emptying into the empty stream

i am working for an organization that deals with people with developmental disabilities/mental retardation. i feel very bad using the phrase “mental retardation” but that’s the official terminology they use. am i even allowed to use the R word, tho? i’d been two months into this new city, not able to find any jobs in my line of work (primary: web and print design, secondary: word processing, geeky things with excel & powerpoint). out of desperation, i applied for one job where they made it sound like i’d be taking adults with autism and down’s syndrome out on day trips, to malls and parks and such, helping them with their finances, skills training.

what the job has turned out to be is, instead, working at a home, with severely disabled people, non-mobile, all non-verbal. a task assigned to me my first week there was to read thru their medical records, and it made me cry, what i read, the amputations, the physical abuse, the not able to communicate, stuck in the mind of a 2 year old. i change diapers, bathe, spoon-feed. someone else administers the various medications, as i haven’t been trained on that yet.

i’m going on 3 months now. the 1st month, it was surreal. i tend to think a heck of a lot, the typical meta-meta stuff, like the nature of consciousness, perception, cognition, etc. and my 1st month at this job, i was struggling with that. when you talk about disabled people, disabled rights, typically shown are pictures of smiling kids with down syndrome, a gifted though socially awkward kid with autism, a bright shining person with cerebral palsy, leaning on crutches. but then i look at someone who, in the medical reports, has the mental faculties of a 2 year old, can barely recognize shapes, has to be led from bath to chair to wheelchair, and that is it, the sum total of this person’s existence…

i don’t know what to think anymore. all i know is to be gentle, to be kind, but i can’t think anymore on the nature of cognition. but y’know how the disability rights movement tells you not use use the words high and low functioning? that it’s an insult? ideally, i support that cause, as a matter of semantics. but… when you’re working in homes like this, high and low functioning, those words, they suddenly hold realistic, practical value. not pejoratively, but factually. high-functioning, you let them go to the store by themselves. low-functioning, the almost legally blind person with severe mental retardation will stumble into the street straight into traffic. to take care of severely disabled people, you wind up having to focus as much on their abilities (one likes music, another likes to laugh) as much as on their inabilities, because to not be aware of their inabilities puts them in grave danger, a door left open, silverware left in view, a diaper unchanged.

and it’s odd, being someone with asperger’s, doing this kinda work. it doesn’t pay much, barely above minimum wage, but it’s the only stable income i’ve been able to find given the economic mess that’s been going on. i have a hard time with it because… i’m a computer person. i need things to be fast, hyper-organized, very procedure-oriented, constant creativity, problem-solving, blazing mind speed stuff. this job is very slow. sitting watching tv, not moving. going to check on a bedbound person to see if she’d wet the bed. changing diaper is needed. go back to watching tv if the trash doesn’t need to be taken out, or dishes don’t need to be washed. again, and again, and again.

my mind is having a hard time with it, but… i don’t know, just been in a surreal space. everything got very bad late last year, what with not being able to find a place to live in sf, and that whole mess that happened with the job last year, trying to get accommodation for having asperger’s, and them refusing. and moving up here and able to find a good sublet, but not able to find a job, and trapped, money gone, scraping by, barely able to survive. it puts a strain on one, and one starts to think of maslow’s hierarchy of needs. and so i stop, let go, stop thinking, i’m not here, i’m not here. sitting staring at the tv doesn’t bother me, i stare for hours. i take clothes out of the dryer very methodically, calmly, fold them very slowly. i set up a routine for checking all the trash cans, very slowly, very methodically. it is what it is, and i will think of nothing else, this is all that exists in the world.

and it’s interesting, being so quiet, not a very people person, and the nature of the job is working with people. there are usually 2-4 people on staff at all times, and you work with them. and i, as usual, am the person sitting off by myself, not talking much, head down, eyes averted. but it’s not as big a deal here. the strange thing is, i thought i was doing so horrible, cuz of the usual social anxiety (i’m failing, i’m failing, i never fit in), but i find i’m getting rave reviews from several people because… i clean. because i have a strong work ethic, they say. because i’m reliable. i can’t tell them that the reason the first thing i do when i come in every morning is clean the home so it’s spotless, the reason i’m continually straightening, putting things in proper order, is because of ocd-ness. my dysfunction, in this one respect, is somehow an asset, and so it slides by.

so i’m trying to bury my mind, stifle it, not allow thoughts to happen… but i can’t do that for very long. i need to be the kind of person who is DOing something, exploring, accomplishing, learning, growing. so i entertain thoughts of redesigning my portfolio, updating my resume, creating new business cards, marketing materials, trying to find another in-house design job…

and at that point my mind stops, won’t go any further. because all i can see is what happened with the job last year. that i was an extremely good designer, got rave reviews for my work, but i got attacked over and over because i didn’t smile enough, wasn’t good with small talk, because i somehow made people feel “uncomfortable.” i was the square-edged creature in their round world, and cuz i was different, they made sure i knew it, made sure how unwelcome i was, and despite how i tried to communicate, cross bridges, it somehow become my fault. and i *can’t* go thru that again.

and my mind doesn’t want to deal with that, so i pull the fold back in the mind, nope, not going there. and instead i will go in tomorrow to spoon-feed a human being very gently, very carefully, my mind emptying itself into the daytime tv stream.