Speaker 1: My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast
Speaker 1: is joy. I talked to interesting people about what brings
Speaker 1: them happiness. Meet Julie Demarist. Julie is an interesting person.
Speaker 1: She's worked with disadvantaged, mentally ill, homeless and marginalized people
Speaker 1: for a long time. She's a social worker, but has
Speaker 1: a very interesting story to tell. Let's start it when
Speaker 1: you stopped doing right well? When you when you stepped
Speaker 1: away from working in the do we what do we
Speaker 1: call it? What do we describe it as social services?
Speaker 1: Do we call it?
Speaker 2: There's a social work. So I just say I was
Speaker 2: a social worker to make it easy for people.
Speaker 1: All right, So you like to make things easy for people.
Speaker 1: So you stopped doing it last year because of the
Speaker 1: machety attack.
Speaker 2: So I was already very very burnt out, and I
Speaker 2: had put myself through massage school two years earlier because
Speaker 2: I knew I needed like a long term out. I
Speaker 2: didn't think I would quit when I did. But the
Speaker 2: nonprofit I also worked for screwed me over pretty hard
Speaker 2: as well at the same time as the machete attack,
Speaker 2: and the executive leadership handled it poorly. Like the machete attack, happened.
Speaker 2: They called me and I had to go in and
Speaker 2: handle everything.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about the machete of attack briefly, just
Speaker 1: just because it's such a dramatic sounding thing.
Speaker 2: I know, I feel like I talked sometimes about my
Speaker 2: jobs and I'm like, oh, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well to those of us who have been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to avoid machete attacks so far, it's kind of
Speaker 1: so talk to me a little bit about what happened,
Speaker 1: and then I want to talk to you a little
Speaker 1: bit about barn out, and then we'll go back and
Speaker 1: we'll kind of look at your journey through that through
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: So we I used to oversee a drop in center
Speaker 2: in Auberdy, New York.
Speaker 1: So that's homeless people dropping.
Speaker 2: Yes, well the drop in center, anybody could come. We
Speaker 2: would ask no question. So if you just needed to
Speaker 2: stretch your budget, like if you were on you know,
Speaker 2: assistance or anything like that. We had free laundry, We
Speaker 2: had free showers, We served two hot meals a day,
Speaker 2: run your kids. We had mailboxes because if you're homeless,
Speaker 2: you don't have an address, but you need to get
Speaker 2: your paperwork. We just wanted the community to be able
Speaker 2: to kind of utilize this building and who finances this
Speaker 2: is this a So the state in the county would
Speaker 2: not touch that program because it was so low barrier, right,
Speaker 2: So that was all funded through in kind like donations
Speaker 2: and grants.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what happens with did you have someone who
Speaker 1: came in with a machete attacked the colleague of viewers
Speaker 1: or yeah, So he was.
Speaker 2: A client that we've known very well. I've known him
Speaker 2: for years the whole time I worked there, very mentally ill,
Speaker 2: so I can see both sides of what kind of happened.
Speaker 2: And he was just having a not good mental health day.
Speaker 2: He had a machete in his locker, but we didn't
Speaker 2: know about so the manager there had he'd had an altercation,
Speaker 2: just like a verbal altercation. So they kind of told him,
Speaker 2: why don't you take the day, you know, taken food
Speaker 2: to go and just call it in and we'll try
Speaker 2: again tomorrow. And he said, well, I want to get
Speaker 2: some stuff out of my locker, and that's when he
Speaker 2: pulled out the machete and went to go attack a
Speaker 2: different staff member. Another guy stepped in the way and
Speaker 2: almost lost both his hands and his foot.
Speaker 1: So it was dramatic and it was bloody, and it
Speaker 1: was violent and scary, and you were right there when
Speaker 1: it happened.
Speaker 2: I wasn't there when it happened. The executive director called
Speaker 2: me afterwards and I had to have all the staff leave.
Speaker 3: I stayed with the police.
Speaker 2: I brought the crime scene cleaners in the next day,
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And that was you said, Okay, I'm done. Now this
Speaker 1: is it, this is the this is the final stroke.
Speaker 2: And it was a little like ironic because when I
Speaker 2: was nineteen and my very first shelter, a girl pulled
Speaker 2: machety on me.
Speaker 3: So I was like, all right, full sech, all.
