Guest post by Grace Fogarty

For Jo, who did not fail, but rather, was failed

When last I guest posted on this blog, I was sitting out the pandemic while in a residential addiction treatment facility for women in Framingham, Massachusetts. Serenity House is run by a large human services organization called South Middlesex Opportunity Council, or SMOC for short. Originally, I chose not to name the organization because I feared that negative publicity could jeopardize their standing within the city of Framingham and potentially add fuel to discriminatory feelings about allowing rehabilitation programs into the community. But, after what took place at the end of my tenure at Serenity House, and the serious problems with how women in the program are treated by the staff that work there, I decided to prioritize protecting the people — my friends and peers — who cycle through programs like Serenity House. No provider has any business operating a program that fundamentally conveys a deep sense of unimportance upon the lives of the women within it, the way Serenity House does.

“Irish luck”

I have had many advantages in this life, as well as plenty of Irish luck, which is really not luck at all but luck’s evil twin, the anathema, or the curse. A Framingham native, I had a successful high school ‘career’, playing varsity sports, leading my senior class and working as a lifeguard in the summers. This was followed by four years in college where I studied political science. Later, I worked for a Framingham-based human services provider where I received mentoring, developed inner strength, and learned to recognize unjust, patronizing, and abusive treatment with clarity and confidence.

Back to what happened after I wrote that last blog – A day or two after it was posted we went out on a supervised group outdoor walk. As I stated in the first part of this series of essays, I’m a frustrated speed walker (runner really) and was reprimanded for walking a bit ahead and being out of the site of staff for a short time. One of the impossible things about a place like Serenity House is that the rules are shifting and imprecise and then enforced on a case by case basis, depending on which staff is working and doing which component of their job. I am a 40-year-old autonomous adult at this point in my life, and patronizing and infantilizing rules and edicts were wearing very thin on me. When we returned to the house, I was placed in quarantine for the stated reason that I endangered my peers because I “may” have been exposed to Covid when I was out of site of the staff.

This accusation was antithetical to the responsible and caring way I had carried myself and functioned throughout the 9 1/2 months I was in the program. I consider myself an ethical person who does her best to be her best despite having experienced complex trauma. The last person I am is someone who would place the health and safety of my peers and the staff in jeopardy.

Nevertheless, I was placed in quarantine (as punishment). It was clear that there was no real concern that I’d come in contact with Covid while walking outdoors a block or so ahead of the rest of the group. Rather, I’d broken a rule. That first night in quarantine, I sent the blog critiquing Serenity House’s treatment of us during the pandemic to the CEO of the organization.

“That didn’t go over well”

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That didn’t go over well. A day or two later I asked to speak to my program manager regarding the quarantine. She indicated that she was afraid to be alone with me and I was summoned to the office with a ‘higher up’ from outside the program for an impromptu meeting. When I walked into the room, my locked medication box was on the table, and several women were seated around it, including the program manager, one of the case managers, and the ‘higher up’ who had been called to the site to address the situation. I was told there was not going to be any discussion and that I was being administratively discharged because I put the entire community at risk. I took my time responding and let them know that I was 100% aware that they were being duplicitous and cruel, punishing me for advocating for better treatment for myself and my peers.

I immediately was transferred to a hotel that the organization paid for and began to prepare an appeal. I had an advocate in a woman who had founded a local organization to support women in recovery. She provided me access to a pro bono attorney and we began communicating with SMOC about how the appeal process would go. In no way, shape, or form did I want to go back to that program, but it was a point that needed to be made and a process that needed to be gone through – they needed to answer for what they’d done to me. Not because it was about me, but because it was emblematic of the fast and loose way that they play with women’s lives. Four women whom I met there lost their lives during the 9 1/2 months that I spent in that facility. Countless others had faced unjust and neglectful treatment, many being discharged for reasons even more ridiculous than the one that was being used against me.

One would think that an appeal process in a situation like this would involve an independent party that would investigate and evaluate the accusation and evidence. In reality, SMOC itself would be the judge, jury and prosecutor. It turned out that in any case the appeal was all a show. It was made clear to me that I would never be allowed back to the program. It didn’t matter how accurate my statements were, or what kind of reputation for honesty and integrity I had built for 9 1/2 months. It didn’t matter that inconsistencies within the practices, policies and constantly shifting ‘rules’ of the program had contributed to the problem. It didn’t matter that while I was there I discovered a friend overdosed in her bedroom and that her overdose was reversed because I loved her and sensed something was wrong — and opened her bedroom door even though it was ‘breaking a rule’.

Having your voice heard is a privilege (that is hard to come by)

My time at Serenity House showed me the extent to which being believed is a privilege. Being thought of as someone who tells the truth is a privilege. Not having to overcome prejudice, stigma, trivialization, discrimination or being written off as “mad” or “bad” or “defective” in order have your voice heard is a privilege.

But imagine if you were so accustomed to injustice and used to people disparaging and denigrating your character that you gave up and stopped speaking your truth — regardless of what was happening to you and regardless of how silence jeopardized your well-being. This is what happens to my friends every day; this is what they have to do in order to have a bed to sleep in, food to eat, access to health care. This is what almost happened to me.

No human services provider is perfect. The stigmatizing and prejudicial perspectives of an unforgiving and often hateful, society are bound to bleed into the attitudes of those who work with our most vulnerable people. But I believe that SMOC can be better. I have seen in other agencies – especially the one in which I worked earlier in my career – that there are better ways of supporting women and men who struggle with mental health, substance use and homelessness. At the most fundamental level, respect for residents and staff is both a moral imperative and a necessary condition for healing to take place.

There is a lot of wisdom and experience out there, but it is only available for those who are willing to accept it.