Chapter 13 - Why I Shattered the Steel Ceiling & How I Did It

It was September 11, 2001.  I was home sick in bed with pneumonia.  The company tractor was sitting on the side of the street outside my bedroom window.  My roommate woke me up by yelling from the hall, “Turn on your TV!”

“Why?”

“Just do it” as she rushed back to her bedroom.

I grabbed the remote and turned on the television.  There was a skyscraper with lots of smoke coming from the middle of it.  The reporter was announcing that the building was in New York and the reason for the smoke was that a plane had just run into it. 

I lay in bed mesmerized and praying for all of the people in those offices. It wasn’t long and another plane hit the next building,

“WHAT THE HELL?” came out of my mouth. I realized that New York was under some kind of attack. 

The announcer’s startled commentary faded as my brain started running through all of the possible scenarios that I, as a semi driver, might face when I got back out on the road. Had this enemy infiltrated the trucking culture?  Were they going to be blowing up semi trailers all over the country like those two guys did in 1995 in Oklahoma City?  They used a small truck.  I didn’t want to see what a whole semi trailer full of explosives might do.

I already knew to scan overpasses to make sure there was no one standing on top that might drop a bowling ball or pumpkin on my windshield to knock my head off like happened to a driver’s wife a few months before, but what else would I have to look out for? I was no longer carrying a gun, but I started thinking about where I might get my hands on one.

The announcer got my attention again. He was talking about people jumping out of the buildings.  I watched bodies falling through the air……so many! 

“OH MY GOD!!!” I was talking again, “What a choice!  Jump and get it over with fast or stand there and burn to death….” 

As the people continued to jump, “God, please help them!” I kept saying it over and over because the bodies just kept dropping.

I finally jumped up and used the rest room. I tried to shake the whole thing off.  I was still in shock when I got back to my bedroom. 

The announcer, whose voice showed that he was trying to hold it together, declared that another plane had just hit the Pentagon. Pictures of the Pentagon, with smoke streaming and people running away from it, were almost too much to bear, but I couldn’t look away.

I don’t remember if the buildings fell before or after we learned that an additional plane had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, but each building fell almost straight down on top of its self….over and over and over as the news replayed the video.

It was announced that the families of those on board the forth plane had received messages telling them “goodbye” and “I love you”. The passengers had apparently forced their plane to crash so it could not harm any one else.

I was in shock with the rest of the nation.  I was traumatized for days watching the planes hitting the buildings, the people jumping to their death and the Pentagon on fire.  I watched firemen and police running into the buildings.  I saw the buildings, first one and then the other, implode and fall to the ground. 

People were running away from the dust cloud after the buildings crumbled, and all of it was shown over and over and over again. It was like being emotionally beaten to a pulp with no defense.  I never once thought of just hitting the power button to shut it off.

There was mass hysteria all over this country as planes were told to land, airports were shut down, and the death count climbed. I listened to how many police, firemen and other volunteers, who had streamed into the buildings to save people, did not come back out.  I stayed transfixed to those ghastly images for what seemed to be an eternity. 

The authorities scrambled to figure out who did it and why such a terrible thing happened. President Bush promised that he would find out and make them pay. 

Then the country, as a whole, got pissed. Everyone became a patriot.  People hung flags and screamed for retribution.  All of our racial, political, road rage and other disagreements disappeared for a while.  We were united into one wrathful aggregate.

I’m not sure how long it was, but I was finally feeling better.  I recognized that I needed to drag myself away from the television because the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that I had suffered with since childhood had taken over. 

I was scared to sleep because I had nightmares about my childhood again. I figured that I just as well be driving and making money if I was going to stay awake anyway.

I emailed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Omaha the day before I climbed back into that tractor.  I told them that I knew that they had probably already thought about it, but just in case they hadn’t, I had been driving semi for months with the same kind of people who had been trained to fly the planes that hit the twin towers and the Pentagon.  They wore turbans.  They put rugs beside their semi to pray to the east when they were in truck stops. 

I wrote that I knew it was illegal for their agency to profile, but I was going to be profiling when I got back out on the road the next day because I remembered what a small truck of explosives had done in Oklahoma City in 1995.  I didn’t want to see what a full semi trailer might do.

I have no idea if my message made any difference, but I saw heavily armed men in a truck stop after I made a couple of turns.  I stood behind four of them in line for the casher.  They were wearing their large guns conspicuously on their belts.  The one in front of me turned around and looked at me.

“Are you one of the good guys?”

He said, “I hope so.”

“So do I.”

I heard later that several semi drivers had been arrested because their documentation was falsified, but I never heard what was in their trailers.

What I noticed most when I first got back out on the road is there were no more turbans.  Those men were dressed in conspicuously new cowboy outfits, including the boots.  They were even wearing the hats, but the white on their foreheads where the turban had been told the whole story.  I never saw another person on a rug praying to the east either.  They could have been there, but I didn’t see them.

I gave up driving semi shortly after that.  A piece of my tooth fell off and I had a horrible toothache.  I asked dispatch to bring me home so I could go to my dentist and have it pulled.  Instead they assigned a load going the other way.  I got it delivered and then got a load back to Des Moines.  I dropped my trailer in the truck stop where dispatch told me to put it, bob-tailed to the house, got into my car, drove to the dentist and got my tooth pulled.  The dentist gave me an excuse to not go back out on the road right away.

After I had spent days on the road crying from wretched pain, I decided that I could not count on dispatch to give a crap about my comfort or safety.

Hell, I had been taught dispatch could not be trusted in truck driving school. Why had I thought this company would be any different?  What would keep them from sending me into places that terrorists might be waiting for me? 

I took my stuff out of the tractor and asked Joyce to follow me to Waterloo where I dropped their tractor in the yard.  I came home for what I thought would be the last time.  I kept my CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) just in case there was a national emergency and drivers were needed.

I finally surrendered to the fact that I was too old to be on the road by myself any more. My sixtieth birthday was within sight.  I just didn’t have the energy to stay awake like I could in my forties. 

