Bob Loves Movies

One of the things that I forgot to mention about Bob is what he spends his can money on. Bob lives in a group home paid by his disability check. I'm pretty sure that he has a payee that takes care of his funds so any extra he gets collecting aluminum is his alone and used for lottery money.

Today, Bob walks into the agency on his weekly round of collecting cans. He knows which people are nice enough to save them for him and if it's a good day, you get to hear what he's up to. You can tell it's a good day by his hygiene and well, his report of his mood. He will tell you if hes, "above average", "mid-average", "mid to below average" and "below average." Today he reported that he was above average. He was so excited to tell us the tale of how he matched 3 of the 5 numbers in one of our state lottery games. It's not one of the big ones, just some add on that's a bit easier to win. Bob states, "I was so excited, and it couldn't of happened to a better person! I won ten dollars and because of this I was able to rent 5, 6, seven movies!" Then, just like that, in Bob fashion, he walks away before I could really respond.

Sydney's Card Obsession

You remember Sydney right? Well, she will not let me forget her. Sydney LOVES cards. Even though she is no longer in any of our programs, she still sends me a card every holiday. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sometimes New Years as well. Hell, if there was an Arbor Day card, I'm sure she's send me one to celebrate it. One of the things that I love about her is that she lets me know every year when her birthday is coming up so I don’t forget to send her a card. We're really not allowed to have a relationship with participants outside of our programs, but what is one little card? She always appreciates it. She appreciates it so much in fact, that she sends me a thank you card telling me so.

I have a rather massive collection in my desk after almost seven years. And yes, she still signs them, "your fiend." I love it.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same. Or Blah, Blah, Blah For Short.

Due to an anonymous comment, I realized that some people do actually read this thing and I have several stories that need posted. I have a rather inane habit of picking up things (mostly hobbies and ideas) and dropping them without notice. This blog is a great reflection of this. My personality tends to dictate that I need constant excitement and uncertainty in my life, which is probably why I haven't found other more stable and sane employment.

Anyway, there are stories to be told, and hopefully I can convince myself to stick with this for as long as I can. Bob the can man is back, my expertize with Autism continues and hopefully I will be able to chronicle my case with the chronic masturbator.

Life doesn't come in easily unwrapped packages I suppose.

The Top Hat of Justice

While working in the social service field you learn that some types of social work or even types of people you work with don’t meld very well with you. It’s not that they are bad clients or you are a bad case manager, it just means that the combination doesn’t work and something needs to be changed to positively affect the outcome. Personally, I couldn’t work with children or geriatrics. The former because…well I hate kids, and the latter because, I just don’t feel comfortable around old people. It’s the same way with personalities, and I recently found out that my Achilles heel are people with Narcissism.

Lance was an older gentleman with grandiose assertions of himself. He states that he is from an old mob family that ran illegal fireworks stores in the area, has a doctorate in philosophy and still has “connections” if you know that I mean. In reality, he is a short bald guy with Yoda ears with a diagnosis of late stage alcoholism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Funny how that all works out. The only “connections” that I determined were the county hospital when he drinks himself into a medical stupor and his rehab counselor who sent him here.

His rehab counselor, who I have a pretty good relationship with, sent me his file which entails his past, psych reports, interviews, as well as his future plan for services. In the initial interview the rehab counselor writes how he arrived for the interview in a, and I quote, “jaunty top hat.” I know that she tends to be a bit cynical in her reports, so I laughed it off seeing the diagnosis of the client. We scheduled him to arrive for an evaluation the next week.

Let me say that a diagnosis of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) does come with its good sides. Individuals with NPD usually communicate very well verbally, are intelligent, and are very snappy dressers. This is all because they feel that they are better than everyone else, and want to show it. It’s almost impossible to make a person with NPD see your way of thinking, because your way of thinking is improbable and inferior.

Lance came in the first day with a suit that matched his attitude; three matching pieces with suspenders and yes, what I would describe as a “jaunty top hat.” You must realize however, that he was being sent to work in our factory area. This means making boxes, working on an assembly line and putting plastic things together. He felt that this was WAY under him and he made sure to let everyone know. This, of course didn’t last very long. A week later Lance was readmitted to the hospital for nearly killing himself with an alcohol binge. When we tried to close his case due to the fact that he was incapable of working, he threatened to sue and called his rehab counselor a mongrel.

What I really wanted to do though was to give him a monocle and pocket watch and observe him tape boxes in a run down factory. That would have really been funny to me.

MySpace Trace

Here’s a clue. If you’re a sex offender (rape, child molestation) and your case manager is a younger individual who is pretty computer savvy, please DO NOT make it easy for them to find you. And when it happens that this certain case manager does happen to find your profile (because they always look) please make sure that its doesn’t say “certified pussy eater” in huge sparkling letters with a half naked picture of your pock-marked, hairless chest.

Where does one get such certification anyway?

One Boy One Cup

I really haven’t written much about my other job. It’s not that it’s less exciting, it’s just more violent and depressing. However, I’m sure that I’ll end up sharing stories here and there.

One such story is about James, my favorite client at this particular home. He lives with three other low functioning Autistic boys. They all have their little quirks, which I’m sure I will detail at a later date, but James'…we will just say are the most endearing. First of all, James is diagnosed with PICA, which basically means that he eats anything that isn’t bolted down. Socks, curtains, pillows, books, feathers and chicken bones are some of the things that I've seen him try to consume. Oh, and also his own shit. The boy loves eating his own feces. At this point working with him, I’d almost offer a nearby phonebook, or even feathers (At least it is PART of an animal) to him, but shit is another story. It’s horrible for his privacy because we essentially have to watch him while he uses the bathroom and any other time he is not being occupied by another activity (meaning a prescribed program, eating anything non-toxic or flinging his own spit at people, which I may get to later) because what shit he doesn’t try to eat eat, he smears. On the walls, bed, clothing, in his hair, it doesn’t matter. Waste not want not I guess.

So one day I was working and James was sitting on the floor with a blanket over his head as he’s wont to do since he’s kind of disturbed by any open place, even in his own home. I'm the one that usually take responsibility for watching him because:
1. Most of the staff is lazy and usually doesn’t.
2. I don’t really like to clean up shit do you?
So there he is, sitting on the floor for quite some time not moving much at all. Well, this sends off some kind of warning to me, because he is usually an active kid. You know, so much to eat, so little time. So I raise the blanket off of his head and there in his lap, is a cup full of shit. I wanted to believe that it was anything but shit, but there it was, just sitting there. I took it from him, but it made me wonder; where did it come from? He was completely sitting on the floor the whole time. There were no feces in his mouth, on his hands, blanket or the wall beside him. The cup was completely clean except for that little dollop of shit.

How did this happen? If he has discovered shit teleportation, we are all in big trouble.

The Titicut Follies

I did some training today for my second job, and part of that training was watching a movie called The Titticut Follies. I was surprised that I have never heard of it before.
From Wikipedia:

Titicut Follies is a black and white 1967 documentary film by Frederick Wiseman about the treatment of patients at Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The title is taken from a talent show put on by the hospital's inmates. (The talent show was taken from the Wampanoag Indian name for the nearby Taunton River).

Titicut Follies is widely considered to be a masterpiece of the direct cinema form in documentary film, portraying the existence of occupants of Bridgewater, some of them catatonic, holed up in unlit cells, only periodically washed down with a hose and taken out in order to receive force feeding. It also portrays the indifference and bullying on the part of the institution's staff. As such, it makes an implicit statement about the power of authority and total institutions. The stark black and white photography and unflinching cinéma vérité presentation, make this film a particularly powerful experience.

The film's release was

banned (outside the field of education) in the United States from 1967-1992 by a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that, since it was filmed in a hospital, it violated the patients' rights to privacy.[1] Wiseman, the film's director, however, has pointed out that he received permission from all of the people portrayed in the film or else their legal guardian, in this case the superintendent of Bridgewater. He believes that the Massachusetts Government, feeling concerned that it portrayed a state institution in a bad light, took the film out of circulation to protect their own reputation.

In 1992, it was allowed to be shown on PBS. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ordered that "A brief explanation shall be included in the film that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater since 1966."[2] The film is now legally available through the distributor (Zipporah Films, Inc.), for purchase or rental on VHS, DVD and 16mm film for both educational and individual license. Zipporah Films released the DVD of the film to the home market on December 3, 2007. (Zipporah Films, Inc.)

I couldn’t find a clip of this on Youtube, or I would show you. But if you are willing to shell out the $34.00 for the DVD I would highly suggest it, especially if you want to see how they treated people in the mental health system back then. Actually, just in the past year, a state hospital was just closed in our area for the same treatment, or worse.

One of my favorite lines in this movie is when a psychologist (who was obviously a quack) was talking to one of the inmates who had committed rape on an eleven year old girl (this is summarized because I cannot remember the direct quote):

Psychologist: Well why did you do it then? What did your wife say when she found out?

Inmate: Well...she said that it was a problem.

Psychologist: Well obviously, she wasn't giving you enough sexual pleasure, if you were doing things like that.

Ill leave you to make your own jokes from there.