Post by Admin on Aug 23, 2020 17:42:26 GMT
Eulogy on an Irish Schizophrenia
timdreby.com/eulogy-on-an-irish-schizophrenia/
I unlock the door to the institution’s finest office. A doctor’s name is inscribed on a linoleum slide that changes every few years. I press the darkened door smudge on the off-white paint job that dominates the unit. The door swings open. I invite Eugene’s cousin in.
Eugene’s cousin sits in the cushioned seat that matched the last dirty rug. The soot spattered on the outside of the window blocks the sun’s stream. She missed my eulogy. She depicts her challenges in finding the right freeway.
I had been up In the ER waiting room anxiously reviewing what I had to say about Eugene in front of the community. When I finally gave up on her, I had to rush back and make the memorial service happen. Somehow, I doubt it was an honest mistake to have missed the community event.
Eugene’s cousin announces has brought pictures and starts positioning them on the wobbly table.
I know that if I do my job, she will leave feeling just a bit of the guilt that I feel.
Eugene could have been given treatment that could have saved him. People do rehab and come back from strokes. The nursing home had reached out to the cousin repeatedly, I had been reassured. There had been no response.
“As usual,” I explain, scanning the pictures on the table, “many community members had listened to my eulogy understanding well the importance of acknowledging the passing.”
In reality many had strained to get a facial recognition of Eugene.
“As you know, Eugene is very quiet. Many were surprised and lifted to hear the complex details of his life and his miraculous turn around . . .
Eugene had spent years amidst the chronic, room 2, crowd. He’d talk to the therapist and answer stupid questions, but he was hard to really get to know.
As I continue to speak, I feel the strongest sense of grief. There has been staff turnaround due to the threat of closure amid the Trump era financial crisis that’s hit urban cities. The sense of sprawling tent encampments that surround us overwhelms me. It feels like Eugene and his legacy will close and be so easily forgotten.
***
When I first started on the unit, it was hard to reach anyone in room 2. The prescribed topics of illness management and functional skills were the only direction and support I was given to solve the complex phenomena of schizophrenia.
Company managers used to say that our clients would never get any better. I vehemently objected to that mentality, and I also was very worried about job security. As long as I wrote meaningful notes, I could survive.
The first time I went in there, one of Eugene’s peers had screamed, “BUZZARDS.” There was wild laughter, and some moaning. Amidst the lonely groaning and drool going on, I had a list of questions about recovery with which to work. I just didn’t know what to do except persist.
Over time, conversing with the three or four loud personalities in the group putting out disjointed content, I’d learn that the one who yelled, “BUZZARDS” thought he was an aristocrat. The aristocrat was light skinned African American man in a porkpie hat with gums instead of dentures.
Eugene would just sit in silence next to him while he talked throwing his head and his eyes back in repetitive manner. He called this “play acting” or “just acting crazy.” He would tell me he did it because he had nothing to lose. He wasn’t really crazy.
Meanwhile, loud personalities would have creative moments of clarity. For example, I once made sure one of the aristocrat’s quotes made it into the community magazine I put together: “Some days I feel like I am somewhere between a giblet and a human being,”
As per the “BUZZARDS!” comment I always knew there was meaning to it, but it’d take time to learn to come out of my shell and really get down with it.
Of course, the buzzard in the room was me. I was feeding off the dead and decrepit. Indeed, with the salary I was making, I would be able to go from nothing to having the down payment for a bay area house.
One day I would have the confidence to start cawing like a crow. I’d caw like a crow and circle the room until I got close to the aristocrat. Then, I’d simulate getting shot straight in the heart. Then, I’d fall until I laid flat on the floor beneath him and abreact a slow and painful death. It was the only appropriate response.
I still remember the aristocrat’s laugh the first time I pulled something like this. The laugh would happen periodically at the oddest of moments, “HA-HA!”
At least when I finally got down with him, the laugh happened at the appropriate moment. Over time I did manage to understand. The aristocrat was an aristocrat. An aristocrat and a philosopher.
Still, Eugene didn’t have time for these kinds of antics. He would just give you straight forward and stale answers.
***
I had a few years to onboard before I officially carried Eugene on my caseload.
Our first meeting, Eugene said, “I want to purchase a book to read with the solution to schizophrenia in it. I had a box filled with haphazardly xeroxed recovery materials I’d gleaned off the internet. I shuffled through it until I found the Patricia Deegan article introducing the hearing voices network in Europe. There was a book recommendation at the bottom I explained.
It took us a while but we sent away for it through snail mail. It was a good effort but it never arrived.
One day we were sitting in doctor’s office. It was the end of the session and Eugene exclaimed, “I see alien green!” They were the last words I’d hear from him for years.
Unlike a few of the colleagues who have come and gone over the years, I insisted in keeping weekly appointments with muted Eugene. Instead of talking we walked.
He was an extremely fast and aggressive walker. I ran ten miles on Saturday and hiked twenty miles every Sunday vying to meet a soul mate; yet, I could barely keep up.
