how I snatched him up. He signed back up for service and took his meds.

He explained to me today that he was feeling so good on his meds – no need to try to hurt anybody, no mood swings that he had to stop. He had to make sure he was still there. Last night on the yard he tracked down a guy that owed him money. Apparently verbally terrified this kid enough he went to custody. Mr. Rose was pulled in and asked to explain himself, which he tells me he did. I was too tired tonight to check and see if his story held up to custody’s understanding. He expressed regret today, as he had suggested he ride out to a higher level, then realized he was better off where I knew him and could follow his case. Might just be bullshit. Hard to tell with this guy. He seemed rather embarrassed that I had the nooses he gave me in Seg tacked onto my corkboard.

I told him I would put a cot in the corner of my office and keep him where I could watch him. The meds had kicked in enough he could smile at the image. He has parole, and I will tell him tomorrow. Hopefully this will keep him focused on not acting like an idiot.

Mr. Stark (second blog) has been having one success after another. He has beat two tickets, one legitimate, one not. He has practiced “soft eye contact” with the officer that takes offence to his alpha male stance. This dodged another potential ticket. But he is also curbing his behavior to avoid more trouble. He explained to me today he had made me a promise. Regardless of all the insanity, he feels honor bound to follow through, so thus has been trying to make a change. Next week we will talk about how he changes his image on the yard. It should be interesting.

Mr. Sotheby continues to work under the radar. His knuckles were all bruised and scabbed last week.

What I Learned

2009-04-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

This has been an eventful week, where I have learned quite a bit, actually, more than I might have wished.

I learned that there is heroin available on the unit, in addition to tobacco and marijuana.

I learned that most of my guys have participated in illegal activities as well as physical violence at some point in their bit.

I learned that you should never hit somebody with your hands (actually, John D. McDonald taught me that as a teen, but he advocated a weapon: a bad choice in prison.) You should use your elbows. It doesn’t leave marks indicating you’ve been fighting, and it is a much stronger bone, not prone to breaking.

I learned through a delicate exchange that I could smuggle in contraband. I guess, actually, I didn’t learn this, I assumed, when I bothered to consider, this was a possibility. As it was floated as a joke, I reacted as if it were a joke and declined. Of course there was nothing truly funny about it.

So Mr. Sotheby suggests to me that this level of trust is what I’ve been looking for from my guys. He is right, and now it just scares me. I just haven’t understood how many ways the guys can leave me….

To Mr. Stewart

2009-04-08T16:28:00.002-07:00

Mr. Stewart,

I’ve read your letter through now a couple of times. A copy is enclosed and I would like you to keep it with you.

It is a moment you’ve taken to speak truly – from the shiny bit that hides under the fear and rage. It speaks – you speak- from the part of you that is good and has value. You need to keep it for when you feel desperate and bad; when you need to find your way back to your essential humanity.

As I thought about what you said, your need to hit somebody and be hit; that this was the culmination of your self-hate from your flop, I suspect I know what happened. You let yourself get wrapped up in believing you were worthless. Believing you were trash and nothing you could do would change this reality. Perhaps you had begun to hope. And this would make it all the more scary and desperate. So you set out to prove to yourself what everybody thought of you. And you blew up your life again.

I’m sorry it took me too long to figure this out. I know intellectually how violent you can be. Emotionally I rejected that knowledge and refused to hear what you were telling me.

Next time you get to that point, and I daresay there will be a next time. Please feel free to say loudly and clearly that you could do with a couple of days in Seg. It’s called a Mental Health Emergency. It is done without the suicide precautions. Take that that time to read your letter to me again. I would also suggest you take that time to do some crying – it can be a great release for pain and grief and fear. It also heals instead of continuing to increase the burden of hurt you keep piling on yourself.

My greatest fear is that you will be ridden out and just give up. All the work you’ve done in the past months will get wadded up and thrown into the back of your mind. You got your flop in October (that was the time you began to actually work on issues). The date the flop began was totally arbitrary and unconnected to the changes you had begun.

The depressed, anxious, angry person of September was losing his grip… I’m not being very clear now, am I.

THE PERSON YOU WERE IN FEBRUARY WAS NOT THE PERSON WHO WAS FLOPPED. It was a trick of the calendar. It did not reflect some failure in therapy or your work with me.

You can sink into the morass of the choice you made, or figure out how to make a different one next time. I would prefer the later.

Mr. Stewart was released back onto the unit against the better judgment of custody, but because I asked.

From Mr. Stewart

2009-04-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

Ms. Mclain,

I’ve been sitting in this box for 5 ½ days now, and it just dawned on me how crazy I am. I mean I’ve always known this, but I’ve just affirmed my beliefs. I found myself thinking about my reason for being in here and started laughing to myself about it. I literally “created my own prison.” I’m not a stupid man, but man, do I do stupid things.

Remember me telling you about how I’d been depressed and angry ever since my flop started? There was only one way for it to go unless I stopped it, and that’s right where I’m at. I wasn’t dealing with any of it in a healthy manner. I just pray that I can stay here and continue to work with you on these issues, because I really need some frickin’ help! I do appreciate all the help that you’ve given me so far, and I hope that it can continue. I’m not sure how much more I can say without being inappropriate, so I’ll move on.

You asked me why I never told you about my daughter being ill. I didn’t really think about it, I guess. But there’s more to it that that. When I tell people one of two things happens or both sometimes: I’m somehow defective because of it, or I think she is and that’s why I’m not there, because I’m an asshole who doesn’t care about her. It’s all bullshit! And to tell you the truth, I was told by Laurie a long time ago to stay away from her for her own good. Not because I was a bad father, because I wasn’t. Because of my heroin use and the crazy life I led. She was right. Dammit was she ever right and the thought that I had abandoned my child over a drug has fueled the fire that has continually sent be back to it. Crazy, huh? I miss her with all my heart and soul. I don’t even know what she looks like. Do you know how that feels? Of course not. So when I get a look on my face like you think I’m no good or bad, that’s just how I feel.

I really need your help to work through this and everyone else’s voices telling me I’m shit, because that’s how I feel, and no good can come from feeling like that.

Thank you for everything.

Owning Mr. Stewart, part II

2009-04-04T18:52:00.001-07:00

Mr. Stewart has been in Seg now for four days without his tickets being heard. The odds are he will be ridden out. I’ve decided, on Monday, to talk to the committee that makes this decision and argue that he needs to stay with us for mental health reasons. He will likely score an Assault ticket, but it won’t be enough to send him to a higher level, so he could possible stay. The guy he assaulted is looking at Parole in the next six weeks, so he will be gone. The possibility of another incident is small, since both of them have told me they are willing to stand down.

To ask that he stay puts my reputation in questions. Am I “overly familiar?” Do I have a relationship with Mr. Stewart that is wrong? I have a relationship that is totally different from what Custody has. But he is my patient, not just an inmate. I have similar relationships with a number of guys, and I must admit, I care for a significant amount of the guys on my caseload. I also care for a significant number of the staff I work with. I care for a significant number of my husband’s friends. If I didn’t like him, I couldn’t do very useful therapy.

And of course, I now own him…

Fix It

2009-04-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

The week continues. Mr. Stark comes in on Thursdays: Mr. Invisible.

He is working hard for me, mildly aware of Mr. Stewart in Segregation and my pain and fear. After last session, I want him to talk about the tangle of love, hate and pain engendered by his rape. I start by suggesting love is something that is supposed to be warm and safe. He leaps up from his seat and starts to pace around my office. The new office is big enough to hold ten guys for group, so there is room. As I have mentioned, custody walks by every ten minutes or so and looks in. My goal is to sit quietly, so nobody is alarmed by his angst. He tells me love has never involved anything vaguely safe.

He is a musician. One of his expressions is heavy metal. He tells me this week he has played with the prison bands. He has been asked to lead guitar with songs full of hate. For the first time he has looked at the faces around him, and as he plays, they are suffused with rage and anger. And he is repulsed. He feels that he is funneling his own hate into the crowd, and is responsible for eliciting this response from others. And now, he no longer wants this. Of course he is not doing this; he is just finding resonance from others fighting the same demons he fights.

He flings himself back into his chair, digs in his pocket and gives me the four picks that live there. In prison, these must have a huge value. I’m vaguely confused as to how he even has them, but there is no time to ask.

“I can’t play heavy metal anymore.”

His music is so important to him. It is the thing that keeps him afloat in this crazy world of prison. And he is up again, pacing. I think he just gave me his music. I think in retrospect he was asking me to judge this part of him. If I found it wanting or wrong, I was to take it away from him; I should take his picks. If I did so, he would do his best to acquiesce to my decision. I can’t even imagine what comes next.

He saves me by launching into another topic, starting again with the disclaimer that he is retarded.

I cringe. I have little energy left this week with Mr. Stewart in Seg. The last time Mr. Stark started a topic this way it was horrific. I don’t have the energy for this.

He doesn’t wish to tell me the story, but he knows he needs to. It haunts him and not telling me is a form of lying. He owes $24 to a guy that sold him drugs in the past couple of months; time before I lowered the boom about his behavior. His brother is supposed to feed money into other inmate’s accounts from Mr. Stark’s savings at home. But for some reason, his brother has dropped off of the face of the earth in the past months, and this debt has gone unpaid. He suspects his brother is using again.

Yesterday he was approached by a group, a pseudo-gang, of men demanding the money. The person he owed had sold the debt. He fliped immediately into prison mode and invites them to come one by one into the shower with their knives and he will slice their faces off. They back off and leave with verbal threats. Such violence, offered to me with the most sheepish face. I have no doubt he would be able to do such to at least half of them before winding up another causality in Seg or God forbid, the hospital. But if he chooses this recourse, he ends up leaving me. So he asks me what to do.

Excuse me, I am white naive country girl; I’ve no idea what to do with this crazy prison yard politics and power struggles. I can’t even believe he asks me. I express this and ask for a list of options.

He explains what I already know, what those of you reading this blog know. Now that he has made a stand, if he backs down, he loses face, and the consequences could lead to an escalated level of violence. All I know is I can’t lose him, too. Not two of them in the same week.

“Fix it. Fix it, Mr. Stark” I have nothing else to offer him.

Lunch sits in my stomach like a wad of clay. Two of them in one week will leave me, both for seemingly meaningless things. Maybe the husband is right, and I don’t have the strength for this work.

I have to walk across the yard this afternoon a couple of times to fix some medication problems. It is an early spring day, and most everybody is out and milling around. Mr. Stark should be at work in the music center. I’ve not yet begun to seriously worry; I’m saving that for the ride home. Again, all these guys are dressed the same, and picking them out of the crowd can be difficult. Suddenly somebody peals off of a conversation going the opposite direction and matches my stride. Mr. Stark.

“I’ve fixed it, it’s taken care of, Ms. McLain.”

In two hours? I want to stop and snatch him up and ask for more details. But I keep walking.

“I didn’t do it exactly how you might want.” He means he was threatening violence in some manner, he was being a prisoner.

“I don’t care. But you took care of it?” and I look at him sideways. It is normal for people to stop me to talk and sometimes to walk with me. I know that huge portions of the yard pay attention and balance to make sure I am not favoring one above another. We need to appear low key as he gives me this most important piece of information.

“Yup, I fixed it.”

And our paths diverge.

I come out moments later after dropping off the meds. He is standing down the walk from me yelling instructions and commands across the yard. He gesticulates with power and intent. He is the man that crouches outside my office waiting to be called in. I guess he has taken care of it. I have not found him in Seg in the following two days…

Owning Mr. Stewart

2009-04-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

It has been a long week, and I hardly know where to begin. Mr. Stewart, one of my regular guys has gone off of the deep end. Somebody in a different unit owed him a tiny bit of money. But as custody has reminded me, this is a huge thing; something that might call your manhood into question.

Mr. Stewart tried to call this guy out into the common area. This did not work. So Mr. Stewart went into his old unit and pulled this guy out. A Major Out of Place ticket. Both are now sporting horrid black eyes and other wounds. Mr. Stewart owned up, stating he took the first blow, but only because he thought the other guy was coming at him. It’s all on tape, and a huge portion of the inmates witnessed this, including the blood that sprayed everywhere.

So I walk in on Wednesday morning and check the segregation board. Who is in the hole from last night? And I see Mr. Stewart’s name and number with “fighting,” penned in behind it. The other guy is on my caseload also. The other guy has always passed through my office as an afterthought. He is a long term con, and is uninterested in counseling or change, he just wants the meds. You know who I support.

I am so angry, and hurt and full of grief and loss, because one of them will be surely ridden out to another prison. I have spent so much time with Mr. Stewart, and we had begun to make some sort of progress, and he is now maybe leaving due to something so tiny in my eyes.

I speak to the other guy, and hear the story; pretty close to what is on the ticket. Then I pull up a chair to Mr. Stewart, and talk through the meal slot. I can’t rationalize pulling him out, in belly chains, needing an extra custody person to supervise my safety. I just need to lean over and shout through the slot. So angry, so disappointed, I cry in front of custody again before I go in. I would feel so much better if I could grab him by the collar and slam him against the wall and scream in his face. Of course, this would be so normal and recognized; this is how everybody he has cared about has always treated him. Maybe in some sick way it would comfort him.

And I start talking to him and he does this horrible dismissing shrugging thing he does when he is very disturbed. Even though I know why he does it, it enrages me further. I am tight and cold and angry. I suggest he come close enough I can grab him by the throat, and he smartly keeps his distance. He is just showered, and his newly long hair is tangled. Those of us with long hair know you comb out the bottom few inches and then work up. I suggest this to him and he continues to comb the tangles from the top. This just angers me more.

He gives me prison dead eye. I suggest he knock that off. I then ask him to apologize, as I see he is either refusing to acknowledge why I am angry or is unable to speak it to himself. Shrugging, dead eye. And he yawns.

And I begin to consider leaving; this is doing me no good. I have a whole day in front of me, and I don’t need to wind up so hard I can’t do my job. He must have sensed this, and suddenly he is before me and I can see him. He apologizes. He tells me he understands how much it hurts me to have him in the Hole. And he is again this lost boy trying to find a way out, as he has been in my office for so many weeks. If I save him am I hurting him? I hope not. I if I save him, I will hope to own him and be able to push him in the directions I think he needs. Let’s see what happens…

My Whole Self

2009-03-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today my brother forwarded an email from a college friend of his. What I don’t think I have mentioned, and I neglect, is the importance of the support I get from family and friends as I forge my way through this insanity. My family is concerned I am crashing and burning from the intensity of this experience.

Brother writes to his friend, “Not sure you have the time or interest for this sort of thing, but my sister is documenting her new job in a blog, and its not as bad as it sounds. Her new job is doing therapy in a state prison. And she is scary unto it to the point of stressing her marriage and freaking out her family and herself. And she is writing about that too.”

Who he writes to is a ghost person for me in his life. I suspect I met Mr. K. when I went down to my brother’s college graduation, but I don’t have a clear memory. Two decades from brother’s graduation, if I remember correctly, this is a guy who had gone into law, and is perhaps, himself, walking through some sort of craziness of his own. Dave responds back, “Thank you. It's beautifully written but painful to read. Really dark and painful. I think I'll keep going.” I cherish this interchange, and it helps move me forward.

I was on the phone to the parents tonight, and they share the brother’s fear I am losing myself. Strangely, as fearful as they were of my marriage to my very unconventional husband, they are now afraid I am jeopardizing this relationship.

In November, I started to understand the compulsion this job had on me. I told myself it was passing; it was growth; it was finding my path. Of course, it would pass. Frighteningly, it has not. So I try to explain to myself and them.

I am attracted to the power of it. I am a uterus in a sea of testosterone. One of my second shift, female officers offered up TMT – Too Much Testosterone. They are at the dregs of their lives. They are alone, unhappy and desperate to connect. And I walk among them, hopefully sowing flowers.

For me to speak their pain to them is mesmerizing; how can I know? The bulk of abuse most of them has suffered has make them quest for love, and to act out in anger and criminal behavior. A tiny bit of love from me goes a horribly long way.

Yesterday I had a guy who has been in for a drug related murder for fourteen years. I don’t mean to suggest killing somebody who did you wrong in a drug deal is okay, but I’d rather he killed that guy than breaking into my house and killing me for the $40 in my wallet. English is his second language. He was almost a child when he came in, and nearly illiterate in English. It had been four days since his parole came through, and I assumed he knew about it. He has always been cautious and watchful with me. He came into my office, and I beamed at him and grinned. He set aside the prison dead eye and beamed back. I assumed it was because he already knew about his parole. He did not. He was just so enchanted that somebody would look at him with such positive regard, he responded. Not a criminal, not a felon, not an animal. Just a lost soul. He was only slightly more excited about the parole than the fact I had looked at him with my whole self.

