“Don't be afraid of me” he told me while holding a stick on his hands. He is a 14 years old suffering from bipolar disorder. I would never forget my first day entering a residential placement for clients with severe mental disorders, or known as dual diagnosis population. Walking for the firs time in there, looking at kids running from people, kicking on windows and hitting to people, felt like I was being part of a movie as an observer. When I took my first client for a walk, I was terrified. After reading his diagnostic, his past, his challenges and triggers, I was just ready to make use of my defensive positions and other techniques taught to me on trainings. None of those things work when he was playing with a stick and he looked me repeating: “don't be afraid of me”, “i just love trees”. I assumed that he may seen something on my eyes, in my expression that was yelling fear. He read me.
In these chapter, the authors suggests to “Respond to an individual with a disability according to their skills, personality, and other personal attributes rather than his or her disability” (Sue & Sue 2007) Idea that I ignored when started my journey with these kids. I was focusing on their negatives, on their struggles growing up, on their disabilities instead of their strengths. This dual diagnosis environment have helped me remind myself, day by day, that there are many types of disabilities, and that we all can be on the other side of the door, asking for help. One example of this is my big struggle speaking English, and couldn't enunciate or didn't articulate clear enough when attempting my first conversations with them. Therefore, they displayed ideas of me such us “lower expectations” (Sue & Sue 2007) that ironically, motivated few of them to teach me proper English. I remember of how on their eyes, I was the disable one.
The reality was that I was disable. I was lacking of tolerance in my personal life and thought that I was the only one suffering from injustice or discrimination. After witnessing the way people look at them on the street, invalidate their opinions, and stereotypes them, my ideas completely changed. Mental retardation is a common disability in the environment of special education classes. The derogative stereotypes about this disabilities are major. Society has hidden them in the unspoken conversations, in the derogative jokes when referring to someone with lack of “intelligence” or simply to make somebody feel bad about themselves. In my journey of reading Missing pieces: a chronicle of living with a disability, Irving Kenneth Zola share his own personal experiences with a disability: “The discomfort that many feel in the presence of the aged, the suffering, and the dying is the reality that it could just as well be them”. (Zola 1982) The words above, are a common attitude towards the different. This is something that this kids with levels of MR (mental retardation) faced everyday. People just being extremely nice to them making them feel incapable to think.
There is even a darker side of this reality. The way some communities punish a person with a disability. I had a friend who in her search of finding a place for her son suffering from addiction and a mental disorder, went to small and very cheap community in Tijuana, Mexico. She didn't do any research or met with the staff before hospitalized him. She just trusted them because their religious predicaments in the 'facility'. Several times, her son complained with her mother about the extreme discipline that was implemented by the staff in there. His mother never listened. His own mother tought that he was exaggerating and that this was the discipline that he needed. One day, I needed to go there to see her son for the first time. I was shocked. Something about that place wasn't only wrong, was scary, the smell was intense, and the clients were duty. Talking to my friend son I noticed that he couldn't articulate but the staff told me that was the effect of detox on him. I did not buy that. About 3 days later, there was a big TV scandal regarding that place, they were caught. The staff were “disciplining” the male clients by not allowing them to take showers and not eating right. They were being hit with some weird almost metal thing in their backs. The clients had marks all over their backs. The staff tie their feet with a chain when they were curssing or 'being bad'. They went to jail, and the persecution of this houses or facilities of rehabilitation were discovered all up to Mexico city. My friend felt extremely guilty for not noticing the abuse that he was experienced, and the voice that she ignored. And I remember feeling mad. How come people predicating to help somebody with disabilities end ed up punishing them for the problems? How can people trust when asking for help for their kids?
In the same chronicles, Zola cited Slater who illustrated how we can penalizing instead of helping: “Our ideas about institutionalizing the aged, psychotic, retarded and infirm are based on pattern of thought that we might call The Toilet Assumption -the notion that unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties, unwanted complexities and obstacles will disappear if they are removed from our immediate field of vision... Our approach to social problems is to decrease their visibility: out of sight, out of mind..“ (Slater: Zola 1982) This is the assumption that places of 'rehabilitation' such as the one that I mentioned, follows. Specially in rural areas of Mexico this is still a reality. Hiding the son that has a condition that parents can not explain to people. Not sending to school the son or daughter that can not speak, because that will only bring shame or pity. Abuse is one of the common consequences that people with a disability suffered. Because after suffering from an abuse, perpetrators think that -who is going to listen to them anyway?
This chapter made me think about that first experience I had. And in my reflexion I can see that the best way I have found to help them is to put myself on their shoes. Think on something I have faced in my life and imagine what was helpful? It was helpful when people taught me how to do things, nod doing it for me. It was helpful when people left me faced a problem by myself once in while, the idea of taking a decision on my own empower me. The disability will may be always there. But we as a therapist or helping professionals can provide support and skills to empower our clients into independence living. One question I keep I have regarding institutions in rural areas is: How can this culture of hiding the person with a disability on the house can be change? Are there any other solutions?
References:
Zola, Missing Pieces: A Chronicle of Living with a Disability, 1982, pp. 246
Sue and Sue, Counseling the Culturally Diverse, 2007, pp. 552, from chapter Counseling the Culturally Diverse.
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