yes, I’m judging
I’ve been hesitant to share this one. Normally I react to my patients reflections about their past and recognition of their self work, with empathy and appreciation.
This was the first time I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach that was palpable in an instant.
I suppose I first heard it in his somewhat canned scripts, describing his changed self. Almost like he was reading from the pages of a workbook, the lessons he’s learned from the AA meetings or other programming.
And then, he shared his crime, vehicular manslaughter due to a DUI. But not his first DUI….his third.
(I can feel my heart racing and my body reacting even still as I’m writing this.)
He shared that he had been high when he attended the Mother’s Against Drink Driving (MADD) meetings.
Yes, high.
He shared his sadness with how he would be missing all these milestones of his child, due to his incarceration. Birthdays, prom, high school graduation, starting college …..
And that’s when I felt this awful sinking feeling in the casual setting of him performing the exercises I showed him. He wasn’t looking at me and I must have had an incredulous look on my face.
I couldn’t help but think, “and what about the individual whose life you took? What about the life milestones that the family is missing with their loved one?”
I know I’m coming from a place of judgement. I don’t know what it is to be an addict.
I’m also judging because I was hit by a drunk driver while driving home one December night. And that drunk driver was driving on a suspended license due to a previous DUI (He fled the scene on foot—so, also a coward. He was eventually found an hour later a mile away and arrested. He had the gaul to tell his insurance company that I ran the light. Absolute nonsense, for which I had dozens of witnesses. And let’s not forget he was found an hour later and still registered above the BAC for a DUI). The only reason I’m alive from that night is because he was on a motorcycle when he hit my driver side.
So you can imagine it took everything in me to not express my thoughts out loud. Perhaps he has considered those things in his self reflections. Perhaps he just wasn’t expressing it at that moment.
I’m not his mental health provider or his AA instructor. I’m his PT. And this is one of the challenges of staying in my lane. Especially when I know the person’s crime. Know my role and stay focused on the needs of the person in front of me.
And take a very long exhale.
*just to note, I’ll be leaving out the name of the institution that I work at. It’s a state prison for reference. Images are not from the prison as no devices are allowed in.
Prison PT 
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