Today was one of those days where you walk out of the classroom with full intentions to return in 5 minutes with a full cooler of water for the classroom. Instead, you end up in a 15 minute restraint with a "normally" well behaved student who had been trying to escape the detention room by vaulting over the head of a counselor standing in the doorway. Needless to say, the water arrived a good half hour late.
This month seems to be "Eco month" at school. Still not sure what it's all about. It seems once or twice a week we have some new activity that I hadn't heard of before and don't know what's going on. Today was an eco-tour of the campus. They brought in volunteers to man different stations with themes such as "nature decorations" and "meditations in the Earth hut". An hour in and only a third though the stations, my kids started acting up and I decided it was time to call it quits.
K spit on me in a restraint today. Right on the side of my cheek. Worst smelling spit I have ever received at work. I think someone's getting a toothbrush for Christmas! I don't know how many times he threatened "I'm going to kick your ass when I get up bitch!". If only I had a nickel for every threat I've received at work! I'd have already bought a shiny new car. All this for running out of class when asked to take a three minute time out. Well, running out and trying to hit another counselor with a large stick. We should probably get dimes for every time we're threatened with a weapon. Maybe quaters.
On the upside, BeBe didn't pee herself in restraints today, as she did two days in a row last week. One part of me is sad in my heart for an 11 year old girl that is retraumatized in testifying about a family friend who raped her, a church member and mentor who broke into her house and raped her; her- a sweet-as-her-normal-self, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, young lady. One part of me wants to yell and grind my teeth and fight against all the horrible, mad things people will do to one another. Unfortunately there is a bitter part of me. A part of me that does not like being peed on. A part of me that is tired of every day stopping her from running into the middle of the street because "her ride is here". A part of me that is tired of being scratched to the point of blood and scabs because her switch gets flipped and she's gone from calling me her mom to calling me the devil. A part of me tired of picking her up in the company minivan and not being able to drive back to school because she's re-enacting The Exorcist in the car. A part of me tired of hours at the quiet room door, hours spent after school waiting for her mom to pick her up because she couldn't make the bus, tired of the smell of BO and unwahed hair permeating every pore in a restraint, tired of pulled fire alarms and firemen trying to talk to her about the seriousness of false alarms and the stunned look in their face when BeBe's response to their speech is "Butterflies". "Butterflies!" with a far off look in her eye, and me knowing she has stepped out of this dialogue to focus on whatever vision before her eyes, whatever demon whispering secrets in her ear. Tired of doing this everyday for months, tired of a system that is beginning to acknowledge she is beyond our level of care, yet has no place for her.
In an ideal world, a counselor would not have these parts. They would only have empathy and compassion and a commitment to working with these broken children who re-enact everyday what they have lived days, months, years ago. In a real world I acknowledge these bitter parts of me, these living, vibrating, human parts of me. I bow my head in acknowledment and keep telling myself "We can only try to do better. We can only try, we can only try, we can only try..." And I pull myself out of bed every morning hoping today will be different, today will be one of those days where I did better.
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