Love the melody to this one.....
For many years, I advocated for the closure of Arapahoe House (AH) due to the sexual assaults that occurred within the patient and employee population. One sexual assault in particular, caused me to run for office in my city after the owner of this chain of detox and rehab centers allegedly pressured a certain city attorney* to make up charges against the sexual assault victim to pressure her not to sue.
After finding the right guy to tell the story to, the charges against the victim were dropped. It took eighteen months.
The owner of the company called me at my home to, basically, say they were not going to change their protocol. After that ill-fated conversation, I'd been praying for their shut down for about six years before they went under. I told numerous lawmakers about it with intention of gutting their funding.
Tax payers should not have to pay for women to be raped and silenced for telling their stories.
They went under about three years ago.
They must be zombies - because these people are all around my world!
The company I work for bought one of their facilities. It is run down. The pipes leak and were repaired with tape.
It's a dirty, filthy, disgusting facility. I cut myself on their equipment numerous time a week. In fact my right index finger is just barely starting to scab over. It makes slapping and plucking Charlie* hard. I'll have to put off guitar shopping for another weekend.
The company I chose to work for seemed to mirror my values. Love the addict. Don't tear addicts down because the drug has done that for them. Build them up. My personal favorite is Don't Label People!
If you notice, they even label people in their dos and donts.
Well, my boss is hiring a bunch of folks from AH to toy with the culture. It's turning into hell on Earth. They are labeling people without having adequate time to understand their psychology. They take away things from them that could help build their confidence or find interests to keep them inspired to do things other than use or drink (e.g. guitars from musicians, sketch pads from artists).
It's disgusting.
When I asked why they take these things, I was told it was because these people were indigent and on Medicaid. If they had private insurance, the leadership wouldn't take their things away. I was told people with private insurance get customer service. People with Medicaid don't.
What??!!
Medicaid isn't paying. There is a grant that is funded by taxpayers which is footing the bill. It may be time for a few open records requests.
As a political activist, I am pissed off. Why in the heck should taxpayers pay to tear people down???!!!!
It's cheaper to build them up. I feel a political meeting spree and a journal article coming on.
Seriously.....
Worse, we are billed as a dual-diagnosis facility but we have no LPCs, No family therapists, and no doctors. Hell - I'm very close to licensure and can't take time off to take classes.
******
Well....
I was attacked on Christmas. The person who attacked me apologized shortly afterwards. We had a couple of conversations in which this person showed insight about why he or she did it. That person made a plan to get better.
Yesterday, I was called to a meeting in which this person was vilified - not for the attack but for being a "spoiled" brat. It's as though the chain of command isn't reading the information I write.
I was told to spend time doing DBT with the patient.
Well....um....how do you think the patient got to the insight?
I wrote everything in the patient's chart and in an email to the counselor. Maybe they don't read?
Ugh.....
The patient is upset because some staff are picking on people for slouching and petty crap. I'm a safe person so the patient took it out on me.
They're probably trying to get me to quit so they can hire more AH people who don't seem to read the SAMHSA website.
Ugh.
They are trying to pressure me to work 20 hours a week at no pay and calling it a "practicum" and it's the only way I'll get trained to be a counselor at this particular center (even though I do some master's level intake work now).
That's illegal. If anyone takes an employer up on an offer to do a job they already pretty much do at no pay just because they are a student - they can sue for back wages.
I don't tolerate unethical behavior.
So....
I'm looking for a new job baby.....a new job.....yeah...yeah...yeah!
******
Yesterday got worse, too.
So.....
this is hard to write about....
I wonder if public transport drivers can choose their routes?
The reason I ask is that I literally sat in traffic with my stalkerish ex-husband next to me at a stop light.
I was on my way to work at a strange time of day.
He was very close to my house.
I'm talking the closest major cross street to my home.
He actually combed his hair.
He was wearing a white shirt with large light blue stripes.
He was wearing a chartreuse face mask. If you read this thing, this was the color I hypnotized myself to turn into a husband-pleasing hypno-slut in an effort to save my marriage.
The color doesn't mean anything to me now. I had to fix that after my old flame sat in a room with me featuring a painting with that color on it. I think he took a picture. On the bright side, he bought me some iced coffee and I proved that I have a heck of a lot of self-control.
It's obvious that the color means something to Mr. Stalker now.
Ewwwww
I've got to move.
This is too much.
I'm looking for a new home baby.....
a new home....
yeah....
Too bad I'm court ordered to live here.
My ex doesn't follow the court orders. Maybe a judge will let me move if I forgive the child support my ex will never pay.
*****
I may come back to write more after I send in a couple of job applications.
All I want to say is
love
each
other.
Tearing people down is a waste of time.
Hugs,
S.