No Title, Just Thoughts

I posted on Facebook the other day that I’m leaving my position at Columbia Treatment Center, a Behavioral Health Group facility. I’ve spent the last 19 months as the program director of and counselor in the Medication Assisted Treatment program here. This place has changed me.

I know I’m not as nice as I used to be, but that needs to be qualified. Accountability has become an important word to me over the last year and (a little more than) a half. Taking responsibility is a large part of life. It’s the only way to really move from day to day. Accountability has come to mean to me taking responsibility for those things for which one is responsible. I have realized in my work with the patients here, and in some cases with the staff, that I tend to let things go, hoping for the best. I’ve always believed that it is better to inspire someone to do something than to require them to do it. I still believe that is true, but my window for providing inspiration is much shorter.

Conflict has always been difficult for me, and there was a time in my life when I would avoid it at all costs. I would be slow to bring up to people areas where I felt there was a deficiency in their performance, again both patients and staff. So, once again, things were allowed to progress beyond reason, and the problems would just get bigger. Now I realize there can only be conflict if 2 people are engaged in it. I’ve become someone who refuses to engage in conflict, but in a more healthy way. A key concept to understanding this is found in Patricia Evans’s book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship. Evans discusses the distinction between Personal Power and Power Over. There are those who want Power Over. These people tend to be abusive, manipulative, with aggressive behaviors. They see themselves as always the victim of injustice, and often blame their behaviors and deficiencies on others. They seek to control others. These people often find themselves in conflict, perceiving others as mistreating them, misjudging them, trying to control them. They see everything as a power struggle, “Either I am in control or they are in control.” They are in constant conflict with everyone who does not do what they want them to do or be the way they want them to be.

People with Personal Power, on the other hand, know that the only person that he or she truly has power over is himself or herself. They don’t seek to control others. Rather than telling others what they will or will not do, the person with Personal Power informs others only of what he or she will do or won’t do. There is no conflict there. The person who seeks Power Over says, “You will do this,” or “You will not do that.” The person with Personal Power says, “You are free to do whatever you want to do. If you make this choice, this will be my response. If you make that choice, that will be my response.” There is no conflict

I never wanted to have Power Over others. That was never my problem. Until working at Columbia Treatment Center, however, I was never comfortable with my personal power. I don’t know how to explain it, except that following through on responses that I knew were necessary was really hard for me.

People who seek Power Over see this as a word game. People with addiction have the illusion of Power Over their substance. A big part of addiction is seeking Power Over things over which a person is powerless. So some patients who are “Power Over people” would see it like this: “So you’re telling me that if I don’t pay my bill, you’re going to discharge me. Why won’t you work with me? Why won’t you give me a chance? Why do you want to control my life like this?” They forget that they’ve forfeited their 3^rd financial contract, that we have given them multiple chances to make it right, and they perceive my response to their choice of being non-compliant with treatment by discharging them as an attempt to control their behavior. The same is true of staff. I had to terminate the employment of a team member who was a Power Over person. The person chose not to meet the expectations of the job description. I responded by terminating the employment. This wasn’t an attempt to control this person, but simply me allowing this person to exercise the free choice to perform the job at the level this person wanted to perform it, and my exercise of free choice in saying that it did not fulfill the expectations of the job.

So when I say I’m not as nice as I used to be, what I mean is I am more assertive with my responses to people than I used to be. I like Johnny Cash’s version better than Tom Petty’s, but the words are the same, “Gonna stand my ground. Won’t get turned around. And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down. And I won’t back down.” “Well, I know what’s right. I got just one life. In a world that keeps on pushing me around, I’m gonna stand my ground. No, I won’t back down.”

The reason I’m leaving my employment is because of Nathaniel. I really wasn’t looking to go, although it is something that I’ve been thinking about for some time. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back was last Wednesday, when Lesley called me to say that he had fallen and hit his head pretty hard at daycare. I was still 45 minutes away from home, working in Columbia. In a situation where 10 minutes could make the difference between life and death for my little guy, I cannot be 45 minutes away from where he is going to daycare anymore. Maybe someday, as he gets older and begins to learn to infuse himself and will hold still, I will be able to do other things. Right now, life has lead me to this place, and I’m meeting life on life’s terms. Personal Power…it also means not trying to control life.

I think of the end of Forrest Gump, when he is standing over his wife's and his mother's graves. He reflects that he isn't sure if we are just feathers blowing in the wind or if we have control over our destinies. He then says, "But I think it's a little of both." I do, too. 

So, this has been kind of a “stream of consciousness” writing. Just some reflections on where I’m at, where I'm going, and and why I’m going there, wherever "there" may be.