As the muted walks continued, I would try one-way comments to connect with him. I would ask if he saw any objects as we walked that were signs of alien surveillance. I would point out things I saw that could be signs of surveillance. I let him lead.
It took me a while to develop these kinds of connection techniques. We did a lot of silent walks.
When Eugene had a housing crisis, I did some research and found an odd doctor named Bassard who had a board and care that was off in the Hayward foothills. There was reportedly a lot of space out there to walk.
His dutiful case worker in West Oakland had told me he used to lead Sierra Club backpacking trips in his younger years. She sometimes talked to his aunt who would pick him up and take him Christmas shopping for his nieces and nephews who lived in undisclosed location. The aunt might be how she found out about his secret life as a backpacker.
***
Doctor Bassard’s board and care seemed to be a good fit for a while.
One day after our walk Eugene sat with me and explained that he used to work in a print shop, the hardest kind of physical labor there was. He reported that he was the hardest worker and would often demonstrate his superiority to the other workers. He didn’t give a fuck!
The next thing I heard from Eugene was that he was thinking about going to the Alameda County Fair. Then I’d hear about Christmas shopping with his aunt.
I’d learn that he had been a drug and alcohol counselor early on. When he’d gotten married and had his son, he switched to the print shop to increase his income.
His mom had been, “nuts.” The daughter of a famous Irish protestant radio preacher and artist. In fitful rages she would accuse Eugene of being a spy for the Irish Republican Army and beat him. His father was a roofer and (according to Eugene) a bit of a slacker. He supported the mother and later Eugene through the years of madness
Growing up, Eugene’s peers would tease him because his Mom was “nuts.” He learned to hang out with the druggies even though he refused to use. Thus, the drug and alcohol job.
I learned much of this far later in my tenure when Eugene returned to treatment.
We took a walk before he got taken to jail on assault charges. It had been a return to the mute days. He littered. Sensing his ire, I hadn’t corrected him. There was a can on the hospital grounds and he smashed it with his foot. I hadn’t done anything . . .
His roommates had been constantly stealing his food at Bassard’s. They were largely unmonitored. Eugene’s efforts to fix this were not supported by the strange doctor.
***
Throughout I was volunteering after work for my child and family hours. Finally, I passed the exams. I managed to meet my soul mate and collect enough for down payment on a house.
I heard about an expensive group curriculum for psychosis developed by Patricia Deegan. Me being the arrogant cheapskate that I am I decided to develop my own. Thus, I started running psychoses focus groups for years developing a curriculum.
By the time Eugene was referred back to our program, I had left my job for a year and a half, but been permitted to return when the new job hadn’t worked out.
***
timdreby.com/eulogy-on-an-irish-schizophrenia/
I unlock the door to the institution’s finest office. A doctor’s name is inscribed on a linoleum slide that changes every few years. I press the darkened door smudge on the off-white paint job that dominates the unit. The door swings open. I invite Eugene’s cousin in.
Eugene’s cousin sits in the cushioned seat that matched the last dirty rug. The soot spattered on the outside of the window blocks the sun’s stream. She missed my eulogy. She depicts her challenges in finding the right freeway.
I had been up In the ER waiting room anxiously reviewing what I had to say about Eugene in front of the community. When I finally gave up on her, I had to rush back and make the memorial service happen. Somehow, I doubt it was an honest mistake to have missed the community event.
Eugene’s cousin announces has brought pictures and starts positioning them on the wobbly table.
I know that if I do my job, she will leave feeling just a bit of the guilt that I feel.
Eugene could have been given treatment that could have saved him. People do rehab and come back from strokes. The nursing home had reached out to the cousin repeatedly, I had been reassured. There had been no response.
“As usual,” I explain, scanning the pictures on the table, “many community members had listened to my eulogy understanding well the importance of acknowledging the passing.”
In reality many had strained to get a facial recognition of Eugene.
“As you know, Eugene is very quiet. Many were surprised and lifted to hear the complex details of his life and his miraculous turn around . . .
Eugene had spent years amidst the chronic, room 2, crowd. He’d talk to the therapist and answer stupid questions, but he was hard to really get to know.
As I continue to speak, I feel the strongest sense of grief. There has been staff turnaround due to the threat of closure amid the Trump era financial crisis that’s hit urban cities. The sense of sprawling tent encampments that surround us overwhelms me. It feels like Eugene and his legacy will close and be so easily forgotten.
***
When I first started on the unit, it was hard to reach anyone in room 2. The prescribed topics of illness management and functional skills were the only direction and support I was given to solve the complex phenomena of schizophrenia.
Company managers used to say that our clients would never get any better. I vehemently objected to that mentality, and I also was very worried about job security. As long as I wrote meaningful notes, I could survive.
The first time I went in there, one of Eugene’s peers had screamed, “BUZZARDS.” There was wild laughter, and some moaning. Amidst the lonely groaning and drool going on, I had a list of questions about recovery with which to work. I just didn’t know what to do except persist.
Over time, conversing with the three or four loud personalities in the group putting out disjointed content, I’d learn that the one who yelled, “BUZZARDS” thought he was an aristocrat. The aristocrat was light skinned African American man in a porkpie hat with gums instead of dentures.
