Communication Responsibility and Power

I'd like to first highlight the case of numerous CPS calls initiated by teachers, counselors and even a therapist. I'll mention them... and also not go into detail. Same with our time at Turning Point Domestic Abuse Shelter in Mount Clemens. I feel it's also important to mention our weekly to biweekly trades between mom and dad's cars in a Big Boy parking lot on 21 and Van Dyke. Those were important. I remember a time when mom came up to dad's door for him to sign something and our stepmother choked her on the front porch.

These only serve as context around a tumultuous childhood. I didn't quite know what to feel around those things but they were certainly a source of unpredictability and emotional dysregulation. it's hard to be a kid when dealing with all that.

Introspectively, kindergarten... we had a rule which prohibited anyone from touching anyone else's show and tell toys. One of the kids in class grabbed my toy and ran to the back of the glass, so I grabbed the teacher's scissors from her desk and scared him until I got my toy back.

What I could have done is walk up to him and say, "I see you want to play with my toy. I love my toy so I understand. I'm feeling a little upset about this. The rules say you're not allowed to touch my toy."

When living at mom's house on Sterritt in Utica MI, we had a babysitter who tried to put me to bed an hour before my usual time. I was playing with my LEGO table while watching TV in our basement so I followed her up the stairs and instead of turning into the kitchen, I opened the garage door and grabbed a baseball bat to scare her away so I could keep watching TV.

What I could have done is step away from my LEGO table and met our babysitter at the base of the stairs to say, "I hear you want me to go to bed. I'm feeling a little confused because mom usually lets me stay up until 10. Can we figure something else out? Maybe we could call mom."

It was in that house that I also cut into the back of our couch to scare my sister away when she refused to stop watching TV after her allowed time was up.

I could have said to my sister, "I see you are continuing to watch TV even though mom promised me I could watch right after you. I'm feeling anxious to see my show and angry that you started watching something else. I'm needing some clarity. When you take my TV time, I start thinking you don't value my needs as much as your own."

I've practiced some messed up communication... and it's not something that just pops up in a kid. Especially not a latchkey kid whose only friends are Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.

Furthermore, when I got into high school and started puberty, I hadn't been talked to about sex or relationships... I got a "masturbation is normal." comment after mom walked in on me and dad has been pointing out 'cute' girls for me whenever he drove me around in a Viper or either one of our Plymouths. I also had a non-traditional hypersexual set of experiences with one of my sister's friends at dad's house on Bay Court.

Even when the Scouts started talking about the Girl Scouts, it seemed objectifying and harmful. Pile all this on with my feeling ashamed for monthly therapy and yearly psychiatric hospitalizations for things ranging from ADHD med changes to found suicide notes and depressed poems to the occasional reinforcement of hospitalization as a threatened punishment.

There were days I didn't want to be at school. Hell, there was an entire half a year I convinced a counselor to bring my work to me at home.

When I was 15, living on Creek Drive in our stepdad's house I had been playing baseball or rather planning to play baseball but instead left the bat in my room one night. I knew I was supposed to put it in the garage every night as it was an outdoor toy but I just threw it under my bed.

Mom's usual way of waking me up was a kiss on the forehead to be sure I'm awake then to come back in 10 minute later and do the same before getting me out of bed. When she came in the first time, I knew I didn't want to go to school so I made the decision to bring that aluminum bat up from under the bed and slip it under my covers. When mom came in to get me out of bed, she leaned down and I shoved her off with what bat across my chest... her arms went limp and it flew up to chip her tooth as her terrified eyes locked with mine.

I knew I had done something horrible the moment she stumbled backward, never letting her eyes leave mine...

All I needed to do was talk about my feelings instead of locking them up inside and literally pushing people away but that's what I learned a man was to do.

I spent 8 hours in Juvenile detention, after which, mom and dad took me into an office at First Resources North where they suggested Children's Home of Detroit's Warren campus... where I stayed for a total of 217 days. Dad's insurance paid for the short term unit because it was classified as an acute care facility but when I was transferred to long term, blue cross refused to pay so mom and dad met with me in office once again to discuss options.

At age 14, a psychologist named Doctor Patrick Ryan had diagnosed Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Otherwise Specified while refusing to give a clearer diagnosis because even after weeks of assessment, symptoms were unclear and he didn't have much relationship context.

From a board room at CHD, the possibility was tabled that they could look into turning that into an Asperger's or Autism diagnosis to claim disability income and have the state pay their fees and against mom's pleading, dad didn't want to pay out of pocket... which was fair, a private detention center is pretty expensive. They existed to keep your kid's records clean while still teaching them a lesson... and also how to mop floors which I always thought was odd. The place had already been shut down a number of times for both questionable sanitation and staff practices.

I was released on the day of my 16th birthday.

...but that disability claim hung like a dark cloud over my head.

I had a pretty decent next couple years; driver's training, met a girl named Lily who introduced me to my girlfriend, her twin sister Paige. We went to local concerts together, Warped Tour, drove Lily to her acting classes and attended some performances at their church. I carried Paige out of a swarm of MCR fans when she had a body-flop panic attack in the crowd at Warped Tour.

I rode down to Florida with my sister to visit my friend, Jazz. I lived on their couch with her brother for 3 weeks. We visited some local malls, I bought Jazz a Living Dead Girls doll and I met Deanna... who I dated long-distance until we couldn't handle being apart after about 6 months.

When I was 17, after staying overnight with my girlfriend, Kate... I was confronted at the front door and wound up running up the stairs as I dialed Kate to come back then barricading my door and jumping out the window because my friends were still in the neighborhood... so I ran to their car and took off.

