Missing the Big Picture (23 page)

My internship would come to a close abruptly in March, eight weeks before it was supposed to. Sage, the girl who I was tutoring in math, wrote a nine-page suicide note and the social worker didn’t know what to do. It was the agency psychologist’s decision to call the police and see if Sage needed to go to the hospital. The police were phoned, and the children were ordered to stay in their bedrooms. One of the younger residents, a fourteen-year-old male, was defiant and went out of his room and threatened to pull the smoke alarm. Two staff members were trying to persuade him to go back into his bedroom, when a direct care worker took the resident by his arm and just walked with him to his bedroom. I don’t know what happened or if the boy resisted. A few moments later, I had to help the student write an apology letter. He told me that he’d gotten a rug burn from when the staff member touched him. I didn’t know if restraint had been involved, so I asked the staff member about what happened and let him know that the resident was complaining of rug burn and that maybe he should see the nurse. My supervisor was in the office with Sage so I decided to e-mail her and explain what happened with the alleged rug burn. She didn’t get it until Monday, even though I originally e-mailed her on Thursday afternoon. The next day I went to my internship like nothing happened.

A week after the “rug burn” incident occurred, my supervisor reprimanded me, saying it was wrong for me to not immediately notify anybody in person and that I put the client’s safety in jeopardy. A week later, I had to have a meeting with my field supervisor and two representatives from the school of social work. All I remember was that they met for a few minutes before I was in the room. I was more nervous than I had ever been in my life. When I was called into the meeting, my supervisor said that she wanted to terminate me, which she had never mentioned in the two weeks prior. The internship was unpaid, so it wasn’t a financial loss. All I remember thinking was
Thank God this is over.
Instead of being a therapeutic experience for children with emotional disabilities, the group home was more like a prison for children. Having to listen to people getting restrained all the time only made some of the children angrier and more upset.

I finished my classes that semester but was convinced I wasn’t going to continue with the social work program. I went back to my old agency and applied for a job at a sheltered workshop, where individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health concerns did manufacturing work. I was disappointed when I was told that the job only paid twenty-three thousand dollars a year.

After I was let go from my internship, I had to go back to the Sanchez group home where I was working and give a speech to the children and the staff—one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever had to do. My professor told me that giving the speech would allow me to “exit professionally.” I really just wanted to tell my professor to shove my transcript up her ass, but then I thought about the children and realized that I wanted to say good-bye. All of the kids had been removed from their homes, and they didn’t have any control over who was in their lives. So I went back for them.

About ten minutes before I was going to leave my home, I got the call that I was offered the job at the sheltered workshop. The school told me that I would have to wait a year before I could resume my studies. The director of field education said that I would have to show growth before I could continue in the program. The security of having a job gave me confidence. I was so excited that I started dancing, and Jeremy, my mother’s boyfriend, looked at me like I was crazy.

About thirty minutes later, I had to face the ten staffers. I got there early and had to wait until they were ready for me. Finally, I gave my speech to the staff, saying, “Things don’t always go as planned, so I am not going to finish my internship.” I complimented them on their commendable work. They were helping give abused children who suffered from severe emotional and behavioral difficulties a chance to live in a safe environment. For very low wages and under unsafe working conditions, the staff there worked hard to try to improve the children’s quality of life. Most of the staff thanked me afterward, and a few minutes later, I had to say good-bye to the children.

I spoke first to each of the three clients I was meeting with on a weekly basis. One girl began to cry once I told her that I was leaving. She averaged about one physical restraint a week, and the longest she went without being aggressive was two weeks. Her father was a level-three sex offender living in upper New York State. I think that I learned the most from her. My first impression of her was when she threatened to break a lamp. A staff member actually removed his wallet and cell phone since he knew he was going to have to restrain her. I was initially scared to meet with her since she was rather large and intimidating.

Next up was Sage, the girl I used to tutor in math. After I told her I was leaving, she quickly said, “You’re great at explaining things.” She then proceeded to tell me that I made people feel really good about themselves. I was totally amazed and so glad I had come back to say good-bye. A few days earlier, I had basically wanted to tell my internship supervisor and the director of field placements to fuck off. Even to this day, what Sage told me then was the nicest compliment I have ever received. It made all the emotionally draining work worthwhile.

Throughout my time at the Sanchez group home, I would constantly hear “They’re just children.” All of the delinquent behavior, the tantrums, aggression, and fights were blamed on abuse or the kids’ ages. Most of the staffers were encouraged to ignore some of the behaviors. Children should never be treated lightly in terms of discipline. The only difference between children and adults are the rights that we give them. By correcting behavior, we are teaching new behavior and right from wrong. If we ignore behavior, such as acts of hatred or violence, the child isn’t learning anything new. I will never forget the time that two staffers started dancing to help a girl who was behaving violently. The trick might have helped the girl relax, but in the real world nobody is going to start dancing after she threatens or swears at them.

From my year in graduate school, I learned that empathy and compassion is social work’s greatest strength—and also its greatest weakness. I remember my field supervisor was filled with so much compassion for these children who were being abused mentally, physically, and emotionally. However, she would often dismiss their behavior as a result of their past histories and as something that couldn’t change. All children have to adhere to rules and learn to respect adults, no matter whether they have disabilities or have suffered from abuse. If we have separate rules for children based on their social histories, we’re labeling them as victims—not as survivors and people who can persevere.

In April 2006, I considered myself to be in the real world. I was afraid to graduate college and be on my own. I had felt the same way as a teenager. I was afraid to go to high school with the other two thousand students, so I enrolled in a small Catholic school. That was a disaster. In college, I was scared to even think of a life where I wouldn’t just have to wake up and go to a few classes and work a part-time job. I would have loved to have stayed in college forever. I had a degree in sociology and wished I could study social norms, gender issues, deviance, and crime. I went to graduate school just to get a master’s degree. That didn’t work out, and now I was facing my biggest fear yet: being in the real world.

