As Experienced Sleep Decreases, My Wit, Intelligence and Attractiveness Surely Increase

Last night I couldn't sleep. Most likely this was because I knew I had to get up at 6 in order to get to my 7:45 am shift at the Org on time. But also, and much more likely due to the fact that I spent the last hour of my shift the day before doing counselling with a homicidal youth.

Yeah... my job entails that I do that sometimes.

Homicidal. As in, with plans and means to torture and kill specific individuals in their community.

It was really interesting and disturbing. I mean, it is pretty unusual for a homicidal youth to seek-help. The fear of judgment alone is enough to keep the young person quiet. And likely there is an abuse history as long as your arm... no real models of typical development, tons of anger that is misdirected at innocents who are perceived as rejecting the young person. Yes, I'm talking the sort of person who discloses that they are considering a massive Columbine-style retribution for perceived wrongs. Anger is meant for the parents? But ends up being directed at others. I have spoken to homicidal youth before, and according to my supervisors handled it quite well. But nothing prepared me for yesterday's counselling session.

Now, I'm not a psychologist (yet). I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis. But from what I can put together, this kid did NOT quite make the criteria for conduct disorder. Despite the behavioural qualifications being met (desire to harm, hisotry of harming others, setting cats on fire, poisoning a younger sibling with antifreeze, detailed plans to torture and kill individuals that had been followed in the middle of the night) --- this "kid" seemed to be missing a key problematic component.

Feeling.

You see, the main reason why we are terrified of psychopaths (an adult diagnosis of characteristics that blossom out of conduct disorder which is an under-18 diagnosis) is that they lack empathy.

"Typical" people, when sensing distress in others, pick up on their corporeal cues. They see distress in another person's face or voice and their little mirror-neurons fire like crazy. They percieve distress and experience EMPATHY -- a vicarious experiencing of that person's distress that manifests itself in physical cues such as quickened pulse, galvanic skin response, rapid breathing, and a mirroring of the other person's corporeal cues.

Empathy. Feeling. They FEEL the other person's distress, and then, they help, or at the very least STOP hurting them.

Psychopaths don't. Conduct disordered kids largely don't as well.

But this kid. Despite claiming not to feel guilt or remorse was writing to a crisis help line type service. They claimed to be scared that they would act on these impulses... were aware that they were really angry at abusive and neglectful parents.

They were seeking HELP.

Uh-huh.

Brutal for me. They were quite expicit that they were an accomplished con-artist. Extohled their own talents of charm and manipulation. I was freaked out. Was I being conned? I don't know. But I suspect that if they were seeking help, that they were feeling SOMETHING. Maybe not empathy exactly... but something. And I wanted to explore that. Because IF this kids was being genuine with me... my god... what a blessing this was. That they WANTED to get support. That there is hope to avoid future suffering for potential victims... but even moreso, to avoid future suffering for them as well.

Was my life just touched by a potential future psychopath on the brink? Did I give them even 1% possible hope for a life free from revenge and anger?

My god, I hope so.

I am so incredibly humbled by this experience. So incredibly tired. And yet, I can only imagine the hell that this child has been through and the intense suffering that is being defended against. If I believed in "God" I would pray. But I don't. So I will just put it out there. We never know when our judgement or lack thereof may be pivotal in someone's life. Yes, I know I am in the business of non-judgementalness. But wow, this was possibly the most humbling experience of my life since the school shooting call.

I'll tell you about that sometime. But for now. It's sleep. I've just finished my first draft of a developmental framework for self-efficacy and help-seeking on a national child helpline. A circle is complete and I must rest before the next one.

N***, wherever you are. Please know that I meant every word. I want you to be okay. Not becuase I don't want you to hurt anyone else. But because I think that YOU are worthy, loveable and deserving of care. I'm sorry you've been let down and I believe that you can get over this an lead a life not ruled by revenge and anger. I want that for you. I hope you want it too.

Deep breaths, okay? Let us both sleep well tonight.

