Pride

Shanae was a crackhead from Rockford, Illinois. She had 8 children. All of whom she lost custody. When she came to us she was pregnant with her 9th. She was 36 years old.

This was her first time away from Rockford. Her first time on an airplane. Her first time in rehab. And it was a disaster.

She grew up in a trap house with drug addicted parents. There was a constant stream of junkies, police raids, beatings, chaos, and sexual trauma.

By age 14 she was a prostitute and addicted to crack and opiates. Her only times of sobriety were in jails, hospitals and psych wards.

She had an open court case and was facing lengthy prison time for attacking a nurse who informed the authorities she was on drugs during the birth of her 8th child.

She was angry, loud, arrogant, impulsive and violent. You couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what was going on with her and her life. There was PTSD, addiction, mental illness, depression, anxiety, regret, impulse control, and god knows what else. And she had no awareness or perspective on any of it. She was almost impossible to talk to. She was either sweet and trying to get something from you, angry and screaming at you, or inappropriate and making some sort of sexual advance. You never knew which one you were going to get and often times you got all three in one interaction.

She had continual outbursts. She’d fly off the handle at what she considered the slightest sign of disrespect. She was constantly accusing staff and other clients of theft or harassment or insults or some other infraction of a code only she knew. She refused to go to groups or do any work of any kind.

Soon, the other patients were complaining of her behavior. We had to give Shanae her own room because no one dared to live with her.

One day she was screaming threats at somebody or another and the program director asked me if I would calm her down, explain to her that she needed to sign a behavioral contract, and if she broke any more rules or had another single outburst she would be administratively discharged.

I took her out and we spoke for an hour. I listened to all her complaints, some real, some imagined. I talked about what we can control. Our own actions and reactions and how the only one she was hurting was herself. How changing her life was going to have to start with changing her own behavior. How we can’t control others. She just wouldn’t hear any of it. And as she went on about how she wouldn’t let anyone disrespect her I realized something.

Shanae’s life, her upbringing, her circumstances, and her own poor decisions had stripped her of everything except pride. And pride was all that she had left. It might’ve been killing her, but she still had it, and it was hers, and if anyone dared come for that, she’d attack. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to pry it from her.

In the end, I bought her two packs of Newports and she signed the document and promised “to be good”.

The next day I had just gotten back to the facility in the afternoon, was in my office, when the program director barged through the door in a panic. She told me she called “emergency on the facility”, got all the other clients to their rooms and Shanae was being Admin Discharged for physically trying to attack a female staff member. She was refusing to leave though. She had destroyed her room and said she would kill anyone that entered. The administration team told her they would call the police and she yelled, “Tell em to bring SWAT!”

The program director asked me if there was any way I could get her to calm down, pack up and leave without incident. If not, she was going to have to call 911.

I asked for her empty luggage. There were 7 shitty, torn up suitcases, backpacks and handbags. As I entered the women’s house I could hear loud banging and screaming coming from her room. I walked towards the noise with her luggage and nervously opened the door.

There was broken furniture, clothes and belongings strewn everywhere. Both bed frames were flipped over. Dressers on their side. It looked like a bomb had gone off... A bomb named Shanae.

She was in the middle of this mess bobbing from right foot to left, fists clenched, spitting on the floor, and cursing air.

I dropped her bags at my feet and said,

“Shanae, this is what we’re going do. We’re not gonna let these motherfuckers see that they got to us. We’re gonna refuse to let ‘em beat us. We’re going to pack and I’m gonna help you. And then we’re gonna walk thru that patio with our fucking chins up. We’re not going to say a word to them. We’re not even gonna look at em. And we’re going to walk by em with pride. We’re gonna show them that we’re better than them. And that they can’t fucking touch us. And we’re going to walk straight out that door. Ya know why? Cause fuck them, that’s why.”

She unclenched her fists, nodded, and we started packing. It was quite a project but a half hour later we had filled her 7 bags. When we were finished she said, “Can I change?”

She went in the bathroom and 10 minutes later emerged in a see through black lace spandex unitard with silver sequins. Her hair was up and she was wearing high heels… She asked me, “How do I look?”

“Beautiful” I said.

She strutted through that patio, with her chin way up in the air. She walked by the dozen or so staff and administrators like a queen through a crowd of peasants. She never even glanced at em. She never said a word. Everyone was quiet. All you could hear was the click clack of her high heels with every prideful step she took.

In the car I told her she did good.
“I know I did”, she said.

I dropped her off at the bus station. She hugged me tight in the parking lot and thanked me. I asked her what she was going to do now. She said emphatically, “I’m going home!”

Me too, I thought… and took the rest of the day off.