Poem: "Through Weakness and Vulnerability"
May. 9th, 2016 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the April 5, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from capri0mni, mama_kestrel, and LJ user Paantha. It also fills "The Broken One" square in my 4-1-16 card for the Archetypal Characters Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the Officer Pink thread of the Polychrome Heroics series, and is a direct sequel to "When Someone Is Vulnerable." They are immediately followed by "A Safe Refuge from the World."
WARNING: This poem contains some intense material. Highlight to read more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. This is heavy-duty hurt/comfort with emotional angst, messy medical details, awkward discussions of present and future care preferences, trying to take care of a traumatized person, struggling with traumatic stress, impaired consent, assisted decision-making, difficulty balancing conflicts between Turq's mental and emotional needs, complications and challenges of soup care in general, minor misfire of a superpower with unpleasant but not damaging effects, trying to figure out ways of minimizing or compensating for triggers, mentions of past abuse (current environment is safe and supportive), worrying about an injured friend, and other mayhem. On the whole, though, it's sweet to see Ansel and Ethan working so hard to take care of Turq as best they can, and despite the upsetting context Turq is actually making a lot of progress. If these are touchy topics for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether you want to read this right now. However, it contains some major plot developments, so skipping it may make subsequent poems seem more confusing or less justified.
"Through Weakness and Vulnerability"
Ansel and Ethan waited at
opposite ends of the couch
for Turq to wake up. He was
healing well, as far as Ethan
could tell, but hadn't roused yet.
Ansel hated seeing Turq so limp
and helpless. He couldn't help
wondering if this was how Janie
felt when Ansel had gotten hurt.
When Turq started to whimper
and stir, Ansel cupped a hand
under his chin and then gently
tipped his face up, to make sure
that the first thing Turq saw
would be him instead of Ethan,
or worse yet, the walls.
Ansel patted Turq on the cheek,
then brushed a fingertip over
the corner of his mustache.
"Come on, Turq, wake up
and look at me," he coaxed.
Turq twitched, and his hazel eyes
fluttered open, unfocused at first.
"There you are," Ansel said.
"It's okay. You're safe."
Turq shifted and groaned.
Ansel stroked a hand through
his soft blue hair, which made him
sigh and settle deeper into the couch.
"I don't know how much you remember,
so let me catch you up," he said, keeping
his voice low and even. "You crashed into me,
and then you stopped breathing. Several times.
So I brought you into my office where it's warm
and safe, and then I called some backup."
Turq's body coiled as much as it could,
tension fighting against the lingering weakness.
He made a slightly louder sound of protest.
"I know, you don't like it," Ansel said.
"If you come to me when you're injured,
though, that means choosing to let me
take care of you. I've done my best
to balance what I think you'd want,
and what you really need right now."
Turq flinched, and Ansel guessed
that he'd noticed Ethan's presence.
"Wha ... who ..." Turq mumbled.
"This is my friend Ethan, and he's
got a hand under your left ankle
so that you can tell where he is,"
Ansel said. "You remember me
telling you about him, he's the one
who healed me after that bigot
broke a bottle over my head."
"Hello, Turq," Ethan said softly.
"I've been helping Ansel take care
of you while you're hurt. If you
need anything, just let me know."
"G'way," Turq said, pressing
back into Ansel's grasp.
"I could do that," Ethan said.
"If I let go, though, it will be
harder for you to know where
I am, and if I leave, you'll take
longer to recover. Are you
sure that's what you want?"
Turq huffed at him -- and then
noticed the IV line, which made him
start struggling in earnest, although
he was still so weak that even trying
to kick free of the afghan was like
a puppy trying to wriggle out of a sack.
"Easy, Turq," said Ansel.
"You're safe here. It's okay."
"Lie still," Ethan said, moving
his hand above Turq's forearm
so that Turq couldn't thrash without
hitting him. "You lost some blood
earlier. This is just fluid replacement,
no drugs, and it's almost done. Can
you wait a few minutes for it to finish, or
do you need me to take it off right now?"
"Off off off," Turq whined,
a panicky note rising in his voice.
"It's your choice," Ansel said,
stroking Turq's fluffy hair.
"Okay, I'll take it off," Ethan said.
"Do you want me to numb the skin
first, so that it doesn't hurt you?"
Turq hunched into a miserable lump.
"Can't," he said. "If I can't feel my body,
sometimes I lose track and it ... goes wrong."
"Thank you for telling me that,"
Ethan said. "I need to get a few things,
and then I'll come right back."
He ducked behind Ansel's desk
and rustled in his first aid kit.
The noise made Turq stiffen further,
and Ansel had to move fast to keep him
from trying to scramble off the couch.
He wrapped a hand under Turq's chin
and tilted the boy's face up again.
"Stay with me," Ansel coaxed.
Turq scrunched his eyes closed.
"I know you don't want to be here,
but that's not helping," Ansel said,
softly stroking Turq's hair.
Turq relaxed a little under his touch.
"You've got a lot of bad memories,
and I bet you've been stuffing them
down in a mental basement," Ansel said.
"So don't go down there with the bad things.
Stay up here with us where it's safer.
Come on, open your eyes and focus
on who you're with right now."
Turq opened his eyes, and while
he wasn't calm, at least he seemed
a little less panicky than before.
Ethan came back and carefully
unwrapped the wrist brace.
"Okay, the first thing I have is
a releaser for the tape," he said.
"It stinks, and it'll sting if gets into
broken skin, but it takes the glue
right off. Just hold still for me
and this part won't hurt."
Turq tensed again, but at least
he wasn't actively trying to escape.
Ethan swabbed something over
the bandage tape, and after a moment,
the tape started curling away from the skin.
"It just fell off," Turq said, amazed.
"You didn't even pull on it."
"That's what happens with a brand match,"
Ethan explained. "If you use different brands
of tape and releaser, then the glue doesn't
always dissolve completely, but it weakens
enough that it's just like peeling a posty note
off your skin, not like getting a wax job."
"Huh," Turq said. He watched as
Ethan collected the strips of tape.
"Without your skin numb, this will twinge
a little when I pull out," Ethan warned.
"It's uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous.
Get a good grip on the couch first."
It was no coincidence that the move
turned both of Turq's hands palm down
and put them somewhere that he couldn't
easily shock anyone if he panicked.
"Eyes up here," Ansel said, drawing
Turq's attention back to himself.
Ethan was gentle about clamping the tube
and sliding the needle out, but Turq still
gave a shrill whimper and a full-body flinch.
"It's okay, the pinchy feeling will fade
in about a minute," Ethan said.
"Let go," Turq said. He tugged
feebly against Ethan's grip.
"I will, as soon as the bleeding stops,"
Ethan said. "You've lost enough
blood already today, let's try to keep
the rest of it where it belongs."
Turq stopped pulling, but now
he wouldn't look at either of them.
After a minute, Ethan smoothed
a bandaid over the puncture. "All done,"
he said, and let go of Turq's wrist.
Turq immediately curled his arm
around his waist and wrapped
the other one on top of it.
When he started lifting his knees,
however, Ethan put a hand in front
of them to block the motion, and Turq
stopped short of it. "Wait," Ethan said.
"Why?" Turq said, narrowing his eyes.
"I know, you want to curl up now because
it feels safer," Ethan said. "Your breathing still
isn't fully recovered, though, and squeezing
your chest like that makes it harder to breathe."
Turq went limp with such resignation
that it made Ansel worry about him,
but Ethan knew what to do.
He picked up the forest pillow
that he'd been kneeling on earlier
and offered it to Turq. "Here, use
this instead. If you hug it to your chest,
then it'll feel like a shield, but it won't
get in the way of your breathing."
So Turq wrapped himself around
the pillow, and that seemed to help.
"Do you remember how you got hurt?"
Ansel asked. "It might help us know
how to take care of you now."
"I got stabbed. There was a fight and ...
some guys were chasing me," Turq said.
"I lost them in the woods, I think.
I don't ... remember all of it."
"Okay, you're doing fine," Ansel said.
Maybe he could teach by example; if he
stayed calm, it might help Turq stay calm.
"Every little bit is more than we had."
"Could I take another look for
those stab wounds?" Ethan asked.
"Preferably under your shirt, but
I can work over it if necessary."
Turq silently tugged on the hem,
dragging it up enough to show
a pale sliver of his skin.
"Tell me if anything hurts," Ethan said
as he slipped a hand under Turq's shirt.
"If you need me to stop, say so or
push me away, don't hit me."
Turq hunched his shoulders.
"My superpowers get snappish
when I'm injured," he said. "I
don't want to hurt anyone, but ...
sometimes it just happens."
"Ah, I found one of the stab wounds,
just a line of busy cells now," Ethan said.
"Can you tell if there's any difference
between active and passive scans?"
"I don't know," Turq said.
Ethan must have done something
that changed, because Turq flinched
and Ethan yanked his hand away.
"Are you all right?" Ansel asked.
"Close enough, but I won't be doing
an active scan again if I can avoid it,"
Ethan said, shaking his hand out.
"Yeah, um ... if you try to push
your power inside of mine, then
bad things can happen," Turq said.
"I didn't realize that's what you meant."
"No serious damage done," Ansel said.
"Superpowers take practice to learn
how to control them, and in your case,
what feels safe or threatening."
"Nothing is safe," Turq said,
tucking his chin against his chest.
Ansel lifted his hands away.
"Does that mean I should
stop petting you?" he asked.
"It seemed to be helping."
"I guess ... that part's not
so bad," Turq admitted.
Ansel combed his fingers
tenderly through Turq's hair.
Turq sighed and leaned
a tiny bit closer to him.
"Maybe not safe, but
less unsafe?" Ansel said.
"That's still progress."
"Yeah," Turq agreed.
"How's your pain level?"
Ethan asked. "I can tell that
your nerves are still signaling
damage, but I don't know exactly
how that feels to you, how much
it bothers you or not. There are
things that I can do to make you
more comfortable if you want."
Turq shrugged. "My chest hurts,
but something usually hurts. It's
just sparky, glitchy, now instead of
feeling like I can hardly breathe.
It's nothing I can't handle."
"Okay. If it's manageable, then
it's probably better not to mess with it,
given how twitchy you are," Ethan said.
"I'm used to that. I was just concerned about
your superpower tearing up your body in ways
that you couldn't cope with on your own."
"You told him about me?"
Turq said in a wounded tone.
"I told Ethan what happened shortly
after you put me in the hospital, which
was before you and I really started talking,
because I need a healer who knows about
the weird parts of my life in case something
goes wrong," Ansel said. "I haven't repeated
any details you've told me in confidence,
and only enough about you for him
to provide adequate care now."
"Which is to say, a lot less than I'd like,
but probably more than you'd like,"
Ethan said. "It's a tricky balance."
"I hate being indoors," Turq said.
"Okay, look around and tell us what's bad
about this room," Ansel said. "Maybe
it's something that we could fix."
"It's a room," Turq whimpered.
"What's bad about rooms
in general, then?" Ansel asked.
"Bad things happen in rooms," Turq said.
"Like what?" Ansel asked. "If you
can describe what we're doing wrong,
then we can do something better."
Turq just scrunched farther
underneath the afghan.
"Is the room too hot or cold?"
Ethan asked instead.
Turq shook his head.
"Is it raining in?" Ethan said.
Ansel and Turq both looked at
the big window over the couch, and
sure enough, raindrops flecked
the glass, but only outside.
"No," Turq said, watching drops
of water crawl down the window.
"When you think about being
in a room, what's the scary part
for you?" Ethan asked.
"I can't get out," Turq said.
His breathing sped up.
"This room has two doors,
both unlocked," Ansel said. "I
would've left them open, but Ethan
said the cold air would hurt you."
"Sure they're unlocked,"
Turq said bitterly.
"If they needed to be locked,
I would have told you," Ansel said.
He went to the nearest door and
opened it. "See, there's the foyer, you
recall that from the day we cleaned out
the cubbies. Here's the outer door."