Speaker 1: Right, so okay, so it has a dramatic So let's
Speaker 1: go back to them. And you're nineteen. The more you're
Speaker 1: striking looking person. You have a lot of tattoos. You
Speaker 1: clearly have made a journey in your life. You made
Speaker 1: some decisions, like I have tattoos. I made decisions to
Speaker 1: get them. There reasons I have. So you have this
Speaker 1: appearance and you have this story, So can you talk
Speaker 1: to me a little bit about what gets you to
Speaker 1: your nineteen years old and you decide I want to
Speaker 1: do this, So.
Speaker 2: I don't even really know my childhood and my teens,
Speaker 2: have you know, some nice childhood trauma thrown in there?
Speaker 2: And I think so when I was like going to college,
Speaker 2: I had no idea what I wanted to do, just
Speaker 2: kind of went to a community college for liberal arts
Speaker 2: and I ended up taking a juvenile delinquency class and
Speaker 2: there were a couple women in there.
Speaker 1: So that's when you study juvenile delinquents then that Yeah.
Speaker 3: They probably renamed it by no es.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 3: It's probably not PC anymore.
Speaker 2: But two of the women in the class were human
Speaker 2: service majors, and so I got to talking to them
Speaker 2: and I was like, what is that? And I think
Speaker 2: given the childhood that I had, you know, there was
Speaker 2: you know, addiction and different traumas in there.
Speaker 1: So did you think I was your parents were addicts
Speaker 1: or right? Okay?
Speaker 2: I I think I knew that, like I knew that life.
Speaker 2: I knew how to handle that life. I knew how
Speaker 2: to handle I was more comfortable in chaos. This is
Speaker 2: before I actually knew all this, you know, like subconsciously. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I was like more comfortable in chaos. I was
Speaker 2: more comfortable focusing on other people to take care of them, right,
Speaker 2: And so I think that's why I was so drawn
Speaker 2: to human services. I didn't know at that time I
Speaker 2: wanted to do homeless services. It wasn't until that internship
Speaker 2: that was randomly picked for me.
Speaker 1: I think that that's interesting that you said you were
Speaker 1: more comfortable in chaos, because I very much identified with that.
Speaker 1: I remember going to a twelve step meeting in Caribbean
Speaker 1: Island once years ago and a fight broke out during
Speaker 1: the meeting and people were yelling and screaming at each other,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking at the time I should not
Speaker 1: feel as comfortable as I do here. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: strange thing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I've broken up grown men with knives fighting,
Speaker 2: but like I'm nervous to come to this.
Speaker 1: Like it's that's interesting because this is I mean, you're
Speaker 1: totally safe here night. Ye, but maybe that maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel that way. I don't know. I mean it
Speaker 1: is because we're talking about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes me comfort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of interesting because you don't get to
Speaker 1: control the narrative, you know. I mean it's like I
Speaker 1: made a decision to stand up on stage and I
Speaker 1: do stand up comedy, and people talk about how nervous
Speaker 1: it would make them to be public speaking. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I would totally sleep on a stage if I could.
Speaker 1: I get it. You know. It's so I understand the
Speaker 1: idea of being comfortable in chaos and coming from a
Speaker 1: chaotic childhood. So did you ever get attracted to that
Speaker 1: kind of thing yourself? I became very you know, I
Speaker 1: was hoping. I was always drunk for years.
Speaker 3: I drink a lot right up to my mid thirties.
Speaker 1: And did you did you feel like it was an
Speaker 1: addiction iss for you? Was it a coping mechanism for you?
Speaker 2: Or so looking back, it was definitely coping. Like I
Speaker 2: would have a quote unquote normal day, you know, at
Speaker 2: work doing Narcan on people, suicide attempts and just the regular,
Speaker 2: the regular, and then I would just be like, man,
Speaker 2: I can't wait to go have a drink later with
Speaker 2: my friends, and I would. I was more of a
Speaker 2: binge drinker, like I wouldn't drink like every day, so
Speaker 2: to speak. But when I would go out, I love whiskey,
Speaker 2: and I would just pound my whiskey.
Speaker 1: I understand the love of whiskey. I also, unfortunately whiskey
Speaker 1: hates my guts.
Speaker 3: I decided in my forties I'm done with whiskey.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay? Can I just as a sidebar, I asked
Speaker 1: you what whiskey you drink?
Speaker 3: I'm a Jamison girl.
Speaker 1: Okay, I understand that's fine.
Speaker 3: If I want to be fancy, I do kill bagging.
Speaker 1: Okay. I feel you missed out because the whiskey I
Speaker 1: always like most was a whiskey hold Highland Park. Did
Speaker 1: you ever have that?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's an Orkney whiskey, okay. So it's from the northern night,
Speaker 1: the islands off the north coast of Scotland. It's very smooth.
