A Girl Named Sue

Today Sue is in my thoughts ... wonder where she is now ... wonder if she is now?

Sue really wasn't a girl but a middle-aged woman who received SSI due to her chronic mental illness and developmental difficulties. Or, as Sue herself said in not so eloquent but oh so clear non pc speak, "I get a check every month because I'm crazy and slow."

What Sue didn't say was that she was also an alcoholic. And the alcoholism is what brought her into my life. Sue lived in rent-controlled government housing that was actually not so bad. She also got food stamps to help with her groceries and Medicaid covered all her medications and other medical bills. (Well, most medical bills, but we'll get to that later.)

In short, Sue's SSI and other government benefits were more than enough to adequately sustain her. Only problem was, when Sue got her check on the 3rd of each month, she immediately got rip-roaring drunk and all her money would be gone in a day or two.

That's where my agency and I came in. To save Sue from getting kicked out onto the streets, my agency became her SSI payee and I became the caseworker who paid her bills. It was not a relationship made in heaven. Far from being grateful that we had "saved" her, Sue resented every bit of budgeting.

"Why can't I have a hundred more dollars to spend at the grocery store (clothing store, furniture store)? I bet you eat steak (buy new clothes, have a nice sofa, watch a big screen tv)."

"Well, no Sue, actually I don't. I get most of my clothes and furniture at thrift stores, and our television set is smaller than yours. But that's really beside the point, the point is that you need that money to pay your electricity bill."

"But you and I could go to the church and get them to pay my electricity bill."

"We probably could do that, Sue, but that would not be the right thing to do because you have the money to pay your electricity bill."

Day after day, week after week, month after month, we went round and round and round. The first part of the month was generally the worst. She'd call relentlessly with reason after reason that she needed extra money. God, how I hated dealing with her, particularly at first, particularly before I knew her story.

She was dirty and smelly with bad breath; long, stringy, oily hair; and sore spots where she'd picked at her skin. And she always wanted to hug me! No matter how much we argued or how frustrated we got with each other, when it was time for me to leave, she always wanted that hug. And that's one thing I can look back on with no regrets; I always hugged her and I never flinched, at least not on the outside.

Little by little as I drove her to one place or the other, I came to know bits and pieces of Sue's story. I learned that she'd grown up in a military family and that her father had been abusive. Sue didn't call it abusive; I did. One day Sue told me how she had struggled with bed-wetting as a child and how angry her enuresis had made her father, so angry that he would rub her face in the urine-soaked bed linens each morning. That day I was the one who made sure to get a hug before I left.

But, although we found bonding moments here and there (she loved my Merle Haggard tapes), Sue was really not a very sympathetic character. She dispassionately related to me that she had grown up and married a military man, that they'd had five children and that her parental rights had been terminated on all of them. She had no idea what had become of her children after that, and she couldn't remember their names or their birthdates.

The last July 4th that I worked with Sue, she called 911 to come pick her up because, she said, her hip was hurting her horribly due to an old injury from an automobile crash. Sue then went and stood out on the sidewalk in front of her apartment and waited for the ambulance. They delivered her to the hospital where it was ascertained that she was merely trying to get pain meds. The ambulance drivers refused to carry her home, so she walked.

The ambulance bill of over $300 came the first of the next month. Because it had not been a true emergency, Medicaid refused to pay the bill. Sue did not want to pay it out of her money; she wanted the county to cover it. We went round and round with my finally informing her that she would pay the ambulance charges; we would send the hospital $5 each month until the bill was paid.
Furthermore, I said (probably pretty sharply) "Do not call for an ambulance again unless it is a true emergency."

A few months later, Sue and her boyfriend (who also got a monthly check, rent-controlled apartment, food stamps, Medicaid) were sitting outside the apartments drinking quarts of beer and enjoying the beautiful day. Sue said something that made her boyfriend angry and he responded by backhanding her across the forehead with his half-full quart of beer. As the resultant gash spewed blood, Sue ran inside to call me. I called 911 and told her I would meet her at the emergency room.

After the police reports and the stitches, and before I left her apartment that evening, I made sure to let Sue know that it was perfectly acceptable, even preferable, for her to call an ambulance in an emergency situation. "You know," I said, "like if you're bleeding a lot or if you have a broken bone."

A few weeks later Sue's nose started bleeding. She called from the ambulance to let me know.

Sunday Morning Coming Down...

How did it get to be Sunday already? And why does that thought fill me with dread?

And where did that girl go? I barely remember her. The one with the bright eyes and even brighter smile...the one whose clients kept telling her, "You're different from the others; you really care."

They were right. I did really care. I always really, really cared.

I still do care, but caring is often painful, and the older I get and the more nothing changes, the more I feel like an old burnt out clunker stuck in mud up to my axle and spinning my wheels.