He opened it to demonstrate
the access, letting in a short swirl
of cold wet wind, then quickly closed it.
"Can I just go now?" Turq said
in a small voice as Ansel returned
to his perch on the arm of the couch.
"You could," Ethan said.
"If you go outside now, the chill
will stress your lungs. That would
probably start you coughing, which
would hurt a lot. Before you decide,
think carefully about whether the gain
in freedom would outweigh the loss
of protection for your body."
Turq fidgeted on the cushions,
pulling the autumn-colored afghan
closer around his body, and shivered.
"Are you cold?" Ethan asked. "That
happens a lot when people get hurt."
"Yeah," Turq said, shifting again.
"I could go warm up a rice pack
for you," Ansel said. "Would you be
okay without me for a few minutes?"
Turq flicked a wary glance at Ethan,
but then said, "I guess so."
Ansel galloped up the indoor stairs
to the kitchen. There he found
the rosemary pack that Turq
had used before and heated
it in the microwave oven.
The piney scent of the herb
intensified with the heat.
As soon as the timer dinged,
Ansel hurried back downstairs.
"Here you go," he said to Turq,
handing him the warm bag of rice.
"I remember this," Turq said. He
stuffed most of it down his shirt, but
kept one end to cuddle against his cheek.
Turq ran a hand over the afghan,
which had a lot of texture knitted into it,
each big square a different combination
of colors. His fingers slowly traced along
the red puffs on a deep golden square.
"I don't know why you're fussing over me
so much," he said. "I'll heal. I always do."
Ethan suddenly looked so somber that
Ansel sat up straight, worried all over again.
"You are half right," the healer said,
"and it's the wrong half of that which
could completely screw you up."
"I don't get it," Turq said. "I've healed
from a lot, and I mean, really a LOT."
It made Ansel shiver, just remembering
some of what Turq had told him about that.
"Ansel called me because you weren't
breathing properly, and he was right,"
Ethan said. "It's a serious emergency."
"Yeah, when someone stops breathing,
you only have four minutes to restart it
before brain damage begins," Turq said
in a completely different tone. It sounded
like reciting a familiar lesson, and he even
seemed more alert than tense now.
Ethan noticed at once and capitalized
on the opening. "That's exactly right,"
he said. "What else do you know about
how to treat respiratory emergencies?"
"Airway, breathing, circulation,"
Turq said crisply. "If the airway is
blocked, you have to clear that first.
If you've got an airway but no breath,
then you can breathe for the person,
especially if they have a good pulse.
If the heart's not working either, then you
need to do chest compressions alternating
with the breaths. Call for help when you can."
"Fantastic," Ethan said. "That's better
than most people could manage.
Have you had some training?"
"Yeah, my fa -- my foster father Dao
is a paramedic," Turq said. "He taught
all us kids about first aid. I liked it, so
I got farther than some of the others."
"It shows," Ethan said. "Okay,
after you've got the person
breathing again, what next?"
"Keep the victim warm and quiet,"
Turq recited. "A fuzzy blanket
helps. You can talk them through
the scary parts and ..." His voice
trailed off as he looked around.
Ethan spread his hands.
"So how are we doing with that?"
he asked. "Did we miss anything?"
Ansel could see Turq struggling
to match his excellent training with
his miserable past experiences and
currently confusing situation.
"I guess ... you did good," Turq said.
"I just can't cope with it real well."
"You haven't shocked me silly this time,
so that is a huge improvement," Ansel said.
"It made my hair impossible to manage."
Turq winced. "How can you joke about that?"
"When I was a rookie, my chief taught me
how to use humor to make awful situations
seem less awful and easier to deal with,"
Ansel explained. "It really helps."
"I'm more of a gallows humor kind of guy,"
Ethan said. "You probably don't want
to hear the kind of jokes I tell."
"I really would've been fine,
though," Turq said.
"You really wouldn't," Ethan said,
shaking his head. "Regeneration only
fixes tissue damage. If you lose brain cells,
it can replace those, but it can't replace
any memories they held. The results of
that can be ... pretty horrible. I've seen
it, and I never want to see it again."
Turq shuddered hard enough
to shake the couch. "I didn't
know that," he whispered.
"Most people don't think it through, so
it's an obscure boobytrap. That's why I try
to warn folks with Regeneration," Ethan said.
"Now you know that oxygen deprivation
is an emergency for you too, so you
can take appropriate precautions."
"Okay," Turq said. "I'll be more careful."
"I still want to get feedback,"
Ansel said. "While you were out,
I had to make some decisions for you.
I tried to think about what you'd want
while taking decent care of your needs,
and that was hard to do. I'm willing to be
your backup, but I sure would appreciate
some specific instructions about what
you want or don't want in the future."
"The less the better," Turq said.
One hand crept up the other sleeve,
rubbing the striationary marks. "I know
you want to help, but ... it's not very safe,
and not just for me, for other people too."
"I figured out that last part myself,"
Ansel said dryly. "So we took what
precautions we could. We tried
to include some comforting things.
I turned down the offer of painkillers
because you were almost awake
by the time that topic came up."
Turq shifted a hand to the afghan,
tracing lines of orange on a gray square.
"Yeah, this thing is nice," he said.
"The IV really freaked you out,"
Ethan observed. "Go or no-go
on that, for future reference?
It can help a lot, but not if
it throws you into a panic."
"That's ... pretty high up on
the list of bad things," Turq said.
He was shivering again, or trembling.
Ansel knew about the medical abuse,
but hadn't told Ethan those details.
It was Turq's story to tell, or not.
"So yes or no?" Ethan said.
"It's your choice, if you can tell us.
Otherwise we have to guess."
"I don't know," Turq said.
"Okay, let's come at this from
a different angle," Ansel said.
"How would you have answered
that question yesterday? Would that
be the same as or different from
what you're thinking now?"
"Different, I would've just
said no," Turq replied.
"Then maybe you're stuck because
something we've done today is shifting
from no to maybe," Ansel said. He felt
grateful even for that much improvement.
"Yeah," Turq said with a note of
enlightenment. "I can't say yes,
but it's not as much no as it was."
He shrugged. "Sorry it's not
the answer you wanted."
"I can work with it," Ethan said.
"We just set it at a different place
on the spectrum of care than for
someone less twitchy. In your case,
that means yes only if it's needed,
and no if it's merely helpful."
Turq took a ragged breath,
his fingers clutching the pillow.
"I can live with that," he said.
"Okay then, we have made
some great progress for today,"
Ethan said. "Anything else that you
want to tell me or Ansel, we can keep
in mind for future use, but we won't
push you for more details than you
feel ready to share with us."
"I believe in you, Turq," said Ansel.
"I know you can handle this."
"Thanks," Turq whispered.
"Do you want to talk about the part
where you appeared out of thin air and
nearly knocked me over?" Ansel asked.
"I, um, can teleport," Turq said, tucking
his chin down. "When it goes wrong,
it can mess me up even worse than
the shapeshifting -- especially if I'm
spooked, so I try not to overuse it."
He waved a hand at his body.
"Turq, I know that you hate going
through weakness and vulnerability.
Most people do," Ansel said. "If you
think about it, though, it can tell you
a lot about your current situation
and the people around you."
"Like what?" Turq said, tilting
his head up to look at Ansel.
"Compare how we treat you with
how other people in the past have
treated you," Ansel suggested. "Janie
does a great job taking care of me now,
but she had to learn those skills from me.
Her parents weren't so good at that."
Turq sighed. "I miss Dao and
Mingxia," he said. "They were
fantastic. But that was before ...
everything else happened."
"Was it fantastic as soon as you
met them, or did it take a while
for you to get used to each other?"
Ansel asked. "Some people need
longer than others to warm up."
"I felt so freaking lost," Turq said.
"They really went out of their way
to make me feel at home, though,
especially when I didn't feel well."
"What was it like the first time
you got sick?" Ansel asked.
Turq actually smiled. "I hadn't even
been there a month when I caught the flu,"
he said. "Mingxia asked me if I wanted to lie
in bed or on the couch, and she let me watch
cartoons all day. At first, she drove me nuts
hovering over me, but when she noticed that it
bugged me, she backed off and only checked on
me every twenty minutes or so. She made me
Yan Du Xian soup, and that helped a lot."
"They sound like wonderful parents. It took
a little while before you got to know each other,
and then you meshed really well," Ansel said.
"Building trust takes time and work. A lot of that
comes when you're vulnerable, and people choose
to help you instead of hurt you. That's how you
learn who you can trust, and who you can't."
"So?" Turq said. He brushed his head
against Ansel's hand, and Ansel petted him.
"So think about that in the context of today.
You've known me since the end of summer,
and you just met Ethan," said Ansel. "We did
a decent job taking care of you, and I bet we'll
do better the next time you get hurt, if you
give us another chance. I hope you will;
I'd rather you come to me when you need
help instead of trying to go it alone."
"Yeah, it could've been worse,"
Turq agreed. "I've survived
a lot worse than just this."
"Do you mind if I look you over
one more time?" Ethan asked.
"I think you're doing better, but I
want to make sure before I leave.
Turq scrunched a little,
but he said, "Go ahead."
"Passive scan only, unless
you tell me I can do more,"
Ethan assured him before
running his hands lightly
over Turq's body.
"Well?" Ansel asked after
the healer sat back.
"Heart's fine already, lungs are
mostly recovered, and digestion is
just starting to knit itself back together,"
Ethan reported. "Turq, you probably
won't get hungry for a few hours,
so don't try to eat before then."
"Yeah, that happens a lot,"
Turq said glumly. "It's hard
to make up for all the energy
that I burn up fighting or healing."
"There are other ways to get
energy into your body," Ethan said.
"We can work on making those
safer for you in the future."
"Maybe later," Turq said, which
was still a big improvement
over his former wariness.
"You're recovered enough that
I can get out of your hair, and
leave you in Ansel's hands,"
Ethan said to Turq.
"I'll take care of him, as much
as he's willing," Ansel said.
"Okay," Turq said, leaning
back against Ansel.
"Ideally, I'd recommend staying
indoors overnight," Ethan said.
"And for real?" Ansel asked.
"In practice, Turq, just stay as long
as you can stand it, and try to get
some other shelter afterwards,"
Ethan said. "Waiting until after you
eat is a reasonable goal for today."
"Thanks for your help," Ansel said,
shaking Ethan's hand. "I owe you one."
"Any time," Ethan said, and then
let himself out of the room.
"So how do you want to pass
the time, Turq?" asked Ansel, hoping
that he could distract the boy enough
to buy a few more hours of shelter.
"I've got movies, books, magazines,
board games ... take your pick."
"I like your voice," Turq said.
"I don't want to be a bother, but
it's nice when you talk about things.
I think I heard you earlier, I just
can't remember all of it."
"I was reading aloud from magazines,"
Ansel said. "Would you like to choose
which one this time?" He got up
to offer Turq a stack of them.
Turq shuffled through the issues
and then handed him Dirt Rag.
"I liked biking with you."
"I enjoyed that too," Ansel said,
leafing through the pages in search
of his favorite section. Featured Rides
offered photo-essays of great trails.
He found it and began to read.
Turq shifted a little higher so that
his head was practically in Ansel's lap.
Ansel let his free hand drift down
to stroke Turq's hair again, and
Turq gave a happy sigh.
As nerve-wracking as the day had
been for everyone, Ansel treasured
these small signs of progress.
* * *
Notes:
"It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us... discover our soul."
-- Desmond Tutu
Ansel's cabin has a stone bottom and log top. See the exterior, garage floor, and living floor.
Ansel's office has a leather couch and loveseat along with a tapestry rocking chair around a large square coffee table. This is the forest tapestry pillow for the loveseat. The carpet is short tan-and-gray pile. One stone wall has been plastered over, but the other has been left bare and features a stone bench, fireplace, and entertainment center. Ansel has a writing desk with bookshelves along the front and drawers underneath, which faces into the room. The chair is brown instead of black, to match the couch. A matching computer desk with a tall hutch of bookshelves stands against the interior wall.