And THIS is the thing that keeps me sane and whole. I can do tiny, little thoughtless things. Ways of interacting that those I love don’t even consciously register. And that second, that moment can change the course of the day for my guys. And when I concentrate hard, and am conscious, what might I accomplish? What might they find in their selves to become?

Gone

2009-03-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

Mr. Stark got called up by the Parole Board again. Apparently they are reconsidering his flop.

Today I left early for lunch, and he was sitting in the cage with a bunch of men waiting for their parole hearings. I knew he was up this week, but it could have been Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I caught his eye, and a jolt went through me. I want him to get parole. I want him to go back into the world and have a life. But we are not even close to done with the work needed to safeguard him from the hate, and insanity and drug world to which he is returning. I walked with him as he was being returned to his unit and checked his head. He is anxious, but he has not flipped into the defensive, non-caring mode. He is back in Control when I return from lunch. I would stop and grab him by his collar and knock him around until I am sure he understands what he needs to do to leave. Of course, I cannot do this. I can neither touch him, nor do something so violent.

I imagine the piece of paper in my box that tells me of his parole. I am not ready for him to leave. I imagine I will hear about him being moved to a prison closer to home. And whoosh, he will be gone. I want to find a way to hold him and keep him safe. But I cannot journey out with him. He will have to find a way to keep himself safe. I have to hope he holds me in his head in a way that helps guide him; in a way that helps him remember there is another, better way to live his life.

The Husband

2009-03-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

So last Thursday I wrote about Mr. Invisible. I told you my husband was not happy.

We are trying to work through this. I am trying, at least. He told me I needed to quit; that these guys are taking my soul. Today he opined I was, “being taken advantage of.” I’m trying to find some place to speak of this clearly. Our friend, Julie, says it is my quest for a level of stimulation my husband finds distasteful and repugnant. He cannot watch anything on television or the movies that is shocking, violent or too sad. I quest for this level of stimulation. At the same time he is right, it drains me in a way. And then I am less available to him.

I don’t talk about him much except as a passing reference. He makes things. His days are pretty constant and very far away from any trauma besides what he concocts in his brain. My days fluctuate wildly between feeding energy and draining.

We have loaded guns in our bedroom closet. This is new. This is to dissuade the guys that he believes might hunt me down after they are released. He is no longer afraid I will be hurt on the facility. He is now afraid they will become so attached they will come after me when they are released.

When I was 22, I had this dream about who I would be. I wanted to be this quiet, centered earth-mother person. Somebody who could absorb and be quiet. I am the farthest thing from quiet and calm. I finally understood this goal was beyond my personality, beyond my character, and I needed to give it up. I’ve spent the next decades working through this reality. The easy description of me is I’m a loud, pushy, bitchy person. I do not give in easily to society’s expectations of me. I am not cute or nice. I am me.

And now I am in prison. As I’ve said in earlier blogs, my mother made me do it. My great friends are totally unsurprised by how this environment has worked for me. These men are the boys I dated in high school. They are the lost souls that I saw and could not save at that time. They are known to me. I am fierce, and strange and authentic. I demand a lot, and I do not abrogate my ideals. The guys tell me I am real, a compliment I cherish and have never heard before. They do not judge me and they do not find me wanting.

So they come into my office, and each starts as a person, not a felon. Some of them are so dead; their shiny bits have been destroyed and their desire for interaction is puerile and oriented toward sex. They cannot find something larger. They persist and I send them elsewhere as in Proposition.

And so the majority finds me. I say something or do something that catches them. And then out of their pain and their fear and their hopelessness they decide to take another chance with me. Each finds another reason to believe and trust me. And each moves toward something new at their own pace.

Mr. Invisible takes a leap that I have asked him for, and I have never imagined how it might affect me. For any man, especially in a prison situation, to admit to a woman that they were looking for love from the man that sodomized them is huge. It is not something that can be conjured for my interest. It is far too possibly humiliating and horrifying to even float out unless you have some huge goal. A goal such as finding wholeness and seeing the need to slough off the insanity of your childhood. Again, he has gifted me with such a secret, such a moment that I am devastated by both his trust and the horror of his experience.

Then the husband suggests he is using me? What is the husband thinking? He is thinking that I am taking something from him and giving it to somebody ELSE. He wants me to come up with some concrete plan of when enough is enough. When I stop giving of myself. How nebulous. I don’t know how to do this.

Mr. Invisible has taken my soul for a number of hours. After I write about it, I remain so sad, but I am no longer wracked with sorrow. I can spend ten hours of my blessed life to alleviate some of his pain. If my horribly privileged husband has to give up some comfort, so be it. I’ve put up with his obsessions for years; he can deal with mine now. I am doing good. I am convinced of this.

Invisible

2009-03-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

“I’m gonna tell you something that will sound stupid or retarded.”

I had just said something to him that he had to check to see if I was rejecting him.

This sentence is often followed by something inappropriate. So I sighed and was wary.

He was sodomized at gunpoint as a child by his father’s friend.

“When he raped me first, he was violent. The second time it was not. I just thought this was how adults worked. Then he didn’t come back after that. I thought I had done something wrong.”

And at age eight, love and pain and fear became intertwined. He had been rejected by his rapist. His parents had already disengaged from him. Love and hate become the same. Pain and love are the same. He is bad, and doesn’t deserve love. He told his mom about the rape. She slapped him and called him a liar. The man was incarcerated two years later for raping his children. His mother was too high to remember this conversation.

And for him, hate and love and rage and rejection become the same. Safety is something beyond the pale, nothing that you can find a base for. You are bad. The only person who pays attention to you, you have driven away. You are tiny, young, and fragile and nobody loves you truly.

I cried. And it made him frantic. Hurting me is not allowed. But I need to take the pain from him somehow, and help him find something more meaningful than hate = love. If hate and love are the same thing, all you can do is immerse yourself in drugs.

My husband is not happy. I came home tonight crying. He doesn’t think my job should take this toll. He wants me to walk away. Of course this causes me more pain. This guy comes to me; he tells me things in ways he has not done before. My job is to take it, process it and release it to the world at large. And my job is not to condemn him for his confusion. My calling is to take his pain, and continue to care. He has little idea what love without pain is about. So it costs me something. So what?

Each time he comes to my office or I see him on the yard, he is more present. This is what I get back. I want to be a healer. He is, for the first time maybe in his life, looking at something different. He and I have taken him there. How is this not worth it?

Let me explain what I don’t think he evens gets.

He has two modes, due to the abuse. One is invisible. The new psych I am training still can’t tell who he is. When he waits in the hallway for our sessions, he hunkers down in the corner and practices invisibility. He becomes tiny. But he has this berserker presence when he feels threatened. I only sense this as he has not done it to me. When you are terrorized as a child you go one of two ways. One is to become victim; one is to become the aggressor. Many of these people become abusers themselves. He has had enough self, enough of his shiny bit that he has not gone to the abuser. But there are moments when somebody threatens what he cherishes that he becomes big. He gets at least four inches taller; his hands are big enough to crush my skull. He can dominate most of the men in the facility, but I am not sure he knows it. He should be somebody who worries me, but I know my biggest worry is him doing something out of control to protect me.

Okay, my real biggest worry is he will become so overwhelmed by the vulnerability of what we are doing he will explode it. But the other thing he is getting is the possibilities of love without pain. And of course, the pain is what he is trying to erase with the drugs. And now I am spinning.

But he is not. He has found something to anchor him. He is moving forward, and I watch with pride and love.

A gift

2009-03-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, the end of the day. And I look at what I think I’m doing. It happens a lot. My guys are so needy, they look for so much. They need me to love them and I do what I can to find the parts of them worthy of my love. Worthy? Hubris???

Today I had a session with Mr. Stewart. It was exactly what it should have been. We’ve had two sessions of angst, after I told him to shut the fuck up. They were horrible hours where my own anxiety was out of control; I can only imagine where his own thoughts were. Finally, thanks to years of training, I understand that I am absorbing his anxiety. My own reaction (countertranferace) is the clue. Christ, where is my head to take hours to understand??

Imperfection is intolerable to me.

Center down, relax, just have a conversation. Stop pushing so hard. I want it all, now. My fear that he will do something, or the system will do something to take him away from me makes me crazy.

For seconds, sometimes for minutes, I feel that I hold him. He stops fighting and he is mine. At this moment I need to find the best of myself and open that to him. But there are so many factors fighting against that; what does he leave my office with?

And today we entered one of these moments. I can’t predict these, they are unimaginable and not to be choreographed. All I can hold is my centering thought. He needs to feel and understand that I see him, that all of his craziness and all of his fear is only static. I see him.

I can reach beyond his internal chaos when I remember to do so. It is nothing to me. It is everything to him. And each time I do it, it is like something new. He can’t remember; he becomes so immersed in his own pain that he can’t hear. He told me today I am one of the hardest people for him to read, that what I say and my tone sound incongruent to him. I think it is because I am pushing him, and he feels this is judging.

He asks me in the last session if I will transfer him to the next psych. Why would he think that? How have I betrayed him to believe this? Intellectually I know this is his fear. Emotionally I feel the loss of him. This is where I finally understand what is happening. He is so afraid I will discard him that I have become afraid he will discard me. We are in a horrible cycle of fear. As each of us becomes more anxious, our behavior becomes more untrue. We cannot find the essence of what is happening.

So I take the plunge, and I tell him my fear. That I am being so pushy and obnoxious that he is going to get up, walk out of my office and never come back. It is his fear reflected, but not less horrible because of it. I am rigid remembering the moment, now.

And he gifts me. He looks at me, beyond my age, beyond what I look like, beyond being other, beyond his preconceived notions of my essence; his soul looks at me. “I will not leave you.” He has transcended his own fear to reassure me. He gifts me.

Who are you?

2009-03-22T15:27:00.001-07:00

My unique hit counter has sky rocketed in the past few weeks. Who are you people reading my blog? I can’t but imagine you are passing it on. Tell me what you think; I’m dying out here.

Walk Through the Fear

2009-03-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Is there anybody out there?
Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anybody else at all??*

Mr. Sotheby came in today. He had initially instigated treatment by very clearly asking for it. We have had four or five sessions. The last two sessions have been totally insane for me. I can’t really tell where his issues and mine are intersecting and separate. He gives me this amazing writing that I would copy and take home to my support, but that would ask too much of him.

And yet, the person he gives me in writing is so much more present than the body I have sitting next to me in session.

I seem entirely unable to push him. I can’t tell if I am channeling his own wish or just thrashing around in my particular issues. Like a rock, he looks at me. Sometimes his eyes are animated and I feel his reality, and then a small change occurs and he is gone. Prison Dead Eye.

He has given me a few explanations at the same time he reassures. He does not want my pity. He does not possess girlish emotions. I can not possibly understand his pain. I think all are true but missing the essence. I suspect the issue is trust. And that’s when he reassures me that indeed he does trust me, and I know more about him than anybody else in the facility, except a couple of people with whom he has done years of time.

After Mr. Sotheby left, I bounced off my frustration in the main office. My boss just thinks he is in my office because I, “smell good.” Implying I have the coochie. My husband has been driving this into my head lately. “They all have sex with you at night…”

I just can’t believe it. For God’s sake, I am older than his mother. If this is all it is, I just need to pack up and go home. I am too naive to do this job. If I find he is just playing me, when I am so sure he is not, I’m fucking doomed.

Mr. Sotheby tells me he thinks things were going along at a nice pace. I can’t imagine what he is talking about, except conversation at about four miles an hour. He tells me he sees my name on his itinerary and feels happy. Such a lovely compliment, and again, I don’t think he is bullshitting me. But he could be.

So many people lie, and I know I don’t always know for sure; I want to see the best. I’ve caught a few playing me. God, if he is doing this, he will be the nightmare I’ve been waiting for; the incident that crushes me. Then I get to be the one to decide if I trust again or just relegate the rest of my patients to animals.

I see him, and I wish I could walk up to him and just touch him on the forehead. To let him lean in, and for a moment give up what he holds, relax, and maybe take a moment to feel safe. In fact, I wish that for so many of them including some of the officers. Too much pain exists in this place.

Both my friends I talked to about it, Meem and Mel, tell me I need to back off and just let it go: let him talk and find his own pace. He’s not leaving soon, so I really shouldn’t feel so much pressure. I guess we both have to walk through our fear.

*Pink Floyd

Thongs

2009-03-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, another group session, and somehow the conversation goes to cross-dressing. Apparently there is a guard infamous for wearing women’s undergarments. It strikes me as a very bad choice in prison to be known for this particular proclivity. But the question arises as to why somebody might do this.

I pull the current DSM off the shelf to find the diagnostic category, and as I flip through the tome, I start talking about it. I’ve had three or four clients over the years that either cross-dress or are looking at sex change, and I casually mention this. They are amazed. It seems like such a bizarre and rare occurrence; how could I possibly have experience with it?

I explain about the sexual arousal part of this activity and the concept of being caught in the “wrong” body. They’re still stuck in the thought that I actually have treated guys with this issue. I point out that men don’t generally get together, drink beer and talk about their underwear.

“Well, do women?”

“Of course we do!”

Silence.

“What if you came home and S (the husband) was in high heels and a black lace thong?”

“Well, that would be a problem; after almost thirty years I’d be a bit freaked I didn’t know that about him.”

“You’re BLUSHING.”

“I’m sure I am, and Mr. Diaz, if you’re not careful, I’ll picture you all in high heels and thongs… Omigod, Mr. Diaz, there you are heels, thongs and your black socks.”

And now he blushes.

Devil-Spawn

2009-03-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

Mr. Stark, the subject of “Antisocial” has become one of my regular therapy guys. I have changed my mind from my first fear of him.

It is so hard to extract a history from a person. What if you came home at age eight every day, and if you walked wrong or sneezed or made a seemingly meaningless comment you were snatched up and beaten? What if the only thing your mom did to help was wipe the blood off your face, in the dark, in your room? What if the school called because you had gotten in a fight with a classmate, and your father broke your arm to teach you a lesson? What if you heard at ten that your mother had been unfaithful, and your father thought you were the ill-gotten offspring of this liaison? And so he hated you? And your younger brother was treated completely differently. It’s not like you did something….

You learn that you are intrinsically evil, bad, wrong. And then the thing that marks you as devil-spawn in your father’s eye is your art, and that is the thing that might save you. The other man had the same skills you demonstrated at an early age. How the hell do you work that through as a child?

Well, Mr. Stark worked it through. It involves drugs and violence and rage. You make that man in your house stop hurting you by hurting him worse. Every person that even vaguely threatens you becomes somebody to destroy. But even in this miasma of hate, he understands he should not hurt his girlfriend or her child. He treats me with care as he vibrates with hate. After our last session, I processed the case with my friend, and we looked at his meds. He is on a tremendous selection of meds that help him control his violence.

I wrote, in Antisocial, “He will never understand why I do what I do. He can grasp my feeling for him, but he will never understand in some internal way why I come to work and try to find a thread to lead him and his (hated) brethren out of hell.” I appear to have been quite wrong about this assessment.

Regularly, after our initial sessions, he got in trouble: four tickets in total. The third session, I reflected the thought to him that the therapy was scaring him, and causing him to find a way to destroy it. Enough tickets and he will be ridden out to a higher level, and he will have ruined something else that is beginning to become precious to him. I gave him strict instructions to avoid thoughtless agitation and acting out in the next week.

The day was long, and I was late leaving. There is a holding area in Control for prisoners being processed in some way. It can be as simple as waiting for the parole board or as serious as awaiting the outcome of a ticket. There is a scrunched up pile of prison clothes with a winter watch-cap pulled down past the eyebrows of the person hiding in the collar of his coat. Guess who?

Since he had unsuccessfully hidden from me, he sits up for our conversation and pushes his hat back.

“Mr. Stark, what are you doing here,” fierce glare.

He claims innocence this time, which I actually believe, since he has never done such with me before. He had been hauled down to control to “chat” with the Lieutenant. And of course, he became immediately belligerent. The Lieutenant responded by threatening him with a ticket, a short vacation in the Hole, and taking his beloved job away (his job has to do with his art). Mr. Stark cleverly responded by starting to take off his coat and shirt to change into the jumpsuit required for the Hole. The Lieutenant threw him back in the hallway, pending further discussion. I don’t know why he made this decision, but I am thankful for it. It gives me time to smack him around a bit before his next “chat.”

