Part 2 — Bored by the Posturing
There are 10 hours of groups a day, and I can understand how daunting that schedule can be as a participant.
Some people choose not to show, others do different activities for their enrichment. However, unless specifically sanctioned, they don’t count as credit. And I’m not one to make special deals with anyone without management approval. One particular resident opted to work out rather than attend the scheduled physical activity. Fine by me, but he didn’t tell me. Apparently, other PSCs has okayed this, but it was never told to me, so I didn’t give him credit.
Well, that apparently was enough to fuel his flames and over the course of the evening, this particular person took it upon himself to attempt to intimidate me. I could see what he was doing a mile away, but entertained it to ensure that he went down this road. This resident had a history of attempting to have others walk in fear around him, whether that be staff, administration, residents. No thank you.
He put on an air of arrogance and attempted to get me to talk with him at night away from other staff. I declined, and suggested either talking right where we were or in the lobby. He chose the lobby, so I obliged.
We got there and took our seats and I asked him what’s going on. I don’t remember much of what he said at this point, but eventually he said he wanted to show me something in a notebook he had and left the lobby to “go get it”. I knew this was another attempt at a power move, so I got up and went back in as well, sitting next to him where I had been doing my notes.
We engaged again, and I began running through the facts of the matter. He didn’t go to group, he had not informed me of any agreements he made with others, did not ask me if it was okay and now he’s mad about not having been given credit. He interrupted me.
“Man, you have rank breath. You should brush your teeth.”
I breathed out, which he took as a sign of disrespect (as if it was owed), and things kicked into high gear from there.
He tore down the outing sheets, swore vociferously and made several threats of injury toward me, my family and told me he’d force my parents to perform certain acts on him. At one point, he was forehead-to-forehead with me. I was bored by all this posturing, but I was also stuck in a chair with no discernible way out, so I let him go on and on about this. At no point did I break eye contact with him because if he was willing to move to physical violence, I certainly was going to defend myself.
Sadly, female staff intervened to create some distance between us. That part really tested my boundaries because, while I can stand someone threatening me, if he were to have become violent with any of them, I would likely not have been able to keep my composure. Eventually, I was able to sequester myself in a locked office and texted management a detailed report of the incident.
This was before I knew about incident reports, ProACT training, or other de-escalation techniques — protocols I’d learn formally once I’d already handled a situation without them.
He was discharged the same night, but I thought for a good while whether I wanted to come back to this kind of thing. It took talking with my fiance and a good friend about it to convince me that I could continue.
My friend said it’s the organization’s job to keep me safe. If they were willing to keep someone like that in their stead over me, I should leave. It was the clearest advice anyone gave me that summer.
Knowing that he was discharged that night, I figured I could keep going and that this intensity would be a fluke or rare occurrence. I mean, I don’t even think I had crossed a month yet, and I wanted to see what this “peer” thing was about.