Here is the knit afghan from the couch. The Fall Colors pattern is free, but viewing it requires registering on the Lion Brand site. There is also a kit for sale which includes both the pattern and all the yarn it needs. Security blankets soothe people in stressful situations. Different blankets have different effects, and some people like one with a lot of texture. Ansel loves his job, but there's a reason he has a big, heavy, warm-colored, highly-textured blanket in his office. No matter how enjoyable it is, police work is still demanding and self-care is a very good idea. And yes, Ansel just let Turq borrow his blankie. It's very intimate, but that probably won't occur to Turq for a while.
There's a whole set of de-escalation skills for getting a bitey critter to let go of you, and some of them overlap with ways to wake up a person. Things like touching whiskers or blowing on the face are gentle and usually effective. The idea is to create a compelling sensation. They're also less triggering than methods such as shouting, shaking, or slapping in the case of trauma survivors.
Trauma triggers reactivate memories of bad things that happened to someone, throwing the person into survival mode. Trauma-informed care offers best practices for supporting people with various types of post-traumatic stress. It is very, very important not to trigger traumatized supervillains! Ansel and Ethan both understand this, although their skill level isn't always up to what they're trying to accomplish. Validation helps by acknowledging the person's perspective, even if it's not always practical to act on that.
Maintaining contact during bodywork or other health care lowers anxiety for clients by identifying the caregiver's location. Conversely, one effective way to discourage a skittish person from doing something problematic is to put your hand where they'll touch you if they keep trying to do the thing. They will often stop short to avoid the contact. It's less intrusive and has a lower potential of triggering someone, compared to grabbing or pushing them.
Turq's body language includes signs from the defensive, submissive, discomfort, and pain clusters. At this stage, he's trying to make himself smaller and more protected, and he's just generally miserable with the whole situation.
Total Comfort Level is a Terramagne-American scoring system for measuring how people feel when sick or injured, based on tracking individual issues. Pain, nausea, dealing with the health care system, seeing a doctor/nurse, taking medication, being stuck in bed, etc. are all common things to track. The numbers can be averaged to see the general level of comfort, or viewed individually to make sure that no one item goes too high. Similarly, effort goes into ensuring that the help given does not make one area spike while producing only mild improvement in the target area, because that can cause the person to feel worse overall instead of better. This is particularly a concern for soups, people with allergies, and people with mental challenges. Since high levels of discomfort interfere with recovery, keeping the levels low tends to improve outcomes. Generally 1-3 is the bad range, 4-6 is uncomfortable, 7-9 is okay, and 10 is terrific. Since Turq's current function is marginal at best, Ethan has reduced the complex explanation to a set of simple comparisons which make more sense to Turq in this context.
Consent is most often discussed in sexual contexts, and impairment in terms of drugs. But if you look at that standard, you can see that in Local-American medical contexts free consent is rare and people are prevailingly pressured or forced into doing things by someone with undue influence. T-America does better on average. There are different types of consent which may apply in various situations. Boundaries and consent customarily evolve over the course of a relationship, as people establish parameters and adapt to changes. Something which requires explicit consent at first may become a standard and unremarked part of interaction, like kissing for romantic couples. Some things which would not be acceptable early on become possible as more trust builds up. Even in an established relationship, however, people always have the right to withdraw consent.
Also there are many more types of impaired consent than just substances; some mental disabilities or illnesses can have the same effect. In Turq's case it's a mental injury from past abuse, which creates a broad pattern of impaired consent. That's a major ethical dilemma in medical care, because leaving problems untreated is not okay; but doing thing to people against their will is not okay and can make matters very much worse. Consent exists on a spectrum. I had found a good discussion about different types of impaired consent and the spectrum of capacity for consent,but that link died. thnidu reminded me of the Wayback Machine, so here is the archived page. Turq's issues stem from past abuse so they focus on similar things, and in fact are improving, but violating his boundaries now would make things worse instead of better. So Ansel and Ethan are using assisted decision-making and coping skills to shore up what's left of Turq's consent in order to get it high enough they can get over the threshold and patch him up without doing more harm than good. It's a lot of extra effort, but it works. For a more detailed discussion, see my post "Spectrum of Consent."
Notice also that Ethan is more willing to take no for an answer, even if it worsens the outcomes, due to his greater experience working with supervillains in marginal situations. He just makes sure that Turq knows the drawbacks. Ansel has a more heroic mindset, and there are certain things he just won't do, such as sitting back and watching someone die. Since Ansel has explicitly stated his stance on these matters, that's okay, because Turq can account for that in deciding whether and when to associate with Ansel. Turq showing up injured constitutes implied consent for Ansel to handle that situation in the manner he has described as his standard.
Dissociation is a defense mechanism which allows people survive traumatic experiences, and in fact is taught as a method of pain control. A drawback of dissociation is that it can create a feedback loop. Turq relies on it out of habit, and hasn't fully registered that his external environment now is a much safer place than his internal environment full of horrid memories from before. A related issue is depersonalization, a sense of being unreal or disconnected from one's body. For a number of superpowers (including Teleportation, Phasing, and Shapeshifting) it can cause serious problems because control of those powers relies on an awareness of the body, so without that they may lose control. Numbness can trigger the same effects -- anything from a healer's numbing touch to local anaesthetic to a foot falling asleep. Some people can learn to work around it, others can't, which makes for some very obscure and inconvenient contraindications in medical care.
Traumatic stress can cause heightened sensitivity to pain, especially if specific types of pain are triggering for someone. On the one hand, Turq can ignore a rather appalling amount of background pain -- but his negative memories and mangled biochemistry tend to magnify some types of pain caused by an external source. His history of medical torture has left him with a very distorted perception of what should be very minor pain, because the present signal picks up echoes of much worse past events. There are tips on how to cope with triggers and how to help someone who is triggered. You can't exactly fix it, but you can prevent collateral damage, and sometimes lessen the intensity and/or duration of the episode. Also, a supportive response and safe environment help wear down the triggers over time, allowing the body and mind to heal as the survivor learns to feel that the trauma is in the past.
Behavior is communication. It's not random; it happens to meet a need. If you pay attention, it can tell you a lot about what the person is feeling and seeking. Sometimes behaviors have drawbacks. If you just try to stop the behavior, then that doesn't address the underlying need or help the person understand why the behavior is problematic, so it is unlikely to work. In order to make effective changes, explain why not to do something and offer a safer alternative that meets the need. Here is a handbook on positive behavioral supports. Right now, Turq's behavior is badly damaged due to trauma that exceeded his coping capacity. Reminding him of better options will do a lot of good.
Vulnerability is the key to intimacy. It opens the way to healthier relationships. Understand how to deepen vulnerability and become more comfortable with it. When you cultivate vulnerability in a relationship, you also need to know how to cope with a vulnerability hangover.
Therapy pads use various fillers and scents to soothe minor complaints. You can buy them; this style has long sections. You can make your own; here are instructions for pads with short sections or one whole bag. Larger pads are usually divided to distribute the filling. Here is an aromatherapy wrap in forested cloth that is scented with rosemary. Turq is just starting to orient on things in the present that he finds reassuring, and recognize them when they reappear.
The more time passes, the more Turq displays open and positive body language. He's still not okay, but he's getting better with support.
Oxygen deprivation causes brain damage after about four minutes. One of the things it does is destroy memories by killing the cells that store them. Regeneration typically affects the physical body, so it can only repair tissue damage, not restore lost data. There are a few superpowers that can rebuild memories lost in that fashion, but it's extremely rare. A known failure mode of all the highly protective powers (Regeneration, Invulnerability, Super-Armor, Toughness, etc.) is a tendency for people to think they're invincible when they're not. It's related to pain as a warning system -- without the early and obvious consequences, people tend to do things that have more serious consequences.
Context-dependent memory deals with the influence of external factors on recall. State-dependent memory deals more with internal factors such as emotional and physical condition. Among the more effective methods of learning information is to ask and answer questions. The more comfortable Turq becomes with Ansel, the more Turq remembers positive parts of his life before everything went to hell. If someone stumbles over a familiar phrase or question, it can easily bring up a whole file of linked information. And once that information is active, the emotional state from when it was made also tends to come online -- which is what brings Turq into a happier and more confident mood, because that's how he felt with his foster father. You can bet that Ethan has just noted "ask Turq how he would treat the same injury" as a way of pulling Turq's head out of his mental basement.
Seeking feedback is a crucial step in solving problems. Both Ansel and Ethan are aware that they pushed some boundaries while trying to put Turq back together, because of his past abuse. They did this knowing that it might result in consequences, and they accept that as a necessary part of the process. So they make a point of asking Turq, once he's reasonably coherent, whether or not he's satisfied with the choices they made on his behalf. The more responsibility people take for their actions, the more right they have to act and the better the outcome is likely to be, because there is a correction mode in case of error. The less responsibility, the less right they have and the worse the results usually are. Turq may still hate the circumstances, but he is far more willing and able to tolerate this kind of intervention from people who care enough to check whether he agrees with their choices and accept the consequences if he does not. In this manner, their responsibility enables him to go farther than he could without that support. This is why people in positions of authority or influence need high standards.
Discussing your wishes is a necessary step in getting appropriate health care. It's not always sufficient because people may ignore them; but they can't do what you want if they don't know what that is. Ideally, include an explanation of your reasons, because some people will refrain from crossing a line if they know what will go wrong from violating your boundaries, who might not respect a simple statement of preference. Among the best resources I have found for documenting and managing care choices is the Wellness Recovery Action Plan Workbook. Print and fill out the pages you find useful, add any other worksheets or information you consider relevant, and store it in a binder easily accessible in case of emergency. Ansel and Ethan are both rather desperately fishing for this kind of information, trying to balance their urgent need to know against Turq's very limited tolerance for this topic.
Caring is a set of learned skills. Most people learn how to be caring, take care of themselves, look after their family, and help a sick friend while they are growing up. Not everyone is that lucky, though, and even healthy people tend to have a few gaps. Among the more important skills is observing someone to discover what they find helpful or irritating, and then adapting your support accordingly.
Making foster children feel welcome requires understanding what helps with trauma and what kids need most.
Chinese comfort food includes Yan Du Xian soup. They use it much the way Westerners do to chicken soup: it's what you make for someone who is feeling sick or just sad. The white pepper and ginger used in Yan Du Xian soup are warming, healing spices good for winter weather and many health complaints. While comfort foods share many physical characteristics, they are primarily imprinted through pleasant associations. Once you know how comfort foods are set, you can make mindful choices about what to "suggest" by serving healthy options at the right time.
Mingxia's choice of soup wasn't random, it was a deliberate and astute way of offering physical and mental support, along with practicing family traditions and cultural identity. It was an invitation to take part in a Chinese-American family, and it worked. Turq has a very strong imprint from that, which is just beginning to come out of hiding. Some of the more serious problems he had after that placement came from other people not wanting him to "act Chinese," a different aspect of (this link contains obnoxious ideas) the usual hostility against transracial placements. But it's not an act. It's part of his core identity -- damaged now, and incomplete, but very much one of the things that makes him who he is.
Dirt Rag is a biking magazine that covers, among other things, interesting trails to explore.
capri0mni, mama_kestrel, and LJ user Paantha. It also fills "The Broken One" square in my 4-1-16 card for the Archetypal Characters Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the Officer Pink thread of the Polychrome Heroics series, and is a direct sequel to "When Someone Is Vulnerable." They are immediately followed by "A Safe Refuge from the World."WARNING: This poem contains some intense material. Highlight to read more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. This is heavy-duty hurt/comfort with emotional angst, messy medical details, awkward discussions of present and future care preferences, trying to take care of a traumatized person, struggling with traumatic stress, impaired consent, assisted decision-making, difficulty balancing conflicts between Turq's mental and emotional needs, complications and challenges of soup care in general, minor misfire of a superpower with unpleasant but not damaging effects, trying to figure out ways of minimizing or compensating for triggers, mentions of past abuse (current environment is safe and supportive), worrying about an injured friend, and other mayhem. On the whole, though, it's sweet to see Ansel and Ethan working so hard to take care of Turq as best they can, and despite the upsetting context Turq is actually making a lot of progress. If these are touchy topics for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether you want to read this right now. However, it contains some major plot developments, so skipping it may make subsequent poems seem more confusing or less justified.