I could no longer imagine myself being sequestered in the cab with a stranger so I could drive team either. Been there and tried that too many times….with too many men to think that it was all them.

Imagine going into a very small bathroom, with a complete stranger, and staying there unless you absolutely had to use the rest room, fuel or grab something to eat….for weeks at a time.

No cheating now, make sure you imagine the bathroom is maybe eight to ten feet wide and eight to ten feet long. You two are together in that cramped space twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  It starts to feel like years after awhile. 

Take it from me, it doesn’t matter how much you love the other person when you begin, or how nice you both are when it starts. Trust me, at some point one of you is going to become homicidal, maybe both of you, which can get real messy.  No, it was time for me to get off the road.

Dr. Dean told me that I scare people because they can’t get me pigeonholed, “You don’t play by the rules. An ex-con is not supposed to be smart enough to get an education.  If you can do it, maybe those other people still in prison are not stupid and throwaways.  We have to believe they are worthless or we could not put them in cages and treat them like animals.  You don’t fit that mold so they don’t know what to do with you.”

I started applying for office jobs in Des Moines.  I filled in applications and sent my wonderful reference letters from the governor that had given me my pardon, the professor that had guided me through my undergraduate classes, and the female mentor that I had disappointed by not getting my graduate degree in criminal justice.

As time went by and I ran out of money, I had to do something so I could pay my rent. I really didn’t want to be living on the streets at my age. 

I finally contacted AARP (American Association of Retired Persons). They got me a position at the Social Security Administration for twenty hours a week at minimum wages to do filing, copying and other menial tasks. 

That allowed me just enough money to pay my rent, but I had to borrow money from my roommate for a bus pass so I could get to and from work.

I kept applying for jobs with the hope that I would, at some point, be able to make a wage befitting a person with my education. After all, I had that damned paper from Drake University that showed that I was not a stupid person.

I finally got an interview with the director of a federally funded agency to be a disability rights advocate and investigator.  I was hired. 

I was absolutely thrilled that they were paying me over thirty thousand dollars a year. I no longer was required to stay awake for thirty hours in a row, for weeks at a time driving semi to make that kind of money.  I could actually have a social life which included 12-Step meetings.

The director told me many times to invite my mentors to visit me at the agency, but she specified the governor mostly. Dr. Dean was the only one who visited me.  I told the director that the others emailed me that they were busy.  I always wondered if I was hired so she could say that the governor had endorsed the agency.

I started a ‘friend with benefits’ (FWB) relationship with a veteran who was in alcohol and drug treatment.  He was wonderful in the beginning.  He was attentive, a good dancer, an adequate lover and had the tent and weekend camp site set up in Adel by the time I got off work every Friday. 

We fished. I could wind down from the stress.  I thought that I had finally found the man mom told me about.  You know, the gentleman, but I started catching him in lies, one after another. 

I had lived in the truck for three years with #5 who was a practicing drug addict. He seemed to believe anything he said.  I was almost spastic from trying to maintain some kind of connection to reality by the time I got off that truck.  I was not going to get yanked back into the same kind of situation with FWB!! 

I started making him prove that he was telling me the truth. For instance, he had to show me his driver’s license and proof of insurance before I rode in his car. 

After a very short time he was telling me that he loved me and even mentioned marriage a couple of times.  He started suffocating me.  He came to my home uninvited.  He expected me to stay close to him when I was at the AA club, and constantly wanted to know what I was doing.  I told him not to call me at work and “Do not come to my work!”

Not too long after that I was sitting at my desk talking on the telephone in the middle of a crisis situation.  The agency was locked down.  The receptionist stuck her head around the door jam, “There’s a man outside the door that says he has to talk to you.”

I got off the phone, steeled myself to handle what might be a very nasty situation stemming from the issue I was trying to deescalate, got up and went to the lobby.

There, through the glass door I saw FWB with a huge grin on his face holding something in his hand. I unlocked and opened the door, said “thank you” as I took the rose and hawk feather out of his hand.  I slammed the door, locked it and went back to my office so I could focus on the emergency.

I got off work late and FWB told me that he didn’t understand why I had been so rude, “You didn’t even introduce me to anybody.”

“What part of ‘do not come to my work’ don’t you understand?”

“Well, I was fishing and a red-tailed hawk dropped that feather. I knew it was for you because you think hawks guide you.  I bought you a beautiful red rose on the way.”

“Why couldn’t you have waited until I got off work to give them to me? I would have been very touched by your sensitivity and thoughtfulness.”

“I wanted to see where you worked and meet the people you work with so they would know who your boyfriend is when you talk about me.”            

“Your name has never been mentioned at work.  You are not a part of that section of my life.  I compartmentalize!  When I am at work that is what I concentrate on.  When I am not at work, I leave my job at the office.”

“Well, at least they know who your boyfriend is now because there were a lot of people standing there looking at me.”

“You have no idea why those people were looking at you!  And again, what part of ‘do not come to my work’ don’t you understand?  You just went way over the line Bud!  You did exactly the opposite of what I said.  Since it’s obvious that you don’t respect me and my boundaries, I want nothing more to do with you.  Leave me alone!”

He ran around telling everyone at the AA club how mean I was to him after he had been so nice to me. I got tired of my friends telling me to be nicer to him, and even thought they might be right.  I would try again, but it kept getting worse. 

Then one of my very new AA sisters, who didn’t know that he was still trying to be in a relationship with me, told me how happy he was living with another woman. He finally started leaving me alone after I confronted him.

Shortly after that I got up one morning and the back window of my car was shattered. Thank goodness dad had taught me to improvise!  I used garbage bags and duct tape to fashion a back window.  I just kept adding more tape for several winters, but finally had a replacement window put in.

I loved working as a disability rights advocate and investigator for that agency. I learned a lot from the director.  It felt like she took me under her wing.  She had me check with her before I did anything and she told me exactly how to handle each situation.  I got to help a lot of people sitting in the chair I once occupied, especially the ones in the mental health facilities. 

