I teach kids with special needs in a level four public school. (There are only five behavioral levels. Level five are those who are in constant crisis mode and usually live in a crisis facility. The kids I work with are one level below that.) One of my students is a very difficult kid whose behaviors appear to emerge at random and almost never subtly. Thursday, he was a snuggly, sleepy, lovey little kid, giving hugs and kisses and saying I love you. Friday, he purposely peed on the floor of the bathroom while smiling at me then saying,"You like it?"
"No, I don't. I don't like it at all."
He smiled and replied,"You know you like it."
When I leaned to clean it up, he began to spit on me, which I have learned to stop reacting to at all since that seems to be the reason he does it in the first place; the reaction. Although, nothing is ever consistent with this kid.
Following the peeing and spitting, he had a BM (bowel movement) and then refused to allow me to help him wipe. His dexterity is not great and he can't do this on his own, so I just had to wait him out. (Something else I have learned is a valuable tool.) Eventually he got bored and started to lean forward to mess with his pants or something, and I snapped my hand down and got a wipe in. He then pointed at me, frowned, and raised his voice with some nonsensical Somali, English hybrid words I couldn't understand followed by, "you!!" and a swat in my direction. I dodged and waited some more, repeated the above twice, and finally got him out of the bathroom with a clean bottom and a smile on his face. On the walk back to the classroom, he listened so well and instead of climbing on the bikes in the common area or dropping to the floor, walked slowly right to the classroom.
He worked on a puzzle for awhile, had a snack of his choice, and while he was happily eating, I walked over to get a sip of water. He got up and came over, slapped me hard on the back between my shoulder blades, and then sunk his teeth into my arm. He then smiled his crooked little smile as I yiped,"ouch!" and he said,"Oh, sorry. Sorry, Miss Saddie!" His brow furrowed and eyes looked sad, as he kissed my cheek and sat on my lap to watch a video.
Ten minutes later it was time for him to put his coat on. This kid loathes putting his coat on, and we were two staff short in our classroom, so it was up to me to wrestle him into it. First he smacked me a couple times with his hands, then dropped to the floor and would not get up. When I tried to put the coat on while he was on the floor, he began to kick and got me hard on each arm and once on my head. When he found that I was still not deterred, he flung his head back and butted me a good one in the jaw. This was when I tapped out, told the sixty four year old teacher in the room with me that I was done and went across the hall to get more staff to help. (He will often listen to one of the teachers in that room.) Someone came over to help and we had to escort him out to his bus, one of us on each side, then bribe him with bubbles to get on.
Once all the busses were gone, I rushed to get going because it was Friday and I have therapy every other week at 4:30p on the other side of the city. My therapist had recently changed the time to 4p, so I was really hurrying and arrived with enough time to stop and get some gas. Before getting to the gas station however, I could not help but notice that every fourth vehicle on the road was driving like a complete maniac and I had to make evasive maneuvers twice in that short drive, to avoid what was sure to have been an accident.
When I pulled into the gas station I took out the gas card a friend had given me (because money is the worst ever), and stuck it in the pump. This didn't work, so I tried again, and again, then threw my purse into my car, locked it, and went into the building with the gas card. I waited behind several people taking their sweet times to pay, then was told that nope, sorry, no gift cards today because their internet is down. I then went back out to my car to get another way to pay, brought that in, and left to get to my appointment.
Upon arriving at my therapist's office, her door was closed which I thought was odd since I was two or three minutes late. I looked at the text exchange and discovered that the change to a 4p appointment time started the next week, not this one. So I made myself some tea, which I promptly scalded my hand with, then sat down and played stupid phone games for half an hour.
When our session had ended and I had spent the majority of it explaining why things feel so painfully hopeless to me so often, how I feel paralyzed and trapped by money, and how there seems to be no escape from that, I went out to my car to head home and found a parking ticket resting beneath the wiper, fluttering in the breeze. As I looked at it, I watched the rush hour, Uptown Minneapolis traffic, race by and thought how easy it would be to just step in front of one of these hurried commuters' vehicles and probably end it all. I thought about the pain I would feel and how I would immediately regret having done it, but how the physical would (at least partially) outweigh the emotional, and I'd have a short respite. I thought about the person who would have hit me and how they would be scarred forever because of it, about my blood on the street, about my dog waiting at home for me, about my mom and her reaction when she got the call that her only daughter had been hit by a car in the big bad city, and I took the ticket from my windshield, got into my Honda and started it up. Still teary eyed, I headed through the familiar streets toward the interstate and as I reached the busiest and most confusing intersection in the area (the Hennepin-Lyndale split) the light turned red. I was about six cars from the crosswalk, and could think of nothing but getting home to my bed which I would not leave for the remainder of the evening. As I sat waiting, I saw an older (mid seventies) looking man open the door of his big Ford pickup and look back over the traffic lined up behind him. He looked a little confused, and I immediately thought,"Oh, I bet you anything this truck won't be moving when the light changes."
He stood there for some time, I watched, and then the light flipped to green and the three or so cars between he and I, pulled around him honking and sped off while the other two lanes of traffic zoomed by on each side. He was, of course, in the center lane. I pulled closer to his truck and put on my hazards then opened my door and yelled out,"Do you need help?!" Obviously sans dentures he responded,"I think so!" So I pulled up closer and jumped out of my car, ran up to his, and asked what he was trying to do since it seemed he was attempting to push the full-sized pickup on his own while also steering it. He explained that he just needed to push it out of the center lane and to the shoulder, and without a thought, I ran back to the rear and started pushing. Somehow, I was moving this truck up a slight incline, on my own, and then I realized that the cars passing were not likely to see what was happening here and would continue to attempt passing on both sides which meant that either the truck would plow into one of them, one of them would plow into the truck, or I would be smashed in between this truck and some impatient driver. Just then, one of the cars trying to pass on the right, stopped and the driver jumped out to help push, then one other driver did the same and we had the truck moving pretty quickly over to the curb. The old man was still trying to push and steer simultaneously and I looked up just in time to see him lose his footing, while still holding onto the steering wheel. He legs were dragging on the ground as he held on and his entire body was about to slip under the truck when I ran up and thrust my arms under his armpits, hefting him up. His old, fat, poodle dog, excited to see a new person, was wagging his tail and trying to jump out to say hello while this was happening, and the old man was saying,"No Buddy! You stay in there!" For a moment I held up the man's weight with one arm as I pushed the dog back into the passenger's seat, the men helping to push the truck stopped pushing and made some uncomfortable joke about falling but did not step in to help me hold up this grown man's weight, and about then the man found his footing and stood. I told him I thought it would be best if he just get into the truck and we will push it while he steers. He resisted this a bit, but I insisted, rolled down the window for him, and helped him into his seat. He then resisted my shutting the door behind him and for some reason wanted to keep the door open. I insisted we close the door, this was done, and I ran back to help push again. In no time we had the truck on the side of the road and I ran back to my car which was now just sitting in the center lane behind a very busy intersection, with traffic flying by on both sides. I jumped in, waved at the two men who had pulled over to help, and continued home.
When I got home, I let my dog out, ate a salad in my bed, and then lay there for several hours watching Cold Case Files and crying off and on. It occurred to me as a lay there that I hadn't thought, even for a moment, about the possible consequences of jumping into rush hour traffic to single handedly push a very large pickup. I very easily could have been killed, hurt, or had yet another car totalled. Luckily nothing happened but a surge of adrenaline that gave me super strength and stupid courage. Maybe I could find that old man and he could pay my parking ticket.
Last Friday was a rough day.