"Through Weakness and Vulnerability"
Ansel and Ethan waited at
opposite ends of the couch
for Turq to wake up. He was
healing well, as far as Ethan
could tell, but hadn't roused yet.
Ansel hated seeing Turq so limp
and helpless. He couldn't help
wondering if this was how Janie
felt when Ansel had gotten hurt.
When Turq started to whimper
and stir, Ansel cupped a hand
under his chin and then gently
tipped his face up, to make sure
that the first thing Turq saw
would be him instead of Ethan,
or worse yet, the walls.
Ansel patted Turq on the cheek,
then brushed a fingertip over
the corner of his mustache.
"Come on, Turq, wake up
and look at me," he coaxed.
Turq twitched, and his hazel eyes
fluttered open, unfocused at first.
"There you are," Ansel said.
"It's okay. You're safe."
Turq shifted and groaned.
Ansel stroked a hand through
his soft blue hair, which made him
sigh and settle deeper into the couch.
"I don't know how much you remember,
so let me catch you up," he said, keeping
his voice low and even. "You crashed into me,
and then you stopped breathing. Several times.
So I brought you into my office where it's warm
and safe, and then I called some backup."
Turq's body coiled as much as it could,
tension fighting against the lingering weakness.
He made a slightly louder sound of protest.
"I know, you don't like it," Ansel said.
"If you come to me when you're injured,
though, that means choosing to let me
take care of you. I've done my best
to balance what I think you'd want,
and what you really need right now."
Turq flinched, and Ansel guessed
that he'd noticed Ethan's presence.
"Wha ... who ..." Turq mumbled.
"This is my friend Ethan, and he's
got a hand under your left ankle
so that you can tell where he is,"
Ansel said. "You remember me
telling you about him, he's the one
who healed me after that bigot
broke a bottle over my head."
"Hello, Turq," Ethan said softly.
"I've been helping Ansel take care
of you while you're hurt. If you
need anything, just let me know."
"G'way," Turq said, pressing
back into Ansel's grasp.
"I could do that," Ethan said.
"If I let go, though, it will be
harder for you to know where
I am, and if I leave, you'll take
longer to recover. Are you
sure that's what you want?"
Turq huffed at him -- and then
noticed the IV line, which made him
start struggling in earnest, although
he was still so weak that even trying
to kick free of the afghan was like
a puppy trying to wriggle out of a sack.
"Easy, Turq," said Ansel.
"You're safe here. It's okay."
"Lie still," Ethan said, moving
his hand above Turq's forearm
so that Turq couldn't thrash without
hitting him. "You lost some blood
earlier. This is just fluid replacement,
no drugs, and it's almost done. Can
you wait a few minutes for it to finish, or
do you need me to take it off right now?"
"Off off off," Turq whined,
a panicky note rising in his voice.
"It's your choice," Ansel said,
stroking Turq's fluffy hair.
"Okay, I'll take it off," Ethan said.
"Do you want me to numb the skin
first, so that it doesn't hurt you?"
Turq hunched into a miserable lump.
"Can't," he said. "If I can't feel my body,
sometimes I lose track and it ... goes wrong."
"Thank you for telling me that,"
Ethan said. "I need to get a few things,
and then I'll come right back."
He ducked behind Ansel's desk
and rustled in his first aid kit.
The noise made Turq stiffen further,
and Ansel had to move fast to keep him
from trying to scramble off the couch.
He wrapped a hand under Turq's chin
and tilted the boy's face up again.
"Stay with me," Ansel coaxed.
Turq scrunched his eyes closed.
"I know you don't want to be here,
but that's not helping," Ansel said,
softly stroking Turq's hair.
Turq relaxed a little under his touch.
"You've got a lot of bad memories,
and I bet you've been stuffing them
down in a mental basement," Ansel said.
"So don't go down there with the bad things.
Stay up here with us where it's safer.
Come on, open your eyes and focus
on who you're with right now."
Turq opened his eyes, and while
he wasn't calm, at least he seemed
a little less panicky than before.
Ethan came back and carefully
unwrapped the wrist brace.
"Okay, the first thing I have is
a releaser for the tape," he said.
"It stinks, and it'll sting if gets into
broken skin, but it takes the glue
right off. Just hold still for me
and this part won't hurt."
Turq tensed again, but at least
he wasn't actively trying to escape.
Ethan swabbed something over
the bandage tape, and after a moment,
the tape started curling away from the skin.
"It just fell off," Turq said, amazed.
"You didn't even pull on it."
"That's what happens with a brand match,"
Ethan explained. "If you use different brands
of tape and releaser, then the glue doesn't
always dissolve completely, but it weakens
enough that it's just like peeling a posty note
off your skin, not like getting a wax job."
"Huh," Turq said. He watched as
Ethan collected the strips of tape.
"Without your skin numb, this will twinge
a little when I pull out," Ethan warned.
"It's uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous.
Get a good grip on the couch first."
It was no coincidence that the move
turned both of Turq's hands palm down
and put them somewhere that he couldn't
easily shock anyone if he panicked.
"Eyes up here," Ansel said, drawing
Turq's attention back to himself.
Ethan was gentle about clamping the tube
and sliding the needle out, but Turq still
gave a shrill whimper and a full-body flinch.
"It's okay, the pinchy feeling will fade
in about a minute," Ethan said.
"Let go," Turq said. He tugged
feebly against Ethan's grip.
"I will, as soon as the bleeding stops,"
Ethan said. "You've lost enough
blood already today, let's try to keep
the rest of it where it belongs."
Turq stopped pulling, but now
he wouldn't look at either of them.
After a minute, Ethan smoothed
a bandaid over the puncture. "All done,"
he said, and let go of Turq's wrist.
Turq immediately curled his arm
around his waist and wrapped
the other one on top of it.
When he started lifting his knees,
however, Ethan put a hand in front
of them to block the motion, and Turq
stopped short of it. "Wait," Ethan said.
"Why?" Turq said, narrowing his eyes.
"I know, you want to curl up now because
it feels safer," Ethan said. "Your breathing still
isn't fully recovered, though, and squeezing
your chest like that makes it harder to breathe."
Turq went limp with such resignation
that it made Ansel worry about him,
but Ethan knew what to do.
He picked up the forest pillow
that he'd been kneeling on earlier
and offered it to Turq. "Here, use
this instead. If you hug it to your chest,
then it'll feel like a shield, but it won't
get in the way of your breathing."
So Turq wrapped himself around
the pillow, and that seemed to help.
"Do you remember how you got hurt?"
Ansel asked. "It might help us know
how to take care of you now."
"I got stabbed. There was a fight and ...
some guys were chasing me," Turq said.
"I lost them in the woods, I think.
I don't ... remember all of it."
"Okay, you're doing fine," Ansel said.
Maybe he could teach by example; if he
stayed calm, it might help Turq stay calm.
"Every little bit is more than we had."
"Could I take another look for
those stab wounds?" Ethan asked.
"Preferably under your shirt, but
I can work over it if necessary."
Turq silently tugged on the hem,
dragging it up enough to show
a pale sliver of his skin.
"Tell me if anything hurts," Ethan said
as he slipped a hand under Turq's shirt.
"If you need me to stop, say so or
push me away, don't hit me."
Turq hunched his shoulders.
"My superpowers get snappish
when I'm injured," he said. "I
don't want to hurt anyone, but ...
sometimes it just happens."
"Ah, I found one of the stab wounds,
just a line of busy cells now," Ethan said.
"Can you tell if there's any difference
between active and passive scans?"
"I don't know," Turq said.
Ethan must have done something
that changed, because Turq flinched
and Ethan yanked his hand away.
"Are you all right?" Ansel asked.
"Close enough, but I won't be doing
an active scan again if I can avoid it,"
Ethan said, shaking his hand out.
"Yeah, um ... if you try to push
your power inside of mine, then
bad things can happen," Turq said.
"I didn't realize that's what you meant."
"No serious damage done," Ansel said.
"Superpowers take practice to learn
how to control them, and in your case,
what feels safe or threatening."
"Nothing is safe," Turq said,
tucking his chin against his chest.
Ansel lifted his hands away.
"Does that mean I should
stop petting you?" he asked.
"It seemed to be helping."
"I guess ... that part's not
so bad," Turq admitted.
Ansel combed his fingers
tenderly through Turq's hair.
Turq sighed and leaned
a tiny bit closer to him.
"Maybe not safe, but
less unsafe?" Ansel said.
"That's still progress."
"Yeah," Turq agreed.
"How's your pain level?"
Ethan asked. "I can tell that
your nerves are still signaling
damage, but I don't know exactly
how that feels to you, how much
it bothers you or not. There are
things that I can do to make you
more comfortable if you want."
Turq shrugged. "My chest hurts,
but something usually hurts. It's
just sparky, glitchy, now instead of
feeling like I can hardly breathe.
It's nothing I can't handle."
"Okay. If it's manageable, then
it's probably better not to mess with it,
given how twitchy you are," Ethan said.
"I'm used to that. I was just concerned about
your superpower tearing up your body in ways
that you couldn't cope with on your own."
"You told him about me?"
Turq said in a wounded tone.
"I told Ethan what happened shortly
after you put me in the hospital, which
was before you and I really started talking,
because I need a healer who knows about
the weird parts of my life in case something
goes wrong," Ansel said. "I haven't repeated
any details you've told me in confidence,
and only enough about you for him
to provide adequate care now."
"Which is to say, a lot less than I'd like,
but probably more than you'd like,"
Ethan said. "It's a tricky balance."
"I hate being indoors," Turq said.
"Okay, look around and tell us what's bad
about this room," Ansel said. "Maybe
it's something that we could fix."
"It's a room," Turq whimpered.
"What's bad about rooms
in general, then?" Ansel asked.
"Bad things happen in rooms," Turq said.
"Like what?" Ansel asked. "If you
can describe what we're doing wrong,
then we can do something better."
Turq just scrunched farther
underneath the afghan.
"Is the room too hot or cold?"
Ethan asked instead.
Turq shook his head.
"Is it raining in?" Ethan said.
Ansel and Turq both looked at
the big window over the couch, and
sure enough, raindrops flecked
the glass, but only outside.
"No," Turq said, watching drops
of water crawl down the window.
"When you think about being
in a room, what's the scary part
for you?" Ethan asked.
"I can't get out," Turq said.
His breathing sped up.
"This room has two doors,
both unlocked," Ansel said. "I
would've left them open, but Ethan
said the cold air would hurt you."
"Sure they're unlocked,"
Turq said bitterly.
"If they needed to be locked,
I would have told you," Ansel said.
He went to the nearest door and
opened it. "See, there's the foyer, you
recall that from the day we cleaned out
the cubbies. Here's the outer door."
He opened it to demonstrate
the access, letting in a short swirl
of cold wet wind, then quickly closed it.
"Can I just go now?" Turq said
in a small voice as Ansel returned
to his perch on the arm of the couch.
"You could," Ethan said.
"If you go outside now, the chill
will stress your lungs. That would
probably start you coughing, which
would hurt a lot. Before you decide,
think carefully about whether the gain
in freedom would outweigh the loss
of protection for your body."
Turq fidgeted on the cushions,
pulling the autumn-colored afghan
closer around his body, and shivered.
"Are you cold?" Ethan asked. "That
happens a lot when people get hurt."
"Yeah," Turq said, shifting again.
"I could go warm up a rice pack
for you," Ansel said. "Would you be
okay without me for a few minutes?"
Turq flicked a wary glance at Ethan,
but then said, "I guess so."
Ansel galloped up the indoor stairs
to the kitchen. There he found
the rosemary pack that Turq
had used before and heated
it in the microwave oven.