Speaker 2: I mean, I still I'll have a little here and there.
Speaker 2: I'm not I used to literally have a glass because
Speaker 2: I love to drink it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And then in my town where I'm from, an Albany,
Speaker 2: like we say high with shots, we say by with shots.
Speaker 2: We like shots in between everything. So I would just
Speaker 2: chase whiskey with whiskey, and we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, that's fair enough. No, I'm self. So you're
Speaker 1: nineteen years old and you start getting interested in because
Speaker 1: you've had a life which so far childhood, which has
Speaker 1: been chaos, has been involved, right, and you've been around
Speaker 1: the unpredictable nature of addicted people, so you get interested
Speaker 1: in being around it professionally. Yeah, you stayed on at
Speaker 1: college and you did your masters in So.
Speaker 3: I never got my master's.
Speaker 2: At twenty three, I was promoted to a manager, So
Speaker 2: I just rode the management route right up to a director.
Speaker 1: So what happens when you become a manager of something
Speaker 1: like that? Then what do you do?
Speaker 3: I'm in charge of everything in the staff.
Speaker 1: Right, So you're dealing you know, it's not only ah,
Speaker 1: it's not only hr dealing with people who are but
Speaker 1: you're also dealing with unpredictable, scary Yeah. Who are the
Speaker 1: easier people to deal with?
Speaker 3: The clients?
Speaker 1: Clients? Is that what we call?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Clients? Okay, yeah, so clients are staff. Who's the easiest
Speaker 1: to deal with clients?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? I hate managing people. I hate it,
Speaker 2: Like you're just like managing personalities. Like right before I quit,
Speaker 2: I was a director and I was overseeing this like
Speaker 2: sixty year old man that was just so set in
Speaker 2: his and he would just drive me up a wall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I hate managing personalities.
Speaker 2: Just go and do your job, do a good job,
Speaker 2: and like that's drama.
Speaker 1: I know, but I think that that's that's quite interesting
Speaker 1: because you're dealing with people who are by the very
Speaker 1: nature they're a lot of them are mentally ill. Right, yep,
Speaker 1: they could be dangerous. They could, but you find that
Speaker 1: easier to deal with than the interaction with supposed normal
Speaker 1: I'm also.
Speaker 2: Not the most professional in my manner and speaking, so
Speaker 2: that professionalism, to me is a little silly sometimes, So
Speaker 2: I would cross the line a little bit sometimes, like
Speaker 2: the way I would speak to staff and just be like,
Speaker 2: let's just be real like this, Like when I had
Speaker 2: to fire people in stuff, like I was just like, listen,
Speaker 2: you did this. This is what it's that I'm the consequence, like,
Speaker 2: just stop lying to me, dude.
Speaker 1: Won't get you fired. If you're working in a drop
Speaker 1: and shower.
Speaker 2: Sleeping with clients, doing drugs with clients, and then just
Speaker 2: your basic like absenteeism calling out.
Speaker 1: Is there a lot of that kind of thing? Is
Speaker 1: there a lot of like crossover.
Speaker 2: Like people, Yes, a lot, especially with like direct care,
Speaker 2: like when you're working the frontlines in the shelter and stuff.
Speaker 2: We liked to hire people that have lived experience.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the people are former clients, if
Speaker 1: you like, yeah, so, how do you transition someone from
Speaker 1: a client and someone who's working for you? How does that?
Speaker 3: How do they need a lot of training?
Speaker 2: And I think that's where quite a few of the
Speaker 2: agencies I worked for lacked that They kind of had
Speaker 2: this expectation of the staff to just be like, well,
Speaker 2: they have lived experience, they'll get it, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: they still need to work on boundaries. And the boundary
Speaker 2: piece wasn't really there.
Speaker 1: What do you say, because you've worked in Albany and
Speaker 1: then you worked you worked in the South, you work
Speaker 1: in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but nobody would hire me because I quote unquote
Speaker 2: ruined God's temple with my tattoos.
Speaker 3: Literally, two jobs turn me down?
Speaker 1: Really because you ruined God's temple with your tattoos?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So I got hired at a in patient drug and
Speaker 2: alcohol rehab, which was ironic because I was twenty four
Speaker 2: or five alcohol Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my.
Speaker 1: God, what did you ever like when you were dealing
Speaker 1: without inpatient alcoholics where you're like, this is kind of
Speaker 1: I feel like this is getting a little close to Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't care.