At first, I was excited about my new job at the sheltered workshop. I had my own office. I had my own voicemail and extension. I had my own computer and e-mail address. I finally learned how to fax and how to make two-sided copies. It was nice. Since I was done with school, I still had my part-time job at the Center for Quality Living, but now I had more free time to meet people. I had never really tried to face my sexuality and would usually distract myself with work and/or school rather than dealing with it.

In April 2006, I finally joined a gay dating site. I had known that I liked men since I was fourteen, but I was too embarrassed and ashamed to act on my feelings. But, nine years later, I started to explore gay life. I took some pictures of myself, of course without showing my face, and posted a profile on a site called
Adam4Adam.com
. The site was very sexual. A lot of the profiles included pictures of the men naked, some with only a shot of the guy’s buttocks or penis. I had struggled with my body all my life, and when I actually looked muscular, I liked the attention.

In early April I started to chat with one man, Ian, very regularly—almost every day. He had just turned twenty-three and was bisexual and masculine. Meeting a masculine gay guy was so refreshing; I was ecstatic when we first talked. However, the more I got to know him, the more I realized he was just interested in sex—oral sex, more specifically. Ian went to SUNY Albany and was a graduate student studying education. He substituted at my old school district and was friends with a girl I’d been on the church retreat team with. I would take naked pictures on my camera phone just to please him. I didn’t mean to stoop so low, but the attention was like a dream come true. It was also strange that I could be developing strong feelings just from chatting online.

Ian frequently went out drinking, often to the point that he would pass out on a regular basis. He would drink many nights of the week, often binge drink, and then wake up and teach kindergarten or first grade the next day. I think he used drinking to escape from his sexuality.

I found out that in addition to being a substitute teacher, Ian was a server at a local steakhouse. Around this time, my co-worker Lydia asked me out on a date after strongly coming on to me. I didn’t want to tell her that I liked guys, so I went along. When she asked where we should eat, I picked the steakhouse where Ian worked. I told him online that I was going to visit the restaurant. We actually had a code word that I would say to him so he would know it was me. During the date, Lydia kept trying to get to know me, but I was just sitting at the table, trying to spot Ian.

It was June 2, 2006. On that day, I had both a woman and a man interested in me. I pretended to like women, but I couldn’t be somebody who dated multiple people at once or had multiple sex partners. I just couldn’t do it. For many years, I had wished I were heterosexual. But this is my sexual orientation for the rest of my life. Luckily, both Lydia and Ian kicked me to the curb the same day and I didn’t have to worry about hurting anybody’s feelings. The following morning, I talked with Ian and he said he didn’t see me at the restaurant the previous night. After that conversation, he blocked me on instant messenger so I could no longer communicate with him. I was hurt. I had talked to him for two months online and had thought I made a friend. Lydia thought I had led her on, and she finally picked up on the fact that I really wasn’t interested. It was bad what I did to her—not being honest and leading her on. I was confused once again about how to live my life honestly and how to actually have a love life that I was proud of.

One day when we got paid, there was a memo publicizing that our agency offered three free counseling sessions each year through the employee assistance program. I decided to make the phone call. It was actually a Christian counseling center. I had a 6:30 p.m. appointment, and the only people in the building were the therapist and another client with whom she was meeting. As I waited for her to finish, I noticed crosses and religious fixtures throughout the building. I was scared to tell her that I was gay because it was a Christian-based organization, but I did, and she was actually very gay affirmative. After a few sessions, I told her that I had difficulty meeting men. She then told me, “Why don’t you dress more gay?” I decided to end my therapy sessions with her; I wanted help accepting myself the way that I was, not help conforming to a stereotype.

I did speak to the therapist about how I would meet people from Craigslist for sexual purposes. There was no exchange of money, but I would go to people’s houses and once I even went to a man’s hotel room who was from out of town. The lights weren’t even on in his room. We had exchanged numbers after I replied to his post on Craigslist. He told me to wear boxer briefs and a baseball cap, since it was a big turnon for him, and I did.

I wasn’t having intercourse, but I was having oral sex. At first I liked it, but then I began to get scared. I was having sexual encounters with random people I didn’t know. What if I got an STD or HIV? After three or so of these encounters, I went down to the city’s health department and got tested. I was embarrassed to be sitting in the waiting room and shocked at the personal questions they asked me: did I have sex with men, women, or both; did I have oral or anal sex; was I giving or receiving. But I was the fool for playing Russian roulette with my health and not knowing the facts about STDs. I did the initial blood work for HIV, and then I had to have a cotton-swab insertion to test for chlamydia or gonorrhea. It was awful, and if anybody wonders why there are higher instances of chlamydia among women than men, I think it would have to be the way that it’s tested.

After that, I had to meet with another nurse for HIV counseling. I had never talked to anybody about gay sex before. When I told the nurse that I’d only had oral sex, she said, “Well, I’m not going to say you can never get HIV from oral sex.” Then she told me about a man who was performing oral sex on his partner and had dental work done earlier that day. His partner climaxed in his mouth, and then he became infected with the virus. One monumental point that she made was, “You’re young, and you’ve got a lot of living to do.” Then she told me that alcohol impairs judgment. “Sometimes you might meet a guy in a bar, and after a few drinks he looks like Brad Pitt,” she said. I am still thankful for that nurse for changing an anxiety-filled situation to something that really helped change my behavior. I came back three weeks later to find out my results. It was the same nurse. She smiled and said, “You’re fine.” Then she added, “And you better stay that way.” She then gave me a hug as I left.