A long blog in which I digress a lot
Maybe I'm turning into my father after all. I distinctly remember a conversation we had when I was getting my Bachelor's deg. at a relatively left leaning university. "Some day, you'll see the world is not how you think it is," my wise father told me. "There are people who don't work hard and don't give back to society and have bad intentions, etc etc"-and on and on, ad nauseum ad infinitum. I would answer with my opinions for a while (I'm pretty full of them) but if I'm opinionated, my dad takes the cake.
After a few years in medical social work, I came to the conclusion that there are people who have bad intentions and who don't give back to society. There's an explanation for everything, I would have said, prior to my working experiences. But I wouldn't have yet worked with Mr. Q, an immigrant from South East Asia with a long and chequered history.
When he crossed my path, my initial reaction was horror. Not because I knew his story but because I didn't know it. He was 76 years old, living on the street. A small, well-groomed Asian gentleman on the streets of a major US city. Yikes. This is a walking example of how a wealthy country like ours doesn't take care of its own, I thought in anger. Why is there no place for him to go?
His daughter would not return our calls. When I finally got her to talk to me, she explained why he had been cut off from the rest of his family. He had raped and molested at least two women in their family, one of them her, and was a brutal wife abuser. Mr Q's daughter told me the family had hidden his wife's current whereabouts from him, because his previous attempts to kill her had only been twarted by luck. Knowing that, it all made sense. But... how? And what to do when a 76 year old man has, quite literally, nowhere to go.
Someone could certainly theorize that he has a mental illness. I know there are loads of behavior theories behind domestic violence and there is a need to (attempt to) work with the abuser, even though the rate of recidivism is around 90%. But social work is a task-oriented job. Studies and theories are fine, but explaining problem behaviors did not always direct me to what to do. Knowing that this man himself was likely the victim of all kinds of abuse didn't solve the dilemna of where to house him. Oh, and the deadline for his release from the hospital would be about... 5 minutes after admission. The hospital staff wanted me to find him a home since he was medically compromised. They were incensed that this "poor man" was all on his own with no one to guide him.
I had nowhere to put him. There aren't many homes for elderly sex offenders (yes, he was supposed to be registered, but he had neglected to do that for years). Compounding the problem was the fact that Mr.Q was quite selective about what would be an acceptable abode for him. He wanted a home where he would have his own room, be able to pay just a few hundred dollars in rent and have ethnically appropriate foods for every meal. He was the classic abuser. And this is where I realized that I had pieces of racism entrenched in my brain.
Initially, I had looked at Mr. Q and seen a sweet little man. He was an immigrant who had probably put in hard years of manual labor, raised a family and was now just trying to make it in the world, for all I knew. He was 5'2", 76 years old and dealing with complications from congestive heart failure. Rapists aren't. Abusers certainly aren't. He would approach me first thing after his hospital shower and say, "Have a house for me?" with a strong Asian accent and a sweet smile. Sexual predators don't do that.
This rapist, abuser and predator did.
And he did because he was walking around with a criminal mind in his skull. The rest of the hospital staff never believed that until he tried to attack a nurses aide with a butter knife when she interrupted his lunch. The head doctor didn't believe that until he left the hospital against medical advice because his dinner wasn't hot enough and he didn't like his roommate. But I had tried to work with this man with all the assumptions of who he was from my perspective and not from reality.
Was he living "off the system"? He wouldn't claim his social security check because he had to have an address and he didn't want to register. He wouldn't claim his Medicare benefits for the same reason. He had no patience with any system that wouldn't just give him what he wanted outright, so he was involved in no housing programs, senior meal programs or any number of the wealth of programs that would be available to him. Why? Because in the end, even though he didn't look like a "bad guy", he was. Was he rotten to the core with no reason? We'll never know. But he was unwilling or unable to make any personal changes or take any personal responsibility for poor choices he had made entirely on his own.
So you were right, Dad. There was a time in my life when I wouldn't have believed it. There was a time in my life when I would have made the assumption that this man had been done wrong and therefore should be treated as the victim that he was. But at what point does he have to take responsibility and stop creating other victims? At what point do I hold him responsible as a human being who can hurt others?
