Why is it that everything and everyone is damaged, today?
Why is it that we make excuses for everyone or everything that is “damaged,” today?
Why is it that every situation has a -disorder attached to it?
When I grew up, as a boy in the 50s, I couldn’t pay attention for shit. I couldn’t pay attention for shit into the 60s. I couldn’t pay attention into my college days in the late 60s / early 70s. I didn’t like school; I didn’t like high school; I didn’t like college. I couldn’t sit down. I had to be up and moving and acting. Classes bored me senseless. Doing nothing for an hour ratcheted up my anxiety to the Nth degree. I had to be moving. I had to be outside.
I knew one thing: I wanted an “outside” job — as I eventually took in Law Enforcement. An “inside” job — as in an office — would have resulted in my being a mass murderer.
I was “damaged” and yet I managed to survive and, further, thrive. I started to play to my strengths. I knew that no desk job would suffice. I knew that I had to constantly change my job and that the next job had to be “outside.”
“Inside” jobs killed me. They killed me worse as I got older.
I had to work in the jail system when I first hired on to my current full-time job, in 1980. Yet, at the Branch Jail, there was an “outside.” I didn’t have to work, just yet, in enclosed rooms.
The next year, in 1981, I was transferred to the old Main Jail which was an ancient stone and cement and granite building. It was “inside.” I knew I wouldn’t be leaving this building, at the rate of transfers, for years. I worked Male Booking which was the lowest of the low: in the basement. But I could at least see, outside that sliding metal and Plexiglas door, Real Cops pull into the jail parking lot with their arrestees. I worked the worst of the worst: in the basement, in an ancient building, on the graveyard shift. But I was kept busy because Booking was insane with activity on graves.
I had to make a massive mental shift which only managed to distract me because I was constantly busy.
From there, I worked Outside Jobs for the department. Tons of them. I was happy and I thrived and received kudos and such.
When I lost my last Outside Job, at EVOC last year, I was petrified. I hadn’t worked an Inside Job in years. And my old ass was now going back to the Jail System.
Which is Inside.
I couldn’t pay attention at any number of jobs, and in my current job. That I’ve managed to achieve any level of success bespeaks my sheer knowledge of a system as opposed to my being able to function calmly and consideredly therein.
I refuse to work the “new” Main Jail. It is an ill-devised building which creates its own ill-crafted and damaged employees. My guess would be: these are deputies who crave to be “outside” but they simply cannot achieve this.
My first assignment at the Branch Jail when my EVOC job was eliminated: I got an INSIDE JOB.
I was assigned as the Supervisor to the Security side of the Branch Jail. That meant that I supervised the four highest level security portions of the entire jail, where the worst of the worst were housed. And they included not only county — but also State and Federal prisoners as well. Assholes that — I later realized — the state and federal systems didn’t want and, instead, thrust upon us because our contracts were loose and obscure.
Just last week, that has changed.
Another Sergeant came to the shift when another retired. I left “Security” and I am now responsible for another section of inmates who primarily sun themselves in the light of day.
Oh. My. God. I could not tell you what a difference this makes.
Just to see the light of day.
Maybe you think I’m “damaged.” In truth, I’m just happy as hell to have another “Outside” job.
I know I’m autistic to a degree, that I’m color blind, that I’m emotionally stunted, that I’m ADHD, that I can’t concentrate on anything more than a few seconds, that I’m depressive and lazy and obsessive-compulsive. I don’t have much of a grasp on love or personal situations. I’m as emotionally-blessed as a sea anemone. My senses don’t thrill: I don’t smell much or taste much or hear much or see much. Which is why I require my senses to be overloaded when quite possible.
And those are my good traits.
You know what? Despite that I’ve managed to make a life for myself and a few others that I’ve encountered along my way. I supported my first wife and put her through nursing school, and a 17-year girlfriend where I supported her beading venture, and my current wife of three years. I’ve done nothing but support women my entire life. It just worked out that way.
I’ve succeeded as a Human Being despite the fact that, primarily, I am not.
I’ve been quite duplicitous.
I don’t quite know what I am.
But Human is not it.
BZ
