I know I always come here complaining about the other clients in my agency for a long time. I know some may feel offended when i complain. The housemates and the clients in my agency not only have Autism, but psychiatric co-morbid illnesses that make their behaviors a lot worse. I have had a talk with my agency, just recently. What made me want to share this is that I have been doing a lot of thinking when i came on here. I met a lot of nice smart people with both Autism and/or Asperger's.
The reason I was angry was because of the way got treated and bullied by my housemates, and yelled at by my staff when I went to complain to about the mistreatment my housemates had given me. I have been physically attacked and verbally abused by them and also by many of the day clients as well. My housemates are verbal,, but need a lot of help and are not capable at caring for there basic needs, where they need 1 on 1 staff 24/7. The program I am in is for people who have both Autism and psychiatric/mental illnesses, on top of mental retardation, as well. Their behaviors that they display, where they attack me and/or bully me is more because they have severe psychiatric and/or behavioral disorders that cause them to do that.
Unfortunately, the staff and the agency does not address these problems appropriately. They clients only get rewards taken away from them if they harm staff. But with me, because I am not as disabled and/or have any issues, the agency sees at as not a "behavior", but a cry for help. These clients are not able to handle getting in trouble or have me tell staff on them, where if the staff do confront them, the clients will attack staff. That is why these clients do not get in trouble and instead get comforting and I get yelled at for being insensitive. The staff have to protect themselves and with the budget cuts, plus staff leaving by the droves(the agency does not pay well), they do not want to lose staff because of aggressive clients. I do not get this, but it is crazy here.
I had told my house manager that I have Asperger's and that I am very hurt by this and that the agency should have known better but to let that happen. I also explained countless times that I am not able to cope, understand and/or have the ability to be forced to allow this to happen. He finally told me, after almost 8 years, that he finally noticed that. He also told me that they thought I was able to handle being around this program. I also complained that I never needed an agency because I only wanted a job career assessment so I could get a job and/or go to school like a normal person would, not a day program. I also told him that I always was independent(and my mom apologized also) and that i needed to be more independent, not put into a residential program where people controlled me. I also told him that i only went to the agency for counseling and that was it.
He admitted that in order to for the therapist to get me services(though I did not want the agency services, just a job training services where I get an assessment, and Social Security so i can pay for therapy while I look for my career), they had to "exaggerate" my diagnosis. The agency's therapist that i had at the time was the one who filled out the form because she thought that because she was a professional, only she could. That meant saying that I was not able to be independent(when i already was independent), saying I was incapable of learning things(even though I have no learning problems). Plus, the whole disaster with the IQ testing only being 45 minutes, which should have taken at least 3-4 hours, which was fault of the person doing the testing that "squeezed" me in the last minute and only had time to do it that long, on top of that. Even though that fiasco had nothing to do with the agency itself, but it screw up my life.
He even told me that for a long time that only he knew how independent and smart I was and that he though I should have never been here, either. But the heads would not have liked that, since my group home is in a duplex, where I have my own side and my housemates(2 men) have to share the other side.Basically my side has 1 bedroom and their side has 2, but we share a basement and there were "forced" activities where we had to be together. He told me that I was the only person in that whole program that was only able to live on that side, since I did not need 1 on 1 24/7 staffing, but still have to be told what to do and staff have to come over every hour and bother me. Actually, i had to share staff with one of the other housemates(the one that attacked me physically). Meant, every time I needed to go somewhere, we had to bring him, up until now, because I complained to the state. Supposedly, the agency gets a lot of funding for the whole entire house and if there is no one on the other side, they would not get any funding.
Meaning, even thought the agency paid for that house in full, because there is no client living on my side, they only get paid for 2 clients, not 3. I am just a paycheck for their agency. They get about $100,000 for me to live on that side. the other clients because of their needs, the agency gets $500,000 per client. Yet, about only $10,000 a year total goes to pay for the staff. Each staff get about $1000 per year per client, staff salary is not even $10,000 a year. I know my staff are struggling to feed their families. They do not even get a decent health care, yet they have to have an associates to work residential or a bachelors to work the day program. I see why they are bitter. Well, I am glad I can share this update with you all. Thank you for listening to me.
02 Jun 2009, 12:37 pm