The piney scent of the herb
intensified with the heat.
As soon as the timer dinged,
Ansel hurried back downstairs.
"Here you go," he said to Turq,
handing him the warm bag of rice.
"I remember this," Turq said. He
stuffed most of it down his shirt, but
kept one end to cuddle against his cheek.
Turq ran a hand over the afghan,
which had a lot of texture knitted into it,
each big square a different combination
of colors. His fingers slowly traced along
the red puffs on a deep golden square.
"I don't know why you're fussing over me
so much," he said. "I'll heal. I always do."
Ethan suddenly looked so somber that
Ansel sat up straight, worried all over again.
"You are half right," the healer said,
"and it's the wrong half of that which
could completely screw you up."
"I don't get it," Turq said. "I've healed
from a lot, and I mean, really a LOT."
It made Ansel shiver, just remembering
some of what Turq had told him about that.
"Ansel called me because you weren't
breathing properly, and he was right,"
Ethan said. "It's a serious emergency."
"Yeah, when someone stops breathing,
you only have four minutes to restart it
before brain damage begins," Turq said
in a completely different tone. It sounded
like reciting a familiar lesson, and he even
seemed more alert than tense now.
Ethan noticed at once and capitalized
on the opening. "That's exactly right,"
he said. "What else do you know about
how to treat respiratory emergencies?"
"Airway, breathing, circulation,"
Turq said crisply. "If the airway is
blocked, you have to clear that first.
If you've got an airway but no breath,
then you can breathe for the person,
especially if they have a good pulse.
If the heart's not working either, then you
need to do chest compressions alternating
with the breaths. Call for help when you can."
"Fantastic," Ethan said. "That's better
than most people could manage.
Have you had some training?"
"Yeah, my fa -- my foster father Dao
is a paramedic," Turq said. "He taught
all us kids about first aid. I liked it, so
I got farther than some of the others."
"It shows," Ethan said. "Okay,
after you've got the person
breathing again, what next?"
"Keep the victim warm and quiet,"
Turq recited. "A fuzzy blanket
helps. You can talk them through
the scary parts and ..." His voice
trailed off as he looked around.
Ethan spread his hands.
"So how are we doing with that?"
he asked. "Did we miss anything?"
Ansel could see Turq struggling
to match his excellent training with
his miserable past experiences and
currently confusing situation.
"I guess ... you did good," Turq said.
"I just can't cope with it real well."
"You haven't shocked me silly this time,
so that is a huge improvement," Ansel said.
"It made my hair impossible to manage."
Turq winced. "How can you joke about that?"
"When I was a rookie, my chief taught me
how to use humor to make awful situations
seem less awful and easier to deal with,"
Ansel explained. "It really helps."
"I'm more of a gallows humor kind of guy,"
Ethan said. "You probably don't want
to hear the kind of jokes I tell."
"I really would've been fine,
though," Turq said.
"You really wouldn't," Ethan said,
shaking his head. "Regeneration only
fixes tissue damage. If you lose brain cells,
it can replace those, but it can't replace
any memories they held. The results of
that can be ... pretty horrible. I've seen
it, and I never want to see it again."
Turq shuddered hard enough
to shake the couch. "I didn't
know that," he whispered.
"Most people don't think it through, so
it's an obscure boobytrap. That's why I try
to warn folks with Regeneration," Ethan said.
"Now you know that oxygen deprivation
is an emergency for you too, so you
can take appropriate precautions."
"Okay," Turq said. "I'll be more careful."
"I still want to get feedback,"
Ansel said. "While you were out,
I had to make some decisions for you.
I tried to think about what you'd want
while taking decent care of your needs,
and that was hard to do. I'm willing to be
your backup, but I sure would appreciate
some specific instructions about what
you want or don't want in the future."
"The less the better," Turq said.
One hand crept up the other sleeve,
rubbing the striationary marks. "I know
you want to help, but ... it's not very safe,
and not just for me, for other people too."
"I figured out that last part myself,"
Ansel said dryly. "So we took what
precautions we could. We tried
to include some comforting things.
I turned down the offer of painkillers
because you were almost awake
by the time that topic came up."
Turq shifted a hand to the afghan,
tracing lines of orange on a gray square.
"Yeah, this thing is nice," he said.
"The IV really freaked you out,"
Ethan observed. "Go or no-go
on that, for future reference?
It can help a lot, but not if
it throws you into a panic."
"That's ... pretty high up on
the list of bad things," Turq said.
He was shivering again, or trembling.
Ansel knew about the medical abuse,
but hadn't told Ethan those details.
It was Turq's story to tell, or not.
"So yes or no?" Ethan said.
"It's your choice, if you can tell us.
Otherwise we have to guess."
"I don't know," Turq said.
"Okay, let's come at this from
a different angle," Ansel said.
"How would you have answered
that question yesterday? Would that
be the same as or different from
what you're thinking now?"
"Different, I would've just
said no," Turq replied.
"Then maybe you're stuck because
something we've done today is shifting
from no to maybe," Ansel said. He felt
grateful even for that much improvement.
"Yeah," Turq said with a note of
enlightenment. "I can't say yes,
but it's not as much no as it was."
He shrugged. "Sorry it's not
the answer you wanted."
"I can work with it," Ethan said.
"We just set it at a different place
on the spectrum of care than for
someone less twitchy. In your case,
that means yes only if it's needed,
and no if it's merely helpful."
Turq took a ragged breath,
his fingers clutching the pillow.
"I can live with that," he said.
"Okay then, we have made
some great progress for today,"
Ethan said. "Anything else that you
want to tell me or Ansel, we can keep
in mind for future use, but we won't
push you for more details than you
feel ready to share with us."
"I believe in you, Turq," said Ansel.
"I know you can handle this."
"Thanks," Turq whispered.
"Do you want to talk about the part
where you appeared out of thin air and
nearly knocked me over?" Ansel asked.
"I, um, can teleport," Turq said, tucking
his chin down. "When it goes wrong,
it can mess me up even worse than
the shapeshifting -- especially if I'm
spooked, so I try not to overuse it."
He waved a hand at his body.
"Turq, I know that you hate going
through weakness and vulnerability.
Most people do," Ansel said. "If you
think about it, though, it can tell you
a lot about your current situation
and the people around you."
"Like what?" Turq said, tilting
his head up to look at Ansel.
"Compare how we treat you with
how other people in the past have
treated you," Ansel suggested. "Janie
does a great job taking care of me now,
but she had to learn those skills from me.
Her parents weren't so good at that."
Turq sighed. "I miss Dao and
Mingxia," he said. "They were
fantastic. But that was before ...
everything else happened."
"Was it fantastic as soon as you
met them, or did it take a while
for you to get used to each other?"
Ansel asked. "Some people need
longer than others to warm up."
"I felt so freaking lost," Turq said.
"They really went out of their way
to make me feel at home, though,
especially when I didn't feel well."
"What was it like the first time
you got sick?" Ansel asked.
Turq actually smiled. "I hadn't even
been there a month when I caught the flu,"
he said. "Mingxia asked me if I wanted to lie
in bed or on the couch, and she let me watch
cartoons all day. At first, she drove me nuts
hovering over me, but when she noticed that it
bugged me, she backed off and only checked on
me every twenty minutes or so. She made me
Yan Du Xian soup, and that helped a lot."
"They sound like wonderful parents. It took
a little while before you got to know each other,
and then you meshed really well," Ansel said.
"Building trust takes time and work. A lot of that
comes when you're vulnerable, and people choose
to help you instead of hurt you. That's how you
learn who you can trust, and who you can't."
"So?" Turq said. He brushed his head
against Ansel's hand, and Ansel petted him.
"So think about that in the context of today.
You've known me since the end of summer,
and you just met Ethan," said Ansel. "We did
a decent job taking care of you, and I bet we'll
do better the next time you get hurt, if you
give us another chance. I hope you will;
I'd rather you come to me when you need
help instead of trying to go it alone."
"Yeah, it could've been worse,"
Turq agreed. "I've survived
a lot worse than just this."
"Do you mind if I look you over
one more time?" Ethan asked.
"I think you're doing better, but I
want to make sure before I leave.
Turq scrunched a little,
but he said, "Go ahead."
"Passive scan only, unless
you tell me I can do more,"
Ethan assured him before
running his hands lightly
over Turq's body.
"Well?" Ansel asked after
the healer sat back.
"Heart's fine already, lungs are
mostly recovered, and digestion is
just starting to knit itself back together,"
Ethan reported. "Turq, you probably
won't get hungry for a few hours,
so don't try to eat before then."
"Yeah, that happens a lot,"
Turq said glumly. "It's hard
to make up for all the energy
that I burn up fighting or healing."
"There are other ways to get
energy into your body," Ethan said.
"We can work on making those
safer for you in the future."
"Maybe later," Turq said, which
was still a big improvement
over his former wariness.
"You're recovered enough that
I can get out of your hair, and
leave you in Ansel's hands,"
Ethan said to Turq.
"I'll take care of him, as much
as he's willing," Ansel said.
"Okay," Turq said, leaning
back against Ansel.
"Ideally, I'd recommend staying
indoors overnight," Ethan said.
"And for real?" Ansel asked.
"In practice, Turq, just stay as long
as you can stand it, and try to get
some other shelter afterwards,"
Ethan said. "Waiting until after you
eat is a reasonable goal for today."
"Thanks for your help," Ansel said,
shaking Ethan's hand. "I owe you one."
"Any time," Ethan said, and then
let himself out of the room.
"So how do you want to pass
the time, Turq?" asked Ansel, hoping
that he could distract the boy enough
to buy a few more hours of shelter.
"I've got movies, books, magazines,
board games ... take your pick."
"I like your voice," Turq said.
"I don't want to be a bother, but
it's nice when you talk about things.
I think I heard you earlier, I just
can't remember all of it."
"I was reading aloud from magazines,"
Ansel said. "Would you like to choose
which one this time?" He got up
to offer Turq a stack of them.
Turq shuffled through the issues
and then handed him Dirt Rag.
"I liked biking with you."
"I enjoyed that too," Ansel said,
leafing through the pages in search
of his favorite section. Featured Rides
offered photo-essays of great trails.
He found it and began to read.
Turq shifted a little higher so that
his head was practically in Ansel's lap.
Ansel let his free hand drift down
to stroke Turq's hair again, and
Turq gave a happy sigh.
As nerve-wracking as the day had
been for everyone, Ansel treasured
these small signs of progress.
* * *
Notes:
"It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us... discover our soul."
-- Desmond Tutu
Ansel's cabin has a stone bottom and log top. See the exterior, garage floor, and living floor.
Ansel's office has a leather couch and loveseat along with a tapestry rocking chair around a large square coffee table. This is the forest tapestry pillow for the loveseat. The carpet is short tan-and-gray pile. One stone wall has been plastered over, but the other has been left bare and features a stone bench, fireplace, and entertainment center. Ansel has a writing desk with bookshelves along the front and drawers underneath, which faces into the room. The chair is brown instead of black, to match the couch. A matching computer desk with a tall hutch of bookshelves stands against the interior wall.
Here is the knit afghan from the couch. The Fall Colors pattern is free, but viewing it requires registering on the Lion Brand site. There is also a kit for sale which includes both the pattern and all the yarn it needs. Security blankets soothe people in stressful situations. Different blankets have different effects, and some people like one with a lot of texture. Ansel loves his job, but there's a reason he has a big, heavy, warm-colored, highly-textured blanket in his office. No matter how enjoyable it is, police work is still demanding and self-care is a very good idea. And yes, Ansel just let Turq borrow his blankie. It's very intimate, but that probably won't occur to Turq for a while.
There's a whole set of de-escalation skills for getting a bitey critter to let go of you, and some of them overlap with ways to wake up a person. Things like touching whiskers or blowing on the face are gentle and usually effective. The idea is to create a compelling sensation. They're also less triggering than methods such as shouting, shaking, or slapping in the case of trauma survivors.