“I’m not going to fucking apologize for something I didn’t do and I’m not sorry for.”

That’s me, stupid female, once again requiring unreasonable behavior.

“What is your goal, Mr. Stark? Managing your responses or letting them manage you? You may not be sorry for what they’ve accused you of, but it might be nice to apologize for acting like an asshole.”

Twenty minutes later we’d gone over everything twice, and I was ready to go home. I offered to stay and go in with him if the Lieutenant allowed me, but he declined. I also suggested he offer up that I had been reading him the riot act out here for a while if he thought it would help.

The next day he was not in segregation, and I had been so sure I’d find him there. I spoke to the Lieutenant that afternoon as I was leaving. Apparently Mr. Stark had turned his behavior around, been appropriate, and as such had dodged the ticket and returned to his unit. I admit, I was amazed and relieved.

And still, I’ve not addressed the issue of his understanding my work. This story was to illustrate how much rage and reaction he carries. He is bottled up so tightly that any provocation can get out of control well beyond the reasonable expectation. I suggested he needed to let me help him carry some of that pain. He looked at me as though I had suggested he beat me, started spluttering and I was afraid might leave session. Curious. Didn’t understand that reaction.

He could not possibly ever do anything to hurt me, he explained. And frankly, he thought it a little masochistic of me to want him to do so. So I explained the process of letting him share it, taking some of it from him, and channeling it out into the universe so it dissipates and hurts neither of us. Perceptive as he is, he asks why it won’t hurt me as it passes through. And I admit it probably will, but that is okay. It is worth it for the outcome, and it is what I do.

What I do?? He has his music. I have my therapy. And somehow putting them out there as the voice of our souls brought him in. and he did it. the next session he brought in lyrics and material that allowed him to voice his pain.

Deadly Force

2009-03-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

Today we learned how to hurt a prisoner. We also learned how to kill them…use deadly force. I’m sweaty and slightly stinky from this exercise. My friend from my last job, Sarah, was with me. It is her third day at the prison. We had been taught for years about how to non-violently contain a patient: how to break holds, how to hold somebody with the minimum of potential for damage. We certainly had never been trained to kill somebody. At the hospital, we had hands on patients as an almost weekly occurrence.

Early in my career in the hospital, a couple of memorable “take downs” happened. One was a floor below the main unit, in a locked space. Me, Kathy and a very angry borderline woman. We hit the emergency button as she rampaged through the room, throwing chairs and ripping at her arms with her fingernails. As we got her to the floor (we were both in skirts and nylons) and were draped over her bucking body (I was kneeling on one shoulder with an arm and Kath was on her thighs; she was face down), the insouciant voice of our male nurse comes singing out of the intercom, “And how may I help you today?” I believe I told him to get his fucking ass down here before the patient succeeded in getting free again. Apparently my tone was quite communicative, as he arrived barely seconds later as the code was called over the hospital loudspeaker.

The second was upstairs in the main unit, again with Kathy. We were co-therapists, so often together. This was a person that fancied himself to be Jeffrey Dahlmer. I don’t remember why he had to go to the floor, but she and I each had a shoulder, again wearing nylons and skirts. Someone else was on his legs. She had kicked off her heals, and as we waited for the shot of Haldol and Valium, I noticed his mouth was open and straining, and about an inch from her big toe. Kathy still has her toe.

I would mention we worked in a very conservative small town hospital. The director’s secretary would actually be dispensed to our work place to clarify the near intolerance of slacks on women. I would also mention this was the early 90’s, not the 50’s or anything… I don’t work there anymore.

So there were these terrifying rubber torsos on posts, attached to heavy weights at the bottom to keep them from toppling over when you practiced your strikes. The faces were the classic nightmare of a felon, lantern jaw, lowered brow, aggressive beak of a nose. I haven’t met anybody yet that even comes close to that look. Maybe all of those guys are at higher levels. The scariest guy I’ve met was a gorgeous man, classical features, beautiful eyes, muscular but not that look of hyper chest muscles from too much time in the weight pit.

I practiced nerve shots to the neck, arm, trapezoids and chest. You must strike from a high defensive posture and yell orders in a loud and carrying voice from the diaphragm. Years of theater make the voice the easiest aspect for me. Your violence level is dictated by the perceived danger and force necessary to neutralize it. Deadly violence is allowed if you believe yourself in danger of death or serious injury. This apparently includes rape. We are given a couple of throat strikes which are considered deadly force.

My friend, Sarah, now referred to as the “blonde 12 year old,” was making delicate strikes and squeaking out the commands. I hope she can find the voice of death if she needs it, has her Personal Protection Device within reach, and feels free to knee him in the balls if necessary (a deadly force move). I hope this is all just a safety exercise, and I never have to put hands on another patient.

Shut the Fuck Up, part 2

2009-02-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

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.

Shut the Fuck Up, part 1

2009-02-24T17:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Men Don't Wear Red

2009-02-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

Three months ago, I had a youngster come into my office on a parole violation. Although he was not antagonistic, he was withdrawn and unwilling to trust. Not so very strange. I told him to think about what he wanted, and if therapy was the answer, raise his hand and we would do such.

Two weeks ago or so, I came in on a Wednesday morning, and he was in the Hole on a fighting charge. My job is to check and make sure they are not secretly suicidal. Mr. Sotheby claimed he was not and gave the Prison Dead Eye. This is my own slang, and it means when you look at somebody, nothing looks back at you. It is a very unnerving experience and not one that does not makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

This week he appears back in my office. Now, after seeing him in the Hole, I was somewhat confused. My very intricate tickler file tells me I like him and would schedule him at the end of the day as a positive way to leave work. And yet he was totally unavailable emotionally last I saw him. It is Friday, so I am not as contained and appropriate as I am at other times in the week.

He is fairly perky and interactive. I tell him, as I might not have on a Tuesday, that he is marked as somebody I like in my very detailed tickler system. He doesn’t appear to absorb this as interesting information.

I ask him about the Fighting ticket, and he politely avoids the question. He does tell me a couple of staff have tried to get the truth out of this occurrence. I don’t really care about the legalities of what happened, but generally understand he has taken a stance, and doesn’t want the reality in his chart. I do care about what he is generating with Custody, and he allows as to how he got some flack for having an “attitude.”

Yes, he had a clear attitude when I saw him in the Hole. Suddenly he is engaged, and his previous casual, oblique body language becomes taut. “I didn’t give YOU an attitude,” he insists. He is right, he didn’t. Instead he gave me prison dead eye. After initially being shocked at this suggestion, he agrees he did do this to me.

But, nonetheless, great, he feels better. Let’s downgrade him to remission status. This allows me to follow the rules and only see him once every three months. I don’t mean to dismiss his hurt, but I know that dragging somebody kicking and screaming to therapy does nothing for him and makes me tired and angry.

When I suggest this, his face starts moving around as though there was a small, persistent animal caught behind the skin. I watch this and apparently make a strangled guffaw. Insulted and suspicious, he looks at me, “What did that mean?”

Again, it is Friday, so I am more up front than other times in the week and simply tell him, “You are either thinking up a really good lie to tell me, or you are struggling to find the way you want to express something.” I am tired and amused. I am not invested in his answer. I’m sure he is working up to some outrageous lie.

Instead, after a fairly notable pause, he says, “I think I need to talk to you about my emotions,” and blushes furiously. “My mother said that men don’t talk about their emotions.” And suddenly, he morphs from a liar to a small, sad child.

“My mother told me a bunch of things about men. Men don’t wear red.” Blush, blush, blush.

And he grabs my attention. He has climbed the wall of my Friday indifference. He is asking for therapy. He is writhing in his request.

Crap, I’ve not scheduled enough time for this contingency. But a dyke has opened. He is now pouring information out to me.

I stop him, and note what he has told me, and assure him I will put him on my regular schedule.

He is content, and leaves, and I take a quick look at my tickler. I had no memory of his history up to this point.
He went into prison at 17 for a non-violent crime. His juvenile record was such the courts were just frustrated and tired with him, so tried him as an adult. He had run away at 14 from a horrendously abusive step-father. While he was in on his first bit, at 19, his stepfather murdered his mother and his younger half sister. Mom was trying to leave him and save her daughter from his abuse. Mr. Sotheby knows in his heart, if he had been home, he would have helped his mother safely leave. He was in prison for a series of stupid, adolescent choices, and because of that, his mother and beloved sister are dead.

He has emotions he needs to talk about.

Love?

2009-02-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

I’m reading and studying when Mr. Stewart comes in today. I take my feet off of my desk, set the book aside, and look at him. I’m happy to see him; he appears in an upbeat mood.

“What, what’s wrong?’ he asks me. And his face vacillates between his beautiful open smile and his dead prison eye.

Against my better judgment, S. has seen his picture on the public prison site. S. needs some sense of who I talk about at home. His first response to this picture was, “he’s trouble, and he’s dead.” This was my own first assessment. Nobody home; nobody there.

But he is there, he is home, he is just horribly wounded.

“Nothing is wrong… why do you think something is wrong?”

“Well, the way you looked at me…”

“I was happy to see you, what do you think I was feeling?”

“You looked at me funny.” I think, in fact, I just looked at him and saw him, not something that most people do in most situations. S. suggests I was just distracted by what I was doing, and instead of my usual therapy open look, I gave him something disengaged. Apparently, I do this.

He settled down, and gave me open face. So I asked him the first question I had planned, “what was going on with you last Thursday (in group).” He had been right on target, open and engaged. Of course, I was pleased by this. I wanted him to acknowledge it.

“What, what did I do?” Again he assumes he has been bad. Instead of taking the burden off of him, I ask him what he did. He needs to process and have some belief in what he did.

He does tell me what I observed. His mood was good, he got the conversation, and most important, he was able to talk about it without being, “an angry asshole.”

And although I can’t remember the third incidence of his fear of badness, it occurred in the first seven minutes.

There are two things important happening here. The first is he cannot evaluate his own behavior in an insightful way. Apparently he did not leave group that day, knowing he had contributed and been an active thoughtful member. I suspect all he left with was the FEELING. And I hope the feeling was satisfied, and impressed with himself. But I wonder.

The second is harder for me to grasp, because it is my own shit. I see his beauty and his compassion and the respect he gives to me. This is not required. It is not anything he needs to do to get out of prison. He tolerates me stirring in his psyche once a week, and jerking his emotions around.

He has fallen into thinking of himself as a convict, as somebody who is intrinsically bad.

And here I am, avoiding my own shit, again. I am hurt that he comes into my office, after this amount of time, and believes that the first thing I’m going to do is castigate him for something. How have I not communicated clearly to him that I find him worthy of love?

I should probably stop here, because the last sentence is the edgy bit. But I’m not going to stop here.

I’ve reviewed with S. again, and he is more clear this time with his thoughts, and I’m repressing less. I now remember what Mr. Stewart thought was me badding him. I believe that part of the uproar with his siblings is understanding his potential (I hate this phrase, but it is pretty accurate.) I said I had, “empathy with his siblings and his ex-girlfriends.” As I formulated my next sentence, he gave me his immediate interpretation.

“Because I am such a fuck up.” A statement, not a question.

Grrrrrrrr, NO. I think I was pretty clear in what I said next. I reiterated that I thought he had much of good, and watching him crash and burn was untenable. But we are kept with his automatic response that he is bad.

****
We are talking, and I take my water bottle up, and I’ve filled it to the edge. I now dribble a very cold wad of water down my cleavage. And of course, I swear, grab a Kleenex, and go to swab myself out. But of course, I’m in prison, and he is a man. As I turn away from him to do this personal bit of hygiene, I see his reaction. He turns himself and looks down, giving me the respect and the privacy of this moment.

He will not remember this, I don’t think. And if he does, he will not think about the meaning. The meaning being he gave me respect, more important than the possible titillation of watching me reach into my sweater. He is, after all, a young man imprisoned for most of a year without contact with women. And still he give me this without thinking, because he is good.

I think of myself as very good at narrating what happens between people. But S. asks me if I’ve clearly expressed any of this. I’m not sure I have. It seems so clear to me, but maybe not to the other.

He carries the label of habitually violent criminal. Something I had not quite absorbed. Although this speaks to his behavior, and his quest for drugs, it does not speak to his soul, his shiny bit. He is worth saving.

Antisocial

2009-01-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

When you miss the learning that others have value. When you are raised with so little love and caring that you believe the basic premise is to meet your own needs. When you act on impulse regardless of how it effects others. When you use kittens for shark bait, and don’t understand why I want to kill you for even considering that.

Is it hopeless? Should I shunt you out of my office?

But what if your desire is art and true love? Two of the closest meanings to my heart?

He has an art beyond card making or hobby shit. He makes beautiful things. He had a woman he loved beyond his art, whom he gave everything up for. He gave up his art. And then he started the prison/jail cycle, and left her at home for years on end. She gave him a disease. She crossed the line he had set. She became worthy of death and dismemberment.

He asks me if romantic love is possible. And he tells me about the violent acts he has done to get money for his drugs. He is skilled at his art and does beautiful work, intermixed with violent expression. What do I do?

He will never understand why I do what I do. He can grasp my feeling for him, but he will never understand in some internal way why I come to work and try to find a thread to lead him and his (hated) brethren out of hell. I think I can help him see his choices lead him away from that which fills his immediate need and find the long term goal. Otherwise, he could stay in prison for the next fifty years and practice his craft in this very limited way. He could decide to abide by societies rules and give up that desire for immediate gratification?

Is it worth my time and energy? Will I just help him leave and destroy somebody else? Smash their face in for the $50 in their wallet? Or do I just sigh and decide to support him through my tax dollars through the next fifty years in the prison system?

Will these questions destroy my marriage? Will they destroy me?

Omission or Comission?

2009-01-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

Today was weird. One of my guys is apparently in prison for strangling his mother to death. As I have mentioned, I don’t review my guys’ crimes. It doesn’t feel so important to me. He is not clear if he is responsible for this by omission or commission. His memory of that day is poor – too high. He has decided that either way, he is responsible.

I would wish that his thought that somebody stalking him, came into the house and killed his mother because he was busy at his girlfriend's house. But it is not clear that he didn’t do it himself. Raped as a child by the brother of his mother’s lover is the motivation of his anger. She did nothing, and did not protect him.

This is such a common theme in child abuse: women who feel weak, and are not able to think of the possibility of alienating the man who takes care of them to protect a child. Very common. Very frightening.

In my experience, the primary caretaker’s response to this forms the child’s response. If they take the child’s side, and prosecute and protect, the damage is actually minimal. The child understands they are not responsible, and the caretaking adult protects, as is expected. If the primary adult chooses to ignore, because they are scared, the child become alienated and isolated. They learn that they are the only person that will protect them, and an antisocial personality is born.

He believes he is responsible for his mother’s death whether he is or not. Can over twenty years have actually effected change?

So, my question is about my own vulnerability. What do I believe? Is it important that I take a side?

My husband worries that the first time one of my guys I am attached to comes back with a horrible crime I will freak out. He is right. I will. And yet, I can’t detach. That is what nearly everybody else does.

What if he were my brother? What if I had raised him as a child, with 12 years between our ages? Do I just give up? Do I just stop caring? Grrrrrr. This job is making me buggy.

Am I Dude?

2009-01-26T15:28:00.001-08:00

One of my guys I am particularly fond of, and who is working in individual weekly, tends to call me “dude” when he gets excited about what he is relaying to me.

I really don’t care to be called, “dude.”

The fact that I need to wear pants, and be mildly non-sexual is irritating. Although I don’t feel any particular way about lesbians, I don’t care to appear as one. And “dude” seems to deny my ultimate femininity.

S (the husband) points out for the younger set, this is a type of honorific. I need to give it up. So I try to do so.

But last Thursday, we were in group. Mr. R. takes what I’m saying to another guy that doesn’t get my point, and says, “No, that’s not what Ms. M. means, she means….”

And I feel unaccountably recognized. I know this is silly, but I am so relieved that he knows who I am…

Although I’ve never been Ms. M. before, I’ve always used my first name. Names are so important. I am who I am. Am I ‘Dude?’

prison haiku

2009-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

Prison guys, my heart..
They try hard to find meaning.
They want my answer

Harmony Deconstructed

2009-01-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

Reading Mr. R.’s thoughts on Harmony is how we started group. Of course, I needed to do a bit of interpreting or simplifying for those listening. His thoughts are huge and dense. After the first paragraph, I asked Mr. R. if he was quoting something or somebody. He looked at me with total confusion… I then asked if these were the thoughts in his head, and he nodded solemnly, as though the thought of plagiarizing had never entered his mind.

So the group is concentrating very hard, except two or three of them, who I can tell I’ve lost. I think they freaked out at the thought of their own disharmony. And I stashed that in my head to address in a moment.

“What indicates harmony in a person?” I ask.

Here is what the guys come up with:

First they say that I’m harmonious, and I can hear the husband cracking up… “How?” I ask

“You’re nice.”

For those of you reading this blog, I need to tell you ‘nice’ is not a word often associated with me.

“Great,” I say, and write it on the board. “The next thing I suspect you’ll say is that I’m ‘cute,’” a word I hate.

“Oh no, Ms. M., we couldn’t possibly say that to you…,” grinning. It is inappropriate conversation to give me a compliment…but apparently just fine for them to be smart asses.

So they come up with a list of personal attributes that make harmony:

Harmony can be detected through the following characteristics.
Empathy
Adaptability
Passion for life
Being “real,” not using “masks”
Humor

(I got rid of the niceness thing…)

Then they come up with:

Harmony can be destroyed through
Bullshit
Nervousness
Blaming

Harmony is blocked when negative feelings are unreleased; when they are allowed; when they are fed and encouraged.

Mr. I. announces our group is a fine example of harmoniousness. I get chills; he understands exactly what I am fishing for, and is two steps ahead, nailing an idea I’d yet to consider myself.

But I still know we have lost a few, and I ask about group members that might not feel any harmony in themselves? I asked what we do when some of the group members are not connected to the conversation? How does that work? How can that be harmony?

One of the guys points to Mr. Pink. (I’m going to start giving them pseudonyms instead of initials, I think it is less confusing. Mr. Pink is a white guy from the country, who has nothing in common with my inner-city guys. He is slow in his thinking, but often has useful stuff to contribute.)

In painfully slow speech he says, “What if some guy has trouble following what is being talked about, and he needs to think about the words? And what if some guy has to work out what is meant? And what if some guy looses track of what is being said while he’s thinking?”

Mr. Phillips (previously Mr. P), is writhing in his seat. “I can’t stand listening to him. How can the rest of you just sit there while he, while he…”

“Mr. Phillips, why is it hard for your to listen?” Mr. Phillips with that question has pushed us the edge of harmony, and the group wavers before falling off. Mr. Pink is often almost identified as the scapegoat, someone at whom anybody else can take a pot shot. But he always saves the situation by laughing with them, diffusing the nastiness and reasserting harmony. Mr. Pink is a strange note in the group, and I can’t remember why I added him. The same reason we put salt in baked goods, I suppose, and he is equally important.

Mr. Innes (previously Mr. I.) observes that Mr. Phillips wants to care take everybody, and because of that, can’t stand the time it takes for an idea to emerge from Mr. Pink. He wants to drag the words out in a less painful way.

Mr. Phillips acknowledges this, and the moment of difficulty flows into the harmony of the group.

“But still, how can we have harmony in the group when individuals feel unharmonious?” They can see it happen, but can’t conceptualize it. Maybe I’m asking too much. But I need the guys that feel incapable of the harmony to understand it is not critical.

Silence.

“The greater function of the group brings us into a higher aspect of being?” For most of them, I might as well been speaking Portuguese with that statement.

“Do you know what carding wool is about?” Nope, although more familiar than Portugal.

Somebody suggests untangling threads. Good enough. He wins a free trip to South America…

We decide as a group, we all come in with tangled threads, and as group unknots them, leaving them clear and smoothed out. And we leave feeling stronger and informed, not like some freak on the outside of humanity.

************************

This group piqued tremendous discussion over the course of the next few days as I made my friends read Mr. Phillips' treatise. The most notable additions were:

Failure to assert self thoughts and ideas is not harmonious (in response to Mr. Stewart, aka Mr. S.’s fear that harmony meant giving up.)

When you want something, give away what you want.

Did Mr. Phillips swallow a lawyer?

Additional aspects of harmony might include cooperation, acceptance, and gratefulness.

Hey, Maclean, you’re quite the bug swatter…

And then the whole integration with my concept of shiny bits.

Housing Unit

2009-01-14T16:36:00.001-08:00

Three times I’ve walked through the housing units here on the facility. As desperately as I want to stop and peer in, it feels so wrong. It is not a zoo. I can’t just stop and take in the reality. So, instead, I set up with one of my guys in my building, to do a visit. I explained to him my dilemma, and asked him to check with his cube mates to allow me a visit. He came back, and told me it was cool.

We set up a time during count for me to come in. I arranged with a friend to accompany me; I promised the boss buy not to go into a unit by myself. Well, the friend had disappeared during our arranged time. Promises are so important, and I knew I needed to honor this one, so I trolled down the hall to find somebody to provide me a chaperone.

I found the lieutenant from Bad Bad Bad in an office, and shanghaied him to come. He was quite gracious about it, and of course, I then foolishly realized that I didn’t know quite where I was going. I was pretty sure he was in a certain unit, and I knew he was up by the front desk. The units are an open dorm set up, with a couple of hundred guys in a single room. Rather than an open barrack set up, it has smaller partitioned areas with six guys in each. I stride/slink along the rows of cubes, making quick eye contact, thinking I will find my guy in a minute. How stupid, to not understand my destination.

And in a moment I find relief. I see Mr. Phillips lying prone on his bunk, grinning at me. God knows what he would have done if I’d wandered by without seeing him. I am suspicious he would have just let me wander onwards.

I smiled and walked in, expecting him to do a bit of introduction and explanation. Clearly he is not on that wavelength, and he continues to lie there pleased I’ve come and curious about the next bizarre behavior I will perform. So I explain why I am there to the group in general. The guy in the middle bunk, unknown to me, sits up and starts to take control of the interaction. He is interested, but apparently confused. I get that sinking feeling of voyeurism.

“Mr. P. told me it was okay to visit your house…that you had all agreed.”

“Yeah, he did, but I didn’t believe him,” he tells me, eying Mr. Phillips balefully.

So I address my questions toward him. There are three bunks and six lockers, a row of hooks to leave your coats in a space about 8x12. How do you get into the top bunks? In college, there was a ladder-like thing built into the head and base of the bunk. Not here. You apparently have to levitate yourself from the chair three feet into the bunk. I’m not the most unatheletic person, but that leap fills me with a bit of trepidation. Plus, there are clothes and things on the chair. How do you elevate yourself without tromping on somebody else’s shit? I got no good answer to that question. The top bunks have the completely useless privacy screen of the partition wall. it appears exactly three inches higher than the mattress, so if you lie on your back without a pillow, you can’t see the guy six inches away. I’m sure you can hear him, though, not to mention smell his particular funk. I understand flatulence is a high art in the housing units, partly due to the diet probably.

Each bunk has a shelf the width of the bunk and about 16 inches deep for televisions or writing or whatever you might wish a shelf to provide. No bookshelves, no desks no tables. I realize I’m leaning against the most westerly bunk, and somebody I don’t know is lying within. I ask for an introduction. He gives me the freaked eyeball, his street name, which sounds like Dharma something, but can’t possibly be that… and I decide to leave him alone. At that moment, I scan the larger room. Every single guy in the top bunks of the unit is sitting up watching us. The minimal partition walls not only provide little privacy for sleep, but apparently I can’t have this conversation without a rapt audience. My only option is to pretend I’m oblivious.

Mr. Phillips’ lower bunk mate is also one of my patients. He is the guy who didn’t want me to walk through the snow, insisting I walk ahead of him. He is sooooo excited I’m there. So after initially greeting him, I return to chat him up a bit.

The lieutenant is beyond his ability to contain himself at this point. He explains I am mistaken, this is not Mr. Grand, and he’s known this prisoner for years, “this is Mr. Johnson….,”

“No, lieutenant, she’s right, I’m Mr. Grand.” The lieutenant just gives me the eyeball and we end the visit.

Not So Harmonious

2009-01-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Those of you new to the site, should perhaps skip the next blog. It is still a concept in progress. So if you have thought or insight, give it to me, otherwise, I entertain the notion that this blog is a bit beyond the pale. So next, I'll write about my visit to the Cube...

Harmony: The Presentation

2009-01-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Mr. R. spoke of Harmony as the thing he found most meaningful in life. This is the follow up to the discussion.

I had asked him to prepare a presentation to the group about what he believes about harmony. And he came in with the following (I’ve put it in as he wrote; we will work on some clarifying. His thoughts are so run-on it can be difficulty, but do persevere.)

Harmony

A Mutual State of being in Accord or Agreement as in regards to Feelings and Opinions; Whereas, a pleasing combination which prevents a person from being in a Predatory State of Mind, then any Natural Predator which consist of a persons Instinct of natural abilities from their Motivation or Impulse; as well as, a persons Intuition of knowing as, if by instinct but without a Conscious Reasoning which is a sharp insight of the True Nature.

Even though, we were created in the best of Moulds and Fell from being in Accord when our Will’s became twisted from the Correct Path and chosed (sic) the Crooked Path that lacked Harmony in Tones Sounded together, which allow the following to take course such as: Sorrow, Pain, Selfishness, Degradation, Ignorance, Hatred, Despair, And Unbelief which Poisoned a persons Life, as one see shapes of Evil in the Physical, Moral, and Spiritual World; as well as, Inside of Self.

However, Harmony has a much wider Signification that includes a Sense of Security and Permanence, which is Unknown in this life with Soundness – Freedom from ALL Defects and Welcoming by Gestures or Words in Accord with those around us; while demonstrating Patient Submission in the sense that we are Satisfied and not Discontent or Committed to Anger or Ignorance, which also departs from the True Concept of Treaty of an Agreement and Unison that is in the Same Motion which is the Foundation of Harmony and being in Accord with a Balance of Potentiality and Actuality, which is the results of what a person becomes from the Possibilities only at Birth; because it is not known of what State will be the True Reality from being Endued (sic) with a Understand and Purifying one’s Affectations; as well as, Embracing our own Spiritual Insight as one Understand Nature and Understand Self as well.

In addition, Harmony is Inclined towards promoting Peace and Tranquility that involves Friendly Relations that are not Hostile for the Fulfillment of this Great Trust that a persons Will allows their Acts to Reflect upon Universal Will and Laws, as one’s Mind Freely chooses; as well as, experiencing the Sublime (Supremely) Joy of being in Harmony with the Infinite (Comprehension), with the great Drama of the World around You and I with our own Spiritual Growth that Creates a Holy Residence.

Bad, bad, bad

2009-01-07T19:34:00.001-08:00

S (my husband) says to me, why are you surprised? You’ve set yourself up in an environment where it is ILLEGAL for you to touch. You are looking to find connection through verbal means…

I walked into work this morning, and as always, I scan the board of who is in Segregation; which of my guys is in the Hole. Mr. Rose’s name is on the board, he is in for a major aggressive-type infraction. Another guy of mine is in for personal protection – he has done something to put himself in debt he cannot meet.

I hate mornings when two of my guys are in Seg.

But the real problem is Mr. Rose. I don’t even need to read the ticket, I don’t have to collect information, I know this is going to be a mess. He spent the first 20 years of his adult life in maximum security. I don’t remember why; I don’t care. Almost half of those years were in solitary. When I first met him (on his second bit) he told me how many assault charges he had on staff. He is the only person I’ve had in my office who actively sought to scare me. It worked, I pushed my chair backwards and checked my emergency button. But I didn’t disconnect from him. In retrospect, I suppose I was being tested.

After his first incarceration, he went back out into the world and constructed a new life. He found a regular job, a second wife, a child, an income, and I suppose he might even have been paying taxes. But he left the berserker response of maximum security behind him. Then, he got pulled over, and all that old behavior kicked in and he got in the face of the arresting officers and got himself a ticket. Because of his history, he was slammed back into prison. And eventually he came to me.

He came to my facility because he was dying. He had contracted Hepatitis C, and it was killing him. He had started the chemotherapy that might save him, and the horrible side effect of Interferon is that it makes you depressed. Suicidally depressed, kill yourself depressed, done with the world depressed. It was working, but they pulled him off of it because he was getting scary with his desire to die. They moved him to our facility for psychiatric support. We put him on a prophylactic antidepressant. And he restarted the Interferon. I was in charge of keeping him not-so-scary.

I failed him. Twice. I failed him. He was sent to the psychiatric hospital facility a couple of months ago. I had not kept close enough track of him and what was happening. I had given him too much latitude to let me know. I had trusted too much. We shipped him out to the psychiatric facility, and he came back a few weeks later feeling better. But the force of being back in prison was twisting him back to his previous behavior.

He is another beautiful boy, I suppose a man now. I can but imagine being put into a maximum security setting at 17 made him a huge target. He will never be a target again. Now, in his early middle age he is “sculpted from ice,” as my friend Sarah mused. He is completely capable of destroying one or two guards forcing him in a direction he doesn’t want to go. Nobody will rape him in the shower. They will not put him in the humiliating bam-bam sit. Bad, bad, bad.

He is in an observation cell, large bullet proof windows, no privacy, with the toilet up against the wall so I at least need to lean in to breach that particular space.

I lean over and put my face in the meal slot. “Mr. Rose? Hello?” He is huddled under the blanket on the slab of cement. Fortunately he is facing me. “What happened?”

No response. He slits his eyes at me, but nothing crosses his face. “Would you get up and talk to me?”

He closes his eyes and doesn’t move.

“Mr. Rose, I need you to tell me what is going on.”

Nothing.

“Mr. Rose, are you safe? Can you keep yourself safe?” Last time he was in Seg it threw him back to the bad years, and instead of giving into the impulse to destroy and strike out, he tried to kill himself. I don’t believe he is safe.

He half opens his eyes and give a slight shrug. He is not safe.

I am so angry I am vibrating. I am afraid and angry and more angry. I am responsible. I am the only person who suspects what is going on. If I could I would open that huge metal door and smack him upside the head. He is crashing and burning. He was supposed to tell me when this was happening. He had blown his appointment with me the previous day, and instead of calling to find him, I just rescheduled. I should have called and had them haul his happy ass over to me. I am angry at him; I am angry at myself.

So I leave. I tell custody he needs to go on suicide watch, based on the shrug. I call my boss-guy, and he asks me why I’m doing this. I tell him about the shrug, and I get a moment of silence. Then I tell him it is my gut, and bless his soul, he steps up and supports me. He is the best boss in the world.

Suicide watch means he eats his meals with his fingers. He needs to cough up his regular clothes, such as they are, and his sheet and blanket. He gets put into suicide wear, known as a bam-bam suit: a sleeveless, below the knee garment that Velcros at the shoulder. He also gets a quilted blanket. Both are designed to keep him from tearing and using the fabric to hang himself. He gets his underwear and toilet paper. Nothing else. He is alone in the cell with his thoughts and impulses, and I suspect his self loathing.

I type away on my computer, and do the paperwork. Boss comes in; he has heard from the Deputy Warden. They don’t really want to go into his cell and force the bam-bam on him. He is verbalizing a huge intent to resist, and he has the history to back it up. I want neither my custody folk nor him hurt. I don’t want him to have an opportunity to regress to the wounded monkey state of thinking.

I cancel the first half of my morning appointments. I slog back across the yard with the necessary paperwork and get the signature thing. We have modified the requirements to allow no change of clothing in place of constant observation. The Deputy Warden tells me this guy has been a problem all night, necessitating two calls to him after hours. This is information I didn’t have. It means he is reaching around his humanity back to the thoughtless days. Bad, bad, bad.

I have 45 minutes until my next appointment. Paperwork is in place. I evict the current custody woman from the 1:1 (direct observation) chair and pull it up to the huge, reinforced metal door. The meal slot is about 4x14 inches. The lock on the slot is a dead bolt ¾ of an inch in thickness. I need to lean down to speak through it. I’m past my first flush of anger now, and am just feeling desperate. I am afraid he is just working toward death. He has a three year old child he wants to go home to.

“Mr. Rose, I have the next 45 minutes free, and I intend to sit here and talk at you until you respond. I am easily as stubborn as you.” And I natter away at him.