I wound up staying with a kid from school named Rich for a couple of weeks then moving in with my... well my other girlfriend as I hadn't yet broken up with Kate... not until living with her. Dad had the cops pick me up from Math class to hospitalize me at Havenwyck for the last time. They didn't have a treatment plan in place. They just wound up determining I wasn't allowed to come home so I stayed an extra few days until dad picked me up and dropped me off in a motel on 16 mile.

From that motel, I moved in with my girlfriend and stayed with her for 8 months... until I turned 18 and moved into my first apartment on Canal in Sterling Heights. Dad cosigned for it and eventually, after about 3 months, bought the property as a condo and rented it to me.

I always have trouble identifying where communication skills could have helped in that whole situation.

I know communication skills would have helped me maintain boundaries against drugs and alcohol in my first apartment because I wound up checking myself into a psych hospital, Saint John's behavioral health unit... because I assumed I would be able to find stability and finish my high school work.

I wound up missing graduation and being transferred to a place called Beacon Specialized Living Services in Bangor MI; Anchor Point building where I attempted medicated suicide with a sharpened plastic knife and wound up at Borgess Medical Center's behavioral health unit and was released to Beacon's high security Breakwater compound.

They shortly released me to low-sec Wavecrest... I wound up pulling one of the residents off our van driver as he jumped him on the freeway. His name was Andrew and he tried to take a chunk out of my leg in that struggle. I have a medical report from South Haven hospital for a human bite wound... I guess that's sort of cool. I was eventually picked up by Dan Groble, working with First Resources North and some others to drop me off at Sugarbush group home in St Clair Shores... where I bounced around between Zachary home, St Clair home...

At St Clair, I faced my last violent decision. It was after I'd been punched in the face by an elderly guy who stayed there with his twin brother. I didn't press charges but I felt significantly less safe after that. There was a guy named John who just kept flirting with my mother so one morning I went out with him for a cigarette and burned a cross into my left hand by lighting and putting out a couple of cigarettes while telling him to stop hitting on my mom. I also scheduled a meeting with the house manager, Ray the next day... where we started a discussion but I wound up kicking John in the jaw and waiting in my room for Police to escort me to St Joseph East, now Henry Ford East. ...it's a rehab center now.

The cops did in fact escort me but my body went into a flop response at the door and they wound up dragging a limp body which tore my pants and they tossed me in the back with my face to the seat and my underwear exposed which was written in a report as "indecent exposure." I really do think it should be mandatory for mental health squads to handle certain things but I digress.

What I could have said was, "Hey John, I can see you really appreciate my mom. I feel uncomfortable and a little defensive about that. I'm needing to feel safe for both mom and myself. I'd really like you to focus on yourself and maybe look at another person if you want a relationship." While this is very crude NVC, that's the gist of it.

When I was at St Joe's, I was bounced from floor to floor and wound up staying for about 7 months total, I had some sexual encounters with horny patients, read 20 of the books from Sherilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter and Dream Hunter series, sketched tons of pictures, colored and did crosswords and jigsaw puzzles... until I saw a patient being unjustly dragged off toward the quiet room for a 'booty dart' because he accidentally flicked his shoe off too hard.

I wound up walking down the hall and systematically shattering all the lights above me, screaming "I'll give you a [explitive] reason to shoot someone up with sedative medication! Huh! Is this what you're looking for! An excuse to pump someone full of drugs!?"

There are healthier ways to communicate this stuff. A recipient rights complaint, for one... but I also could have addressed the nurses with nonviolent communication and offered some clarity and possible forgiveness for that patient.

...I still have the waffle mark scars on my hand from all those light grids.

I was placed at Macomb County Jail for a few weeks then transferred to Behavioral Center of Michigan... and wound up at Beacon Specialized Living Services - Wavecrest building for the final time.

I just decided to avoid everyone, stay away from the drug conversations and objectifying comments about girlfriends and sex conquests with horny 20-somethings.

I was finally sent back to St Clair home, from there being transferred with the '99 Jeep Cherokee mom gave me to a SIP (semi-independent placement) apartment next to Macomb Community College where I attended and got some credits.

I can honestly say I should never have had myself taken off Adderall. I did that to avoid people stealing or trying to buy any more of my pills. I certainly should never have been driving while medicated on Seroquel, Ativan and Klonopin... and the jury's out on efficacy of Depakote but the Adderall and Depakote combo was my childhood psychiatrist, Doctor Pezhman's favorite mix and he seemed to know what he was doing.

...all this is to say, I will never deny how terrible my communication skills have been and what I have allowed myself to suppress in hopes that things will blow over.

Things don't "blow over." We have to work through them... we need to *talk* through them. ...and I truly believe total, comprehensive accountability is one of the most essential facets of talking through things.

I still, will never take responsibility for someone else's actions.

It's a fundamental aspect of nonviolent communication that not only are we not responsible for other people's feelings or actions but that we only have the ability to process and communicate our own thoughts and feelings. It's harmful and dysregulating to direct punishment for another person's actions onto a party who did nothing and had no power in the matter.

You know what I find absolutely baffling? I hold myself accountable each and every second of every day, and I even share all my mistakes and wrongdoings.

...still, the only time any of these things is ever acknowledged is not when I hold myself accountable but when someone tries to shame me for a history filled with mistakes. ...like they're trying to hold it over me and shame me into my place, exercising their value and authoritative power; they're betterness and therefore their right to be heard over me.