One of the funniest stories Michelle ever told me was from her old job at Pathways, where she had to make home visits to these clients (in the Bronx, mostly). One female client she visited was floridly psychotic, and she answered the door topless, in a diaper, with crack pipes scattered all over the floor, and she called Michelle a fucking bitch and every other insult and then tried to swing a punch at her. It's mostly funny because I can picture Michelle remaining absolutely calm and not blinking an eye at this lady, just saying something professional and respectful, whereas I don't know what the fuck I would do. At her new job she doesn't do home visits because the clients live there. Lately though, she has been complaining about this lady named Cathy, who basically abuses her verbally and I don't know why Michelle has trouble telling the lady to bugger off or whatever it is you tell crazy people to get them out of your office. Michelle said she thinks Cathy might try to hit her, so I advised having a plan. Michelle said her plan is to run because Cathy has the bug (all the clients are HIV pos). Anyways, Mich has to write up notes on her clients and yesterday she sent me the following notes, which made me laugh. Hopefully I've given enough background information so that you can at least picture the incident:
Subject: unbelievable
This morning writer attempted to telephone Cathy to remind her of this Friday's Step One Case Conference. Because she did not answer, writer left her a Voicemail message that left the date and time and the importance of her attending. Writer then typed her a letter that reminded her of the same and went to drop it off at her apartment. When she opened the door and was told that writer was there to remind her of the meeting, she instantaneously became agitated and shouted, "I told you I'm not going!" She went on to say that she didn't understand why writer was asking her again to attend. Writer explained that it was policy. Cathy then mentioned that she planned to pay rent tomorrow, as if to suggest there were no longer grounds for a Conference. She then slammed the door on writer.
About one hour later, while this writer was in a Staff Meeting with the rest of the Clover Hall team, Cathy disrupted the meeting when she opened the door and entered. She immediately began shouting at this writer, stating her belief that writer should not leave her any sort of messages on her phone and that she believed receiving a message was "harassment." Because Cathy refused to exit the room independently, Mr. Saint Victor had to physically walk to the door area and escort her out. During this disturbance, writer remained silent except for making one statement, which was that writer did not believe a message reminding her about a meeting was harassment.
Michelle Karam, LMSW
Case Manager
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