Speaker 2: I didn't care for addiction, just specifically I didn't like
Speaker 2: that setting. I'm also I'm a harm reduction type of person, so,
Speaker 2: like so harm reduction is kind of the new quote
Speaker 2: unquote thing. So instead of cold turkey, which a lot
Speaker 2: of people can't and then they fail. They try to
Speaker 2: do cold turkey, they fail, so then they just like
Speaker 2: you know, go all in, right, So harm reduction, Like
Speaker 2: if my client smokes crack and he comes to me
Speaker 2: and he says, I only smoke crack three times today,
Speaker 2: not five, that's awesome. Let's celebrate that, Like do you
Speaker 2: sing and like, so you used to smoke crack and
Speaker 2: you're only smoking weed. That's awesome. Let's like focus on that.
Speaker 2: And it works for a lot of people because then
Speaker 2: there's not the expectation that if you slip up, yeah
Speaker 2: you fucked it all up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's funny though, because.
Speaker 2: Some people need cold turkey. My ex stepmother needed just
Speaker 2: you don't touch alcohol.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's my story for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, I some people need that.
Speaker 1: I used to love saying that people when I was
Speaker 1: lying to people saying that was getting sober and I wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, they told me that I need
Speaker 1: to taper off. Yes, they need to taper off. But
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, in the treatment of addiction.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm no way, I'm the only I'm only
Speaker 1: an expert in my own, no anyone else's. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not involved in it. But I I wonder if
Speaker 1: you hold with the notion of the or if you've
Speaker 1: seen it, you know, the allergic reaction notion that like
Speaker 1: one drink is the one that gets you drunk. I
Speaker 1: mean for me that that is a profound thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I have one drink, it's like it goes crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a light switch flip. Have you seen that?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's is that something that you Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I've seen that. I think too for me working
Speaker 2: with this client tele with addiction, like I'd probably be
Speaker 2: using something too if I'm sleeping on the streets and
Speaker 2: the things that are happening. So like, if we can
Speaker 2: kind of work with Okay, you're not doing fentanyl, you know,
Speaker 2: they're just doing well fentanyl.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that people doing fenyl just die.
Speaker 3: I mean it felt weirdly. You can build a tolerance.
Speaker 2: I had many clients that just that I had no
Speaker 2: idea that no, yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1: So you didn't mention it there, but if they were
Speaker 1: living on the streets, or if you were living on
Speaker 1: the streets, you would do it as well. When I
Speaker 1: get that, yeah, it's a kind of chicken in an
Speaker 1: egg thing for me. Like, what do you think comes first?
Speaker 1: Or is it in a case by case basis? Do
Speaker 1: you start doing drugs and you end up on the street,
Speaker 1: or you're on the street and you end up doing drugs.
Speaker 2: So the childhood comes first. I would say ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent my clients have extreme trauma in their childhoods or well,
Speaker 2: which is still trauma, but like your parents used you
Speaker 2: were in a crappy upbringing, and like I, ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent of my clients had just horrific, horrific like childhoods
Speaker 2: that just kind of led them, you know, in a direction.
Speaker 1: How do you get that information about your clients when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with them. Does it come out naturally in
Speaker 1: conversation you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when I was just a caseworker, like when
Speaker 2: I was a director and things of that nature. I
Speaker 2: didn't always have a caseload, right, but when I was
Speaker 2: a caseworker and things like we'd have to talk about
Speaker 2: those things to kind of focus on a right if
Speaker 2: you want housing, like, these are the things we have
Speaker 2: to work on. So we'd work on like daily living skills,
Speaker 2: symptom management, substance abuse services and kind of link them
Speaker 2: to different providers and things. But we'd have to talk
Speaker 2: through like, you know, what's your history?
Speaker 3: How'd we get here?
Speaker 1: Did you find that difficult to deal with when people
Speaker 1: were telling you stuff that was.
Speaker 3: Clearly I didn't think I did?
Speaker 2: And then I learned about secondary PTSD and how just
Speaker 2: listening to those things over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: Like there's no way it doesn't have an impact on
Speaker 2: the person that you might not be living it, but
Speaker 2: you're the one that has to sit with the person
Speaker 2: who did and hear those things over and over again.
Speaker 1: I think that that makes sense to me, the idea
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, but if you're taking that, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested in how you survived that because
Speaker 1: you're still like if I'm thinking, like you doing this,
Speaker 1: if you o caase you're still a young woman and
Speaker 1: you've had a pretty hard time yourself coming up, So
Speaker 1: how do you cope?