Trauma triggers reactivate memories of bad things that happened to someone, throwing the person into survival mode. Trauma-informed care offers best practices for supporting people with various types of post-traumatic stress. It is very, very important not to trigger traumatized supervillains! Ansel and Ethan both understand this, although their skill level isn't always up to what they're trying to accomplish. Validation helps by acknowledging the person's perspective, even if it's not always practical to act on that.
Maintaining contact during bodywork or other health care lowers anxiety for clients by identifying the caregiver's location. Conversely, one effective way to discourage a skittish person from doing something problematic is to put your hand where they'll touch you if they keep trying to do the thing. They will often stop short to avoid the contact. It's less intrusive and has a lower potential of triggering someone, compared to grabbing or pushing them.
Turq's body language includes signs from the defensive, submissive, discomfort, and pain clusters. At this stage, he's trying to make himself smaller and more protected, and he's just generally miserable with the whole situation.
Total Comfort Level is a Terramagne-American scoring system for measuring how people feel when sick or injured, based on tracking individual issues. Pain, nausea, dealing with the health care system, seeing a doctor/nurse, taking medication, being stuck in bed, etc. are all common things to track. The numbers can be averaged to see the general level of comfort, or viewed individually to make sure that no one item goes too high. Similarly, effort goes into ensuring that the help given does not make one area spike while producing only mild improvement in the target area, because that can cause the person to feel worse overall instead of better. This is particularly a concern for soups, people with allergies, and people with mental challenges. Since high levels of discomfort interfere with recovery, keeping the levels low tends to improve outcomes. Generally 1-3 is the bad range, 4-6 is uncomfortable, 7-9 is okay, and 10 is terrific. Since Turq's current function is marginal at best, Ethan has reduced the complex explanation to a set of simple comparisons which make more sense to Turq in this context.
Consent is most often discussed in sexual contexts, and impairment in terms of drugs. But if you look at that standard, you can see that in Local-American medical contexts free consent is rare and people are prevailingly pressured or forced into doing things by someone with undue influence. T-America does better on average. There are different types of consent which may apply in various situations. Boundaries and consent customarily evolve over the course of a relationship, as people establish parameters and adapt to changes. Something which requires explicit consent at first may become a standard and unremarked part of interaction, like kissing for romantic couples. Some things which would not be acceptable early on become possible as more trust builds up. Even in an established relationship, however, people always have the right to withdraw consent.
Also there are many more types of impaired consent than just substances; some mental disabilities or illnesses can have the same effect. In Turq's case it's a mental injury from past abuse, which creates a broad pattern of impaired consent. That's a major ethical dilemma in medical care, because leaving problems untreated is not okay; but doing thing to people against their will is not okay and can make matters very much worse. Consent exists on a spectrum. I had found a good discussion about different types of impaired consent and the spectrum of capacity for consent,
thnidu reminded me of the Wayback Machine, so here is the archived page. Turq's issues stem from past abuse so they focus on similar things, and in fact are improving, but violating his boundaries now would make things worse instead of better. So Ansel and Ethan are using assisted decision-making and coping skills to shore up what's left of Turq's consent in order to get it high enough they can get over the threshold and patch him up without doing more harm than good. It's a lot of extra effort, but it works. For a more detailed discussion, see my post "Spectrum of Consent."Notice also that Ethan is more willing to take no for an answer, even if it worsens the outcomes, due to his greater experience working with supervillains in marginal situations. He just makes sure that Turq knows the drawbacks. Ansel has a more heroic mindset, and there are certain things he just won't do, such as sitting back and watching someone die. Since Ansel has explicitly stated his stance on these matters, that's okay, because Turq can account for that in deciding whether and when to associate with Ansel. Turq showing up injured constitutes implied consent for Ansel to handle that situation in the manner he has described as his standard.
Dissociation is a defense mechanism which allows people survive traumatic experiences, and in fact is taught as a method of pain control. A drawback of dissociation is that it can create a feedback loop. Turq relies on it out of habit, and hasn't fully registered that his external environment now is a much safer place than his internal environment full of horrid memories from before. A related issue is depersonalization, a sense of being unreal or disconnected from one's body. For a number of superpowers (including Teleportation, Phasing, and Shapeshifting) it can cause serious problems because control of those powers relies on an awareness of the body, so without that they may lose control. Numbness can trigger the same effects -- anything from a healer's numbing touch to local anaesthetic to a foot falling asleep. Some people can learn to work around it, others can't, which makes for some very obscure and inconvenient contraindications in medical care.
Traumatic stress can cause heightened sensitivity to pain, especially if specific types of pain are triggering for someone. On the one hand, Turq can ignore a rather appalling amount of background pain -- but his negative memories and mangled biochemistry tend to magnify some types of pain caused by an external source. His history of medical torture has left him with a very distorted perception of what should be very minor pain, because the present signal picks up echoes of much worse past events. There are tips on how to cope with triggers and how to help someone who is triggered. You can't exactly fix it, but you can prevent collateral damage, and sometimes lessen the intensity and/or duration of the episode. Also, a supportive response and safe environment help wear down the triggers over time, allowing the body and mind to heal as the survivor learns to feel that the trauma is in the past.
Behavior is communication. It's not random; it happens to meet a need. If you pay attention, it can tell you a lot about what the person is feeling and seeking. Sometimes behaviors have drawbacks. If you just try to stop the behavior, then that doesn't address the underlying need or help the person understand why the behavior is problematic, so it is unlikely to work. In order to make effective changes, explain why not to do something and offer a safer alternative that meets the need. Here is a handbook on positive behavioral supports. Right now, Turq's behavior is badly damaged due to trauma that exceeded his coping capacity. Reminding him of better options will do a lot of good.
Vulnerability is the key to intimacy. It opens the way to healthier relationships. Understand how to deepen vulnerability and become more comfortable with it. When you cultivate vulnerability in a relationship, you also need to know how to cope with a vulnerability hangover.
Therapy pads use various fillers and scents to soothe minor complaints. You can buy them; this style has long sections. You can make your own; here are instructions for pads with short sections or one whole bag. Larger pads are usually divided to distribute the filling. Here is an aromatherapy wrap in forested cloth that is scented with rosemary. Turq is just starting to orient on things in the present that he finds reassuring, and recognize them when they reappear.
The more time passes, the more Turq displays open and positive body language. He's still not okay, but he's getting better with support.
Oxygen deprivation causes brain damage after about four minutes. One of the things it does is destroy memories by killing the cells that store them. Regeneration typically affects the physical body, so it can only repair tissue damage, not restore lost data. There are a few superpowers that can rebuild memories lost in that fashion, but it's extremely rare. A known failure mode of all the highly protective powers (Regeneration, Invulnerability, Super-Armor, Toughness, etc.) is a tendency for people to think they're invincible when they're not. It's related to pain as a warning system -- without the early and obvious consequences, people tend to do things that have more serious consequences.
Context-dependent memory deals with the influence of external factors on recall. State-dependent memory deals more with internal factors such as emotional and physical condition. Among the more effective methods of learning information is to ask and answer questions. The more comfortable Turq becomes with Ansel, the more Turq remembers positive parts of his life before everything went to hell. If someone stumbles over a familiar phrase or question, it can easily bring up a whole file of linked information. And once that information is active, the emotional state from when it was made also tends to come online -- which is what brings Turq into a happier and more confident mood, because that's how he felt with his foster father. You can bet that Ethan has just noted "ask Turq how he would treat the same injury" as a way of pulling Turq's head out of his mental basement.
Seeking feedback is a crucial step in solving problems. Both Ansel and Ethan are aware that they pushed some boundaries while trying to put Turq back together, because of his past abuse. They did this knowing that it might result in consequences, and they accept that as a necessary part of the process. So they make a point of asking Turq, once he's reasonably coherent, whether or not he's satisfied with the choices they made on his behalf. The more responsibility people take for their actions, the more right they have to act and the better the outcome is likely to be, because there is a correction mode in case of error. The less responsibility, the less right they have and the worse the results usually are. Turq may still hate the circumstances, but he is far more willing and able to tolerate this kind of intervention from people who care enough to check whether he agrees with their choices and accept the consequences if he does not. In this manner, their responsibility enables him to go farther than he could without that support. This is why people in positions of authority or influence need high standards.
Discussing your wishes is a necessary step in getting appropriate health care. It's not always sufficient because people may ignore them; but they can't do what you want if they don't know what that is. Ideally, include an explanation of your reasons, because some people will refrain from crossing a line if they know what will go wrong from violating your boundaries, who might not respect a simple statement of preference. Among the best resources I have found for documenting and managing care choices is the Wellness Recovery Action Plan Workbook. Print and fill out the pages you find useful, add any other worksheets or information you consider relevant, and store it in a binder easily accessible in case of emergency. Ansel and Ethan are both rather desperately fishing for this kind of information, trying to balance their urgent need to know against Turq's very limited tolerance for this topic.
Caring is a set of learned skills. Most people learn how to be caring, take care of themselves, look after their family, and help a sick friend while they are growing up. Not everyone is that lucky, though, and even healthy people tend to have a few gaps. Among the more important skills is observing someone to discover what they find helpful or irritating, and then adapting your support accordingly.
Making foster children feel welcome requires understanding what helps with trauma and what kids need most.
Chinese comfort food includes Yan Du Xian soup. They use it much the way Westerners do to chicken soup: it's what you make for someone who is feeling sick or just sad. The white pepper and ginger used in Yan Du Xian soup are warming, healing spices good for winter weather and many health complaints. While comfort foods share many physical characteristics, they are primarily imprinted through pleasant associations. Once you know how comfort foods are set, you can make mindful choices about what to "suggest" by serving healthy options at the right time.
Mingxia's choice of soup wasn't random, it was a deliberate and astute way of offering physical and mental support, along with practicing family traditions and cultural identity. It was an invitation to take part in a Chinese-American family, and it worked. Turq has a very strong imprint from that, which is just beginning to come out of hiding. Some of the more serious problems he had after that placement came from other people not wanting him to "act Chinese," a different aspect of (this link contains obnoxious ideas) the usual hostility against transracial placements. But it's not an act. It's part of his core identity -- damaged now, and incomplete, but very much one of the things that makes him who he is.
Dirt Rag is a biking magazine that covers, among other things, interesting trails to explore.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-10 05:40 pm (UTC)Well...
Date: 2016-05-10 06:05 pm (UTC)The trick is to stack the subliminal signals of safety as high as possible -- a familiar touch or voice, something soft and fuzzy to feel, etc. -- so that even if they don't outweigh the negatives, there is at least enough countervailing input to make the alert response DEFCON 2-3 instead of DEFCON 4-5.
So much of this problem comes from a failure to recognize that behavior is communication. Medical staff tend to see patients as disobedient and bad, without stopping to wonder why people do things. Which raises the point that a rational adult patient can't be "noncompliant." That term stipulates a power difference in which the patient is subject to someone else's decisions, and while that's how the system is built in practice, legally the patient is supposed to make the decisions. It's the staff who are noncompliant with the patient's health decisions if there is a disagreement. But people don't stop to think about what's causing the dispute; it just turns into a plain power struggle 99% of the time which, frankly, nobody really wins. Those underlying reasons matter: the more resistant someone is to care, usually the worse their care experiences have been in the past.
Turq's reasons for being panicky are not just the medical abuse and other mistreatment in the past, but also the ongoing fact that soups often respond differently than ordinary people do. He needs to protect that boundary and make sure that his caregivers understand what the risks are. Conversely, he's just found out that he doesn't know everything about being a soup, and his body could hurt him in whole new ways he's never imagined. Getting him into a healthier state is going to take teamwork; he's lucky to have a good team; but they're all going to have to put in a lot of extra effort to get past the abuse issues.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-10 08:38 pm (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2016-05-11 05:21 am (UTC)Re: Yay!
Date: 2016-05-11 09:58 am (UTC)You can really see the difference between him and Shiv.