It takes three minutes to break him. Or rather three minutes and giving up my anger. He shuffles across the room with the blanket and sits by the door. I have to be wary of being grabbed, even though I don’t believe he would do such a thing. I’ve already taken my decorative scarf off as an easy, deadly snatch. I can barely hear him he is talking so quietly. What he tells me is horrible, all the things you might imagine to say when you simply wish yourself dead. When it feels so appallingly bleak, you can’t remember your children, or the fact that physically, you are recovering from a death sentence. He wants to die; he wants it to stop.

“Will you please put on the bam-bam, and let us help keep you safe?” He agrees. If I could, I would crawl through the slot and just hold him as he cries. He is so alone and so hopeless, and needs the connection. Instead, I leap to my feet and go into the office to get the bam-bam and blanket. They slide through the slot, and I move away to give him his modesty and respect as he changes. He passes a wad of clothing out through the slot, and the guard covering Seg that day takes them. I remind him to get the blanket, and he goes back for that. I sit back down, and talk for a moment more. He is a wreck, but he is talking. And I ask him what he has in the cell to hurt himself with.

And from under the pathetic excuse for a mattress on the cement, pulls a coiled roll of fabric. It is the hem of his tee-shirt, ripped, and held as a weapon of self destruction. He passes it out the slot to me.

“Anything else to hurt yourself with?” He denies it. I fail him, yet again.

Back to my office, and one of my serious therapy guys. It was a great session; we made progress toward that trust and truth issue.

I coordinated with Medical so I could be in seg when Mr. Rose’s meds circulated again. He needs them. He will take them if I need to shove them down his gullet. Don’t fuck with me, I’m on it now.

When I come back after lunch to supervise his physical assessment and his meds he is compliant. But when we talk he makes a funny face at me and says, “I should give you this.” And another noose comes out, and the tee-shirt it is ripped from. The guard had not counted the clothing coming out, and had left him those objects. Shit. Bad, bad, bad. He tells me he has been experimenting with asphyxiating himself, and has come on the verge twice under the blanket. I take them, and I leave. Both nooses are pinned to my cork board in my office as a reminder.

When I take it, I ask if there is anything else, and he denies it. I slog across the yard yet again. He needs to be upped to the highest level of suicide watch and I need to act quickly to get him hospitalized. He knows this and agrees it is his best option.

Typing, more paperwork, more slogging. Signatures, and he is direct observation again as I arrange what I need to make it formal. How many times have I leaned over this slot today? I no longer know. The asshole across the hall thinks this is the best movie he’s seen in a while. I slam the slot in his door closed and shut the blinds. He is on his own for entertainment.

I have discommoded another custody guy I know visually, but not otherwise. He leapt up from the seat where he was speaking to Mr. Rose and gratefully gave it to me. “Mr. Rose, we’re sending you back to the hospital. I’m going to do the work and get you in today.” But I have just learned from the Captain that he will not return to me. He has made a number of threats on yard, and other inmates are claming sanctuary. I believe this is his last moment with me, and suddenly I am overwhelmed.

I sit across from him and start to cry quietly; thank god I didn’t give into full sobs. I cannot continue to channel his pain and not give into it. I’m not supposed to tell him where he is going or what is happening. This is a security issue. “Mr. Rose, I need you to take care of yourself. I need you to make the right decisions.”

“I’m not coming back here, am I?”

“I don’t think so. Mr. Rose, you need to find somebody, wherever you go that you can connect to. You need to do that to hold on to your humanity…. You cannot let yourself give into the dark parts”

And he cries with me. The guard is standing to the side. This is so not what I want to project with custody. Stupid female emotion. I look at the guard and threaten his life if he tells my secret.

As I finish my day, the custody guy who watched me weep shows up in my office. I am ashamed I can’t remember his name. He has arranged to have his post covered and come to find me. He is awkward, and I wave him into my office, and he closes the door. He tells me Mr. Rose had been discussing with him the intention to shit and wipe the feces over the window just before I arrived. This is the only act of defiance left to him. The officer had reached the end of his skill, with only the promise Mr. Rose would wait until he was off shift before he gets the monkey urge to wipe his shit on a window to keep his privacy or to express his rage.

The custody guy tells me as soon as I sat down with Mr. Rose he could see it all change. He has worked over twenty years in the prison and tells me he has never seen anything more powerful and touching, and all I do is cry again.

I stay that night until we get him safe and out. All the custody people are incredible with me. They let me lurk and help. They keep me fed and entertained as arraignments are made. They let me know that somehow, my caring is not wrong to them. It does not keep them from their jobs. This is my first real time with this shift, as they come on as I leave most days. I am so grateful to them to let me stay until he is safe away. I would have never imagined that support.

Mr. Rose is not just a story, it is a man’s life. He has to make the right decisions, and he is so not able to do this now, and I can’t go with him. I have left him as safe as I may. May the Goddess go with him.

Ice Skating

2009-01-06T16:38:00.001-08:00

Driving to work today, I hear the winter weather warning on the radio, set to go into effect at 0700. As usual, the weather keepers were wrong. At 0657, it starts to rain. I turn on the wipers and guess what? None of the splattered raindrops on the windshield move, they have frozen solid to the windshield. Fortunately, there is almost nobody out on the roads.

I stop twice to pound the ice off the wipers and windshield.

When I get to work, I slide my feet across the parking lot, afraid to remove one feeble point of contact to the glare and go donw on my ass.

as I come back from lunch. The main walkway is lightly salted, and I can now step carefully as opposed to doing the less than attractive slide step. I pass the guys going to chow, also stepping carefully. I pass one of the housing units where a 150 foot cement walkway connects to the main path. It has a mild, but distinct slope. The guys are starting at the top, and sliding/skating down the incline to chow in their little orange watch caps, orange coats and dark pants. They start at the top, give themselves a little push, and slide on their feet down the incline, arms outstretched and most with small amused looks on their faces. The go one at a time in case somebody crashes.

I stand and watch for a bit and cheered them on. It would have been absofuckinglutely hilarious on Youtube, but no recording devices in the facility, you know….

Custody: Keeping Us Safe

2009-01-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

I need to talk to Lionel. He is high up in the custody hierarchy, but we had some kind of connection when I first started working. He is real. This is what the guys say about me… but he also seems deeply into the whole issues of us and them. I have to find a way to connect to the custody folk. My job is not just limited to what happens in my office. Somewhere, we have to find a way to make the inmates function and responsible. I can’t do this alone. An hour a week is not enough.

So I think tomorrow, I will hunt him down. And I will just put it out there. His job is to keep us safe; all of us, not just the staff, but the prisoners, also. I believe part of that is to find the humanity where it exists and exploit it. My guys are not just dealing with being in prison, they are trying to work through serious mental issues.

I have lots of years working with a multi-disciplinary team. Everybody needs to be on board. It doesn’t need to be warm and fuzzy, it doesn’t need to go too far out of boundaries, but custody needs to somehow be pulled into what works. Aren’t we here to bring these guys back into the mainstream? God knows, what happens in prison is not mainstream. When was the last time you went to take a shit and two guys were practicing the fine art of sodomy in the stall next to you? When was the last time you took a shower afraid for your safety?

If my boss is reading this now, he is having a heart attack.

Today, another guy popped up in my radar. He is maxing out in a couple of months. He will return to the sticks, not the metro area of our state. Mr. Klark, has a serious flaw somewhere. He is wound tightly, and is ready to take out anybody seen as a threat. But under it is a person. A shiny bit. He is in there, but he doesn’t know how to get out. If nobody shows him, if he can’t find the essence of himself, he is doomed to return. How do you reach out amongst the twists and turns and find a love and a connection that comforts his soul; that make him want something more? It is not just drugs and music and numbness.

How can custody help me instead of just backing up against rules and regulations? How can I help these men and women in custody find a way to be in charge without abusing?

Slang, Part 2

2008-12-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

Doing back – working in the weight pit

Dry Snitching – have a loud argument so guards can hear and intervene; a passive way of snitching.

Fish – new guy

Go out like a trooper – act out and get put into a high level because you need to act like you don’t care

Kick it – spend time with other cats

Kicks – shoes

Licking the window – get on a bunk, get depressed and don’t move.

Mash at the law – do work at the law library

Out of pocket (a state of existence) – becoming a bit crazy

Peep him out – assess somebody

Pimp McDaddy – this one speaks for itself.

Player haters – pessimists

Pop, lock, drop and roll – strip dancing

Put on the blast – let everyone know through the volume of your comments

Rabbit -- penis

Stressing my bit out – when an event or person makes your time here feel longer and harder

Sucker free – without tickets

Trust, Part III, The Husband Speaks or Nibbles on Your Toes

2008-12-27T15:26:00.003-08:00

As I have mentioned, my husband plays an important part in my attempt to understand what is going on within myself and also at work. This issue of trust comes up and I venture to comment -- I can’t even imagine what this guy might think I’ll do with his information; why he has so much trouble trusting me.

I suppose blog his secrets is a possibility. But please note: I am not blogging secrets or identifying information. The hell of it is, what I describe is not happening with just one person. These are patterns, and could apply to many people floating around in the penal system. Everyone might think it refers to him, but it refers to so many.

So, I floated this latest question out to him. I think perhaps his head is exploding, certainly spittle is flying from his lips and he’s gesticulating wildly (for him). Guess I hit a nerve. Guess he thinks I’m one of the least trusting people on the planet, and my comment is wildly ridiculous and lacking insight and empathy, and other important components. Hmm.

“There are all kinds of things that are dangerous that go through a person’s brain. YOU have a pretty serious partition.

“It’s a question of where your partition is. It can go from the regular scary shit in your frontal consciousness to as deep as your lizard brain where you don’t even want to know what lives there. It could be your monkey brain where death, violence and the fear of death live.

“When you look into the abyss the abyss looks back at you.

“I suspect with some of these guys, their frontal consciousness is pretty small. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect most of them commit crimes by ignoring their frontal lobes; they disregard messages that tell them they are doing something stupid, dangerous, and even lethal. Lalalalalalalala comes across, instead.”

I wonder if I am seeing the lalalala. Really, it seems more like screaming from the outside.

He continues, “Learning to look through the partition is the problem. Think of it as swimming in a lake, and all you do is hang near the shore. Maybe you swim in a pond or a lake, or the ocean. It is scary to dive down, so you try to keep safe and don’t do it.”

I believe it is a false safety. You can even get out of the frigging lake if you want, hang out on a dock or an island. But everything you need to grow and understand is in the lake. When you need something, you must step in. If the depths are unexplored, the possibility that something will swim up and grab your ankle is huge.

Maybe what I see is somebody who feels the nibbles on his toes, the bulk of something huge and scary brushing up against you?

Trust, Part II, the Instant Messaging

2008-12-26T17:26:00.000-08:00

Mr. Bill: On matters of trust... I would like to pursue that ... feels like a view coming into focus

The Psych: Tell me

Mr. Bill: Trust as the absence of judgment; of not being judged

The Psych: Trust is something that comes over time...

Mr. Bill: and conversely, not judging; Trust is earned

The Psych: trust is easier if you know your own faults and weaknesses...

Mr. Bill: Interesting... the difference between the noun “trust,” and the verb, “to trust.”

The Psych: have you had a chance to read Ante Up, yet? It is S’s (my husband’s) thoughts about engaging, and peripherally, trust, I suspect

Mr. Bill: S. is posting to your blog?

The Psych: no, he is posting to my head.

The Psych: what else about trust?

Mr. Bill: Amending the judgment angle ... not absence of judgment but fair judgment... I 'trust' the Judge to be fair...

The Psych: So I have this guy, who is trying to tell me his truth. And he connects, and it is almost sexual in its intensity, and then something happens. The walls come up. I can see it. He can tell me it is happening. He knows it is a trust issue, but can't help me further, and it just makes the screaming in his head louder to try.

Mr. Bill: Third party interference?

The Psych: ?

Mr. Bill: His voices?

The Psych: No, bipolar, but a good thought, though. Protective in nature, he tells me. He knows it happens and was a little freaked I could tell.

Mr. Bill: Protective of what/who?

The Psych: Omg, his story is ugly, but just protective of his romantic soul, shall we say? Protective of me judging? Protective of the pain, and wanting to wish it weren't? That is my wondering...

Mr. Bill: So in essence he cannot trust himself

*my eyebrows lift back into my hairline*

The Psych: So simple, God, I get so sucked into the difficult. The long road is to wait it out, just be easy and trustful until he relaxes. I don't really feel like I have and endless time with these guys, and I want a shortcut.
Mr. Bill: Our foundations, our gut instincts, are valid because we (eventually) can trust ourselves - the parts that defy explanation or even rationality.

The Psych: and if you are raised in an environment where chaos reigns, and you start doing lines of cocaine at eleven because you see your parents doing it.... Trust becomes just a word that is moderately hard to spell.

Mr. Bill: Not much stability to predicate any valid belief structure on.

The Psych: they look at me with such terrible eyes, Bill.

Mr. Bill: While clinically it is very unsound having a symbol or icon to transfer validity to is an easy way to temporarily bridge this divide.

The Psych: LOLOLLOOOOLOOLLOOLOLL. I have started to bring in rocks from our vacations, and when we are in session, I bring each guys’ rock out and set it between us. Either of us can pick it up, and I am slowly explaining that it is absorbing the essence of what we do here. It is also something of mine I give to them; a symbol of my belief in them.

Mr. Bill: Great minds think alike...just wish I had one.*) Often you will see the acceptance of a religious icon or symbol - How may of your fellows have converted to Islam? Or Christianity.

The Psych: a number. Can I covert them to rockism? The therapeutic stone?

Mr. Bill: I question the legitimacy of such transference as it doesn't speak to the real mental health issue.

The Psych: ok, explain

Mr. Bill: The stone as an icon, at least, can be held and identified clearly apart from their beliefs.

The Psych: The first person I tried this with has a primary issue of not believing he is worthwhile. I've started each session since by having him recite why he is here. I've told him twice. He waffled the first time, and gave some pretty good answers. My answer was I could see his shine. I wouldn't bother with him if he didn't have something that shone out from the pain and the fear. His rock is lovely white quartz.

Mr. Bill: Blindly accepting (by faith) a relationship with a deity provides some intellectual succor but doesn't speak at all to any underlying issues.

The Psych: Ah, I want the rocks to stand for the part they are in desperate need of; something to remind them of their strength, even when they forget.

Mr. Bill: You approach is much more therapeutic...

The Psych: Hehehe, that is my goal, therapy… not just blind faith, but some comfort object. If I can find a way for them to take part of my beliefs about rightness home with them, we’ve taken a great step. I know I don’t have the ultimate answer, but I’m doing better than most of them….

Mr. Bill: the stone is an excellent object... strong, timeless, undeniable..

The Psych: And so comforting in the hand; and they are beautiful, precious, even.

Mr. Bill: (*It is unfortunate they cannot carry them from the session. Having it on their person would be so much more reinforcing.*)

The Psych: Can't do it – contraband, a weapon. I would find a way to get them their stones if they want them, but I don't know how to do it appropriately. Perhaps dispensation from the warden?

Mr. Bill: Wouldn't actually want them "trading" them in a heated discussion about rightness of beliefs.

The Psych: no, and I think they must stay in my office for at least most of a while. They have to be protected from the yard.

Mr. Bill: Can you imagine the effect of losing one's stone?

The Psych: Can you imagine the impact of taking one's stone after a year of therapy with it??

Mr. Bill: To round out a perspective; one can trust the stone to be the stone. It is exactly what it is...nothing more, nothing less. A very good starting point for someone lost to himself.

The Psych: someone lost to himself…. that is it. Unable to trust himself.

Mr. Bill: BTW: When I was leading C.R. (Christian AA) it was very easy to rely on the entire infrastructure of personal worth (You are important to Jesus.) And as long as they remained in the church environment it was sustained. Once out in the world it began to crumble very quickly. That is why I express concern about transference to symbols or icons.

The Psych: ahhhh. My first unexplored thought, is to make them work for the infrastructure of their relationship with me, to give it more tenacity. When I asked Mr. S. to tell me why he was here, he initially freaked a little, as though he were in the wrong place. I required him to establish his right to be in session with me.

Mr. Bill: A strong position - not sure I agree... I would need time to evaluate as I don't have first hand perspective.

The Psych: Ok, gonna take this and work it into a blog, Husband is here, and I need to go down. Having your thoughts is precious, please keep them coming....

Mr. Bill: I will e-mail you my follow up.