As I investigated cases, I found that some of my clients were going through a lot worse things than I had experienced, but I did get to put a couple of the perpetrators on the state’s abuse list.

The laws about how long a person could be restrained and what types of restraint and isolation could be used on a person had changed since I was locked on those wards a few decades before, but some facilities were not following those new procedures.

I produced timelines by documenting the entries in the client’s chart and statements provided by employees to show that my clients were not being restrained correctly. Several of my cases were submitted for federal review and passed with outstanding marks.

The whole agency went to California to attend a training conference with other agencies doing the same type of work from all over the United States.  They covered investigation procedures and how to document our findings.  I also participated in the following trainings:

2002 – Abuse/Neglect Investigation Skills Training

2002 – Serious Incident Investigation: A Basic Course for

                        Caregiving Organizations

2002 – Helping Difficult and Challenging Clients

 

After a few months I could see that you, me and every one else is only one car accident away from having a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or some other injury that necessitates twenty four hour care. Also, sometimes one catastrophe had catapulted some of my clients into sitting in the chair I once occupied in mental health and correctional facilities.  I empathized with them and knew instinctively who to contact to help them, but I always got the director’s approval before I did anything.

A few of my clients had been sexually abused as children according to their medical records. After a while I recognized the same pattern in them that I had experienced. 

They were put in a mental health facility and got better, but when they were sent back to their family of origin where the incest happened, they got worse again and had to be hospitalized. I remembered that I had to get away from my family of origin to maintain a positive attitude about me so I could grow.  Why would it be any different for them?

I started contacting professionals in the mental health community to find placements for my clients away from their family. Most of the time I was simply told that there were no alternatives, but one social worker, after me pushing hard for a better answer, said matter-of-factly, “Treating that population would take such a long time that it would not be cost effective.”

I was shocked at the absoluteness in that statement. For me, as a sociologist, the social worker’s statement harkened back to the punitive criminal justice ideology that people with a criminal history were all ‘throwaways’.  They were not worthy of help. 

Doesn’t anybody care about children being raped? Why were the families being allowed to keep victimizing them after they grew up?  Was it just so the rest of the family could look like there was nothing wrong with them? 

That very large rivet in the steel ceiling was a hard lesson for me to swallow. People like me were being punished.  We had been developmentally incapable, at the time of the atrocities, of finding a way to ask for help.  Even when we did ask for help, we were told to shut up and deal with it. 

The verbal, emotional and physical abuse gave way to being ignored and/or shunned. We were the victims of the monsters who had ripped apart the sanctity of our innocence.  Why did the rest of the family perpetuate our victimization?

In my classes, especially women’s issues classes, I had read about some girls and women who kept the secret; simply shut down except for their prose that broke my heart when I read it. They were suffering so much.  Others had committed suicide while many, like me, had run away and got in trouble with alcohol and drugs trying to numb the pain which ultimately led to clashes with the authorities.

I didn’t know what I was going to do about this conundrum. I knew that I was not through fighting for my clients.  Once again, I was shown that I was going to need more education before anyone would listen to me, but my graduate degree was not going to be in criminal justice. 

The attitude in that school of thought, and apparently society as a whole, was to just forget people like me and hope we would just keep our mouths shut and die. If we didn’t comply, they simply locked us up so they didn’t have to listen to us. 

Yup! Been there!!!

Thank goodness women and men have started coming out of the woodwork and telling the truth. Coaches, teachers, priests and famous people are finally facing their victims in the media.

I have noticed through the years that people with an attitude of entitlement seem to dismiss, as irrelevant, anyone or anything that does not maintain or improve their own lives. They are willing to pay others to deal with whatever bores them, or to get people to keep their mouths shut. 

The employees and volunteers can experience our begging for help, smearing and throwing feces at them, our attempts to fight our way out, and when those things don’t work, they can give us shock treatments and watch us implode. Meanwhile the entitled people claim ignorance of the whole situation.

The only reason the politicians are talking about people needing more money to treat their mental health issues is because some people, with mental health issues, have been shooting white people, their children and the police.

I had worked as an advocate and investigator for a few months when the director’s son was hit by a car. He passed away after a short time in the hospital. 

I understood, probably better than most, what the director was going through. I had felt the full fury of grieving Lori’s death.  Initially, and for a lot of years, I blamed mom for killing her on purpose. 

I knew how much the director probably wanted to get even with the person that hit her son, but she exhibited a strong forgiving front through the funeral and afterwards.

My sister called shortly after that. She told me that our aunt, dad’s sister, had died.  She kept calling me and relaying messages from our brother.  Finally I asked her, “Can’t he call me himself?”

Our brother and I had coffee and then he took me to our aunt’s apartment. He told me that I was welcome to anything left because everybody else had already gotten what they wanted.  I took a small wooden rocking chair, a teddy bear and several items our aunt had painted. 

He asked me to help set up the table of pictures, etc. for the visitation, but they were already perfect when I got there.

The whole family was there during the visitation and funeral, but I was not invited to a family meal before or after the funeral. I left the cemetery following the graveside service and went home. 

Several days later I received a letter from an attorney telling me that I had been left out of our aunt’s will. She had given my third of her estate to my brother.

It didn’t shock me that my aunt had left me out of her will. After all, I talked openly about her father being my pedophile, but what broke my heart was that neither of my siblings had given me a heads-up to not expect anything from her estate.  Instead they let me find out sitting by myself. 

As usual, when it comes to my family, the cruelty was apparently never going to stop unless I just simply stayed completely away from them. I could not trust them to show me the slightest amount of compassion.

I told Dr. Dean that this proved I was right about not inviting them to my graduation party two years earlier. “They just can’t help themselves!!  They have to hurt me every time they get the chance.”

I had him read the letter I wrote to my brother and sister. It said that until my brother, who was the executor of our aunt’s estate, gave me my share of her estate, I was not a part of their family. 

Dr. Dean told me that he was proud of me for finally finding the courage to stand up for myself against them, “Now you don’t have to be tied down by what they think about you any more. You can open your emotional wings and soar!”

