The Photographer and the Doberman

I sent this to the Sidran Institute in the hopes they might use it...pass it on to some of their providers.

There are many "professionals" out there, who do not know and cannot fathom how to handle an "incorrigible teenager" who doesn't fit neatly into their DSM diagnoses and treatments.

I hope it helps someone.

True Scenario from a Real Former ‘Incorrigible Teenager”

I am 13 years old. I have survived on the streets now for about two years, during which time I’ve been beaten, raped, stabbed, shot at, bought and sold. Before that – before I can remember – I was repeatedly sexually assaulted, raped, beaten, humiliated, abandoned and hurt. I have suffered multiple STD’s that have gone untreated because I refuse to be ‘locked up’ so I just keep running away. I do not trust you. I do not trust anyone. Especially the police and especially the system.

What pisses me off the most, is when a caseworker or social worker or psychiatrist comes at me as if they know me. As if there’s some anecdote in their fancy scholarly books that describes exactly what it feels like to be penetrated by a man whose penis feels it may well split your body in two or how it feels to suckle your father’s penis when it is supposed to be a bottle in your mouth.

These people who may very much be well-intended, are too pushy and you are the very ones I will hate. I mean hate. I hate you because you don’t know me. You can’t know me. Yet, you pretend you do and you act as if you have all the answers. You come at me with machine-gun questions and I have developed my survival skills to the point where I can answer every rapid-fire question with the perfect answer. Exactly what you want/need to hear.

Because I am a survivor.

Plus I know, if I don’t say or do whatever it is you expect for me to say or do, you will strap me down, stick a needle in my ass while men stand on watching, without regard for the nothingness that is me. What little dignity there is – if any – is dissolved in that moment. Or you’ll stick me in a group of other “incorrigible teens” who are supposed to share their stories but who, like me, are probably just saying everything you need to hear. Giving you ‘just enough’ so you can write on your notes that so-and-so is being cooperative and appears to be making progress.

And then so-and-so will go into some foster home somewhere and run away again because so-and-so, knows nothing else. There is no home for dirty little girls like us. We foul up everything and everyone we touch. We are cloaked in disgust, semen, disease. Our scarlet letter is “W” – stands for “whore” – because that’s all we have ever been. That’s all we’ve ever been good for. These horrid, wretched, ugly bodies that we hate so much that we cut, starve, stab, burn and otherwise maim because we hate them so badly.

But….

There’s another scenario that I want to share from my own personal experience.

Through dozens and dozens of foster homes and group homes, being a ward of the state, belonging nowhere, having nobody, I chose solitude and trust was something I never knew. Ever.

But there was one group home where I met a woman. She was a counselor there. She was also a photographer.

Unlike the other counselors who tried to tell you your problems or ask invasive questions, this one did not. She asked nothing of me. She didn’t try to get close to me or push me. I will use an analogy.

I am the beaten, dog-fighting Doberman, abandoned for losing a fight. I’ve been trained to hate, to fight, to bite.

This counselor sees me, frothing, angry, bloody, mistrustful, and she says not a word as I stand snarling at her from the corner of the room.

She basically ignores me and goes on to piece together the fancy contraption that is her complex camera. I, being the raging angry dog that I am, see her sit down in a non-threatening manner, and my chemistry changes. I see no threat so I, too, sit down, but my eyes remain fixed. I stay prepared – ready to jump at her throat with one false move.

But she continues on with her task. She lifts her camera to take a photo, and my head pops up with the movement. What is she doing?

She is pointing the camera in the opposite direction, away from me. Not even looking at me. Not even acknowledging my presence. I lay my head back down on my bloody paws, and watch vigilantly.

She takes a few more pictures, and then she starts to speak – almost to herself – “Too fuzzy,” or “Wrong lighting,” or “Wrong lens” or “Damn, that was off-focus.”

She pauses, looks at me and I raise my head again, suspicious.

“You know, I think I need to get a new lens,” she says to me. “This one is starting to get foggy and I think I got some sand in it.”

I cock my head to the side. I don’t know what she is talking about but at least she is not coming near me. I am curious. Why isn’t she?

She does this day after day, every day. Never imposing, always calm, always with her camera. Sometimes she brings me pictures and she asks me my opinion. “Do you think this one is too much?” she asks me.

Eventually, I move closer. Just a little.

And closer.

Just a little.

She takes her camera apart and puts it back together again. She switches the lenses and the flashes. She even takes my picture and then shows it to me.

I move closer. Just a little.

She shows me the picture of myself. She tells me it’s a great shot. She doesn’t patronize me and tell me I’m beautiful or gorgeous or pretty or anything else. Just says, “It’s a great shot.”

She does not know me. She cannot know me. And she makes no pretense to. She is simply calm and consistent. She shows me the buttons on her camera because now I have moved close enough that my nose almost touches her thigh. She does not try to touch me. Just continues to show me her prized possession.

Soon I feel this desire to show her something of my own. To give something of myself to her, even if I am not sure she will take it, nor what she would do with it.

So, one day, she comes and she sits in the doorway and I scoot a little closer. I rest my scarred nose on her thigh. She does not touch me. Instead, she smiles at me, accepting me.

She still asks no questions. “How did you get this scar? What happened here? What about your parents?”

Nothing. She simply sits there, being who she is, and allows me the space to be who I am. She was the first and only person I ever dared trust.

I was taken away from her – moved to a new place – but I won’t ever forget the gentle, non-invasive way she reached me, deep inside. At least, deeper than anyone else ever had. She gave me herself, instead of expecting me to give myself to her.

I will never forget the photographer at Babbler State Park in Missouri.