Trust, Part I, My Patient

2008-12-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve started another therapy contract with one of the guys, Mr. W. shall we call him. I’ve carved out enough time to engage in something more than crisis checks with some of the guys interested and willing. He is one of four, currently.

I ask him his goal, and he states, “I don’t care.” Not that he doesn’t care about treatment, but his problem is existential. He has given up. A serious problem.

Let me take a moment to digress to eye contact. When I start this type of conversation, there is a phenomenon I’ve never experienced before, or at least not to this extent. Eye contact: in 20 years of therapy, I have never encountered such intensity. My office is small and meek. I sit diagonally across the desk from my patients with a pull out shelf between us, defining safety, space and giving some breathing room.

These guys look at me in a way that is difficult to describe. It feels almost sexual, but I can tell you it isn’t – I know when it is. I wonder if they are searching for my soul. If they are looking for some truth or reality that they can trust. Grrrrrrrrrr, I try to send that to them as best I may. The eye contact is intense, and he is totally present back there, more waiting than weighing.

So we talk, and I can see he is telling me truth. And I’ll ask a question and suddenly it is almost like flipping to a channel of static. He is gone. Something shuts down. I don’t know why. I can’t see a pattern to the questions that lose him.

I call him on it, and he admits it is true. We decide it is about trust. My friend, Bill, suggests, in essence, he cannot trust himself.

Hangnail of the Mind

2008-12-26T16:02:00.001-08:00

I no longer work in a nylon/suit/heals environment. My previous job discouraged slacks on women (I know, unbelievably archaic). So I entered this job with a closet full of dresses and skirts, and my old holey jeans. It strikes me I shouldn’t wear jeans on casual day if there are in such a state of decrepitude that I have to be careful of the color of my underwear choice. I quickly ran out and bought a couple of pairs of chinos and casual shirts.

Months later, I’m simply no longer so concerned about wearing my skirts, heals and nylons. I keep my knees crossed and covered and we’re all good. Hate to see all those wonderful J. Peterman things going to waste.

But what do you wear with dress pants in the winter? A new problem for me. I have to walk up this vortex to my office four times a day, where wind speeds can practically knock you over. One of the guys recently explained to me that all facilities in the state are designed to torture the prisoners by taking advantage of the prevailing winds in their orientation. Not bad in the heat of summer, but deadly in the winter.

SO, I wear dress socks. I had to go buy some of those, too. I own recreational socks in orange stripes and other such colors too irreverent for prison. In the dim light of my closet, before the even dimmer dawn, navy looks much like black - EVEN if you carefully check to avoid this style faux pas. I should just throw the damn blue ones out; I don’t even own any navy.

Here I am at work, obsessing about my black boots, blue socks and black pants. It’s like a hangnail of the mind. The secretary, tiny Dustie, told me to get over myself or take the socks off. I tried that. Pale green-hued skin between the two blacks was not an improvement. I will not even mention the ankle hair that hadn’t been shaved in a week.

Let it go.

We’re in group, nearing the end of our hour. One of my guys is agonizing about an interaction with his wife on the phone where he was not reaching his goal of absolute truth with her. I empathetically point out, “Mr. A., you are making change, and you backed up and corrected yourself. No need to beat yourself up.”

“That’s what she said,” he returns without conviction.

“I don’t expect perfection from you, only from myself,” I quip.

Mr. H. leaps in with, “And we know you’re not perfect, you have on blue socks.”

My casually crossed leg with my foot contemplatively bouncing in the air slams down to the floor. Damn his soul for noticing. “That’s it, group’s over, all of you…OUT.”

And we boil out of the group room, everybody laughing.

Ante up

2008-12-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

My husband says I need to ante up. I need to put my own stuff on the table.

This is obviously a group I need to lead, and to push at. Why do these guys think I’m here? I know they are alert enough to see the car I drive, to see my jewelry and my clothes. I am not poor. I am not here for survival. So why?

I assumed, when I started, that I would just be awash in a sea of sickness. That I would walk through my days with animals and monsters. Isn’t that what we are taught about felons? It held a clinical interest, one I didn’t think would hold my attention for long. Evil is boring. Bad behavior is tedious. Trash is trash.

Holy crap was I wrong. Once again, my mother understood better than I. my patients are people: as my husband dubbed them, they are “my guys.” Some are monsters, a few. I don’t spend my time or energy there. Perhaps this is a weakness. I prefer to rationalize that I save my energy for those that can benefit.

What is my ante?

My energy. I do not have an unlimited amount of energy I can give. For each moment, I have a recovery period of solitude needed to regenerate. This is reason five I never had children. I could not do my work and have enough left for a family.

My belief. When I interact, I prefer to believe that what is happening is real. That I am not being parroted or indulged. My groups do not support parole, and I emphasize this clearly. No parole form for you. Come because it helps, or don’t come.

Each time somebody lies, or somebody sits silent and drifting, I lose. Each group that sets on fire and becomes self sufficient, I win the bet. I do not win by people pretending to believe. I gain by making change.

I read this and the analogy sounds cold. How much easier this would be if true? As it is, it eats up my life at home.

So what would their response be if I gave them this?

There are a couple of theories of treatment. The first is dry and clinical and safe. The second involves the therapist in the process, challenges her to be her best, and to give some part of herself in exchange for what she receives in return. I am doomed to the second way.

Steven Dozier - Reformed?

2008-12-22T17:43:00.001-08:00

Look, I’m not political. I recognize that I don’t get the huge issues that politics offer to me. I rely on my husband and my mother to point me in the right direction. This is what I can tell you. Please, understand, I have men who are so beyond the pale of saving that they just scare me. I can’t imagine letting them lose back on society. I certainly don’t want them in my back yard.

But in a Level 1 security prison, this is a surprisingly small group. Most, many, some of these guys are just trying to find the same road to happiness we are. Some of them have done appalling things, most in the name of their favorite drug. They have been raised in circumstances that many of us, who cruise the Internet, cannot imagine. Environments where they are only a burden, where they are despised for the financial toll they bring, where they are the weakest and most vulnerable prey. And yet, after decades of abuse, after numerous incarcerations, they wish for something better, something safe.

Can you imagine growing up where you have nothing safe?

Nobody who loves you unconditionally, nowhere to go where you are not a target, no place to grow your soul, your shiny bit?

And yet, I’ve met more men that I would have guessed who have made the transition.

NPR - Steven Dozier

Unless I am once again being sucked into that which I want to beleive.

More web discussion here.

Little Bits of Delight

2008-12-19T18:11:00.000-08:00

To remind you, in the course of my day I have to walk across the length of the yard. I walk past all the housing facilities, medical, chow hall, etc, at least twice daily when all the guys are out and about. Because we are a low security prison, there is much freedom to move around the grounds during the day when your schedule does not have you assigned to be elsewhere.

Initially, this trip was a bit daunting. I was a new female on the grounds, and a lot of watching was required. Life is boring; gossip is a commodity, besides, I might do something entertaining. As an act of defense, and because I am my mother’s daughter, I just started to talk at people who caught my eye as I made my way to work. The no-touch rule means I effectively own the walkway; everybody has to move aside if I want to be fierce about it. Shooting energy at people enforces my space without being clearly aggressive. Quickly, it stopped being a defense, and became an adventure. I never knew who would say what, and after the first weeks, and a couple of nasty under-the-breath comments, it became pleasant.

The guys from my caseload always at least acknowledge me, sometimes just with eye contact. The very weird thing is all the African American guys on my caseload always engage me in some way, and many of those I don’t know do the same. The men of European descent less reliably do so. There is a contingent of older white guys I think of as the ZZ Toppers – they would die rather than even recognize my existence. My fringe-Harley-Davidson-riding-Vietnam-Vet friend explains this is because I’m a “screw.” It is tempting to torture them by spraying cheerful energy at them as they pass, but this is just rude.

-- Early in my experience, I am called to by an individual standing in a pod of guys, none of whom I know. “Hey, Psych… You walk through here like you own the world.”

What do I say to THAT?

“I like that, you keep it up.”

I smile and nod acknowledgement, pretty nice compliment.

--I leave late one day. Count is over for the evening, and usually I leave before the guys are back out, but I had a bunch of stuff to do.

From 50 feet away, somebody I either don’t know, or my nearsightedness is keeping me from recognizing who this is. “Hey, Ms. L., you’re here late!”

“Yup, I had things to do….”

“Hey, you be careful driving home.”

--“Excuse me; you’re one of the psychs, aren’t you?

“Yes,” I don’t recognize him. He is a pretty generic looking white guy, maybe mid-20’s, probably somebody considered “fair game” by the more experienced men.

“I’ve been reading these psychology books, and what you do is pretty interesting…”

“Well, I think so.”

“I’m thinking this is what to do when I get out of the joint…”

Most, if not every state, is not interested in giving a license to practice therapy to an ex-felon. What do I say? “What are you reading?”

He tells me, and I give him a few suggestions….

-- Some guy I don’t know is dressed for the kitchen, and walking in my direction as I walk out. We engage in small talk, for 300 yards, and then part. “You just made my day…”

I made his day?? Just by a few seconds of walking and chatting?

--I’m trudging in through the snow one morning, and one of my guys, who believes he is here under a false name meets up with me. He suffers from Schizophrenia, so it has never been clear to me if his “real” name, really is his real name. It doesn’t matter, I use it nonetheless. Each time I do he brightens up. We walk side by side a few feet, me in my enormous insulated boots, worn in case I end up off the road on my way driving here.

“Ms. L., you need to walk in front of me in the path.” Not walk in the deep snow, not yet cleared.

A courtesy my own husband would probably not have thought about.

-- Each morning as I come in, there is one guy who works beyond the perimeter, usually outdoors. This morning he was shoveling. I always greet him. Today I asked him if he was keeping warm. He stopped, looked at me and thanked me for asking. Who worried about him last?

My boss guy was walking in with me after lunch recently, and as we walked, I was calling out and responding as I normally do. He expressed some surprise (I’ve given him the address of this blog, today, and it is weird to think of him reading my thoughts about him).

I know he worries about me getting too attached, being sucked in…

Feeling Funky, Part 3

2008-12-14T18:01:00.000-08:00

The questions are fired at me by nearly everyone and they wash over me with a gratifying sense of support. My guys are indignant, angry, feeling protective. Of course, there is almost no question I can answer without breaching the confidentiality of my erstwhile exhibitionist patient.

“Who was it?’

“Was he black or white?’

“What did he do?”

I can answer this, “He just flashed me, he didn’t assault me.”

“What happened?”

I explain for a third time that I can’t tell them details.

“We don’t want you to give us details, just tell us what happened.”

“Ms. L, do we need to take care of this for you?” Everybody stops to hear the answer to this question. Mr. I is in a wheelchair, the result of a brutal drug deal gone bad. He is a man of slight stature to begin with, and the chair does not help with his imposing appearance. He is also one of my greatest fans, and I will need to blog on him eventually.

Somehow, I do not doubt he could organize some taking-care-of activities, and this has been my greatest fear. I don’t want any of my guys in trouble for mistakenly protecting my honor, or by extension, their own. “No, Mr. I, it’s been taken care of.”

The barrage of questions begins again. Finally I hush them and ask, “What is it you need to know?”

Mr. R leans forward in his chair, all six foot one of him, all the second degree murder offense of him (which is invisible to me). He looks at me earnestly, “We need to know that you’re alright.”

My friend, K.O. suggests this is the obvious, approval seeking question. Clearly one her well-bred, socialite mother would ask it: a question without meaning. This is a reasonable assumption, but at least a place for me to regain control of the conversation.

“I’m ok, Mr. R.”

“No, Ms. L., we need to know that you’re ok with the rest of us.”

Proposition

2008-12-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

I’m talking to a guy who is fairly new to me. I make a habit of not reading their PSI (Pre-Sentencing Investigations). It is not, generally, of interest to me why they are here. He, unusually, wants to talk about why he is here, and how unfair it is that one of the custody folk has revealed his offense: CSC (criminal sexual conduct) Under 13. He assures me both that he is innocent, and that he has transcended the impulses that brought him in to us. Both cannot be true. But when you are horribly misunderstood by society, who can tell? He explains that children are mystically attracted to him, and he just wants them to grow and be happy.

He is a lovely boy, long lashed, skin pale and eyes that dark blue of some Easter European genes. Twenty minutes into the session, he coyly lowers his face, batting those incredible eyelashes at me, “I just have such a need for female companionship.”

I’m not surprised, more disappointed. Sometimes the guys have to put the sexual possibilities out there, and I need to shoot them down. This can be therapeutic. They understand the boundaries, and now they can relax and we can work together. Although I don’t think this is true with this person, I have to give him that escape door, and I’m more ready for it than in the past.

“Are you propositioning me?”

I have taken the murky and made it, dare I say, naked.

He backpedals. I offer that his need is not a mental health issue; that in fact, it is inappropriate. At the same time I know it COULD be a useful topic, but the fact of talking about it could become unhealthy so quickly. I have a strange power as a female in a predominantly male environment. Simply my presence is reinforcing.

Years ago, when covering the local county crisis line, I understood that some people called to engage you in sexual talk to which they masturbated. I don’t want to be a focus of somebody’s venal sexual release. His insight appears to be virtually non-existent; we cannot talk about this in a functional manner.

I’ve clarified, “this is not a mental health issue,” and then excused him. If we go there again, I transfer him to my male supervisor.

The majority of patients I’ve danced this dance with have understood. And the fact that I have carefully rejected their sexual advances while leaving them space to save face is sufficient. They have emerged with relief, and we are able to now do some useful work. But there is the smaller percentage that cannot understand their transgression, and are sure my refusals are a method of assuming innocence before engaging with them in a sexual relationship, something that is actually a felony (for me) in this state.

It is sad, and I feel dirtied. I so wish to help each person find their potential. I suspect he will continue, and I will have to transfer him. One of my own weaknesses is that I get angry too quickly. And then I overcompensate by giving too much latitude; this is a weakness I need to balance. So I pull his PSI.

He had sexual contact with multiple children under the age of five. Some unperceptive person allowed him to be hired into a day care setting.

What am I Doing?

2008-12-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

It’s been a bad week. Although I know that I am surrounded by those people who are only trying to survive themselves, sometimes it gets overwhelming. I’ve spoken of my groups a bit, and I must say, they are the lynchpin of what holds value for me. These guys, these “hardened criminals” come into this little room. It seems, at the door, they leave the yard behind.

The yard is where they live, and the basic premise there is power and strength. You must protect the tiny little bit which is yours. This includes the physical aspects of your life, your television, your food from the commissary, your journal you keep because your crazy therapist tells you this is an avenue to save you soul. It also includes what makes you human, compassion, the ability to walk away, the ability to walk toward a life that has meaning. BUT, when somebody calls you, “bitch,” you need to deal with this, or everybody else sees you as victim and shits on you.

I hold this weird and horrible power. As one of my guys observed, “They come into group, and they perform; they do and say what they think will please YOU.”

It does not please me that they treat each other as animals; that they are reduced to staking claim of a little bit of psychic and physical space through violence. But I also do not begrudge them this. I have so much love and space and support in my life, I cannot imagine the incredible restriction and horror of having to fight for that which to me is a thoughtless and immediate thing. I cannot ask them to do something that puts them in peril.

So, they come into my room. We sit in a circle of ten or eleven in padded chairs which in and of themselves are a treat. There is a small table between us, which I cannot get rid of because there is no space. I have a chalk board, not a white board, on which I can write the essence of where we go today. They spread out around it, so when I write, there is no chance I would brush up against them by mistake. We cannot touch. Ever before in my life and my work, I could reach out with a settling pat or an approving touch. When they try so hard, they deserve meaningful recognition. It simply cannot happen here.

My chair is established. The other staff needs to be able to look through the window in the door to make sure I am safe, that some horrible gang rape or riot isn’t sucking me into its depths. The truth is so very different. This is the safest place I am in my day.

My drive in makes me a potential victim to deer, and trucks and the accidents on the road. Walking the yard to my office leaves me open to the errant individual that may wish to hurt me to pay back some slight. Or somebody “hired” to hurt me. In group, I have ten guys. I know that if one of them were to try and hurt me, the other nine would intervene. Some because they know they would be held accountable, the others because I hold something precious for them.

Who am I to hold this for them?

Today I am overwhelmed with sadness. There has been a series of incidences where those in power only reinforce the "fact" that I work with worthless animals. Men who do not even deserve the respect and compassion of wild animals we keep in zoos. How do they find the strength to rise above the degradation and try to find a way out of the mess they’ve brought into their lives?