Since my sister’s address was the only one I had, I sent the letter to her, but addressed the letter itself to both of my siblings. That act, for me, was emotionally cutting the bonds to people who would never consider me worthy of their love and respect. 

I would no longer believe their lies about me, nor would I be the person they could blame for everything wrong in their family. I wrote about all of the family lies I had kept silent about.  Yes, I could learn to soar now!!!

I noticed that the agency director’s attitude changed after her son passed away. I understood completely.  She was trying to deal with the shock, grief and powerlessness of burying her child.  I told her that I was willing to talk with her any time, but she said that she was doing fine. 

Eventually I noticed there was a pattern developing where one of my colleagues would be told to go to the conference room. When they emerged the director would announce that they had submitted their two week notice.  That person would not say a word to anyone and walk out the door after the two weeks were up. 

Most of them were the people I had stood outside and laughed with on smoke breaks, but they ignored me when I tried to talk to them. I was not sure what was happening in that room, but it did not surprise me when I was told to go to the conference room.  It was shortly before Christmas and it was apparently my turn in the barrel.

The director and her longtime friend, who also worked for the agency, were sitting in the conference room when I opened the door. The director had me sit down at the table.  She read a paper to me that said that I had violated confidentiality.  She wanted me to sign it. 

She had taken things that she told me to do and skewed them to make it sound like I had done something wrong. I knew that wasn’t true.  I told them I wanted to take the paper outside and read it. 

I went outside, lit a cigarette and read the paper several times. I could not get my brain to wrap around the outrageous assertion that I had done anything except what she told me to do, but I also recognized that I would not be able to prove it. 

Finally, after another cigarette, I absolutely knew that I was not going to sign a paper admitting to something I had not done. I went back to the conference room and told them, “I can’t sign this!  I’ll pack my things.”

I went to my office and was gathering up my personal items when one of the other investigators called across the hall to me, “What’s going on.”

“I’ve been fired!”

The director’s friend came to my door and asked me to reconsider. I didn’t answer her.  I knew that I would crumble into a pile of snotty sobs if I tried to say anything. 

I loved my job, the people I worked with and especially my clients. I felt like my whole world had been turned upside down again. 

My aunt left me out of her will, my siblings still wanted to hurt me, and now I had just lost the job I loved. What made it worse is that it was close to the anniversary of Lori and mom being killed on December 15th.

My brain was in high gear as I sat there packing my things: By God it’s not going to be the way the others left after they went to that room! She’s not gonna have that kind of power over me!  I’m not signing a paper saying I’ve done something wrong when I know I haven’t!  I will not be forced to stay silent for two weeks so she can feel some kind of domination and control to make her insides feel better, and then watch me crawl out the door when the two weeks are up.  I’m gonna walk out the door with my head held high because I know I’ve done a great job working here.  The Feds said so when they reviewed my cases.  Hell, she even told me that I was a good employee at my one year review … complimented me and the work I’ve done.

I took my things to the car including a painting of Jesus I had purchased from an organization that sells art by people with mental health and other challenges in Des Moines.  I got in and drove to the street.  I could not contain my feelings.  I broke into sobs so bad that I had to park in a lot several blocks away from the agency. 

It seemed like forever before I could stop crying. This betrayal yanked up all of the others that I had shoved down for so many years.  Each one battered my self confidence as they waved into my consciousness.  I was emotionally raw and bleeding again.  Somehow I was finally able to find the comfort of shock and numbness.  I drove home.

I applied for unemployment and was told that I was denied because the agency’s director said that I quit my job instead of her firing me.

Oh, that’s what the game is. That’s why all of my colleagues submitted their resignation, had gone silent for two weeks and just walked out the door.  They were probably put in a no-win situation too.

 That’s the reason she put me between a rock and a hard place so I would either keep my job under her conditions, which included possible firing in a short time, or quit. 

I fooled her! She didn’t get to watch me stay silent for two weeks and crawl out the door.  She’ll have to find somebody else to treat that way. 

I got an attorney to show that I had refused to sign an admission of wrong doing that was not true or be fired. We appealed the decision. 

We sat through conference calls with the unemployment judge where the agency director admitted that I was a good employee, but she said that she had not specifically told me that I would be fired if I didn’t sign the paper. Her friend concurred.  Both said that they couldn’t understand why I would think that I would be fired if I didn’t sign it. 

I lost that appeal, but one of the judges dissented and agreed with me. My attorney kept appealing my case.  It finally went to the Iowa Supreme Court where I lost again. 

I was powerless to change anything. Even today I know that I got a raw deal, but eventually I was able to forgive the director.  I prayed for all the good stuff for that woman that I wanted for myself.  I knew the hell she would be walking through for the rest of her life grieving her child.  That is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. 

Since I have experience with the trauma of seeing my own child in a casket, I understand that each of us use whatever is available to us so we can numb our pain. Unfortunately, sometimes there is collateral damage left in our wake.  I now know what it feels like to be collateral damage … Karma is a bitch!!!

I heard later that she was continuing this type of behavior. Actually, I saw her at an interagency meeting when I was doing my graduate internship.  I could not believe how much she had changed.  She had been fastidious about her appearance and spoke with authority when I worked for her, but that day she was disheveled and acted embarrassed when I greeted her.  

I read in the newspaper a few years ago that she was either fired or asked to leave the agency. That made me sad for the people with disabilities because I knew how much that agency helped them.  I still refer people there when they need that type of help. 

Recently I saw a woman on Iowa Public Television that is the director at that agency. I was very pleased with the way she handled the questions and discussion.  I believe the agency is in good hands.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life by taking my case to the Iowa Supreme Court. I wish I would have remembered when I was driving semi for a highway construction company some years before this. 

After a few days the foreman told me in front of #6 and our friend, who were also driving for that company, “You don’t need to come back any more because I have enough men to drive now.”

We all stood there with our mouths open as he turned around and walked away. Both #6 and our friend told me that I had to sue the company for discrimination and they would be my witnesses, but I told them, “No!  I want to keep driving truck.  If I sue them, they will blackball me and no one will ever hire me again.”