For one thing, in his first encounter with Ansel, he said "I'm Sorry." ... In spite of everything, he knows how social connections are supposed to work, even if he can't quite get back to them, yet...
Which makes his current street gang situation all the more maddening and sad.
Re: Yay!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-10 11:50 pm (UTC)I won't go too deeply into Ansel bringing Turq's focus back onto him and how hard my demisensual self flinched. I don't want you to think I'm raining all over this poem, because I'm very much not! It's excellently and compellingly done; if it weren't, I wouldn't be reacting this strongly. I will say, I give maaaaajor props to Ethan Wheeler in this one, knowledge+actions+explicitly stating the reasons behind same=here, have at least two gold stars. The minute he and Turq started talking first aid particulars, I got a smile on my face. I don't know if that was... hmm, yes it was. Turq was a patient, but also actively engaged in his care, and treated as such. Equal footing, and from his reaction when he realized the protocols the other two had been following matched his prior emergency knowledge, he knew it. That was lovely to see.
I am totally that girl who will follow whichever rule/protocol/order a whole lot more consciously and carefully if I know why the heck it's there.
I will shut my trap, now.
Well Said
Date: 2016-05-11 01:04 am (UTC)Re: Well Said
Date: 2016-05-11 05:14 am (UTC)I like it when people pay this much attention to what I'm writing, and it makes them think about things.
>> I really enjoyed this piece and didn't have the same reaction, <<
Yay! :D
>> but I think discussion of those different interpretations and the *flinch* that some people may have reading something in particular is part of what makes a caring community of readers. <<
I agree. I have put a lot of effort into establishing this as safe space, and cultivating a thoughtful audience. Times like this, it really pays off. \o/ This kind of input really helps, because it closely parallels the experience of some characters like Turq who have encountered some shitty people before. It confirms the fact that his frequent flinching even when people are currently trying to be gentle with him is an accurate example of how people behave after mistreatment. And yeah, I know a lot of folks who have had really awful experiences with "help." >_<
I think that discussions like this contribute to finding better ideas for how to take care of each other, especially when someone has a rocky past. You can't change what already happened, but you can account for it and look for ways to emphasize that the current situation is safer and saner, which makes it more possible to teach the hindbrain that it's time to turn down the alarms.
Thoughts
Date: 2016-05-11 03:58 am (UTC)Yes, it's a difficult situation. Yes, I've seen people handle such things very badly in exactly the manner you describe. This is my attempt to navigate that minefield with no insurmountable losses and characters who actually mean what they say and are trying to help. Doesn't mean there won't be some emotional bruises, but this time nobody landed in a hospital. So that's good.
>> Oooooh jeez. I know this probably wasn't the intent, but the 'Does that mean I should stop petting you?' line just tripped a whole not of alarms for me, of the 'I'm going to manipulate you into admitting something and make you feel like you're a bad six-year-old and an idiot' variety. <<
I have seen that kind of emotional manipulation. It really sucks. People who do that are bitches.
When Turq says something like "Nothing is okay," or "Everything hurts," those are major red flags. They're usually exaggerated due to his PTSD (i.e. the situation feels worse to him than its factual hazard level) but that doesn't make it okay for people to ignore them. Those kinds of phrases are in Ansel's "let go and stop everything" category. But, Turq is still injured and abandoning him without care would likely have poor outcomes. So let's look at Ansel's options:
1) Ignore what Turq said and keep doing the same things.
Pros: continues beneficial treatment, provides guidance to someone with impaired judgement.
Cons: violates Turq's agency, violates Ansel's ethics, risks provoking a panic attack that could injure everyone.
In particular, Ansel has seen what happens when he doesn't take Turq's "no" for an answer, and neither of them want that to happen ever again.
2) Stop without saying anything.
Pros: discreet, minimizes chances of direct harm.
Cons: removes something that Turq has found comforting in the past, thus raising the risk of a panic reaction and subsequent injuries later, and fails to address the issue of consent now and whether this sort of support is welcome ever.
3) Ask Turq what he wants, now that he is awake enough to express his own preferences.
Pros: respects Turq's agency, follows Ansel's ethics, maximizes chance of best care, improves communication, models responsible behavior, hints to Turq what Ansel would like if injured and in care himself.
Cons: can be painful, terrifying, and/or impossible for the person expected to furnish an answer; may thereby raise the risk of panic attack and injuries. However, these risks are probably lower than the percentages from #1 and #2, definitely lower than #4.
4) Act like an asshole. (This is never anything Ansel would do on purpose, but other people do indulge in emotional manipulation or abuse.)
Pros: some people enjoy putting in a position of power and/or kicking someone while he's down.
Cons: pretty much guarantees emotional injury, and in this case quite possibly physical injury. Honestly the people who have picked on Turq deserve to get jazzed into next week.
There is no option I can think of with zero risk. Ansel has to choose what he thinks has the lowest chance of harm and the highest chance of positive outcome. To do this, he has his first responder training and his knowledge of Turq (including both the past trauma and some stuff that Turq has found tolerable or enjoyable recently). While it didn't come up this time, Ansel also has backup plans in case Turq verbally refuses to specify (that's okay) or chokes up and can't answer at all (back off a bit, silently re-offer physical comfort later and watch for body language signs of acceptance or refusal). Nonverbal communication can be crucial when working with trauma survivors. Sometimes they want or need things but can't ask for them or say no out loud.
So then, Ansel makes his call, and Turq is able to respond ... sort of. Turq is not yet ready to say, "When you pet me, it feels good and makes my brain stab me less. Please continue." As close as he can get is "That part's not so bad." Ansel knows enough about trauma-informed care to recognize that survivors often cannot ask for what they need. So he goes back to what he was doing, while keeping an eye on Turq's body language to see if the petting helps calm him down or wind him up worse. Turq's response is favorable. That makes the conversation a success. It's not perfect because the situation sucks and Turq is damaged, but it gets the job done.
This is part of what Ansel and Ethan mean when they're asking Turq for feedback later. Is what they did okay even if some of it was uncomfortable? Are there things they should not do again, or things they missed that they should do next time? Did they do a good enough job that Turq is more inclined to seek them out the next time he gets hurt or sick, instead of going elsewhere or toughing it out on his own? The fact that Turq hasn't flattened either of them or bolted out of the room is a reasonable sign of his tolerance. He's demonstrated in the past that he's willing and able to use extreme escape measures. But it was also clear that he would rather not go that far. So he's trying to exercise more restraint and Ansel is trying to be more respectful of Turq's boundaries. And that's how they wind up not needing an ambulance this time.
What happens next time is up to Turq, and he hasn't finished processing that yet. But if he decides that he's pissed with how Ansel and Ethan handled this situation, they won't blow him off or pretend that it's not a problem. They'd listen, apologize, and try to talk how to fix what's broke. That matters. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, especially in crappy situations, so it's not about never doing anything wrong. It's about taking responsibility for your actions, and making up for the ones you flub.
>> Personal damage. This is absolutely not you, but just in general, assisted decision-making gives me the crawlies. <<
Like any other intimate arrangement, it can be very good or very bad, depending on the people involved and their ethics (or lack thereof). Intercourse unto itself is neither good nor bad, but there's a world of different between lovemaking and rape -- even though the physical actions are similar. Ideally, assisted decision-making helps people reach better outcomes than they could alone. Here is a good, detailed handbook on how to make that work. Just leaving damaged people to flounder is not so good. Conversely, taking advantage of people or forcing them to do things against their will is downright destructive; which happens in institutions, guardianship, assisted decision-making, and other situations. *sigh* Sometimes, there are no easy answers. But decent people will look for the best course available.
I think that assisted decision-making is preferable to guardianship, which gives people NO legal right to their own life. Reducing that extreme measure is good. Conversely, abandoning people to struggle and suffer with no support is bad. Also, and I'm frustrated that my ONE link to this died on me, assisted decision-making acknowledges that:
* Nobody is an island; everybody needs help with some things some of the time. This is a framework for that.
* People should make their own decisions to the extent they are able.
* Competence is a spectrum and not a pair of pigeonholes. A severely disabled person might need total care, but most people can and should do at least some things for themselves. And a typically-abled person might be too impaired to think straight while being pulled out of a wrecked car or having a 104F fever.
* Most people are good at some things and bad at others. It's okay to get help doing the things you suck at. That's better than trying to do them yourself and faceplanting. (I may actually be the only writer on the planet who HAS been told not to be a plumber. At length, and for just cause.)
* People make better decisions, feel more invested in their lives, and have better outcomes when they understand the options and have supportive people to help them think through which is the best choice.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2016-05-11 11:44 pm (UTC)Wow. DW comments on a poem have somehow turned into unofficial therapy, and the other readers didn't sign up for a crash course in Chanter's issues. Sorry folks. If anybody (and that includes the author, because thou shalt not ignore the wishes of the op) would rather I hit the shaddup button and took this backchannel, please say so.
Re: Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2018-03-26 03:11 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2016-05-31 04:21 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Thoughts
From:Thoughts
Date: 2016-05-11 03:58 am (UTC)That's lying. Lying consistently, though not universally, damages relationships and causes other problems. With health care, when caregivers lie and abuse patients, people learn not to trust them; and if it's widespread throughout the system, people reduce their interaction with that system as much as possible. This is in fact happening now, and only when those "isolated, individual" problems impact public health does anyone start to give a shit. 0_o Well by then it's too late. Fixing broken trust is like trying to repair porcelain. Unless you're a master of kintsugi, you can fucking well forget it.
The same words can be used well or poorly, honestly or dishonestly. To determine which is in play:
* Listen to the tone and observe the body language. A mocking tone or closed body language suggest deceit or hostility. A gentle tone and open body language have more positive indications.
* Pay attention to related conversation. Is anyone providing explanations for the pros and cons of each option, or their reasoning behind recommending one? Are people at least trying to listen to each other?
* See what happens next. Is "no" respected? If a patient makes a decision the caregiver doesn't like, whose preference is enacted -- is the patient allowed to implement their decision, or does the caregiver just abuse the patient by doing whatever the fuck they want?
* Observe the outcomes. Whatever the decision, how well or poorly did it turn out? How could it have gone better or worse? In an ongoing relationship, who tends to make good decisions and who doesn't? Or is one person better at a certain type of decision?
In this case, Ethan definitely means it when he says something is Turq's choice. Ethan will present options and try to prevent foreseeable harm by pointing out the drawbacks if Turq wants to do something that is problematic. But Ethan generally won't go farther than those soft interventions.
Ansel is more heroic and thus more attached to preventing avoidable harm. So it's more of a struggle for him to respect someone's agency and boundaries if they're trying to make bad decisions. His whole job as a cop is to be a social safety rail and keep people from hurting themselves or anyone else if things go really haywire. For Ansel, there's a real ethical dilemma in terms of where to draw the line between how far an individual has a right to make his own decisions, even bad ones, and when society has a right or an obligation to intervene. to me, what makes that tolerable is that 1) Ansel does listen to input instead of ignoring people, 2) if it goes wrong, he accepts the consequences instead of blowing it off, like what happened after his first encounter with Turq, and 3) Ansel is always seeking to improve his skills and performance. He's never going to say, "I'm a cop and that makes me right."
>> Again, personal damage entirely localized to me. ... Uh, sorry. Wow. I did not expect to be bearing a portion of a past situational mismatch today! <<
*hugs offered* I am sorry you've had that kind of experience. But it is not localized to you. I've had similar experiences and heard more from many people. Your concerns are valid and the problem is widespread. I cannot fix the whole problem. I can show people what it looks like when characters try to handle a challenging situation in a positive manner. Maybe that will inspire folks to think about these issues and how they would handle such situations themselves.
