On Being the Prey of an Old and Impotent Man

Months had passed after making the transition to retirement...well, the retirement of that previous business I was involved in--therapy for the traumatized. It took a great deal of rest and machinations to make the transition. I knew I was worn out, but I did not know how much so. For about 6 weeks I slept odd hours, on my body's own schedule and deeply. I did remember my dreams, however. Mostly I dreamed--or rather, woke up thinking--about my last job.

For example, I would wake up seeing the thermostat that the lifeless male colleague would crank up to 85 and sometimes 87 degrees. This would broil me and my clients while not controlling his ambient temp at all. It comes as a trauma memory: a frozen snapshot of the thermostat reading itself. That one photo memory carried a great deal of emotion for me. It was the feeling of being the prey of a relentless predator day after day, but a predator with no real substance; simply a toxicity and irritation that wouldn't relent. It reminded me of what it mist be like living with with an aged and debilitated sexual predator--like a grandparent--who could no longer physically offend, but still spoke and was a daily presence, verbally oozing his toxins at every opportunity.

I began to think about the deeper story of the predator at my workplace, and had some pretty good gestalt sessions about it.

I have a lot of information about this man and his history. It seems he had gone down this road before which isn't unusual and was fired because of targeting a female colleague there too.You don't become that lifeless, predatory, obsessed, or petty overnight. You have to work up to it. Someone who noticed his acting out shared some background with me.

One morning, while still working alongside him,  I woke up to discover I had an opportunity to have and display mercy. The deeper information I was given about him was so sad that my felt need for revenge evaporated. He was already suffering far more than me although he may not have realized it. This occurred to me when I watched him race in and out of a therapy session multiple times one day. It's something that just isn't done. Finally I followed him and saw him standing in a hallway taking deep breaths, obviously in distress. He was having a panic attack. Another day I saw him typing and having palsied hand movements. Together with what I knew about his life, these scenes diminished him in importance and awakened my desire to have compassion despite his behavior toward me.

It was odd to me to have these thoughts, but it freed me. Whenever he acted out after that, I remembered his daughter was an opiate addict that he would chase around town, manhandle into his car, and take her home from a night out Meanwhile, he and his wife raised her young son, while their addicted daughter and her child lived with them. He and his wife hid money, credit cards and valuables from her. Another revelation about him was that his targeting of me intensified when I could not intervene in his daughter's addiction. I had a well known history of addiction work, and a known close friend on the medical staff of an addiction inpatient facility. He asked me to 'pull some strings' to get her off the short waiting list and into rehab quicker. I could not. I discussed it with my friend just to be in integrity about it, but we both agreed it couldn't be done in good conscience.