Let’s see, my criminal record was no longer that much of a worry because it was over thirty years old, and I had a pardon and reference letter from the governor.  I had received worker’s compensation from the trucking company after I was hurt, and now I had sued a state agency and appealed my case clear up to the Iowa Supreme Court.

I sent out four six-inch binders full of my resumes and reference letters to agencies and companies in the next few months. I could not understand why no one even called me for an interview, but today I can sit here and imagine all of the human resource clerks asking themselves, “If she has the guts and resources to take a state agency to the Supreme Court, what the hell would she do if she didn’t like something this company does?”

This is a rivet in the steel ceiling that I drove in myself by wanting to prove that I was right. We have a saying in the 12-Step program, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?”

Of course, I want to be both, but I had not learned how to pick my battles, at least which ones are lost causes. I learned this lesson the hard way.  I hope everyone reading this book heeds my warning. 

I had just been taught about the consequences for my actions in corporate America.  I thought I was supposed to stand up for myself and make sure the truth was told, but apparently sometimes it is better to keep my mouth shut for two weeks and walk away with my tail between my legs.  That is, if I ever want to be hired for another job.

I needed a job. The AA brother that I rented a room from carried me for a while and finally another AA brother, who supervised a crew that vacuumed and maintained parking lots in the Des Moines metro area, hired me to drive a small vacuum dump pickup truck. 

I worked mostly at night and weekends when the parking lots of shopping centers, business buildings and the fair grounds were empty. I would pick up inmates from the corrections halfway facility at Fort Des Moines when the shift began.  They would use blowers to get the loose items off of the medians and into the parking area where I picked them up with the truck.  I took them back to the halfway facility when we were finished. 

They also had to pick up items by hand that would not move with the blower, such as feces filled diapers. I still cannot believe how many of those we found in parking lots.

It was hot and humid in Iowa, even at night, and the dust the side broom kicked up made it hard for me to breathe with my COPD.  My helper and I had to go to the emergency room one night because we were at the back of a strip mall cleaning trash out of the weeds.  It was dark except for the truck headlights and we were attacked by some kind of wasps or hornets. 

Both of us started having trouble breathing. The emergency room doctor said that we had reactions to the stings.  We waited for the insects to be sprayed before those weeds were cleaned out. 

I took him back to the facility, but I went right back to work. I vacuumed the rest of the parking lot.  I wasn’t going to miss any hours just because I looked like somebody beat the heck out of me. 

I was glad to be able to make some money to pay my rent. I even had some left over so I could eat and drive my car. 

I’m pretty sure my boss would tell the story differently because I never seemed to get the parking lots done fast enough for him. I didn’t understand because I was getting them clean, but after I got to drive the newer truck a couple of times, I found out why it was taking me longer.  The newer truck’s vacuum picked up a lot more, and a lot faster.  In fact, there were times I had to go over the same places two or three times with the old truck.

In June 2003 I decided I needed some bras. The ones I had were grimy from all the dust and sweat at work.  I was driving on the freeway to the mall when a speeding SUV came from the farthest left lane, across the middle lane and hit the front of my car in the right lane. 

I’m so grateful that I’m a trained professional driver and didn’t panic and turn the wheel to the right to get away. I would have gone into a deep gorge and probably flipped end over end. 

I saw it coming out of my peripheral vision.   I could tell it was going to hit in my driver’s door if I did nothing.  I gripped the steering wheel tight and jammed the breaks as hard as I could.  It hit just in front of my door, slid toward the front bumper and then took off. 

I held the wheel as straight as I could after impact and caught the end of the guard rail. My car slid on the rail for a bit and then was shot back into traffic. 

As I was catapulted across the freeway I heard the black SUV driver hit the gas. I watched it speed up to get away.  I also noticed there was another car following real close.  I figured they were friends, Oh great! I’ll never know who killed me!!  “YOUSONOFABITCH!!!”

I knew there had been a straight truck a bit behind me in the middle lane before impact. I waited for it to hit me, but when my car came to a stop against the other guard rail that truck was parked real close to my back bumper.

I turned off the ignition as soon as I stopped. There was a man at my window.  I tried to open the door, but it was jammed closed.  I asked him, “Is there any gas on the ground?”

He stepped back and looked under the car, “No.”

“I’m gonna just sit here and calm down.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know. Is there any blood on me?”

“No.”

“Will you please call 911?”

“I already have.”

After what was probably only a few seconds, I felt like I had started to breathe again. I instinctively followed procedures after an accident and remembered that I had to get my triangles out on the road before the cops got there.  I crawled across the front seat and tried to open the rider’s door, but the cars were going past so close they would have taken the door.  I had to wait for one to finally stop and let me out. 

I got in the trunk and put out my triangle, but forgot to twist the bottom so it would stand up. The highway helper and truck driver kept telling me that I would not be in any trouble if the triangle was not standing when the police arrived, but I kept standing it up because the cars were going past so close they kept knocking it down.  I was still trying to set it up when the West Des Moines officer started talking to me. 

I told him, “I keep setting it up, but the cars keep knocking it down.”

He said that I was not in any trouble, not to worry about the triangle, “Put it back in your trunk.”

He talked to the highway helper and the truck driver. There seemed to be a lot of people walking around.  I heard some of them telling the officer that they were a witness.  Lots of them told him, “Here’s my name and contact information.”

I was sitting on my back bumper when he asked, “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Is there any blood on me?”

“No.’

“Can you drive the car?”

“Is there any liquid under it?”

He got down and looked, “No.”

“It was still running when I got here. I turned off the motor after I finally stopped.”

“I need you to follow me to the next exit. The other car he hit followed him into Hooters and he has been arrested for drunk driving.”

“Okay.”

He stopped the traffic in the lane next to my car so I could get in. I crawled across the seat and started the car.  The highway helper stopped the traffic so I could get back over to the right lane.  I followed the officer off at the next exit, and then into the Hooters’ parking lot. 

