Well… another week and another lesson over here at T.I… and this one needs some backstory… so here we go…
It was 8:45pm on Wednesday night… I had just finished everything that I needed to get done for the night… worked out… ate…. showered and just sat down in the TV room to wrap up the evening before heading to bed after count at 9:30pm. All of the sudden… I hear the unit officer yelling “Horwitz!” multiple times up and down the hallway… this is not something that I like hearing unless I know exactly what the search party is in need of… but I let him know where I was and proceeded to follow him into his office… at his request. As I enter his office… I am greeted by a Lieutenant sitting behind the desk…” Uh Oh…. this is not good”… “Hey LT… what’s going on”… I say nervously. “Your name is Horwitz right?”… “Yes sir”…. “Where do you work” says the LT…” Um… I work in the OM in the kitchen and then I also work as a Mental Health Companion with psychology” I calmly respond. “Ahh okay – that makes sense.” He writes down “mental health companion” on a piece of paper with my name on it and asks “Who is your boss over there?”… I tell him and he excuses me from the office. I now am in mild panic mode… I start racking my brain for what I could have possibly done wrong… “I don’t think I have done anything wrong but maybe they are mistaking me for someone else… I can’t get caught up in anything that gets me in trouble… everything is going well – I can’t mess up my program… I need to call the boys tomorrow… I can’t lose my phone privileges… wait I haven’t done anything wrong though… what is this all about?!” These are all the thoughts racing through my brain at hyper speed… and it is now 9:30pm… count time and bed time… yeah – good luck with that!
I get through count and head out to the lobby to check the call outs for the next day because Thursdays are when I go to Psychology for my Mental Health Companion meetings… so I always double check that we are meeting. I find my name on the call out sheet but notice that it says 9am… not the typical 11:30am meeting. I don’t think much of it and head to my room to try and get some sleep. I toss and turn all night until my alarm goes off at 3:37am… time to head to work. We were slammed in the kitchen Thursday morning and I don’t get a second to breathe until 9:20am… when I check my watch and immediately think “SH*T…. I missed my call out!” (missing a call out can cause you to get a disciplinary infraction in here… which I definitely did not want… so on top of everything else… now this). I head to psychology right at the next move (10am) and figure out that my 9am call out was with my boss. “Okay…. what could this be about??”….. He asks me to step into his office with him and says he has something that he needs to talk to me about… “doesn’t sound good” I think but head in there preparing for the unknown…
Across the desk he begins to tell me about another “inmate” that is struggling with Alzheimer’s and Dementia who has been in short stay (the compound hospital) for the last 3 months waiting to get sent to a higher level mental health facility or medical facility to finish his time. But this week… the “powers that be” said that he could not be transferred right now for whatever reason and that they feel he is fit to join “GP” (general population). Now this gentleman is about 80 years old and has no idea that he is even in prison… he is constantly saying inappropriate remarks to other guys and staff… getting write ups and disciplinary infractions but none of them stick because…. well… he doesn’t remember he even did whatever they are saying he did because he has serious dementia. But… out to general pop it is.
So… psychology decides that it would be a good idea for him to move into E Unit (which is the unit that I quarantined in when I first got here) and that a Mental Health Companion will move into the cell with him and a medical companion will move into the cell next to him (both fellow inmates) and these 2 people will be “in charge” of his care. Excuse me??? What?
I sit there staring blankly at my boss… in total disbelief of what I am hearing…
And… he tells me that he has recommended that I be the mental health companion to move in with this man…. TOMORROW!
“Wait… wait… wait…. I don’t think this is going to work…. I mean… I have a lot going on and I work in the kitchen… and I have to wake up at 3:30am every day and I have personal things going on in my life… I have to call my boys… and I have to start tutoring soon and… and I… I… I don’t think this is going to work.”
He proceeds to tell me that he has already recommended me and that it is out of his hands.
Okay… I need to figure this out because I cannot do this. Don’t get me wrong… I want to help this man but I cannot move out of my unit and back into a quarantine cell with zero training to deal with a mentally unstable fellow inmate. It is in this moment that the lesson of the week is learned and put into action. I left my boss’s office with me begrudgingly accepting a situation that is going to seriously negatively impact my life… and my mental health because I was asked to do something that will help someone else out and help the psychology department out but as I have told other guys in here… “make sure you secure your own mask before assisting others…” – It was time that I follow my own advise…
It was too late to go back to psychology and talk to my boss in person so the only thing to do (which I have never done before) was to send a “staff email” to my boss and inform him that I simply cannot accept this job assignment. It went against every single fiber in my body to do this because my “go to” behavior is just bite my tongue and do the uncomfortable thing because it would be the option of “least resistance”… the decision that wouldn’t cause any rifts or waves and allow me to simply be the “yes man” and make the situation easier for others. But that is not and was not the correct decision for me in this instance. I went through with the email and explained to him why I could not be the one to live with this man and that… while I love working in psychology and helping others… doing something that would negatively impact my “program” and mental well-being would be counter-intuitive to helping him or anyone.
Thankfully – my boss was receptive to my email and one of my other mental health companions actually volunteered for the position… once he found out that it was an option… and has moved into the cell with the gentlemen as of Friday.
So… certainly a wild few days over here… a whirlwind of emotions but at the end of the day – a lesson learned and a practice of setting boundaries successfully put into action. Boundary setting is a crucial piece of growth that I have been working on and will continue to work on in here and I have to say… I felt very proud of myself for doing the uncomfortable thing (but correct thing) and standing up for myself when I knew that it was the right personal choice.
Identify your boundaries… respect them yourself… others will follow your lead.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active.
Make sure your mask is secure before assisting others.