Blood, Sweat and Fears

Blood, sweat and fears

Upon returning to site I was confronted with many surprises (Some of which I knew to expect but nonetheless they caught me off guard). For starters some of my babies in the nursery rooms did not  recognize me and begin to cry when they saw me (normal for children who are not familiar with you). But after a few days they were back to normal; responding to me with smiles and laughs. At my other center, one of my girls was now practicing independent living thus living in separate from the other girls in a building designated as a staff rest house. We had a slew of new girls that were recently admitted. Oh yea, I lost my my main translator as she was transferred to a new site. I see this as good because I will be forced to practice language more not to mention the new environment is better for her.  I always tell the girls that I hope the leave the center before I do and I am starting to see that as the social workers are working feverishly to have more cases discharged as our beds are quickly filling to capacity. 

But the biggest surprise for me was that my little "mini-me" (and do I dare say my favorite little miss) was misbehaving- more like demonstrating maladaptive coping behaviors. But what could have triggered this behavior? One individual’s assessment is that her past abusive experiences are now manifesting during her pubescent stage. She now likes her co residents and is not sure what to do with those emotions and is affected by the response of the recipient of her liking (whether favorable or unfavorable).  She also demonstrates defiant behaviors towards a few of the house parents, staff, and security officers. My little is known as being sweet and kind and so this behavior is very disruptive as it creates an imbalance in the dynamics of the agency among co residents, house parents and social workers. Little often climbs on the roof and ledges of buildings. She's far from suicidal and I don't think she's doing it for attention, more like testing boundaries to see what her punishment will be. On two occasions my little broke glass windows with her bare hands and feet and needed to be restrained as result of this. It took myself, a guard and nurse to restrain this little bit ( mostly because they kept letting her go) and by the end of the night, I went home covered in her blood, feeling overwhelmed and disappointed.

            That was the hardest day at site thus far seeing my little enraged and trying to hurt others.  At one point she grabbed for the guard's gun and I thought to myself, is this the way my story will end? I was the main one restraining her and keeping her in one place so that she could calm down.  Tears rolled down her face and her breaths were heavy and long.  There were times when I held her arm so tight, as to protect her and I could tell when she was in her right mind frame because she never yelled at me to let her go, but rather pleaded in a tired and frustrated voice.  I felt like a parent at that moment and was ensuring her safety.  The next day everything seemed normal. . . But she began climbing again and this time she broke a window and ended up with a gash on her hand. Then she came to me and we went to the nurse. At that point I could tell that she was done and this episode was over.

               A few things remain constant in the center environment such as gossip among the residents, lack of privacy and space, frustrations with the pace of recovery/reintegration into the community and the inability to leave center which, to some degree is uncontrollable. But what stands a chance to be improved is the relationship between residents and house parents which is a project that my counterpart and I are pursuing to help strengthen.