I know what other professionals say. Where are your boundaries? These things shouldn't bother you so much. If you kept an appropriate distance, you'd be okay.

And I agree, but I have to ask, "Without becoming a zombie, how does one NOT care?"

Cynics and Zombies

The words and stories keep tumbling out, and perhaps that's a good thing...perhaps once they're down in black and white my heavy, hateful mood will begin to lift.

When did I become one of the old, disillusioned ones? Throughout my career,I've worked alongside them~teachers, caseworkers, therapists in colleges, hospitals, jails and mental health centers. Wherever I worked, I saw them, knew them, laughed with them, cried with them, loved them, and ran from becoming them.

Different but similar, the disillusioned ones share two extremely important characteristics. They've given up on finding meaning and/or purpose in their work but they are determined to hang on two years, five years, ten years until their retirement benefits kick in.

The surrender tends to take two main forms. The most blatant is the bitter cynic who proclaims loud and long about what a waste it all is and how all the students, clients, patients, (fill in noun here) are worthless, shiftless no-good villains determined to rob us all blind and dance on our graves. Note: Cynics NEVER admit to being cynics. If called out about their cynicism, their response is inevitablyI'm not a cynic; I'm a realist.

The second group I call the "Zoloft Zombies". They've turned their anger and sorrow inward. They don't rant and rave, but they're not entirely engaged either. Perhaps the best word for the zombies is "resigned". This is the way it is, this is my lot in life for 732 more days and then I can retire and not think about this place anymore.

Sounds sad but not so harmful to anyone but themselves, right? WRONG! In their own way, the zombies are even more dangerous than the cynics. The cynics are out in the open and ready to rant and rumble. The zombies are just biding their time and trying not to ruffle any feathers or make any waves before they can make their escape.

The cynics may say that things and people will never change, but, by God, if they see a way to make a change for the better, they'll make it happen. The zombies hate change. It makes them uncomfortable. It interferes with their routines and makes them have to think.

The zombie motto is, "But that's the way we've always done it."

So, what to do now? And where am I now? And, most importantly, WHO am I now?

One thing I've learned in my many years is if I'm unsure what to do next, the best course of action is to do nothing rash or impulsive and just keep on keepin' on until a plan presents itself.

Where am I? The geography may be different, but the cast of characters is amazingly similar. Wow!!! There's got to be a lesson here if I can just manage to open my eyes and heart and figure it out.

WHO am I now? Well, I'm definitely not a zombie (thank you, Jesus). Am I a cynic? Not a full-blown one yet, but it's definitely creeping closer. Guess it's time to look a little deeper...

Haunted by Heather

Tonight, it is Heather's story that sits on my heart. Heather is (please forgive me, Hag) "turning forty-one in prison, facing life without parole." The difference in Heather's life and Merle's song, however, is that Heather's mama didn't "try to steer her right." Thirty years ago, Heather's mama had the face of an angel. ("A little baby doll," one old time vice detective tells me.) Unfortunately, Mama also had a nasty heroine habit that kept her away from her babies and out on the streets searching for a trick to finance her next treat.

So the good folks at Human Services came and rescued Heather and her siblings and sent them to live with foster parents who would raise them right. Heather tells me she doesn't really remember much about those places except that she missed her family desperately and, "Oh, yeah, my first foster daddy taught me how to French kiss." She was seven, or maybe six. One cool thing about Heather is that she relates this information without any trace of self-pity.

Heather and her siblings were shuffled back and forth for the next few years. They'd go to this or that foster home, then their mama would get clean for awhile and they'd go back to live with her. Finally, Mama's rights were terminated. Heather and a couple of her older brothers were farmed out to relatives. Her two younger sisters got adopted. Heather went to live with a distant relative, a right good Christian woman who was unable to bear children of her own.

Heather reports that they were good to her and loved her like their own. She had her own room and pretty clothes, breakfast every morning, supper every night, and church every time the doors were opened. There was only one problem; she missed her mama. And when her new parents told her what an awful woman her mama was, it didn't make Heather hate her. If anything, it made her love and miss her mama more. When she was barely old enough to do so, Heather returned to her mama. It's one of the decisions she wonders about.

In the years between Heather's return to Mama and the intersecting of her life with mine, the story is a familiar one. Too much booze and drugs; too little work and education. Mama still works the streets when she can find someone who's got a few spare bucks and not such good eyesight; she quit looking like a babydoll years ago. Daddy was an alcoholic who got run down in the streets. Heather wryly reports that her last words to him, shouted out a car window as she rode by, were, "Get out of the road, you damned old drunk, before somebody runs you over."