Today, I have a guy in segregation on suicide watch. I will not wreck your day with the horrific and pitiable story of his life to this point. It is suggested to me, by a person in power, that we can fix him by, “…tying him down naked, and shoving something up his ass.” It is all I can do to not smack him upside the head and scream that this is exactly what has brought him here: somebody in power either figuratively or literally shoving his dick up this guy’s ass.

Today, I have one of the most amazing groups of my life. Ten of my guys come in, and I am on the hairy edge. Can I even describe it? We start with the concept of morals, and if these are something you are born with, learn and internalize or experience as something to abstractly understand. The thought goes, if you grow up in a sick environment, you never understand on a basic level why you shouldn’t just do whatever makes you safe or happy or able to forget.

The group erupts in discussion and disagreement, talk and cross talk. Suddenly almost everyone is deeply engaged, and fighting for what they believe is right. My co-workers are popping up in the window, checking if I’m safe. I give them thumbs up and move to quiet the group. “You need to quiet down, you’re scaring my co-workers…”

Mr. S. observes, “You’ve lost control of the group.”

Everybody stops. They don’t want me to feel like I’ve failed. I have not. I point out that the group is doing what it is supposed to do as long as we are all thinking and expressing ourselves. We just need to do it with a bit less volume.

So now I state I know many of them work from a base of rage. I wonder what is left if I ask them to take the rage away? Immediately, Mr. R. states, “Harmony.” He is in his early 40’s. He has been in prison since he was 19, and has worked himself down to level 1, the least restrictive environment. He spent the first eight years of his incarceration acting like an animal in pain, hurting everyone who came into his sphere. Somebody, somewhere, a guard, helped him see the endless pit this behavior offered him. He stopped, and now he is with me. Harmony.

He is Muslim, now. I understand harmony is a specific belief, one which I have but a hazy understanding of, and I suspect nobody else in the group even suspects. I would have him explain, but the energy has gone elsewhere. Later I ask him to prepare a lesson for us in the next group. But the fact that he has offered up such an intangible and precious idea as harmony has left me almost speechless with pain.

The idea of objects as meaning comes up next. Mr. S. looks at me, he is almost in tears. “All I want is a car and a nice apartment that I can come home to at night.” I reframe his desire as one for security and success. Those “things” are only symbols of the core of the meaning. Only later do I understand the look. He offered up his best thought. He expected me to smack him for it; to tell him he was wrong and bad, like every other person in his life has told him. And yet, he offered it up to me anyway, hoping for some kind of salvation.

Who am I to do this? What the fuck do I think I am doing?

Feeling Funky, part 2

2008-12-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

So I waited for the fall out of having some sad guy waving his little head at me in session. Of course the staff were ecstatic with the possibilities. I was bombarded with teasing, questions, others’ stories and truly solicitous offers of condolence and support. My husband laughed. Given the fact that I had hauled him off of the ceiling about working here a few months before, I was a bit nonplussed. He, apparently, thought I was totally capable of handling an errant penis or two in the course of my day.

My true concern was my other patients. Over the time here, I have forged some strong relationships in my groups and I recognized the need for these guys to have me validate them as good and trustworthy men. (This is a whole ‘nother blog, so just hang with me, here.) I was pretty sure the story would spread, and I would have to deal with the issue in a therapeutic group session with ten guys. What do I say? What would they say??

Apparently, nothing. The story appeared capped, and it didn’t come up.

Well, it didn’t come up until I stopped thinking about it. A little over a week later, my Thursday group met. They are my strongest group, both in their desire to work and their attachment to me.

About 20 minutes into the session, my strongest member, Mr. P. interrupted the conversation, “Ms. S.?? We hear that somebody showed their rabbit to a female staff member. Was that you?”

Mr. P. sits back in his chair. He is a powerful man, both physically and in his compassion for others and his desire to act in a right-way. He watches me quietly waiting for a response.

What I believe, is I cannot ever ever ever lie in these groups. Never in an individual session but the milieu of the group is so strong, that any misdirection, let alone outright lie, is detected instantaneously. Besides, it is not what I wish to teach, what I want to set as an example.

“Yup, that was me.” And pandemonium breaks out.

Skirting the Issue of Drugs

2008-12-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

I have to intersperse my serious blogs with the more amusing aspects of my day to keep your attention, I suspect. I wouldn’t know for sure, as I’ve gotten no comments or responses *hint hint*

Today one of my guys came in to see me. I’d run into him in the cage the day before. This is the pre-segregation or pre-in-the-hole section of prisoner containment at the Control Center. You’re not generally there for a good reason. He had been busted smoking pot, he told me. I rolled my eyes at him and said, “For God’s sake, Mr. A.” and walked away. An immediate and thoughtless response.

He came to call-out (his appointment) the next day. There were bigger fish to fry in Seg, with Dangerous Contraband offenders, and Assault offenders. Some sad little guy without the impulse control not to hit an offered splief was not of interest and he had been returned to the general population.

As we were talking about his offense, and he had an understandable if not smart explanation, I mused about how the drugs got in. We all know that the visitors are carefully searched, and something as bulky as marijuana does not wander in easily this way. Instead, it is probably brought in by staff. I’ve had it explained that there is a complicated way of paying for the contraband, which involves the prisoner’s outside contacts paying off the staff.

Again, thoughtlessly, I reflected about how much I could smuggle in under my skirt.

AS SOON as the words were out of my mouth, I recognized the import and glanced at this young, baby-faced boy. His mouth was agape and a look of profound amazement was on his face. Holy Crap, this could be interpreted as a proposal of sorts, and I frantically backpedaled, blushing. He was greatly relieved to know that I wasn’t trying to bring him into some staff/inmate drug ring. I flatter myself to believe, in part, he was relieved to know I hadn’t gone to the dark side.

Feeling Funky, Part 1

2008-12-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

So, now I’ve been here about four months. I’ve settled into the patterns, made my peace with the medical record and my family has stopped overtly worrying. Today is Tuesday, and the afternoon is winding down toward formal count (everybody back to their bunks to make sure nobody has wandered off). I’m feeling content as I’ve just finished a satisfying group. Then the phone rings.

One of my guys is, according to his guard, “feeling funky.” Which, I guess means, he needs to talk to me. *sigh* At least it isn’t Friday afternoon. I have him sent over to my office.

I don’t know him well; he recently came to the facility from a higher level. All I’ve done is his intake, and frankly, with 150 men on my caseload, it takes a couple of visits before I start to spontaneously remember most of them. His history has nothing unique to jump start my memory. *sigh*

He’s depressed. He reports suffering a lack of energy, he has trouble staying asleep, his appetite is decreased, and he doesn’t really enjoy anything. He sounds like he’s recently read the DSM and is quoting the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder. When asked, he is startled, and loudly denies suicidal thoughts, however. *sigh.*

He does not like the dorm setting in this lower level, and wants to return to two-man cells. He does not want to talk about anything he is responsible for doing to alleviate his depression. He would like me to write an assault ticket on him so he can get bumped up a level. I would like him to go down to the Control Center and sit until he accumulates enough tickets to be bumped up a level, if that is his wish.

He’s depressed, he just knows it.

It is possible I’ve lost you in the midst of this story from sheer boredom. Certainly while it was occurring, I was bored. Forty minutes had passed, count was almost upon us, and the secretary had just left. Mildly sensing I was missing something, but tired of trying to drag it out of him, I began to excuse him. Then I noticed the strangest thing: he had a plastic penis on his lap. WAIT, I bet it isn’t plastic, I bet it’s real. I press the magic button on my GPS device to call emergency back up.

I had thought a lot about when I should push this button. I had come to the conclusion it was when somebody crossed over the line into unacceptable behavior. For instance, if a patient does not follow direction when he is getting loud or threatening, if I am touched, if the patient doesn’t direct away from inappropriate behavior. And I guess, if somebody feels like waving his penis at me. ESPECIALLY since he was asking for an assault ticket earlier.

Okay, penis in the lap, button pushed, what next? I should say something. Those who know me do not find it difficult to imagine that every choice I can think of is inappropriate. Most contain the word, “fuck.” Probably not a good choice… I finally settled on, “what’s that???” in my best disbelieving voice.

“Oh, my bad,” he says, crossing his legs.

Three seconds have passed. Where is everybody?? What do I do next? I directed him out of the office and into the hallway to await reinforcements. Either seven seconds or ten minutes have passed at this point; I’m not so sure which. So I hit the button again. As I’m sticking my head into the boss guy’s office to keep him up to date with my learning experience, the pounding of feet can be heard from both ends of the hallway.

I don’t really recall what I said, but they immediately cuffed him and took him down to Control. Lt. O’Mally, my new best friend, ran all the way up from Control, making it at the same time as the unit and yard officers. He was solicitous and concerned and helped me write the sexual misconduct ticket.

I wonder, how long he was exposing himself, so hopeful of a good response, and frankly, I just didn't notice.

Slang, part 1

2008-12-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

I am a silly white woman from middle class world. It has been years since I’ve been in high school, and my children went to a rural, rather than urban school. The whole slang thing has been a journey for me. I am lucky that my guys are tolerant. Quite a number of them take pride in bringing me new slang terms to use, and in group, patiently explain to my often bewildered expression.

Bit – your current felony time, as in second bit (when you’ve discharged the requirements of your first set of felonies, and are in prison for a second set)
Bug out – lose control and appear insane
Buggy – anywhere from odd to insane, but warranting watching because of it.
Brake pad - unidentified meat patty
Bumping Gums – talking without meaningful content
Cat– other inmate (I was amazed at this reference to 60’s slang)
Cho-mo – Child molester
Cook Up - making dinner from commisary food
Ear Hustler – one who eavesdrops on others and then breaks into the conversation.
Flip the Script – twist words back on the speaker
Flop – losing your parole for a period of time, as in 12-month-flop
Max – your date of release, excluding parole, including good behavior
Max-max – date of release excluding both parole and good behavior
Nutted Up – insane
People out there – those of us not inside the prison system.
Pressing a bunk – someone who stays in their bunk or cell without physical activity.
Psych – anybody who works with bugs
Real World – where I go home to each night and they don’t.
Slipping – making sexual comments
Them you have to feed with a long-handled spoon – those individuals that take careful handling as they are so violent and unhinged, they can become dangerous.
Tree Jumper – child molester (somebody who jumps from behind trees to accost children)
Twos & Fews – a couple dollars and change

The Things We Do for Love

2008-12-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

Another prisoner story; amusing, although gruesome.

Again, one of the guys is talking about home and his young son. He talks about his beloved Anita who takes care of Little Tommy. He goes on and on, and I listen. This story, at least, is of folks at home that seem to be coping and surviving.

Mr. K. has Schizoaffective disorder. A liberal mix of thought disorder, where the world tips in a different direction than you and I and a mood disorder that, today, is pushing him with mania. This means the story is rapid, disjointed and the emotional content is mildly off. He thrashes in the chair as though he were buckled in while experiencing a violent car crash. Many of the guys do this. They have taught their bodies to comply with the rules, which means they can’t stand up suddenly, shouldn’t raise their voices, or otherwise create a physically threatening situation. Their emotion drives them as the invisible restraint of fear keeps them firmly in the chair.

This is only our second meeting, and I can’t quite remember his story.

“Is Anita your wife or your girlfriend?”

He laughs and looks at me fondly and a bit questioningly, “She’s my girlfriend. I murdered my wife; didn’t I tell you?”

Demons and Despair

2008-12-05T14:23:00.001-08:00

**I would warn you ahead of time; this story is not funny or amusing. It is serious and sad beyond measure.**

I had a gentleman in my office talking to me about his issues at home. When you are far from those you love, with no prospect of coming back soon, thoughts of family and what is happening without you are consuming. When you are in prison, this is obviously multiplied many-fold. Most people understand they have put themselves there through their own behavior and bad choices. I often hear the tales of birth, death, betrayal and abandonment. Unfortunately, there is little I can do but listen.

Have I mentioned that my caseload is mental health in nature? Some of the guys are seriously mentally ill with Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia. Both disorders that can warp your understanding of the world and can sometimes lead to horrendous misperceptions and reactions.

Mr. O., is college educated. He had a solidly middle class job as an investment broker. He had a wife and three daughters entering and into their teens. It is unusual to develop schizophrenia when a person is this far into their life. But he did. He began hearing voices and suffering the paranoia that is a specific type of schizophrenia. Of course, he didn’t want to believe what was happening to him. He talked to his wife and doctor a bit about it, but denial is a powerful force, and his concerns were written off to stress. He was not sent to a mental health professional for treatment or assessment. He got the message, and tried to hide the symptoms, the voices, the fears. And one day, it all became clear to him. He wasn’t crazy; there was nothing wrong with him. Rather his wife had been taken over by demonic forces. They had taken her soul, and in its place left a creature of evil, bent on the destruction of him and his three children.

I’ve often thought what I would do if those I loved were threatened. It is clear in my head: anything necessary, including destroying the threat. I do what I can to stay safe and avoid this type of confrontation. When I worked at the hospital, I watched on my long drive home through the country to make sure I was not followed. I’ve not had my phone number listed in decades. I don’t show up on the internet in any sites that locate me and I’m clearly blogging with anonymity.

Mr. O. came home from work, took the largest knife in the kitchen, and stabbed the demon in the chest repeatedly. He is incarcerated for attempted murder, and will be with us for many years to come.

On medication, he is controlled. In fact he is a likable and insightful person. He suffers true remorse for what he has done. But without warning, his symptoms can surmount his medication, and again, the demons are present and threatening.

Mr. O. sent me a note, stating he wasn’t feeling well and needed to see me. I called down to his unit and had him sent to my office. We are a Level 1 Security prison, so the yard is open and people move freely. My office door is left open, but there is not a guard present through the course of my day. Instead I have a PPD, a personal protection device, which I wear on my hip or clip to my desk drawer handle. It has a GPS system and my name attached. Should I press the large recessed button, people in uniform come at a run to my location. I’ve not yet done this, and I hope never to resort to such a move. I hope it works. I also have a strong diaphragm and voice control. Should I shout for assistance, nobody would mistake my intent.

He enters my office, inches taller than me and many pounds heavier, and sits heavily in the chair. His blue eyes are vibrating and practically shimmering inches from his face. His is pale and sweating, clearly terrified.

In my years of working with people who suffer from Paranoid Schizophrenia, I’ve notice a strange phenomenon. Their fear is contagious. It is felt so strongly, that if an empathic person gets in a certain physical range, she absorbs the fear. I’ve seen this time and again, although I’ve never read of it. As a therapist, you are considered a person of strength and safety. A patient that is already scared becomes even more so if their therapist is frightened. And if you get sucked into this cycle of fear, the situation becomes out of hand horrifyingly rapidly, with the fear bouncing, cycling and intensifying as it is passed from therapist to patient. It can, and does, result in cataclysmic responses if unchecked.

Mr. O. had come to a blinding realization. He would never leave the prison. Seven demons, taller than the buildings, were patrolling the fence, intending to stay there forever to prevent his egress. The demons had entered the compound and his fellow inmates, and some of the staff. He had walked to the building with his head down, eyes averted from the rays of evil pulsing from the eyes of others. He was doomed. He was cornered.

I was new, just a couple months into this job. Had I been at my last job, the answer was simple. A large shot of Haldol mixed with Valium. It would have been administered with 20 people standing at ease, a show of force, a suggestion of what would happen if the patient did not relent. The threat of this many people usually is so frightening to the paranoid individual, the shot is a better choice. However, even though we are in a prison, we are an outpatient facility. My only back up was guards; people in uniform who are much more threatening than the rag-tag bunch of medical people called in when a problem brews in a hospital. To get them to my office I would either press the button, which would bring them at a run, or vocally call over the patient’s head to my secretary. I couldn’t imagine which would be less frightening and less likely to push him to a violent acting out.

He continued to spin out his paranoid ideations. I became unfocused and felt his surge of fear ripple through me. My blood pressure went up and my breathing became shallow. I broke eye contact with him.

“See,” he said to me, “I’m sucking all of the oxygen out of the room and we’re both going to die.”

I grabbed at a sense of grounding and tried to funnel the fear down into the earth from my body. “I’m bringing the oxygen back,” I said.

He became very still. “I can’t feel it.”

“Of course you can, we’re still both breathing.”