Speaker 2: So, I mean, for my twenties and stuff, I partied
Speaker 2: a lot, right that was kind of my outlet. It
Speaker 2: was hard for me, like I have I would have
Speaker 2: a guilty conscience knowing how some people live and how
Speaker 2: my clients were living. If I traveled or went somewhere
Speaker 2: nice or did something nice for myself, I just kind
Speaker 2: of always had this weird like even now we're t
Speaker 2: I have guilt that.
Speaker 1: I stopped right, so don't deserve ability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I just like it's still happening. I think
Speaker 2: Tomas knows this story. But twice I have just like
Speaker 2: burst out crying, blackout, drunk that I've not saved all
Speaker 2: the homeless people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, I just it's it.
Speaker 2: I don't understand our society how we just can look,
Speaker 2: especially La. Like when people are in LA, they're shocked about,
Speaker 2: oh my god, there's homeless people ever And I'm like, yes,
Speaker 2: like this is kind of the epicenter, and but nobody
Speaker 2: really does anything. And I don't like it's a weird
Speaker 2: collective just acceptance that that's just well, let's.
Speaker 1: Talk about that. Let's talk about LA, because that's kind
Speaker 1: of what led us to this conversation. Anyway, I lived
Speaker 1: in LA for twenty three years, and the time that
Speaker 1: I lived there, homelessness went from being something that I
Speaker 1: didn't see often. It was definitely that oh yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: but it was I understood that schedule was downtown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and people you know, talked about I didn't go there.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it. It's seems to me that Skiedrow
Speaker 1: has exploded all over Los Angeles. The town itself, skid.
Speaker 3: Row has a mayor and they have like rules.
Speaker 1: That's kind of that's kind of interesting, but that fascinates
Speaker 1: me because this is clearly people who are outsider society
Speaker 1: and yet they're looking for structure. Yeah, do they have
Speaker 1: like a hierarchy? Is there a way of skid.
Speaker 3: Row has a little bit of it. One that sticks
Speaker 3: out to me is on.
Speaker 2: A wahu, there's actually yeah, right, there's so much homelessness.
Speaker 2: There's actually on so if you are in native to Hawaii, mm,
Speaker 2: they cannot remove you from any beach okay. So that's
Speaker 2: why you'll see like a lot of encampments on beaches
Speaker 2: in Hawaii. And there's actually like a little town that
Speaker 2: homeless people put together. There's like little roads you can't
Speaker 2: use in town. People that have jobs and kids and
Speaker 2: everything that just can't afford to live. And so skid
Speaker 2: row is kind of its own chaos. But there are
Speaker 2: like the people that have been there a long time
Speaker 2: and this is my spot and you don't go here,
Speaker 2: and this person is that person, Like there is a
Speaker 2: little bit, but the use is the drug use is
Speaker 2: so active there that it's just kind of a free
Speaker 2: for all.
Speaker 1: And has that changed and we were talking about LA
Speaker 1: in particular, Yeah, right, has that changed because of the
Speaker 1: new drugs?
Speaker 2: So I will say, like when I was nineteen in
Speaker 2: the shelter and people would come home like high on
Speaker 2: crack or heroin or something, I knew how to handle it.
Speaker 3: It didn't bother, it didn't like make me.
Speaker 2: Nervous, right, These new drugs just some of them just
Speaker 2: caused straight psychosis and it's it's terrifying, like you don't
Speaker 2: quite know how you can even like handle somebody.
Speaker 1: So what I'm fascinated by the idea that because when
Speaker 1: I was taking drugs and alcohol, I was looking for relief.
Speaker 1: I was looking for relief for who I was or
Speaker 1: how my brain wore. I didn't know I was doing that.
Speaker 1: I thought I was just having a drink. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: if you have someone who is I mean taking drugs
Speaker 1: that go straight to psychosis and presumably, man, these people
Speaker 1: are in psychosis anyway, so you're just like you're changing
Speaker 1: deck chairs on the Titanic basically, right, how did it
Speaker 1: get them and how does it come in? Are you
Speaker 1: aware of how that happens? Did you notice the change
Speaker 1: in the and how the drugs came in? Was there
Speaker 1: a noticeable I'm not.
Speaker 3: I don't really know that part.
Speaker 2: Well, I just watched the shift over like the twenty
Speaker 2: years so more synthetic which is just wild, like K
Speaker 2: two synthetic weed, which just caused straight psychosis.