Heather's life was a haze of drugs and alcohol; sometimes she had a home, sometimes she lived on the streets. Her two oldest brothers went to prison. Heather was in and out of jail on petty charges...public intoxication, failure to pay court costs, etc. She went to treatment a time or so, even had a year sober at one point. She got married, too, but they'd been split up for awhile when Heather came to jail the last time.

I met Heather a couple of days after that final incarceration. I knew she was coming off the sauce, so I stopped by to see her. And I will never forget the words she said to me, "I just keep seeing his face and thinking about his mama. I wonder if he had a mama?" I didn't realize what a rare sentiment Heather was expressing. Now I do. I never heard those words from another inmate.

I visited her almost every day. I took her a Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she began to share her story with me. I learned that she had gotten out of jail for some petty charge or another just a few days before she returned and I met her. I learned that for the past year she had consumed at least a gallon of vodka every day. I learned that one of her older brothers had recently returned from prison and that the two of them had joined a few friends to consume a bottle or two in the alley. I learned that a man had been killed and that she and her brother had been charged with murder.

As the weeks progressed, I continued to visit her. I listened as she grappled with what her life had become and struggled with guilt and fear, justice and retribution. I looked into her eyes when she returned from court the first day his family was there; the day she learned that he did indeed have a mama. I heard the anguish in her voice when she carefully explained to me that of course her mama couldn't come to court or come to visit her because, "she has some outstanding warrants."

Together, Heather and I tried to salvage some meaning from this senseless, horrific incident. That first morning she kept saying, "It's so surreal; it's just all so surreal." We discussed religion and spirituality and AA, and we talked about seemingly simple but gut-wrenching questions of ethics and morality. Which is more important, loyalty or truth?

I wish I could say that together we discovered some easy answers. We did not. Through the years I have learned again and again that there are no easy answers.

Gifts for the Needy

It was approaching dusk on Christmas Eve. I was cold and wet and hungry and tired, and I was on my way to deliver presents to one last needy family.

During the preceeding month, I had begged and pleaded with numerous store owners, businessmen, churches and other philanthropists in an effort to ensure that no child on my caseload would go without presents this Christmas. My efforts, in addition to the efforts of the agency had paid off in spades, and I had spent the day delivering the goods.

It really had not gone as I'd expected. To be fair, I suppose I had envisioned myself to be some sort of SaintSantaSocialWorker nobly delivering Christmas cheer to the eternally grateful poor and downtrodden. I was so mistaken!!!

From trailer to shack to shack to trailer my day had consisted of delivering even more loot to place beside Christmas trees. Time after time I was unable to place the presents under the tree because that area was already filled to overflowing, so I placed the gifts with the surrounding presents that were stacked to the ceiling. No one offered to help me carry in the presents and no one said thank you.

Now lest you jump to conclusions, let me tell hasten to say that these were no shabby presents I was delivering. Not only were none of them broken or even slightly used, all were brand new and many were quite pricey. Included in the gifts for each little girl was a Barbie Dream House; all little boys got new bicycles.

As I drove and wearily mused about the day, I told myself that surely this last family would be different, surely this struggling single mom would appreciate the shiny new bike I was bringing for her to give her young son.

And as I rounded the block, I thought about my daughter. What a joy she was and how I wished our living room were crowded with Christmas presents piled to the ceiling! For I, too, was a struggling single mother. Even purchasing a Christmas tree had required much penny pinching and budget juggling. "Ah, well, at least we have each other," I told myself.

I pulled into the ragged trailer park, jumped from my equally ragged car, and began to pull the bike from my trunk just as the rain began. "Thank God this is the last one," I thought. She opened her front door, and I triumphantly held up the gleaming red bicycle. Her face fell.

"I thought you were bringing him a blue one."

Beginning the Journey

I sit here tonight thinking about my work, my career, my calling, and I wonder what became of my enthusiasm. I remember the many burnt out workers who populate my past, the ones I was determined not to become. And I wonder what happened...

As a young woman, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to do something meaningful, something that would make this world a better place. With that in mind, I completed graduate school, certifications and licensures that enabled me to work as a teacher, social services case manager and therapist. I knew my path would not include significant monetary rewards, but I believed that a meaningful life is its own reward.

Early in my career, an older worker said to me, "What you give to people is between you and God; what they do with what you give them is between them and God." That used to give me comfort; I question it now. In fact I now question everything about my life's work.

This blog is an effort to explore my questions fully. I will write about who I am, where I've been, what I've learned and what I'm still trying to figure out. I will include stories of the people and places of my life; the ones who touched my heart and the ones who stepped on my toes.

They say it's about the journey not the destination. Tonight I think that's a very good thing because I have absolutely no idea where this journey will take me. I just know that I must take it or succumb to the creeping cynicism that threatens to overwhelm not only my work but my life as well.