Hands-On Approach

Catching up from The Week That Was. It was a very strange week, with an emotional roller coaster-ish ride interspersed with odd feelings of dread, as if something bad is about to happen. I’ll try to keep my words as briefly as I’m able because my shoulder is aggravated from a switch in physical therapy from passive resistance to more structured strength training. I need it, desperately. It amazes me how weak both shoulders are despite the p.t. for the right one (on which I had rotator cuff surgery), and home exercises for both (something called “frozen shoulder” on both sides in addition to the injury on the right). Now, with only a few weeks of p.t. authorized, we really need to strengthen and further increase my range of motion. I have already had the therapy extended once, and feel pretty sure I’ll have another four to six weeks added. I’m okay with that as long as I can keep having morning appointments on the days I don’t have other morning stuff going on.

Oh, that other stuff, that IOP program in which I’m participating, which meets three mornings per week from 9 a.m. until noon. The letter I wrote (and which I pasted into my last entry) seems to have rattled cages, shaken trees, etc. What started out as me venting to my counselor, as well as asking to be able to leave the program due to it being a huge, disastrous mess, snowballed. While I was in session with my counselor she asked me if I would permit her to contact the head cheese at the place where the IOP is held. I said she could, and after playing phone tag for a bit she and Mr A talked at length and she was asked to FAX to him my letter. The doctor overseeing the facilitators of the IOP programs… the big boss… was out of town but was to be back last Monday, at which time he and the big cheese would have a tete-a-tete. That occurred, and I could tell on Tuesday that there had been changes instituted. We had a substitute facilitator that day and she had my group whipped into shape. Amazing! She doesn’t really do IOP stuff, but has been doing art therapy groups for a long, long time. She had no problem keeping the guys in line, even following the rules that, unless approved in advance, no one over fifteen minutes late would be allowed to participate, nor would get credit for the day. Precisely at 9:15 she got up and locked the door. She took absolutely zero shit from anybody, and the few guys that tried a little bit of stuff in the beginning (you know, like we used to do in school when we had a substitute teacher) were quickly put into their places. For the first time in well over a month I actually got quite a lot of knowledge from the morning. (K, the temporary facilitator, didn’t put up with the standard problem of most guys coming back from the ten- to fifteen-minute breaks really late… she went outside to where they were all smoking and herded them back inside!)

I didn’t go to class on Wednesday for various reasons. I was excused, officially, because I fibbed about having problems with my car. Now I’m afraid, since I put it out there, that problems will start happening for real. Anyway, I was in a really bad place, mentally, that day and had no intention of being around other people. I really should not and could not have been without something bad happening. I had that terrible feeling that something awful was going to happen and I wanted to stay in and hide for the day. Besides, I was exhausted from lack of sleep and knew I was starting to get to the point where I’d crash and burn for a while. To me, that was more important. It turns out I didn’t miss much anyway for Wednesday. It was kind of a throwaway day, with one of the sections being in the kitchen putting together some chi chi foo foo pizzas, meaning with ingredients that should never be on a pizza, etc. The last section of the morning was spent eating the creations and just sort of socializing. So I didn’t feel like I missed anything important anyway, and that I had made the correct decision in staying home.

On Thursday I had an appointment with my counselor, and we discussed more how my letter to the three of them at my clinic (her, my doctor and my psychiatrist, whom I call my “Help Curtis Get Off of Morphine” teammates) was sent to the bosses at the place I go to for the IOP, and how she had been assured and was instructed to let me know that changes would most definitely be made. After seeing my counselor I had to go to the place to sign some new financial paperwork in order to still qualify as “indigent” and not have to pay for the IOP sessions. I’m glad the financial person had been keeping me in mind because she knew that the fund being used to pay for my IOP treatment was out of money as of the end of this month; so she wanted the new paperwork in order for my “tuition” to be taken from a totally different fund. She has saved me tons of money by doing this; I would have had to pay for each IOP session otherwise, to a tune of something like $45 per week. I don’t have that at all, of course. So I’m grateful to Mary for her help with the financial part.

Even though I still didn’t sleep well, I was ready to return to the IOP group on Friday morning. After the good experience with the sub facilitator on Tuesday, I had high hopes for how Friday would go. But then I became a little concerned when I found out that the facilitator for the day was our usual Friday woman, whom I like but in the past has shown herself to be intimidated by the more aggressive guys and has let everything slide as much as possible. She had been in charge for the past couple of weeks due to the regular main guy being out due to his mother’s passing. I really like her a lot (and she seems to think I’m he shit… but how could she not? *grin*). I was just curious as to how she was going to handle a Friday, which is typically one of the worst-controlled days.