I crawled across the seat and got out. There was a woman talking to a man that looked very drunk sitting in the rider’s seat of a black SUV.  The officer I had followed was talking to other officers and then came back to where I was standing. 

He asked if I needed an ambulance. I told him that I was going to drive myself to be checked out.  He handed me his card, I put it in my purse, crawled back across the front seat and drove to the emergency room at Broadlawns Hospital.

They left me lying quietly for quite a while and asked me a lot of questions that I recognized were to find out if I knew who I was, if I was time oriented, etc. Finally I was told to go home and rest.

There was very little known about concussions in 2003, especially closed head concussions. I thought the flat affect I was experiencing was due to the shock of almost being killed and the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) I had experienced from childhood when I was scared. 

After I got home two strips of excruciating pain, one on each side of the top of my head, appeared. One was longer than the other one.  I was not alarmed because, again, I thought it was just stress from the accident.

Several days later a friend was talking to me, but everything he was saying was garbled. At first I thought he was being funny, but then I realized that a human voice could not make those sounds. 

He went into a building and I just sat in his pickup. I caught myself appreciating the fact that I could still understand my thoughts which were in English, but I wondered how long the garbling would last. What if this is the way it’s always gonna be?

I got tears in my eyes, but there was no real fear. No, it was more sadness than anything else.  I settled into a lack of emotions.

I could understand what he was saying when he climbed in, but had to slow him way down so I could keep up. Actually, I had to slow everybody down for quite a few months so I could understand and respond to what they were saying.  A lot of my friends got mad at me and would not talk to me.  They said that they got tired of me asking them to slow down.  It got pretty lonely for a while. 

I told my female mentor about the garbled noise. She told me that something was really wrong, “You get to the doctor and tell them!”

I had a lot of tests, but the drunk driver’s insurance company’s doctors told me that they could not find anything wrong with me. They said that, since I had not been unconscious, I could not have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Today, of course, they would not be able to assert that notion because even the National Football League (NFL) is paying players for brain damage sustained from closed head injuries where they did not lose consciousness. We know today that there are long term consequences from closed head TBIs including seizures and suicide.

The way it was explained to me is that the inside of our skull has protrusions and our brain pretty much sloshes around in there. When a person sustains a blow to the head, or in my case sideways whiplash, the brain sometimes hits one or more of those bony juts and is bruised.  Sometimes it starts bleeding and may cause long term damage.  The brain can also swell so the doctor needs to do surgery to relieve the pressure.

My head was jerked one way to the side and then back the other way several times during the accident. I was not examined completely and do not know exactly how much damage was done, but I am very grateful to have regained many skill sets and be able to use assistive technology for the ones I lost. 

I played spider solitaire on my computer every day for hours after the accident so I could stay focused on something. Somehow I knew my brain would rewire itself.  I kept putting the cards in numerical sequence according to suit.  That was about all I was capable of doing at that time, other than driving the pickup to vacuum parking lots.  Those pains on the top of my head started out excruciating, but slowly got better as the weeks went by.

I hired a man that was both an attorney and a doctor to deal with the drunk driver’s insurance company. I went to the court room the first time the drunk driver appeared before a judge.  I was talking to a man who said he was there for drunk driving.  I said, “My name is Bonnie Kern and you hit me.”

The man looked shocked, “No I didn’t!”

I heard a man’s voice behind me, “Bonnie, I hit you!”

I went back to where he was sitting and held out my hand. As he shook my hand I told him, “My name is Bonnie Kern and you hit me!”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded, let go of his hand and left the court room.

I wanted to make sure that he felt the skin on my hand so he knew there was a person in that white metal box he hit. I wanted him to look into my eyes and know that I had feelings. 

Since I was a blackout drunk, I cannot guarantee that I did not hit someone’s vehicle. If that is the case, please know that I now understand how you felt, and I am VERY sorry!  Karma is a bitch!!!

I kept driving the vacuum truck, but lots of people cussed at me as they passed, and it didn’t matter if I was in my car or if I was in the pickup. One night, after I had picked up my helper from Fort Des Moines, people were doing their usual honking, cussing and flipping me off. 

He yelled at me, “What the hell you doin’?”

“What? I stopped at the traffic light.”

“It was green Bonnie!!”

I was shocked. That was the reason people were yelling at me.  I had almost caused a lot of accidents.  I had to really start concentrating when I got to a traffic light.  My brain was apparently not working fast enough to comprehend the difference between red and green.  When I saw a traffic light it meant stop to me.

It took me quite a while to realize that I actually did have a traumatic brain injury (TBI). I remembered that a man had come to the agency when I worked for the director.  “What was his name?” 

Try to remember Bonnie! What did that man tell us about TBI’s when you were a disability rights advocate and investigator?  Oh yeah, he said, ‘The person always has a personality change.  They will never be the same again.’

I went on the web, found that man’s agency, and requested three information bags: one for me, one for my doctor and one for my attorney. I asked my doctor and attorney to read the material and watch the video so none of their other patients or clients had to figure this out on their own like I had done.

By August I was doing pretty well. With a lot of effort I was discerning between the red and green traffic lights. I never had a problem with stop signs because they always mean stop, but it would be quite a while before I could actually keep up with normal conversations. 

I was determined to not draw very much attention to me about my brain not working. I didn’t want to be locked up with others who had been in wrecks and could no longer control their emotions.  I had investigated alleged neglect and abuse of several of them and was scared to death that I would have to live that way.

I made sure I was as even-keeled as I could muster all of the time, and the times I wanted to sob or scream was a sign for me to get by myself so no one could watch me fall apart.

I’ve been locked up enough in my life! I have to be REAL careful or they’ll do what those sheriffs and grandma told mom to do.  They’ll lock me up and forget about me.

I drove my vacuum dump pickup truck as part of the crew to clean the Iowa State Fair Grounds at night. That was fun because we started before dark and went until everything was cleaned up for the next day.  I liked getting to see the fireworks every night and remembering the trips to the Fair when I was a real young child with my family.  That is when it was fun being in the family.