I have no idea where this man is living now, and I don't know if his wife is still taking care of herself and not allowing him to victimize her any longer. I guess my point is that I need to stop shutting my brain off to the concept that dangerous doesn't always look dangerous. Assumptions are always dangerous.
After a few years in medical social work, I came to the conclusion that there are people who have bad intentions and who don't give back to society. There's an explanation for everything, I would have said, prior to my working experiences. But I wouldn't have yet worked with Mr. Q, an immigrant from South East Asia with a long and chequered history.
When he crossed my path, my initial reaction was horror. Not because I knew his story but because I didn't know it. He was 76 years old, living on the street. A small, well-groomed Asian gentleman on the streets of a major US city. Yikes. This is a walking example of how a wealthy country like ours doesn't take care of its own, I thought in anger. Why is there no place for him to go?
His daughter would not return our calls. When I finally got her to talk to me, she explained why he had been cut off from the rest of his family. He had raped and molested at least two women in their family, one of them her, and was a brutal wife abuser. Mr Q's daughter told me the family had hidden his wife's current whereabouts from him, because his previous attempts to kill her had only been twarted by luck. Knowing that, it all made sense. But... how? And what to do when a 76 year old man has, quite literally, nowhere to go.
Someone could certainly theorize that he has a mental illness. I know there are loads of behavior theories behind domestic violence and there is a need to (attempt to) work with the abuser, even though the rate of recidivism is around 90%. But social work is a task-oriented job. Studies and theories are fine, but explaining problem behaviors did not always direct me to what to do. Knowing that this man himself was likely the victim of all kinds of abuse didn't solve the dilemna of where to house him. Oh, and the deadline for his release from the hospital would be about... 5 minutes after admission. The hospital staff wanted me to find him a home since he was medically compromised. They were incensed that this "poor man" was all on his own with no one to guide him.
I had nowhere to put him. There aren't many homes for elderly sex offenders (yes, he was supposed to be registered, but he had neglected to do that for years). Compounding the problem was the fact that Mr.Q was quite selective about what would be an acceptable abode for him. He wanted a home where he would have his own room, be able to pay just a few hundred dollars in rent and have ethnically appropriate foods for every meal. He was the classic abuser. And this is where I realized that I had pieces of racism entrenched in my brain.
Initially, I had looked at Mr. Q and seen a sweet little man. He was an immigrant who had probably put in hard years of manual labor, raised a family and was now just trying to make it in the world, for all I knew. He was 5'2", 76 years old and dealing with complications from congestive heart failure. Rapists aren't. Abusers certainly aren't. He would approach me first thing after his hospital shower and say, "Have a house for me?" with a strong Asian accent and a sweet smile. Sexual predators don't do that.
This rapist, abuser and predator did.
And he did because he was walking around with a criminal mind in his skull. The rest of the hospital staff never believed that until he tried to attack a nurses aide with a butter knife when she interrupted his lunch. The head doctor didn't believe that until he left the hospital against medical advice because his dinner wasn't hot enough and he didn't like his roommate. But I had tried to work with this man with all the assumptions of who he was from my perspective and not from reality.
Was he living "off the system"? He wouldn't claim his social security check because he had to have an address and he didn't want to register. He wouldn't claim his Medicare benefits for the same reason. He had no patience with any system that wouldn't just give him what he wanted outright, so he was involved in no housing programs, senior meal programs or any number of the wealth of programs that would be available to him. Why? Because in the end, even though he didn't look like a "bad guy", he was. Was he rotten to the core with no reason? We'll never know. But he was unwilling or unable to make any personal changes or take any personal responsibility for poor choices he had made entirely on his own.
So you were right, Dad. There was a time in my life when I wouldn't have believed it. There was a time in my life when I would have made the assumption that this man had been done wrong and therefore should be treated as the victim that he was. But at what point does he have to take responsibility and stop creating other victims? At what point do I hold him responsible as a human being who can hurt others?
I have no idea where this man is living now, and I don't know if his wife is still taking care of herself and not allowing him to victimize her any longer. I guess my point is that I need to stop shutting my brain off to the concept that dangerous doesn't always look dangerous. Assumptions are always dangerous.
posted by Left Coast Sister at 1:35 PM
1 Comments:
FWIW, I think this is a good post. Thank you.
Post a Comment
<< Home