Getting started on my book.

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As some of you know, I am working on a book about my experiences in Oakland CA, working at a residential mother-and-child drug rehabilitation center (and minimum security women's prison). I have decided to structure the book as a series of "vignettes," much as Oliver Sacks did in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." (Thanks to @Maluse for reminding me about that book. I ordered it on Amazon and reread it this past month.) What I am doing to get myself started is creating a folder for said vignettes, and trying to do a bit of writing every day, much as @just4him does. I also have several vignettes already written, most of which were posted to Epinions, a writing site I was involved with years ago. I am going to attach one of my "chapters" and ask my MyLot friends to critique it. I've already caught a couple of "typos," but I'll leave them in there for now. This older piece will be edited, as some of the introductory material will already have been discussed in the "Introduction." But I'm looking for any feedback I can get. Is the story compelling? Does the writing make you want to keep reading? And so on. I realize that this will be a long post, and that many MyLotters will give up right about now. But I would enjoy any feedback from those willing to take about five minutes and read this "chapter." --- Title: One of my most difficult children Originally posted on Epinions, Dec 17, 2004 The Bottom Line (an Epinions thing --Horse): I want to believe that with love and patience one can overcome the effects of a lifetime of violence and sadness. But the truth is, I don't know. My first thought upon meeting Roger was "what a cute kid!" He was a smallish white boy of 5 1/2 years with sandy blond hair and intense brown eyes. I didn't know anything about his background at the time. My first inkling that he would be an interesting child to work with occurred when I had to discipline him for a mild infraction, maybe pushing another kid, or something like that. He looked at me, gave me the finger with both hands, and said "F u c k you, b i t c h! I don't have to listen to you!" Then he ran off. I wasn't sure exactly how to respond. In more than six years of working with some pretty difficult kids (children who'd watched their mothers engage in prostitution, watched their fathers get shot in the face, and so on), I'd never gotten a response quite like that. I followed him, and when I caught up with him, he stood and faced me, giving me a look pretty much like the one Nemo gave gave his dad right before Nemo touched the boat. I calmly said, "Language like that is inappropriate. Don't use it around me." Then I walked away. This all occurred close to two years ago at the mother-and-child drug rehabilitation program where I work in Oakland CA. As I write, he has left the program, and is approaching his eighth birthday. But he's still in my life. Soon after the first foul language incident, I consulted with his mother to find out more about his background. According to his mother, Roger had been about six-months-old when his estranged schizophrenic father entered the house and tried to murder Roger's mother, his two older sisters, and him. Somehow, the police arrived in time to prevent more than minor injury to the intended victims, and the father was arrested. He is now serving time at a State Hospital. According to Roger's mother, Roger knew about the attempted murders from things his two older sisters had told him. For several years, Roger WAS allowed to speak with his father, by phone, in the mental hospital. I believe he also had some supervised visits before coming to my place of work. Visits were terminated if the father started "talking crazy," his schizophrenic rambling apparently having to do with Jesus Christ (with whom he identified) and the Devil (who makes people do bad things). Roger's mother served time with us for a white collar crime. As I got to know Roger, I learned several things. Most obvious was that his cognitive functioning was extremely high. He could count beyond 100 at five, and knew his letters. He was also very articulate, and expressed himself well verbally. His motor development was kind of funny, for lack of a better word. His fine motor was good: he could write his name and a few words, do 24-piece puzzles with little problem (though his response to frustration was poor), and even type with me on my computer. But his gross motor wasn't so great. His run was goofy as heck, and his catching and throwing weren't so hot. I learned from his mother that he'd weighed less than four pounds at birth, and that he hadn't walked until almost two years of age. I also quickly leaned that he could be extremely violent when agitated. One evening in group, which involves children from 3- through 8-years of age, he got frustrated about something, and proceeded to walk up to 4-year-old Melissa, one of my best kids, and punch her in the face. As I mentioned, Roger also had an unusually foul mouth for a child his age. When he was angry at a child or teacher, he would call him or her “b-tch,” “f-cker.” and occasionally “n-gger” (regardless of their race). He physically attacked each of his teachers (both at my place of work and at school) at least once. He was sent home from school several times for fighting with other children, and for calling his kindergarten teacher a “b-tch” and a “f-cker.” Several times, I was called upon to walk Roger home from school. When I first started working intensely with Roger, my focus was on being something of a blank slate for him. I treated him pretty much as I treated the other children. When he would “go off,” I was sometimes called on to physically restrain him (not difficult, as he came into the program weighing 42 pounds), but I never got angry with him. When I would restrain him, Roger would unleash his typical barrage of foul language and would sometime try to bite me or spit on me. Eventually, he would calm down in my arms, and we would wind up talking about what had made him angry. There have been some children at my place of work that I initially did not like. Usually it was because they were not empathic toward other children in