Eugene would just sit in silence next to him while he talked throwing his head and his eyes back in repetitive manner. He called this “play acting” or “just acting crazy.” He would tell me he did it because he had nothing to lose. He wasn’t really crazy.
Meanwhile, loud personalities would have creative moments of clarity. For example, I once made sure one of the aristocrat’s quotes made it into the community magazine I put together: “Some days I feel like I am somewhere between a giblet and a human being,”
As per the “BUZZARDS!” comment I always knew there was meaning to it, but it’d take time to learn to come out of my shell and really get down with it.
Of course, the buzzard in the room was me. I was feeding off the dead and decrepit. Indeed, with the salary I was making, I would be able to go from nothing to having the down payment for a bay area house.
One day I would have the confidence to start cawing like a crow. I’d caw like a crow and circle the room until I got close to the aristocrat. Then, I’d simulate getting shot straight in the heart. Then, I’d fall until I laid flat on the floor beneath him and abreact a slow and painful death. It was the only appropriate response.
I still remember the aristocrat’s laugh the first time I pulled something like this. The laugh would happen periodically at the oddest of moments, “HA-HA!”
At least when I finally got down with him, the laugh happened at the appropriate moment. Over time I did manage to understand. The aristocrat was an aristocrat. An aristocrat and a philosopher.
Still, Eugene didn’t have time for these kinds of antics. He would just give you straight forward and stale answers.
***
I had a few years to onboard before I officially carried Eugene on my caseload.
Our first meeting, Eugene said, “I want to purchase a book to read with the solution to schizophrenia in it. I had a box filled with haphazardly xeroxed recovery materials I’d gleaned off the internet. I shuffled through it until I found the Patricia Deegan article introducing the hearing voices network in Europe. There was a book recommendation at the bottom I explained.
It took us a while but we sent away for it through snail mail. It was a good effort but it never arrived.
One day we were sitting in doctor’s office. It was the end of the session and Eugene exclaimed, “I see alien green!” They were the last words I’d hear from him for years.
Unlike a few of the colleagues who have come and gone over the years, I insisted in keeping weekly appointments with muted Eugene. Instead of talking we walked.
He was an extremely fast and aggressive walker. I ran ten miles on Saturday and hiked twenty miles every Sunday vying to meet a soul mate; yet, I could barely keep up.
As the muted walks continued, I would try one-way comments to connect with him. I would ask if he saw any objects as we walked that were signs of alien surveillance. I would point out things I saw that could be signs of surveillance. I let him lead.
It took me a while to develop these kinds of connection techniques. We did a lot of silent walks.
When Eugene had a housing crisis, I did some research and found an odd doctor named Bassard who had a board and care that was off in the Hayward foothills. There was reportedly a lot of space out there to walk.
His dutiful case worker in West Oakland had told me he used to lead Sierra Club backpacking trips in his younger years. She sometimes talked to his aunt who would pick him up and take him Christmas shopping for his nieces and nephews who lived in undisclosed location. The aunt might be how she found out about his secret life as a backpacker.
***
Doctor Bassard’s board and care seemed to be a good fit for a while.
One day after our walk Eugene sat with me and explained that he used to work in a print shop, the hardest kind of physical labor there was. He reported that he was the hardest worker and would often demonstrate his superiority to the other workers. He didn’t give a fuck!
The next thing I heard from Eugene was that he was thinking about going to the Alameda County Fair. Then I’d hear about Christmas shopping with his aunt.
I’d learn that he had been a drug and alcohol counselor early on. When he’d gotten married and had his son, he switched to the print shop to increase his income.
His mom had been, “nuts.” The daughter of a famous Irish protestant radio preacher and artist. In fitful rages she would accuse Eugene of being a spy for the Irish Republican Army and beat him. His father was a roofer and (according to Eugene) a bit of a slacker. He supported the mother and later Eugene through the years of madness
Growing up, Eugene’s peers would tease him because his Mom was “nuts.” He learned to hang out with the druggies even though he refused to use. Thus, the drug and alcohol job.
I learned much of this far later in my tenure when Eugene returned to treatment.
We took a walk before he got taken to jail on assault charges. It had been a return to the mute days. He littered. Sensing his ire, I hadn’t corrected him. There was a can on the hospital grounds and he smashed it with his foot. I hadn’t done anything . . .
His roommates had been constantly stealing his food at Bassard’s. They were largely unmonitored. Eugene’s efforts to fix this were not supported by the strange doctor.
***
Throughout I was volunteering after work for my child and family hours. Finally, I passed the exams. I managed to meet my soul mate and collect enough for down payment on a house.
I heard about an expensive group curriculum for psychosis developed by Patricia Deegan. Me being the arrogant cheapskate that I am I decided to develop my own. Thus, I started running psychoses focus groups for years developing a curriculum.
By the time Eugene was referred back to our program, I had left my job for a year and a half, but been permitted to return when the new job hadn’t worked out.
***