“I don’t think I can keep you safe…”

“Mr. O., why don’t you step out of my office, so I can talk to the doctor?”

And he does. Things move swiftly then, and custody (the guards) quickly swarm the area, handcuff him and take him to segregation. I’m left with an office empty of demons and the task of sending him off to the forensic hospital. I’m left with an empty office and the feeling that I have betrayed him.

Sex in Prison

2008-11-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

This is not allowed. Beyond that, it is illegal, a felony in and of itself. The Boss-Guy believes this is the most important piece of information to pound into my head. “I think everything will be just fine as long as you don’t fall in love with an inmate,” he mentions. We were walking out after my first day when he put forth this conversational sally. Fortunately, my mouth wasn’t full of anything, and all I spewed was air. Immediately I recognized this as the second most bizarre thing a boss of mine had ever said to me, and easily the most stunning thing spoken on the first day. I assured him I had no intention of going down that particular path. Apparently, it’s a problem. Women with savior complexes are attracted to those they perceive as helpless boys, just needing a good woman to re-mother them and set them straight. And although there are some helpless boys, and every man needs a good woman, and I’m good at setting people straight, sex in prison is not for me.

The fifth time he mentions this thought to me, I’m beginning to get a little peeved. I’ve been a therapist for decades and have yet to wander into this trap. And although I don’t wish to disrespect my patients, if I were to cross this professional and personal boundary, it would not be with a prisoner. This is not to mention my husband of three decades of whom I am quite fond. This answer seems to shut down his impulse to warn…but it makes me look at the other female staff and wonder.

Alone on the Yard: Instant Messaging

2008-11-23T16:02:00.000-08:00

The Psych: I can walk the prison yard alone, now
Mr. Bill: Wow...
The Psych: I was walking out the other evening during count, when the guys are restricted to bunks
The Psych: and somebody yelled, "yo bitch" out the window, followed by a more up to date "hubba hubba" kind of comment.
The Psych: so I stopped and stared at the window/bunk it was coming from, and it stopped and that was that
The Psych: I figured if it happened the next day, I would turn around and ask the officer if that were necessary. But apparently the stare worked
Mr. Bill: And you do have the authoritative glare...
The Psych: well, I had sunglasses on, and I didn't slink, which I think was expected, and I know exactly which bunk it was
The Psych: and apparently there is a rule about "unsolicited communication"
Mr. Bill: No slinking allowed.... ever.
The Psych: absofuckinglutely

Catch Up

2008-11-23T15:51:00.001-08:00

The last months have been fraught with change and adjustment. I’ve taken a bit of a break from the blog as well as cleaning the house as I adjust. So I’ve uploaded the blogs I’ve done, and am now ready for some backtracking to get me up to date. Don’t think for a moment I’m ready to put four entries a day into this thing.

Contraband

2008-11-23T15:46:00.000-08:00

My second day, and now I have my little red card with my chubby picture on it. A little piece of me dies each time somebody compliments me on this photo, and its excellent resemblance…

The card is like my prison passport. I can get neither in, nor out without it, and it gets me my handy dandy PPD (Personal Protection Device). Because I’m still a temp, I have to be walked in and out of the perimeter (through the Yard with over a 1000 prisoners, some of them assuredly depraved). Our secretary, Dustie, is this petite woman a few years older than me. She is capable of being my safety belt, apparently. Makes the same sense as my mother-in-law who used to insist her 30- and 40-something year old sons sleep separately from their girlfriends (me) at the cottage. That theory didn’t keep us safe from pre-marital wickedness.

Okay, I just reread the last paragraph, and I would like to clarify. Me and my now sister-in-law. I wasn’t sleeping with BOTH brothers and you who thought that need to wash your brains out with anti-bacterial soap.

Anyhow, Dustie walks me out, and I get to the gate, and NO ID. Doesn’t matter that count is going on (all the prisoners are in their areas and being counted to make sure none have slunk out over the 20 foot razor wire fences) and the yard is deserted. I MUST be walked back to the office. Good thing the weather is perfect and I’m not dragging her through the rain.

Bologna sandwich again. I think it is comforting for me. It is also indicative of my lack of interest in cooking when I get home as I am hoarding leftovers for later-in-the-week-dinners. I’m going to give the Unnamed Temp Agency a little ringy ding and discuss they’re lack of accurate information in the sex department. (Again, your mind is a dirty place. REMEMBER?? They told me it was a woman’s prison, and it is a MEN’S prison). As I mentioned, we can’t bring either food or cell phones into the perimeter, so I left my phone with my lunch. I took it, strolled out front of the building into the sun and called my little friend at the Temp Agency. She was appropriately appalled to hear about her confusion and my edification and was apologetic to hear how long it took to get my husband off of the ceiling. Mission accomplished, and I strolled back into the building, apparently waving my cell phone around oblivious to the fact that I was ineffectively smuggling contraband into the prison.

My erstwhile friend, Officer Eagan, smiled at me, than blanched as she caught sight of the phone. “You can’t bring that in HERE!” And the blood flooded back into her face. I explained I wasn’t going to bring it into the perimeter, but just leave it with the remains of lunch to be removed that afternoon when I left. Her color did not return. Apparently, I didn’t get it. Food is okay in the front of the building, cell phones, like weapons, are not welcome at all. It hadn’t occurred to me that the guys that cleaned – “Porters” - were allowed outside the perimeter and cleaned this area of the prison. They must have a higher level of trust, but probably not one that could resist a ringing cell phone coming from a lunch bag. As all of this is being explained to me, I’ve gathered a peanut gallery. Or maybe they’re more of a Greek Chorus. Three or so other women hanging around gleefully start razzing me about my sad attempt to smuggle the cell in. I have a police magnet, and this is a perfect example.

I explain to Officer Eagan that my car keys are in my desk. What would she like me to do with the phone?? Well, I suspect she would have liked me to vaporize it, or teleport it up to the Enterprise. Or maybe just jump up and down on it until it was pile of harmless plastic and metal, no longer an instrument of seduction for hapless prisoners. But, she agreed to let me leave it at the desk. I set it down, and she literally took a step back from it as though it might bite her and infect her with a dread strain of Hepatitis. “I’d prefer you turned it off.” I have no idea why, but I immediately did so. Women in uniforms can be scary.

So, my little friend, Dustie, had appeared by then, watching the proceedings with no appreciable expression on her face. She walked me in AGAIN, and walked me back AGAIN. The Boss-Guy met us half way back and sent her back to the office. He attempted to comfort me. He still seems to believe I’m fragile. As he came back from lunch, one of the Custody guys that drives the outside of the perimeter watching for suspicious activity, had seen my suspicious activity, and told Boss-Guy. Apparently, by my second day, I am known…

I just finished my eighth day of work, and I am still getting cell phone comments from perfect strangers…

This is Her First Time in Prison

2008-11-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

First day at the new job. My workplace was at the end of a winding drive. I was told to follow the signs and come in the main door. OK. At the end of the drive, and there are a couple of buildings and parking lots and nothing that looks like a main door. I’m early, cause I’m anxious. This is not helping. There’s a woman walking up, and I roll down the window and ask her.

“Are you the new psych?” “Yup, that’s me.” I get walked in. There is a tiny, rusted sign that says entrance that is visible about ten yards from the sidewalk. I could have wandered around for quite a while looking for it as I gazed at the twenty foot fences topped in rolls and rolls of razor wire. And there is a guy with a very large weapon. Don’t piss him off. And look, there is a group of men dressed alike behind the wire, carefully watching my every move.

The helpful person with me notices tampons in my clear purse thing (I was told to bring my purse stuff in this way). She suggests I might want to wrap them in a tissue. What is that? We’re all women? She explains there are “sex fiends” out there and apparently tampons are devices of sexual stimulation. Very confusing. Again, we’re all women, how exciting is a tampon? Maybe the guards are the fiends?? That doesn’t make sense, but I hide the tampons nonetheless… No reason to start an argument before I even officially start.

Fast forward. I’ve been checked into Personnel, and the ID machine is not working so I’m still a non-entity. I could be a prisoner…. The boss-guy and I go in through the gates. Unlike the exciting TV shows, the gates are glass not bars. I walk past the “bubble,” show my visitor pass, go through the metal detector, two more doors and we’re in. No problem

Where do you think we go first? Boss-guy and I? The Hole: it’s called Seg (short for Segregation). How many folk here are on our caseload? Three. And they’re all men. Well, there are three different facilities in this complex. My boss must have some responsibility for the guys. So we stop, and talk to the inmates through the meal slot in the door. Each cell has a cement bed thing, with a small mattress pad that looks like about two inches of cotton batting. There is a small corner table, again made out of cement in the corner and a column of cement blocks for a “chair.” I assume there is a toilet on the wall out of the general view. I’ve decided craning my neck and looking in is both unprofessional and impolite, so I’m still assuming about the toilet. There is NOTHING in the cell but two Styrofoam cups the mattress, and a couple of sheets, one wrapped around the waist of the prisoner. Where his pants were remains a mystery, but he doesn’t flash me, so I’m relived. OH, did I mention the VERY LARGE metal rings on the four corners of the “bed?” clearly where you tie the restraints. And at about hand level on the wall by the bed-thing, the paint has been worn off by the busy fingers of anxious inmates. It doesn’t have an appreciable odor, which is good, but what in Heaven’s name must you do here hour after hour? Except, of course, become more insane? But I’m projecting. I would become more insane; it might offer some kind of relief to be in a quiet controlled environment for a while if you’re incarcerated.

We’re done, and I’ve been introduced to my 20th person. No chance I’ll remember names. They’re introduced with first, last and rank. The name tags have only last names, and I call them by those when prisoners are around, but first names otherwise. I have the first initial for help…. What is the difference between a lieutenant, sergeant and captain? Who knows? But I’m sure it is important…. Damn.

Before we went into Seg, we stopped at “Control,” the central place that tracks the safety and general safety processes of the facility. It’s where the “Custody” hive mind lives. Custody is the euphemism for guards. I like guards, they are my friends. I try to look benign and competent simultaneously. I’m not sure I succeeded. I now have, on the belt of my brand new casual pants, a PDD. My first acronym. Personal Protection Device. I learn shortly that the button, when pushed, vibrates madly and gives my location via GPS. And I am assured that within sixty seconds three or four or five Custody will appear, out of breath, and ready to save me. This is reassuring. I’m especially pleased as now we are walking across the Yard. This is the MEN’S yard. Suddenly the tampon issue becomes clear. Apparently the Mental Health building opens onto two of the facilities.

I had imagined one large pile of cement, not walking through the open to get to my office, but oh well. The buildings are all older and made of brick, rather pretty. The grounds are lovely with verdant grass, large trees and a large greenhouse structure for growing annuals. The flower gardens are weeded impeccably. It is raining, so not too many people are out and about. I ask, and boss-guy says eye contact is fine, but don’t look down after you make it. I live in a community that is very racially mixed. The worst thing you can do is NOT make eye contact with the young African American men in town, or they follow you and harass you trying to scare you. I’m trying to balance this impulse but not gawk. Sunshine would be better as I could hide a bit behind my sunglasses.

The rest of the morning is pretty innocuous. I hang with the boss and see some of his male inmate/patients. Nothing too scary, some sexual criminals, and one murderer, but they just seemed like normal patients. Now it is lunch. We can’t bring many things into the perimeter. Obviously no weapons or drugs. But also no food except for factory wrapped snacks and a liter of sealed liquids in plastic (no glass or metal). No cell phones, one lipstick, one nail clipper one hairbrush and a day’s worth of sanitary products for women only. (Were men trying to smuggle in tampons?? Why did that bit of detail need to be in the policy?) So we stroll out across the yard again to eat lunch OUTSIDE the perimeter. Everybody is extremely friendly and amusing in the lunch room, even though none are from my unit. The boss introduced me before he left with the caveat, “She’s never been in prison before.” This is really rather an appealing place in many ways I didn’t expect. But as I finish my bologna sandwich, little pieces of information start to settle in my mind, and a suspicion starts to surface.

Third trip across the yard, and I ask the boss-guy where the women are… “Oh, we haven't had women here in years.”

It Begins: Just a Urine Drop and I was on My Way to Prison

2008-11-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

As Some of You know, I have a new job. The stock market was just scaring me, and I thought I would bolster up that portfolio with a little gainful employment. About a week before I made this decision, a Temp Agency, who shall remain Nameless, called me about working in the prison system. Of course, being of sound mind, and hearing they wanted full time, I brusquely said, “NO.”

Then I thought about it. My mother actually encouraged it. Why not? Temp job, interesting stories… if I worked full time for three months, I could lolly-gag around for a while. So I called them back.

They had two jobs, one at a maximum security men’s prison for a month, and one paying slightly more at a woman’s minimum for three months. The second one paid better, but the first was closer. What the heck, said I; it should be interesting. I called them back.

Two weeks after my résumé, my references, my height, weight, eye color and the name of my first born, they called me back. And they offered me the job. Do you see what is missing here? AN INTERVIEW??? I must admit, even I was a bit freaked out. They had sent me a job description, but it was such a generic one, my mother could have written something equally informative. Actually, my mom would have done a more thorough and interesting job of it. So, please, let me speak to this guy who wanted to hire me without even talking to me…

Well, it was an informative phone call for me. Seems that the Nameless Temp Agency just pulled a generic psychologist job description out of their files. Not even close to the actual job. I would be monitoring the stable mentally ill population at the prison. Could do that with one hand behind my back and my left eye crossed. And the boss-guy sounded sane and reasonable if a bit exhausted. He thoughtfully provided me with the names of professionals we had in common. So IMMEDIATELY I called my best nurse, Fred, and checked this guy out. Fred has perfected the art of emotive restraint and understatement; frankly, he is not prone to excitement and is allergic to hyperbole. He described this potential boss-guy as, “Top Notch.” Praise beyond the pale from Fred. I was sold.

So, what do you wear to a prison?? I suspected that Emily Post wouldn’t be able to help me. So I asked. I got a bit of a silence from the boss-guy, and then in the most delicate “duh” tone, he suggested, “regular clothes.” OK, it wasn’t a stupid question. So I told him I would sashay in wearing heals, nylons and a skirt; I mean, that IS what I normally wear to work. Well of course, with a top and undies and things…. Again, a silence. Just a moment of silence, but then, “Uh, khakis, pretty much everyone wears casual slacks and sometimes jeans on Friday.” Apparently “new women” were especially under scrutiny, and pants were less provocative. I didn’t get it, I’d think the men would be more exciting, but what did I know…

Just a urine drop and I was on my way. Drive sixty miles to the Nameless Temp Agency, do my paperwork, drive another ten miles to pee in a cup. To facilitate, the Agency had me go on their website, download the 25 pages of forms, and fill them out the night before. I am nothing if not a form filler, so I did just that after dinner.

Have you EVER been in a temp agency? GRIMGRIMGRIM. I was dressed better than the screener at the front desk and I was planning to walk all day shopping. She BRIGHTLY shuffled through my papers, announced half the forms on the site were outdated, but comforted me that that was, “all right.” I didn’t believe her. I felt irritated, not, “all right.” She told me things were “all right” about four more times. Snow White kept telling me, “Oh, my goodness!” at Disney and she nearly died of it. This Sparkling Little Robin was treading a thin line.
I refilled out half the forms while leaning away from the poor young boy reeking of alcohol applying for a mechanic job. She questioned him about the 14 month lapse in his résumé, and he announced totally straight-faced he was, “on vacation.” I then questioned Sparkling Robin about the form saying Nameless Temp Agency could deduct the cost of the drug test out of my paycheck at their discretion. Seemed a dicey thing to sign to me. She assured me they wouldn’t do it unless I got fired. I raised my eyebrows. What were they thinking to write such a crappy form that didn’t say that AT ALL. Misreading the eyebrow flick, she assured me it was very difficult to GET fired.

I gave up, and slunk out of the office to go pee in a cup.

I Am

2008-11-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

I am a mental health professional, who, through a complete whim has ended up working in the prison system. I've been "in" for some months now, and my experiences have been heart breaking, hilarious and frustrating. In a quick review of the blogs available, most are by inmates; few by staff. I wonder if that is because we have difficulty viewing our jobs with objectivity. We have trouble staying human.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, something I remembered vaguely from my undergrad years, stands as a grim reminder of how easy it is to fall into an unhealthy, unprofessional stance in this type of environment. My goal over time is to remember my own fallibility and to treat each person as an individual. And for fear of becoming a bug myself, to remember to laugh.