I've been out of the loop so long I can't imagine how to be within it.

[HereSince1628]

I'm participating in an "Incentive Therapy" program intended to give purpose to my life, help me gain job skills and make friends. The program is for vets in recovery from drug addiction. I'm in it because although I'm neither an addict or a recovering addict the psych staff think I need to find purpose in life, learn new skills and get friends, and most importantly interact with people so that all the awful parts of my personality will reveal themselves so 'we can work on them.'

So we've got classes to teach us how to behave in socially acceptable ways instead of like the former drug addicts/street denizens we are assumed to be. Today it involved taking turns role playing about proper "assertive" communication. We must master assertive language if we are to graduate to the big step in the program--a make-work job on the VA campus for $1 an hour.

So as part of this class we were to role play work situations that could arise. I was told to role play a diabetic patient that's begging a vet working such a job to buy candy. And I couldn't do the goddamned role play. Not because I thought it a false stereotype about diabetics, but because I could not begin to imagine how I would approach a person to by candy for me. The reality of my life is I would NEVER ask someone to buy me candy. And I was absolutely without any idea of how to role play that. The whole concept was utterly beyond my imagining.

Completely,
utterly,
fucking without
any clue.

The guys in recovery? They role play like members of an impromptu theater group.

[mopinko]

1. if it makes you feel any better

i told my therapist that what i really needed was a purpose, and she kept telling me i needed structure. pdoc, too. except that i am an artist. a structured life is anathema to that.

they don't listen, even tho they seem to. they are just trying to figure out what box you belong in, so they can give you the pat answers. then hope for the drugs to kick in.

[EFerrari]

4. As you go up that needs hierarchy, they seem to be less and less help.

[elleng]

2. Sorry you're subjected to such foolishness, Here.

FWIW, your participation at DU suggests to me you have both great skills and purpose.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

3. Of course addicts have no trouble acting, it goes with the territory.

It's like asking a coyote to laugh after dark. :wtf: