2:46am November 28, 2014

Staff using disabled people in their power plays.

I used to have what in the DD world they refer to as behavior problems. Which basically means a hair-trigger temper that I took out on the objects and people around me, and on myself, in equal measure.

There was a power struggle going on between my staff person, I’ll call her Dolores, and my case managers, I had two, I’ll call them John and Marie. Both lacked any apparent heart or conscience. To them it was all about power, gaining it and maintaining it, and treating staff and disabled clients as their very own living dollhouse to do with as they pleased.

If they got reports that a staff person was abusing power, they’d promote them. If they knew a client and staff got along great, they’d do their best to separate them. These were the ones who used an illiterate man’s emails to accuse his favorite staff (Dolores) of abuse while pretending to take dictation from him about something totally different. Well now they were trying to get in between me and Dolores.

So they set up a meeting. Dolores came to all my meetings to help as a cognitive interpreter, my right under the law. They said they’d show up at noon. They showed up at 11 to get me alone and outnumbered. They knew I never did two on one conversations so of course John had someone with him. They came in and talked about stuff I don’t remember which is one reason I needed Dolores. When she came at noon they tried to leave but I wouldn’t let them. He claimed the meeting was over at noon. Dolores said “no you said noon thirty”.

I very angrily typed what they’d done to manipulate me. John said to Dolores, “she was just fine till you got here.” Dolores tried to say it was because I was scared, but before she could get a word out, I threw my trackball at John, missed and hit my laptop screen. Screamed in his face. Then ran into the bathroom before I could do real damage.

I came out after I cooled down. John was smiling a chilling smile. I apologized to him. He said “It’s okay, I understand, it wasn’t your fault anyway. You’re not in any trouble at all.”

I asked Dolores about that comment later. She said that the moment he set off my meltdown, he sat back, relaxed, and smiled directly at Dolores the whole time. When I left the room, he said “See what you made her do?” He had deliberately set up all the conditions that normally resulted in meltdowns. The visit read like the section of my IPP (Individual Program Plan) on what not to do in meetings with me. I read it later and they had done every single thing it said not to do. No coincidence here: They were literally using my IPP as a guide for figuring out how to fuck up my ability to communicate and understand, and as a guide to inducing meltdowns.

And they used my meltdown to get between me and Dolores. They set up the situation, they used known triggers, and waited for me to go off, then got Dolores in trouble for my behavior. This is an extremely common ploy used by staff to get each other in trouble, using disabled people as weapons. Always be aware, in situations like this, you could be being set up on purpose, in order for people who don’t even see you as human to use you against each other. Another way staff will use clients against each other is one-upmanship games where each staff scores points for “understanding a client better than other staff do”. They have all kinds of power games they play against each other, the common feature being that we are not people to them, we are chips on a game board, we are objects to be owned, we are things. Never ever forget that some staff and case managers will use you this way.