There were several times I was vacuuming the main streets too early with people yelling and throwing cups with beer at me. The big boss would tell me on the radio, “Go up on the hill!” 

The empty beer cups were knee deep after the gates were closed. The helpers blew them into the street so I could vacuum them up.  The other driver whizzed back and forth with the newer truck while I was moving as fast as my unit would go and not jam.

I had to wash out the bucket, the sweep and the broom several times while I was cleaning the streets by the animal barns. The feces was always pretty fresh and gooey because I had cleaned those same streets the night before.  It would, many times, leave a strip down the street as I was trying to pick it up, and it definitely left an aroma on the equipment.  I would wash off everything, go get the rest of it, and then wash all of it again.

After the Fair was over I noticed that I wasn’t being called to go to work. My AA brother, who I thought was still my boss, wasn’t answering his phone when I called to see what time I was supposed to show up. 

It was about two weeks before he finally told me that I had been fired. That really hurt because I was not making any money for those two weeks.  I could no longer pay my rent or buy food.  My landlord was carrying me again until I could pay him. 

I had continually filled out applications and sent my resume and reference letters to agencies and companies. I still didn’t understand that I had blackballed myself by taking my case to the Iowa Supreme Court. 

I had to bring in money to pay my rent and eat. Since I had a clean driving record, and apparently no other option, I applied to go over the road again.  I was hired by an owner-operator leased to a local trucking company that ran reefers (refrigerated trailers). 

I preferred pulling a reefer to a dry box because it was so much easier to find a load home. I could carry almost anything in a reefer.  Meat and produce were my usual cargo, but at other times I had carried submarine batteries; huge rolls of paper loaded suicide (They would roll forward in a crash, come through the bunk and over my body as I sat in the driver’s seat.); over forty thousand pounds of canned beer; a whole load of different types of lobster; and technology parts.

I was insulted when I first got into my assigned tractor. It had an automatic transmission.  I thought I had been given a ‘girl truck’ to drive. 

Don’t he understand that I’ve driven 9-, 10-, 13-, and 15-gears over the mountains to both coasts and in all kinds of weather?

However, after driving that truck during rush hour traffic in Chicago and other cities for a while, and my left calf not cramping because I had to keep using the clutch to shift gears for sometimes two hours, I decided that I didn’t want to go back to manual transmissions. 

This one pulled well on most hills when it was on cruise control, and the jake-brake handled most down hill grades. I could switch it from automatic to manual transmission when I needed to climb bigger inclines or the road got slick.  I ended up really liking that truck.

It didn’t take me long to get back into the swing of things. In a short time I was backing the trailer where I wanted it to go.  I had no problem finding the shippers and receivers, but there was one big problem.  When I drove over sixty miles an hour, my brain couldn’t keep up with what was going on around me, it just glitched.  That was problematic since the only way I could make good money was to drive faster. 

I realized, after a very few weeks, that I was dangerous to myself and others. I fought myself for a while because I didn’t want to admit that there was really something wrong with my brain, but finally I knew that I had to get off the road before I caused an accident that might hurt someone.  I turned in the tractor and went home.

Dejected doesn’t even touch what I was feeling. Life was not real good, but at least I had gotten some money from the drunk driver’s insurance company so I could pay my rent for a while.  I also bought a nice bed, roll top desk and office chair.

I realized that I had no idea of what my brain could and could not do. I knew that I was different than I had been before the drunk driver hit my car, but I could not tell what the difference was or the extent of the damage. 

I made an appointment with the state vocational rehabilitation agency so they could have me tested and maybe help me find a job. They already had a base line to compare my brain to since that agency had given me all kinds of tests when I was a teenager.  That was when mom was trying to convince everyone that there was something wrong with me so she didn’t have to confront my pedophile.

Meanwhile, my female mentor suggested that I offer to volunteer at the attorney general’s office. I could do filing and copying.  I was happy to offer because I would not be sitting around feeling sorry for myself. 

I was accepted. After a while I was offered a job as receptionist.  I was tickled they liked my work, and the salary was fantastic.

At home the landlord, my AA brother, had changed the rules. He said that each of us renters had to take turns keeping the common area clean for a week at a time.  We were to do the dishes for everyone, even if we didn’t use the kitchen, wash out the microwave even if we didn’t use it, and scrub the floors with a huge mop. 

I told him, “That’s not what I signed up for. I only agreed to pay rent.”

He yelled, “If you wanta keep livin’ here, that’s what you’re gonna do!”

I started looking for an apartment. I didn’t mind keeping things clean for myself, but I believe that other adults should clean up after themselves.  I was tired of washing the stalactites from the microwave ceiling before I used it.  I filled the ice cube trays many times, but there would only be one cube in each tray when I wanted ice water. 

Additionally, there was no way my back was going to be able to use that huge mop to take care of the entire common area for a week. I didn’t have the oxygen to do that much manual labor.  I would have been taken to the emergency room.

I found an apartment close to Drake University and rented it.  I told my landlord I was moving.  He yelled at me so loud and cussed me out so bad that my roommate heard every word upstairs.  That roommate told me afterwards that I should call the police because I had definitely been bullied and verbally abused.

I could not understand my landlord’s reaction. One of my other roommates had moved out a short time before and he was fine with her leaving. 

I got my stuff packed and out of the house as soon as I could. I was just getting settled into my apartment and starting to feel like my life was finally coming together, but one of those steel ceiling rivets reared its ugly head.  The Iowa Supreme Court upheld that I had quit my job at the agency and was not going to receive my unemployment. 

Not too much later I was asked to start doing some legal typing for the attorneys. Even though I had been hired as a receptionist to answer the phone, file and copy documents, I gave the new duty my best shot.  Of course, I proved to all of us that I would need a lot more training to be considered a legal secretary. 

My supervisor offered to let me quit, but I asked her to fire me so I could get unemployment, “I just moved into an apartment and will be out on the streets without that money.”