Isn't It Weird?

I haven't been this tired since I started my own theatre company in high-school, wrote and directed plays, put whole shows together, rented halls, and had a nightly audience. Right now, I would say that I am so tired...

"How tired are you?"

I am so tired that I could throw up into my own mouth and not have enough energy to spit it out.

And now that I've grossed you out, on to the post.

My computer died. I think I mentioned that little gadget is no more, shuffed off this mortal coil and gone to join the choir invisible. The hole she has left in my life, and the rocks that now live in my lower back, are immense. I'm back to using littleboy... my old laptop. My old, 7 1/2 lb plus cord laptop. If I were a mom, I'd be asking myself how on earth I ever pushed this thing out. Do you see? Can you tell how tired I am considering the "natural" birth of a laptop?

What I am trying to get to here is that I've successfully conquered two hurdles put in front of me since losing gadget. A major presentation and a ginormous stats assignment. Hee hee. I like calling them "STATSASS#." Statsass4 is out of the way... I don't know if my explanation of why error terms are different for different F tests in a mixed design ANOVA made any sense, but it's done. What I'm saying is it is DONE and we don't have to discuss it anymore! And I can't anyway, because the explanation was in a file on my stoopid newer old laptop.

I'm coping with the missing data, but moreso, I just miss gadget. She was too beautiful for this world... so light and bright blue... a 6 hour battery in such a small frame. She fit in my PURSE dammit! And now al I have is this lunking, bulky first born dragging me down and sending me to the chiropractor twice a week. I need a gym membership just so my laptop doesn't throw out my back from carrying it in my knapsack.

Sigh...

This isn't my best writing.

Did I mention how tired I was? Oh, right, the vomit joke. Sorry about that.

RIP Little Gadget

My computer is dead. My poor sweet little acer aspire one is no more. She wouldn't turn on the other day. I used all my powers, then all my nerdly husband's powers, but we couldn't get a heartbeat. Gadget's guts contained many things... including the non-backed up copy of a paper that is due on Tuesday.

Well, it was backed up, but last week's version of it.

Also, all my emails, email addresses, countless files of school work, academic googogs, photos, a proposal... my entire life outside of the bedroom essentially. When it happened, an me facing a deadline (or seven), I panicked. I felt like Dr. McCoy when he and Kirk beamed aboard the Klingon ship to try to save General Kang. There I was, straddling the laptop version of a tiny little Klingon and the best hope for galactic peace in my lifetime... pounding on it's chest. The only thing missing was the globules of pepto-bismol pink blood and Christoper Plummer yelling at me. I kept pounding on it daying, "C'mon dammit, breathe!" But nothing.

"Dammit Jim, I'm a grad student, not a computer engineer."

So I called Nerds On Site. They sent a fifth-level half orc mage with a million experience and two charisma to my appartment. He wasn't pretty to look at but he knew his shit.

Gadget could either be sent to the manufacturer and returned in working order with an 80% chance of having all my files in tact OR we could crack open her still warm corpse and retrieve my data in time to hand in assignments.

"I'll get the sledgehammer."

Sigh... Here's the thing. I DO run backups. But they had been buggy for a couple of weeks and I was too busy to work out the kinks on my desktop. I learned the hard way. MAKE BACKUPS A PRIORITY PEOPLE.

Let's see, so that's $550 for the laptop, + $120 for the awesome 6 hour battery (which totally delivered, btw), another$280 for three hours of the nerd's time = $1050 + tax for me to have a laptop for 7 months.

I know that they won't do anything for me, and I will probably get laughed at, possibly before I hang up the phone. But I still might call acer and yell at them anyway. I need to mourn. But there is no time.

Gadget, you may be dead... but this desktop has essentially mind-melded with you. If I've learned anything from Star Trek is that rebooting the series is always possible. And your consciousness can live on indefinitely in the hard-drive/brain of another computer until Kristy Alley goes to rehab and the genesis project is released.

Say it with me: "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHNNNNNN!!!!"