the program. Roger was not among those children. There was something about his explosions of rage that endeared me to him, if that makes any sense. It was as if he was saying, "I have seen things children my age are not supposed to see. Please love me." Roger’s mother reported that I frustrated her child because he could not make me angry. When he was not acting out, Roger was always extremely engaging and intelligent. He asked me a lot of questions about what I do when I’m not at the program, and I told him about teaching college, horseback riding, music, and softball. Together, we worked on arithmetic and spelling, and often just sat around talking. I noticed that one-on-one, Roger was an angel. Over time, I noticed that he was often “in control” when the overall arousal level was low in a room, but would act out when he saw others arguing, or if the noise level got too high. An argument involving someone he cared about was especially troublesome for him. Roger's response was generally to attack one of the participants. It was when he was frustrated that he would randomly walk up to another child and punch him or her in the face. Fortunately, he was not particularly strong, and nobody was ever seriously injured. Further discussions with Roger’s mother, and an examination of a “genogram” done by a psychology intern at my place of work, confirmed the extent of dysfunction in Roger's family system. Not only was his father in a State Hospital, but another male relative had been murdered. His father had regularly beaten his mother before his schizophrenic break, and Roger had heard about this from his older sisters (and probably his mother, though she doesn’t admit it). Sexual abuse had also occurred in his extended family. Virtually all of his relatives have suffered either from depression, alcoholism, or both. His non-biological uncle, another male role model, may have allowed Roger to watch inappropriate movies, and regularly beat his aunt, his mother’s sister. At one point, once we had become bonded, Roger asked me, “Colin, how often do you beat up your girlfriend?” How often do you beat up your girlfriend? I responded in the concrete: "Roger, my daddy taught me never to hit women. I never beat up my girlfriend." It was certainly among the strangest questions I've ever been asked by the kids I work with, and it gave me some serious insight into what is life had been like, and what his assumptions about relationships were. Along with his violent behavior, I gradually came to notice that Roger also engaged in a lot of self-talk that was similar to what I'd seen in other children, particularly those who had been abused, either sexually or physically. He would say things like “I’m so stupid,” ”I’m so ugly” and “I wish I were dead.” I didn’t attempt to refute his self-talk, though I often spontaneously commented on how smart or handsome he was. I wanted to let him vent. A game Roger and I played was also revealing. I would let him be “boss” and I would be one of his employees. As soon as he was boss, he would start verbally abusing me, telling me that my work was inadequate. Then he fired me. Using my phone (which wasn’t hooked up at the time), he also “fired” J.R. and Jay, the only other two male workers at my place of work. Finally, he decided that firing me wasn’t enough, so he had me arrested, and eventually killed me with three gun shot wounds to the head. At this point he seemed a bit remorseful, and said, “You’re not going down there; you’re going to heaven.” Then he changed his mind and said I wasn’t really dead. He even re-hired me and J.R., though Jay remained unemployed. I realized that in addition to acting out some of the violence he’d experienced his life, he was processing, through his dramatic play, his feelings toward the men in his life. He was also processing some of his concern about heaven and hell, which comes both from his schizophrenic father’s rambling, and a maternal grandmother, who, I was told, warned him that naughty children go to hell. We played this game about three times (alone in my office). When he asked to play a fourth time, I said, “Roger, it hurts my feelings that you yell at me so much when I work for you. Let’s play something else.” He said “I won’t be a mean boss any more,” but we moved on to another game. Although he had fired me and murdered me within the course of five minutes, Rogers overall behavior was improving during this time. I had been doing a lot of “thinking out loud” around him when conflict situations arose. He had already picked up several of my mannerisms, so my hope was that he would pick up some of my problem-solving strategies around conflict. I was also simply giving him strokes when I noticed him resisting the temptation to attack someone. Many of the children, knowing that Roger tended to “go off,” would often bait him into acting out. Actually, this behavior parallels the behavior of the mothers at my place of work. Often, they deflect attention away from themselves by getting others to act out. When Roger was tested at a local mental health facility, I had to laugh. They scored his IQ at 85, and recommended he attend a “special school.” While I agreed that his angry outbursts made regular school difficult for him, the assessment of his IQ was a joke. The written report claimed he could not add, subtract or do story problems in his head (can most kindergartners?), but by the time of his testing, I knew he was able to handle basic addition and subtraction, even when worded as a story problem, with ease. I don’t know if he clammed up during the testing interview, or if he just decided to dupe the testers. He told me that he was tired of adults asking him questions. I would guess his IQ to be about 125. Roger’s mother was supportive of Roger. But she sometimes behaved as if she expected him to act out, which may have led to a self-fulfilling prophecy. One Spring evening, we were watching a kids movie in the TV room. Four-year-old Melissa, the child Roger sometimes played with, and sometimes hit when he was angry, was snuggled up at my right side. Roger took the space to my left. There were several other children in the room. We watched the entire movie without incident. Melissa and Roger engaged in some casual