>>I won't go too deeply into Ansel bringing Turq's focus back onto him and how hard my demisensual self flinched.<<
This is one of those situations where a relatively new relationship has been gradually evolving into deeper levels of trust -- but the shit hit the fan before anyone was really ready for this big of a jump deeper. Turq isn't connected with anyone else right now. His choices were to struggle through on his own, seek help from his worse-than-useless gang, gamble on random strangers at a hospital who've probably never even seen a soup before, gamble on random strangers at SPOON who don't like supervillains if he could even get there, or go to Ansel who at least knows Turq somewhat and has first responder training. Turq picked Ansel. Once that happened, Ansel had the options of ignoring the problem, calling an ambulance, calling other backup, or handling it himself. He felt that handling it himself and calling Ethan was the best combination. Neither Ansel nor Turq is completely comfortable with this abrupt shift in intimacy. But it is probably the least damaging option available at the time.
In terms of keeping Turq's attention on Ansel, that's probably the least stressful place in the room to put it. Ethan is terrifying. The walls are terrifying. All the medical stuff is panic-inducing. Even the pillows and blankets are unfamiliar. The one thing in that room that has any positive associations at all for Turq is Ansel. Which is not ideal, and not enough to make Turq actually calm, but is enough to prevent the kind of panic that causes serious injury.
This is particularly true since Ansel has repeatedly seen Turq drift back and forth between getting lost in some truly shitty memories or perking up a little more when focused on the better situation now. The main reason Turq is freaking out is not because people are being rough with him now -- they aren't -- but because he's been abused before. So Turq's first, habitual response of turning inward to escape the stress actually made it worse. Pulling Turq out of that was better than letting him drown in it, and also safer for Ansel and Ethan, who could've gotten hurt if Turq panicked. It worked well enough as damage control.
If Ansel and Turq come out of this with their relationship a little bruised, well, they have options. What would make them feel better? Staying away for a little while? Or circling around each other cautiously until they rediscover what is comfortable? Those are things they can discuss or otherwise explore, and in fact, both of them have used all of those tactics before.
>> I don't want you to think I'm raining all over this poem, because I'm very much not! It's excellently and compellingly done; if it weren't, I wouldn't be reacting this strongly. <<
That's good to hear.
>> I will say, I give maaaaajor props to Ethan Wheeler in this one, knowledge+actions+explicitly stating the reasons behind same=here, have at least two gold stars.<<
\o/ Ethan is so, so much better of a person and a medic than he realizes. He has a low opinion of himself and treats himself like shit. Nobody likes to see a healer beating up on himself that way, which greatly limits his ability to connect with anyone else. Even the principled supervillains want to cuddle him and feed him and pamper him because they get so few healers who will deal with them; but Ethan isn't ready for that yet. And the superheroes want him on their side, why is he out in the streets, etc. Ansel is actually doing better than either side of the cape, because he offers without pushing, and he's crystal clear about his house rules and other conditions. Ethan is watching Ansel handle Turq and thinking that this bolthole sucks less than the others he has seen. So it's helping him too.
>> The minute he and Turq started talking first aid particulars, I got a smile on my face. I don't know if that was... hmm, yes it was. Turq was a patient, but also actively engaged in his care, and treated as such. Equal footing, and from his reaction when he realized the protocols the other two had been following matched his prior emergency knowledge, he knew it. That was lovely to see. <<
Yes. That was the high-water mark for the whole encounter. And it's replicable -- any time they can bump Turq's attention onto his own first aid training, it will boost his mood, and it's not even very hard to do because it's such a strong positive imprint.
One of the best things about T-American caregiving in general, and trauma-informed care in particular, is an awareness that illness/injury makes people feel helpless, so one of the most useful things to do is restoring their agency. Help them understand what is happening, what the options are, and then support them in deciding how to solve the problem. When people feel a sense of control, they are more likely to respond positively, less likely to balk or to refuse good advice, and less prone to develop PTSD later. This is especially valuable in cases like what happened to Turq where someone's own body/mind/superpower is part or all of the problem. He got stabbed, but that did less damage than the reflexive teleport did. Helping Turq feel in control, by giving him choices and showing respect for him, actually improves his control of self and superpowers.
I think that will play into Turq's appreciation of what happened, after he's had time to process it. Ethan is probably the best medic Turq has ever had aside from his foster father Dao handling the usual childhood injuries.
>> I am totally that girl who will follow whichever rule/protocol/order a whole lot more consciously and carefully if I know why the heck it's there. <<
Me too. I have minimal tolerance for arbitrary rules. I am far more respectful of practical or safety ones.
>> I will shut my trap, now. <<
Thanks for this post. I really enjoyed it. I like people paying close attention to what I write, and the implications of it. And if any of these are issues you'd like to see explored further, feel free to prompt for them. This pair of poems was tagged "major plot point" for a reason, it's not meant to be a flash in the pan.
Problematic Link
Date: 2016-05-11 01:02 am (UTC)Re: Problematic Link
Date: 2016-05-11 01:39 am (UTC)I thought that saying "hostility" would be enough to indicate unpleasant content, but I have added a warning for obnoxious ideas. I was actually looking for that sort of sentiment in this case.
>> Ironically they are using arguments similar to those they decry in order to argue against adoption by gay couples. <<
Yes, that's true. It is statistically provable that the outcomes in L-American foster care are terrible. In some cases it works. It is at least preferable to leaving children in homes where their safety is in immediate danger. But other than that it performs worse on basically ever other measure against every other fucked-up situation. The worst thing that can happen to a child is losing a parent; foster care always causes that damage. It's only an improvement if it's the only way to keep them alive. And that's often all it does. The rates of sexual abuse, suicide, depression, dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, poor health, unemployment, homelessness, are all massively worse for foster care survivors. The T-American system is better than here, but still far inferior to a family.
Some people just don't want the kids to be adopted. I suspect that it's a subtle case of racism and classism at play, since children in foster care are overwhelmingly poor kids of color
>> There is still considerable food for thought there, and I intend to reread it in more detail, but my flags for biased writing are definitely up. <<
It's not written by very nice people. The only points I agree with are:
* The current system is a fucked-up mess and needs fixing.
* It would be nice if more unplanned pregnancies ended with adoption.
* So raising awareness of adoption as an option, and doing things that would make it feasible for more women, would be excellent.
This is one thing that makes me want to strangle the anti-woman crowd. You never see them out there holding a sign that says, "Can't afford childbirth costs? We will support you through your pregnancy so you can choose adoption." Or even, "Don't want an abortion but can't afford a baby? We will support you and your child." Because money is a primary factor in one third of abortions. Fix that and you could save a lot of babies if that's the real goal.
Kind of makes it obvious that isn't what they mean.
Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:Re: Problematic Link
From:(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-12 04:20 am (UTC)^ the
• Even in an established relationship, however^ people always have the right
^ , (insert comma)
• some people enjoy putting in a position of power and/or kicking someone while he's down.
?-> putting themselves in
«I think that assisted decision-making is preferable to guardianship, which gives people NO legal right to their own life.»
Ideally, yes, but guardianship is *necessary* when a person is unable to participate in decision-making: unconsciousness, delirium, delusion, coma. I speak here from having had to be guardian for three loved ones. It was never easy and always painful.
«I'm frustrated that my ONE link to this died on me,»
I'm 90% sure that this is "teaching Grandma to suck eggs", but are you familiar with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine?
Have I mentioned that I find both this and "When Someone Is Vulnerable" rich and deep even beyond your usual high bar?
Thank you!
Date: 2016-05-12 08:07 am (UTC)^ the
• Even in an established relationship, however^ people always have the right
^ , (insert comma) <<
Fixed, thanks.
>> • some people enjoy putting in a position of power and/or kicking someone while he's down.
?-> putting themselves in <<
Correct. Regrettably I cannot fix this as it is in a comment which has already been replied to.
>> I think that assisted decision-making is preferable to guardianship, which gives people NO legal right to their own life.
Ideally, yes, but guardianship is *necessary* when a person is unable to participate in decision-making: unconsciousness, delirium, delusion, coma.<<
Also can't fix this for the same reason.
What I should have said: Everyone should make their own decisions to the extent they are able and willing to do so. Therefore, assisted decision-making provides a crucial balance between independence and guardianship. When guardianship is the only option, it poses an unacceptable violation of rights for many people with disabilities, preventing them from doing the parts that they could do. Guardianship is still necessary in cases of total incapacity.
>> I speak here from having had to be guardian for three loved ones. It was never easy and always painful.<<
This is absolutely true.
>> I'm frustrated that my ONE link to this died on me,
I'm 90% sure that this is "teaching Grandma to suck eggs", but are you familiar with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine? <<
I know of it, but rarely use it. You have reminded me of how incredibly useful that resource is. I have consequently credited you with saving the bacon, and posted about the article since it ties in with the ongoing discussion about how Ansel and Ethan handled the situation when Turq was unconscious, after he woke up and freaked out.
>> Have I mentioned that I find both this and "When Someone Is Vulnerable" rich and deep even beyond your usual high bar? <<
Aww. :D I am happy now. It's nice to see people so invested in the characters, so thoughtful in reading the work, and especially, willing to follow me into water this deep.
Re: Thank you!
From:Re: Thank you!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-12 11:54 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2016-05-12 06:37 pm (UTC)Yeah, Turq has had a really rough ride. He's building up a good support network now, though.
>> to navigate the complicated dance between what someone needs, what someone wants, and what someone can do with help, and what someone absolutely cannot tolerate. <<
Sooth. That's pretty much Turq's life right now, although this episode was a real spike in intensity.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-26 04:10 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2016-06-26 04:40 am (UTC)Re: Thank you!
From:Re: Thank you!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-11 05:43 pm (UTC)(It might sound funny to others that I would consider keeping as close to kosher as possible important, being a goy and all... but, as Tevya said, it's Tradition, and it's a thing for me to honour it...)
Thoughts
Date: 2016-05-12 02:39 am (UTC)It was new to me too. I found it by searching "Chinese comfort food." Every culture has some.
>> the one I *have* heard of is congee, the thick chicken-broth-and-rice based soup that is both often a carrier for various medicines to be taken orally, and considered medicine in itself... Myself, I like either a hearty chicken noodle (with extra garlic), <<
Cool.
>> or matzoh ball soup, which when I make it is not just broth and balls and little else, but not dissimilar from the chicken noodle except I use all-Kosher (or as close as I can) ingredients when working with matzoh, because it wouldn't be right otherwise....<<
That makes sense.
>> (It might sound funny to others that I would consider keeping as close to kosher as possible important, being a goy and all... but, as Tevya said, it's Tradition, and it's a thing for me to honour it...) <<
I am flexible with some things (I adore blasphemy sandwiches: ham and cheese on challah or a bagel) but I do often follow Jewish customs as much as feasible when making Jewish cuisine. It's designed that way and, with a few exceptions, usually tastes better accordingly. And kosher food is worth seeking because its standards of production are often higher.
Re: Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
From:(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-11 05:46 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2016-05-11 06:08 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you!
From:Re: Thank you!
From:Re: Thank you!
From:The healthcare may be needed
Date: 2020-05-20 10:14 pm (UTC)Continuing onto the next poem :)
~Angel
Re: The healthcare may be needed
Date: 2020-05-21 03:16 am (UTC)... and is still utterly terrifying for poor Turq, not to mention nerve-wracking for the two guys who have to guess how much they can help the traumatized supervillain before he has a panic attack and jazzes them into next week.
>> But I love that Ansel is there as a calming presence for Turq and that Ansel and Ethan work with Turq to show him his options. <<
There's a whole discussion about impaired consent thanks to this pair of poems, and how the goal is to help someone accomplish more than they could alone.
>>And Turq gets to learn something crucial about his body, which is likely very scary, <<
Yeah. It's very rare for mainstream comics to address the drawbacks of superpowers, but there are some doozies. Fast healing will seal debris inside a wound, which may or may not get pushed back out later and is miserable either way, and you may only have a few minutes to set broken bones before they seal into the wrong position. And most of this stuff is not common knowledge, so people don't know how to avoid it.
>>but he has people who will offer comfort if he can take it.<<
Ansel's response was to run right out and buy a can of oxygen, since he has the advanced first aid training to handle it and Turq frequently has breathing problems as a result of his body tearing itself apart.