Unavoidably, our stories tend to become our mission. My mother committed suicide when I was three, my nephew when I was thirteen, and my brother just a few years ago. I've considered pursuing a mental health career a few times. I have almost a decade of aggressive sales experience. For anyone who finds Myers-Briggs creditable (if you don't that's okay too) I am a textbook INFJ. Sales put me in a deep conflict with my personal values, but did teach me extensively about practical persuasion, and truly astounded me with my depth of empathy. I could be livid... aggravated beyond all belief, and be suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. Further probing revealed that my dumb client was actually not dumb at all, but heavily medicated after suffering the loss of a child in a fire... for instance. My empathy easily keeps me kind even when I'm angry and I learned how to also distinguish that from sympathy, and my own emotions. Another words, I can feel what another person is feeling which gives me vast insight, yet be aware of this, and still think rationally without the emotion affecting my reason... at least I like to think I can. I'm not perfect of course.
Through a weird twist of events I became a corrections deputy. Sometime thereafter the man I'd been dating for two years began having two to six hour long flashback/dissociative/psychogenic shock-like episodes (all of which I knew nothing of and only learned about thereafter from Dr. B and other counselors with SMA). I took him to the ER at one point. I had him drug tested. He was clean at the time. The episodes continued and I legitimately believed my boyfriend was possessed. I've been perceived as a militant atheist for years so you can imagine the shock my friends had at this. I saw things, not like Hollywood things, but things still that I could not explain and later begged Dr. B to provide me rational explanations, to many which she thankfully did, still a few things she couldn't, although she reassured me that my heart and mind were in the right place. I had her support probono... she knew my ex from years prior and genuinely wanted to help him, as did the director of drug court. I had the full support of my Lieutenant. I had an incredible support system and so did he. I don't want to go into the details of the episodes unless someone specifically wants that story. Two months after they began he relapsed. I still had full support despite that being a serious danger in my career. I was involved every step of the way with Dr. B and the other counselors and directors. Months later, I accepted the reality of the lies and manipulation and confronted my ex, brutally. I attacked his allegations of not loving him and him being "a piece of crap" with such fury that I was screaming probing questions in his face like a drill sergeant despite his mouth hanging open and tears rolling down his face. He said there's no way I could love him because he was gross. I screamed and cursed demanding clarification. He told me because he was gay. I was confused and screamed and cursed some more, and he broke down and the story of being brutally raped repeatedly as a child at his coke-head fathers house spilled like a flood gate.
Suddenly, the episodes made sense. The way he was stuck face down on the bed glaring for 4-6 hours. The people he was talking to that weren't there and the things he'd say. The night terrors, and everything. It hit me like an axe to the neck. It changed my level of patience. It changed my everything, dragged my trauma to the surface of my mind... This was when I broke down and had the three plus hour conversation with Dr. B. She has her doctorate, was a director for SMA Behavioral and in charge of the counselors for the drug court program, very respected. Now she is a professor instead. As I said earlier, she explained to me core beliefs, psyche fractures, DID and such to me. We agreed we had to find a way to get him to start therapy, gently of course. I found out later that this friend of his cokehead father that drugged him as a child and raped him, still lived in town. Dr. B said that years ago my ex always had the worst struggles during the end of the year and she was pretty sure that correlated with when the majority of the abuse occurred. Not to mention the trigger of possibly seeing the bastard. The problem was, my ex had to want to talk and engage in therapy.
I coaxed as gently as I could. I urged him to talk about the "effed up thing," vaguely, as vaguely as was comfortable, and reassured him that Dr. B would not push. He just would not do it. The more counseling he went to, the harder he pulled away. Most men do not speak of sexual abuse till in their 30's if at all according to the statistics I read. Most people do not have a loving team of professionals and a partner with a great support system behind them also. I had every resource, personal skill set from sales, and opportunity available to persuade him to choose healing over self-medication and slow suicide. I lost him and failed. He pulled back so hard he became dangerous. One of the counselors had a hard conversation with me, said that even though I had done everything in my power to avoid it I was still his co-dependant and I was his enabler. I couldn't avoid that and it was going to kill me too. I lost him. I had to cut him off.
Being an INFJ in a jail as an officer is interesting, because as much of an a-hole as I can be, the inmates have some sort of natural comfort with sharing sensitive things with me. After a few years I had a conversation with one that starts off similarly most of the time... the conversation about how this time they are going to do well in rehab and stay clean. I told him, "You know whats strange is that I notice theres something all of you guys seem to have in common... something effed up happened to most of you as kids... somehow you all find each other... somehow you all find drugs." He nodded. I didn't press, just simply told him that if he ever wanted to break his cycle he had to get to the root of where his thought and emotional cycles come from, which means addressing that effed up thing, and that I felt like most counselors didn't get to the underlying root pains that fuel the drug addiction. He told me that one did. When she got too close to what it was, he ran from the rehab. He said he would rather be in prison from running, than have anything touch or come close to that effed up thing. I know the extent of how full of crap inmates are, but I felt he was telling the absolute truth, because it followed many other discussions I'd had with others.
That's my motivation. I don't want to be a jailer for the rest of my life. I'd like to take my experiences and do something rewarding with them. I've only been concerned with how exactly to go about it, and being able to support myself.
