this woman’s work

Amy said, My post wasn’t about NOT giving to people because they don’t say “thanks” in return. I’m questioning what that “thanks” means: gratitude vs. common courtesy or manners. There have been times when I’ve had no money and had to rely completly on others. And sometimes I didn’t want to say “thanks” because I hated to admit I needed help. In the end I felt it was more important for me to maintain my value of being polite to people, all people. No, not everyone may have that value, and, yes, they still deserve help. I just feel that encouraging people to say “thank you” isn’t the same as expecting them to be grateful.

But how can you encourage someone to say thank you? Hold the tampons just out of reach? Hand it to them and then add, “Now what do you say?”

My focus in the last two entries was on the giver — do what needs to be done regardless — and not on the receiver because I think that sometimes focusing so much on the receiver makes us forget that when we’re able, we’re supposed to give regardless.

Ok, it’s time for shelter portrait #3.

D was one of my first clients as a case manager and I was afraid of her. No, I was intimidated by her. It wasn’t her size or how she looked, it was the fury that steamed off of her at all times.

D came into shelter with three children. The oldest was 4 or 5 then he had a little sister who was about 3 and a little brother who was just over 1. D was a firm, attentive mother who had amazing patience. She was escaping domestic violence at the hands of her second husband.

D was smart, spoke two languages, had some job skills and very conservative ideals. She was profoundly religious and believed strongly that her role as a wife and mother was her most important one. Her first husband died — I don’t remember how — and left her with a very young son. She married quickly and unfortunately her second husband was abusive. Her third child was conceived when her husband gave his best friend permission to rape her. Because D didn’t believe in abortion, she carried that child to term but she gave up other ideals. She moved in with another man for the financial support and protection he gave her although she had to trade sexual favors for the safety of herself and her children.

D came into shelter furious that she had to be there. She was biting and cold to me, as rude as she could be without being blatantly offensive. I was 24 so I think that made her about 22 but she felt much, much older to me. I felt like I should meekly call her Mrs. So-and-So.

I couldn’t figure out how to get through to D and because she wouldn’t communicate with me, I wasn’t able to put together an effective case plan. Our meetings together went horribly, she would shake with rage when I asked questions. If she needed something, she would ask anyone but me for it. Since I did the childcare, too, she would sometimes need to ask me to watch her kids so she could make phone calls and she would sneer at me when she came to pick them up.

It was awful. I begged my boss to let me give her to someone else and my boss, who was always wanting us to become better people through painful growing experiences, refused. But after awhile things got bad enough that she held a mediation for us. It didn’t help much. D’s hands shook as I said my part and she refused to look at me. She couldn’t say why she was so angry with me but she listened to what I had to say and repeated it back through clenched teeth. It was the best we could do so my boss reluctantly released us.

Later something happened — I don’t remember what — and D blew up at me. She stood in my office screaming. Furious tears streamed from her eyes and she threw her hands around. I was scared and dismayed. She stormed out of my office, came back to yell again then threw herself into her room, slamming the door behind her.

It was awful. Just awful. I was in tears, too and I left early that day. (D got a rule violation from my boss for flipping out on me. I found that out later.)

When I came back after the weekend, D was waiting for me at my office. She was crying and contrite.

She told me that she found it incredibly hard to speak with me because I had her case file and all her secrets within it. You need to understand that getting shelter forced our clients to run a gauntlet of disclosure. First on the phone, they had to answer basic questions about their homelessness, drug and alcohol use, mental and physical health. Then at the actual intake came the same questions with more details. Than in the case manager’s office, the questions became even more invasive — we asked about their childhood abuse history, their sexual abuse history. I mean, hard stuff to talk to anyone about let alone a stranger.

We did this in part to understand what services our clients needed but also because our funding dictated that we be able to say, “We served X number of sexual abuse survivors.”

D was an intensely private, self-reliant person. My questions coupled with my power over her (if she needed bus tickets, they were in my top drawer under my control; if she needed milk for her kids, the Safeway gift certificates were right next to the bus tickets) were more than she could bear.

D sat in the chair next to me with her baby playing happily at her feet and told me how afraid she was of me. She wanted so badly to get out of shelter and on her own again and she was afraid I would decide she wasn’t worthy. Just the thought that her future was dependent on my feelings for her made her sick. It felt like an elaborate game to her; as if she would live or die by my opinion of her. She felt I was judging her every time I saw her walking by my office and she not only hated her powerlessness, she was also afraid that she would fall short.

Then she told me something else, crying harder. She told me that at the intake they told her that I was really good with kids and that if she was having any parenting challenges that she could talk about them with me. And she did have a challenge, a huge one in fact. One that was so big that she was sure once I knew it I would throw her out. The big challenge was that she hated her youngest child. She hated him because he reminded her of the rape and because she had never wanted three children and because she was so so tired and he needed her so so much. She wanted to love him and sometimes she did but most days she cared for him with deadened emotions. He needed milk so she nursed him. He needed clean clothes so she changed him. But all the time she fretted and fumed in her deepest heart of hearts and it was eating her alive.

She came and talked to me because the weekend staff person was able to get through to her and told her she should try and so she did. She asked for my forgiveness and my patience. She asked for my help.

My boss was the one who introduced me to the “all faith help creed.” It was up in her office on the bulletin board above the computer printer. She taught me three things:
–Everyone deserves unconditional love, even — or especially — those who seem least deserving;
–Holding someone responsible is different than punishing them;
–There’s no such thing as us and them.

At shelter you realize that you are part of a person’s ongoing story. Sometimes you happen into their turning points and you get to witness their personal miracles. But most of the time you are there in the everydayness of their daily struggle to survive. Not everyone comes to shelter ready to change their ingrained ideas and step forward into new lives, in fact I would say that most of our clients used shelter as a weigh station onto another crisis.

The women who are ready to change, well, it has nothing to do with you. If they find their stay at shelter inspirational it has way more to do with where they are than with anything you might do. I mean, there were a couple of women who would say to us as they left, “You changed my life” but it’s pretty obvious that they did all the changing and we just provided a safe place for that to happen.

What I’m saying is that some of the clients are in a place to say thank you and some aren’t. The “thank you” itself isn’t very telling. Some say thank you off-handedly and some say thank you with full-hearted appreciation. Likewise some don’t say thank you because like D they are too proud and some don’t because they’re rude and some don’t because they’re too choked up to say a word.

As a worker there, you learn that it’s their own journey they’re taking and as hard as it might be, you just can’t insinuate your own ideas about how that needs to happen. The best you can do is remain neutral and kind. It’s really hard to do that but working at a shelter is humbling. I used to think, “There but for the grace of God go I” but then I’d think that God’s grace doesn’t have a lot to do with it because how could His grace put other people in such a situation? There but for random events go I, more like.

There’s more to D’s story but I’ll sum up to say that she was able to get through the rest of her stay with a minimum of conflict. She never really liked me — there was way too much going on between us for that to happen — but she was able to work with me courteously. I found her long-term housing and counseling. I don’t know where she’s at now. I do know that she became pregnant again after a stranger-rape in a bus shelter. Life is just not fair.

Possibly related posts

• Yet more discussion (1)
• Women only spaces (2)
• Will she let me? (18)
• Want a pretty song? (2)
• Visitors today (1)