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The training for this job included a two day class in the Mandt System which, as any initiate can happily recite, teaches you to manage yourself as well as others. It recognizes an obvious but frequently overlooked fact: a situation that is spiraling out of control is most likely spiraling you out of control as well. Any assessment of this situation must include an examination of your own physical and emotional state, otherwise you will unwittingly contribute to the problem. David Mandt uses the term "escalation".

            During this training, I imagined large, violent people on (or off) lots of medication wielding sharp household objects. The instructor proudly recounted numerous tales of encounters with huge, angry men to whom he valiantly applied the appropriate Mandt hold and skillfully de-escalated the situation. I smiled at the stories, unconcerned about their degree of accuracy. The trainings were pretty boring and the narrative grandeur broke an otherwise mind-numbing eight hours. I took comfort in the fact that I'd be working with a much less volatile population anyway.

            Although the instructor was a little too obsessed with the physical aspects of the Mandt System (it includes a rigorous method for "restraint") the basic philosophy still came across. What failed to breach the gap, though, was the idea that any situation can escalate anyone. It never occurred to me that what drives a scenario into the red can be subtle, insidious, and instigated by very small people. You might suddenly look down and find yourself on a dangerous and precipitous edge with no idea how you got there. Except for the unfortunate person who helped you get to such uncontrollable heights, you will be completely alone.

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"Alone" was most of the problem. I was often the only staff person in the house and I frequently worked ten hour stretches by myself without breaks. There was little support on hand and certainly no opportunity to take a fifteen minute walk around the block to calm down.

            I no longer work for that agency and I now have the benefit of hindsight. I'm clearly not the right person to be working with Madeleine. My buttons are far too available for pushing, and she managed to figure out how to hit at least half of them. At the same time, I wonder whose fuse is long enough to work alone, week after week, with someone as difficult as Madeleine.

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Madeleine's breathing was finally slowing down, and so was mine. Her eyes returned to their original size, and I could feel a headache starting in the tight, sore muscles at the base of my neck.

            She looked very, very tiny in the easy chair. This recliner was Alice's throne. Alice is a large woman and she usually fills the chair with her sizeable girth. Madeleine seemed awkward in the seat with so much of it looming up around her odd, angular body. Her hair was still wet from her bath, so the disconcerting angles of her skull were pronounced and strange to see. As my pulse began to come down, I thought to myself that if some mysterious force in the universe offered me the opportunity to hear one person's thoughts for just a few minutes, I would choose Madeleine. Without thinking twice, I would choose her.

            Madeleine stayed in that big, blue chair for the rest of the evening. I cleaned up the kitchen, vacuumed the carpets, and cleaned the bathroom. Her eyes followed me from room to room as I did the nightly chores. Eventually I fished the radio out of the toilet. Water drained out of the cassette player and the battery case. A quiet, formless static emitted from the tiny speaker when I turned it on. I put it back on the mantel, hoping that it would still work in the morning after it dried out.     

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Copyright © 1998 Jesse Loesberg