Well, listen… I was so impressed with MV on Friday! There was none of the intimidated feeling coming from her. She was steeled, ready for battle but more importantly being proactive so that said battle would not occur in the first place. The group was noticeably smaller. It turns out that a few of the guys have been moved out of the IOP group into different settings that might be more beneficial to them as well as being away from, thus less disruptive, to the group I’m in. When MV told us what was going on, why some of the guys weren’t with us anymore, I could have jumped up and kissed her whole face! That, I’m pretty sure, would have been most inappropriate and would most likely have ended with my termination from the program. But still, you get he idea about how pleased I was. MV, too, kept the guys to the schedule, allowing for very little “side talking” and all of the other stuff that usually goes on. We worked on an extension of Tuesday’s session about the differences between passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive and assertive behaviors. And we dealt with a new topic which slips my mind at the moment because I’m thinking about the last section of the morning where we read a small, short poem and sort of analyzed it, followed by us writing something of our own. It was a specific assignment, and we had about a half-hour to write, after which we could read ours to the group and get feedback if we w

anted. The Friday mornings often produce groans because of the poetry thing. I’m not big into poetry at all, often not understand it… especially when I hear, “What was the author really trying to say by using these words? What is the bigger, deeper meaning from the symbolism?” Huh? But I have a lot of respect for MV and have gotten some good stuff from the poems of the past, so I asked her if I could share with her a poem that I wrote long ago so that I could get her feedback. It’s a poem I’ve shared with OD before, a long while ago, that I wrote when I was five months into when I’d been told I had just six months to live. She read it when I gave it to her a few weeks ago and gave me really good feedback. She even asked me for my permission to maybe use it in the group at some future date, maybe after I’m no longer in the class. That made me feel really good, and so I told her I would give her permission to use it for that purpose.

Anyway, long story too long, I left group on Friday impressed with the changes. MV had pulled me aside to expound on the conversation she and I had had over the phone. I explained to her that my intention with the letter was not to get anyone into any kind of trouble. I just wanted out of a situation that wasn’t working for me anymore. I told her how it had snowballed when I brought on board my counselor, and how it all fell into her lap, basically, since she was the acting IOP leader. She surprised me by thanking me for handling things the way I did and for allowing my counselor to talk to the big bosses. She told me that my letter was received by everyone in the way in which it was intended… not as a finger-pointing, bitchy disgruntled person; but, rather, as someone who saw major flaws with something that desperately needed those flaws pointed out to higher-ups in order for something to be done about it. I told her that, for me personally, the last couple of sessions I’d been a part of were amazing, just like when I first started… that I had learned so much and gotten out of it so much more in one week than I had in the previous month, month and a half combined. She told me that it was due to my initiative that the program would be permanently improved, that the changes made in my particular group would become part of how things in IOP there are handled from now on. Wow! She told me that I had made a huge difference, and not just for me but for future IOP members… that it is going to be a much more effective program because I spoke up. I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel about things!

Okay, the morning over I had an hour and a half to kill before p.t. I knew if I went home I’d not leave again, so I had taken my book as well as an apple and some crackers for lunch. I went to one of the town parks but was immediately accosted by people wanting either cigs or money. So I left and went to the library parking lot, reading and eating until time to go to p.t. I definitely wanted to go on Friday because it was the last day of the p.t.a. with whom I’ve worked the most. Yes, yes, I’ve crushed on her the entire time, not to mention how great her therapy has been for my shoulder. She’s tall (at 5″11″, just a tad shorter than my ex-fiance’…. I like ’em like that!); blond/green; smart; funny; fit. So yes, I’m sad to see her go but love how she’s still finding herself, etc. I was introduced to my new therapist, who is, physically, the exact opposite: very short; a bit on the larger side; split-end infested mousey brown hair; a distracting, hairy mole close to her nose… but man, she had me laughing my ass off while she worked my body to filth! She knows her stuff and I really like her a lot, too. I’m not crushing on her (yet) in any way except how great she is at her job.

All in all, not a bad week, really, now that I think about it. Yesterday and so far today I still have that feeling that something bad is going to happen. But I could be giving myself anxiety just ‘cuz that seems to be what I do to myself. The weekend has been really okay so far, with yesterday my finally getting some okay sleep. Of course, I shot myself in the foot, so to speak, since sleeping most of the day; I didn’t sleep hardly at all overnight. I’m starting to tire now so I’ll (finally) close this entry.

I hope the coming week is as productive and satisfying as last week. It’s nice to feel like and be told that I’ve made a difference not just in the immediate, but also for the future. I guess I’m not a total waste of a human being after all, huh?