She fired me and sent a very nice letter to my vocational rehabilitation counselor:

“Bonnie showed excellent attendance in the office. She was punctual and maintained regularly scheduled hours.  Her work ethic was admirable.  Bonnie also maintained a professional appearance and demeanor in the workplace.  She was pleasant and treated others with respect.

Although she was not ultimately successful as a legal secretary, she made considerable efforts to meet expectations. Bonnie performed best when given a single task upon which she could concentrate for an extended period of time.  I believe Bonnie possesses the ability to focus on a problem and eventually work out a solution.  Her strength may lie in addressing the bigger picture, rather than in doing detail work.”

 

The unemployment money kept me going for a while, but I was at my wits end to figure out what I could do to earn a living. I finally gave up and applied for disability. 

I went on the web and filled out the forms as much as I could. Then I printed them and took them to the social security office.  The woman that helped me had talked to me many times when I worked for AARP in that office.  I told her that I had kept trying to work at all kinds of jobs and gave her the names and contact information for the numerous companies.  I said that I could bring the four six inch binders of job applications and reference letters that I had been sending out for months, “I have no idea what I can do if no one will even give me an interview.”

My brain was still glitching a lot. I had a pretty good vocabulary before the accident and some of it had returned, but it was slow going.  I had just spent over twenty four hours trying to remember the word ‘generalized’ so I could complete the form. 

It is like when a computer just keeps cycling and looking instead of finding the information. My brain would be void of anything for a while and I would just look at the person.  I never knew if I would be able to finish a sentence.  Those who know me understand that sometimes we just have to wait until my brain finds whatever it is looking for.  It gets worse when I am stressed or depressed. 

She could tell there was something very different about me. I got all of the medical records, test results, and provided contact information for my doctors, vocational rehabilitation counselor, and anyone else she requested.  My social security disability was granted.

People tell me that I am resilient. What is resilient about freaking out and grabbing whatever is closest to me and hoping it will hold me up?  That is not resiliency!  It is total panic and survival.  I have been going from one survival mode to the next most of my life. 

Others have told me that I am the exception to the rule compared to other girls and women in the mental health and criminal justice facilities. They are wrong too!  I recognize that those human beings are just as confused and scared as I was, and still am at times.  I am begging for someone to help them, even when they don’t know they want the help. 

I heard a story one time that may help you understand why I look resilient and exceptional. A person opened a door one day.  The person standing there hit them with a club.  They closed the door, but came back the next day and opened the door.  They were immediately hit with the club and they closed the door. 

This person opened and closed the door every day for a long time, and was hit with the club every single time, but one day they opened the door and there was no one there. Instead of being happy and grateful they were no longer being hit, they walked through the door and looked for the person with the club.  They were so used to being hit that they didn’t know what to do when it stopped.

Writing this book has helped me understand why my life is such that anyone needs to believe I am resilient and/or exceptional. You and I get to watch that little girl in me rattle around life as if she was in a pinball machine.  When she is finally allowed to drop through the hole into safety, someone comes along, pulls the knob and she is bouncing around again causing the bells to ring and the lights to flash. 

Being able to make those bells ring and lights flash can be very seductive to someone who has been starving for love all of her life. The chaos of those bells and lights may fulfill the manifest destiny I was taught as a child.  I have kept trying to find better, but sabotaged myself every time. 

I look like it is hard for me to survive, but in reality, it is hard for me to live in peace with others who do not cause some type of chaos in my life.

I was raised to believe that I deserved to be sexually, verbally, emotionally, and physically attacked from the age of six. I was not developmentally capable of making positive choices, nor was the rural Iowa farm culture equipped to address my predicament in the 1950s.

Sometimes it was head-on attacks, but that was nothing compared to grandpa smirking at me when no one was watching because he knew that I could not make him stop.

Later mom’s deafening silence was the absolute worst! It terrorized me.  I never knew when she was going to erupt.  At least when she was verbally assaulting me I could say something to piss her off and get the physical stuff over faster.  I had some control over that, but the silence sometimes lasted for days except when others were around.

I went from mom doing her best to control me to mental hospitals, jails and I finally ended up in prison where I once again pretended to be controlled.

After I was released from prison, I was that person who walked through the door and looked for the person with the club so they could hit me again. That was what I was used to.  That is what I had been taught I deserved. 

I didn’t realize that I was choosing men that would cause the proper amount of pain and chaos to keep me in my comfort zone. Today I understand.  When I feel that instant familiarity toward a man, I know they will end up being the same kind of person I have divorced so many times.  I immediately turn around, and walk away from them as fast as I can.

I no longer want to be punished! I no longer allow others to punish me!!  I no longer want to punish myself!  I am doing the best I know how to stop punishing me, but it takes everything I have to ask for help.  I am still scared no one will be there after I ask.

Please show your children love and respect. Teach them to respect themselves and their body.  Tell them that absolutely no one has the right to touch them in an inappropriate manner, and then explain to them what inappropriate means in age-appropriate terms.  You don’t want them to be the one that keeps opening the door to be clubbed, or even worse, the person swinging the club.  They learn more by watching you than by what you say.

Something has occurred to me. I remembered the traumatic brain injury (TBI) agency man telling us that there is always a personality change after a brain injury.  That happened to me.  I was nicer after the drunk driver hit my car.  I felt nicer, and keeping my mouth shut for several years so that no one knew the turmoil my brain was experiencing had been a good thing.  I had learned to pick my battles instead of fighting everyone and everything.  I didn’t have to be right all of the time.  Well, sometimes…..

The money from Social Security disability started about the same time the unemployment ended. I could keep paying my rent, utilities, etc, but I was determined to find a way to earn a living instead of remaining on disability for the rest of my life. 

I heard about a graduate rehabilitation grant program at Drake University that I was interested in, but I didn’t know if I was capable of doing graduate work with what they were now calling a ‘post concussion syndrome’. I knew I was definitely thinking and reacting slower after the accident, but realized there was no way for me to know what I had left. 

I asked my vocational rehabilitation counselor to have me cognitively tested. She said the tests showed that I was capable of doing the graduate work.  I applied for the grant and was accepted.