conversation, but there were no arguments. Several times during the movie, Roger’s mother poked her head in and asked, “Are you OK, Roger? Are you sure you’re OK?” Roger just said, “I’m fine,” and continued to watch the movie. She often held him back from my evening group, expecting him to “go off.” When he did participate, he usually did just fine, though the exceptions were loud. It was in the late Spring, if I recall correctly, that an incident occurred that is among the strangest I have experienced at my place of work in Oakland. Roger had been sent, with his mother, to a local hospital to consult with a doctor about the possibility of anti-depressant medications for the child. That evening I learned that Roger had been "5150ed." They had taken him in an ambulance to a mental hospital for Children in a nearby community. Apparently something in his documentation about “wanting to burn down this place” and one of his sudden fits of anger were sufficient to justify this action. We, the staff who had worked with him, saw it as “defensive medical practice.” The staff at the hospital he had been taken to didn’t want to be held legally accountable if something did happen involving the child, so they essentially had him “committed.” I believe the minimal observation period is three days, and I’ll never forget the strange feeling of walking across San Pablo Avenue to my truck with two stuffed animals and three 24-piece puzzles in hand, on my way to see him with his mother. He was heavily sedated when I got there, but he recognized me immediately, gave me hug, and he and I sat and did a 24-piece puzzles while his mom talked with the doctors. I believe he was there for a total of five days, and I must have visited him three times. When he was released, he was prescribed anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medications. For the first few weeks back at the facility, he was a shadow of his former self. He was tired all the time, and though he acted out less, he also had less of the passionate curiosity that I enjoyed so much. Gradually, though, as his body adjusted to the medications, his personality returned. Ultimately, he was like a slightly mellower version of the Roger we had known. One Summer evening—I forget if it was June or July 2003--Roger’s mother gave the OK for me to take the child to one of my City League softball games in Walnut Creek CA. I play with a bunch of lawyers who, while competitive, are not given to the use of foul language or abusive behavior toward their families. I thought it would be a good thing for him to see. It (taking a child away from the program by myself for that length of time) was also something I’d never done before, and I had my worries. What if the child acted out while I was on the field? What if he became scared 30 miles from the safety of his mother's arms? The child and I were extremely tightly bonded by this time, but I was not sure what would happen. As it turned out, it was a wonderful evening, one he and I will probably both always remember. He watched most of the game through the fence, and when he was not watching, he played with an adult female friend of mine and her (then) 10-year-old daughter. At one point, a player from the other team turned toward Roger and said, “Your daddy hits the ball hard!” It was a line he has repeated with pride many times since. Over the next several months, Roger’s behavior continued to improve. In the Fall, he was sent to a local school for children with special needs. Stopping in Rockridge for coffee became one of our rituals when I picked him up from school in the program van. Of course, he liked it better when the van was unavailable and I had to use my pick-up truck to come and get him. Pick-up trucks are cool to 6-year-old boys. His favorite Radio Disney song was Hamster Dance. When he left the program in November 2003, I was worried, because it wasn't clear where his mother would be settling. As it turned out she paroled to a nearby community to the North, and Roger was sent to stay with his maternal grandmother in another town to the South. When I spoke to the grandmother about a month after Roger had left the program, she informed me that the child was still with her, and that he was being enrolled in a nearby school for troubled children. He was still acting out a lot, she said, though he was better off than he had been. I had to decide whether to let things go, or whether to visit him, as he had requested before he left. Again, I decided to take a chance. In February of 2004, I arranged to bring Roger up for a weekend with me, my female friend, and her daughter. It turned out really well. We spent most of the weekend riding horses, playing catch, and watching movies at my friend's house. He threw one brief tantrum when I had put my horse away and told him we couldn’t ride again until the next day. But the tantrum was over within five minutes, and we proceeded to go to my house and grab a snack. For some reason, just being in my kitchen washing dishes together and talking was one of my favorite memories from that weekend. I brought him up here one other weekend, and that one went even better than the previous one. Riding horses. Throwing a softball around. Cooking pea soup together and washing dishes. No tantrums; no incidences of acting out at all. So now, having fulfilled my promise to let him ride my horse, and having shown him a little of how “normal” (read: non-violent) people (and men in particular) live, I can “let go” and hope the best for him. I’ve spoken to him several times on the phone, but I don’t know if I’ll see him again. He and his mother and two sisters are hoping to move to a Southern state with a man she intends to marry. I'm not sure how to end this piece, but a picture Roger drew during my evening group shortly before he left our program is telling. It was picture of a house that seemed patched together. When I asked him to "tell me about the picture," a standard child therapist thing to say, he described an old abandoned house, one that had been left alone, with nobody to care for it. But he then proceeded, with extreme concentration, to add a very small smiling child inside the house, and Santa coming down the chimney. He's a kid I'll never forget.