Changed by Caring

I found a program for Robin which could provide residential treatment for a year. However Robin refused to hear of it.

We periodically hold meetings with staff and patients where we gather to discuss various issues and air grievances. At one such meeting, with Robin in attendance, the director threw the room open to anyone who had something to share. After some silence, Robin’s therapist blurted out that she was going to quit. She began to cry. She went on to say that she had put her guts into Robin and she was positive Robin would not stay clean if she left treatment. Rather than watch her patient destroy herself, the therapist was determined to quit.

At this point Robin rose, walked across the room and put her arm around her therapist whose despondency persisted. Many of the patients and staff members tried to cajole her into going on for more treatment but Robin remained adamant. It was quite a role reversal with the therapist crying and Robin comforting her.

A few days later the therapist found me in my office and said, “Something about Robin has changed. I think she can make it on her own as an outpatient after all.” Indeed, Robin left the facility, attended recovery meetings and remained out of jail.

I wondered just what had worked for Robin and at a recovery meeting I heard her tell her story: she had been raised in several foster homes. “No one had ever really cared for me,” she said. “I got to feel useless, a burden to everyone. I hated the world for treating me like a worthless piece of junk.

“I didn’t believe anyone could care for me. When my therapist cried over my refusal to go for long term treatment, worrying about what might happen to me, it was the first time in my life that anyone ever really cared about what might happen to me. I couldn’t believe her feelings were for real and for a while I continued to test her sincerity. When I realized her caring was genuine it gave me hope that maybe the world was not as cruel or uncaring as I thought.”