Speaker 3: It's like, why don't you just smoke weed?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do we think to me weed I went to
Speaker 1: like right at the beginning, I'm talking thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: thirty five years ago when I smoked weed, just old
Speaker 1: fashioned weed. Yeah, I went straight to psychosis and never
Speaker 1: agreed with me. Yeah, you know, I think there's a
Speaker 1: bit of a myth about weed. Like I've had this
Speaker 1: conversation with people about.
Speaker 3: I mean, I smoke every day, Yeah, you do every night.
Speaker 3: I don't. I'm not awaken Baker, I can't function.
Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting because I hate weed. I mean I
Speaker 1: hate it.
Speaker 3: Like if I had to choose, I would choose weed
Speaker 3: over alcohol.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, girl, you're so not We're not safe
Speaker 1: face here. I hate weed and I hated it when
Speaker 1: I was drinking, and it wasn't it wasn't anything other
Speaker 1: than it didn't work. Yeah, right, I think that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It didn't do what alcohol did. And so
Speaker 1: when we're looking at the people, your clients, the people
Speaker 1: what you're dealing with, they clearly aren't finding drugs that work.
Speaker 2: Well, no, but the whole point is to just not
Speaker 2: be present with where they're at in life.
Speaker 1: Is there a demographic breakdown that you're aware of?
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's across the map.
Speaker 2: Like people used to ask, you know, if it was
Speaker 2: more men than women, if it was more African American
Speaker 2: than white. But to everything that I've seen pretty much
Speaker 2: was like right down the middle, a little bit more
Speaker 2: men because for women, if they have children, they can
Speaker 2: go into family shelters and they get a little bit
Speaker 2: more services. There's a little bit more funding in that
Speaker 2: kind of pool. So that's why you might see more
Speaker 2: men in that in that way because the family, the
Speaker 2: women with their children might not necessarily end up on
Speaker 2: the streets.
Speaker 1: Right. I want to talk to you a bit about
Speaker 1: abhorrent behavior, because obviously, if you're dealing with people who
Speaker 1: are in psychosis or mentally, there's going to be behavior
Speaker 1: which you just are going to be very uncomfortable with,
Speaker 1: like criminal behavior, machetty attack.
Speaker 3: I guess a lot of sex offenders.
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say, you dealt with? Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were you dealt with? Was it level five four?
Speaker 1: Level four? No? I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: Can you explain the courageous? So that is a violent rape?
Speaker 1: Violent and you're dealing with them. I'm kind of shocked
Speaker 1: and fascinated how you ended up there. Were you comfortable
Speaker 1: dealing with these guys? Yes? And no.
Speaker 2: I was alone giving them group counseling every day. The
Speaker 2: program interested me because it was run by a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2: All five of the sex offenders had traumatic brain injuries
Speaker 2: frontal lobe damage, so it was kind of this weird
Speaker 2: little project almost to see if they committed their rapes
Speaker 2: due to their TBIs or if they were just like
Speaker 2: straight sociopathic.
Speaker 3: Because the one guy.
Speaker 1: What's the TBI, then that's a traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2: And because the one guy committed thirty rapes prior and
Speaker 2: then the one woman ran him over with her car
Speaker 2: causing his TBI, and he always had to be on
Speaker 2: suicide watch because he was just like disgusted in who
Speaker 2: he had been.
Speaker 3: Like it completely reversed him. It was very weird.
Speaker 1: I had got to say the woman that ran him over,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of right. I was like this, So there's
Speaker 1: the ass get them all and run them all along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there's a small part of me as
Speaker 2: a social worker. All five of them had incredibly traumatic
Speaker 2: sexual abuse history in their childhoods, So I can see.
Speaker 2: I don't condone obviously anything, but I can understand why
Speaker 2: they may have turned out the way that well.
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing. I mean. The argument is also,
Speaker 1: so many people have trauma and their child You have
Speaker 1: trauma and your childhood. I have trauma in my childhood.
Speaker 1: And you know we didn't go that way. You know,
Speaker 1: you went and fight the completely the opposite direction. You
Speaker 1: You ended up being in a situation where you were nurturing.
Speaker 1: I guess, And it seems to me that your drive
Speaker 1: is that right that you because you even now as
Speaker 1: you walk away from from that way.
Speaker 3: I'm still in a career I'm helping people in a
Speaker 3: different ways.
Speaker 1: Right, So now you're doing massage there, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: what do you think is in you that causes you
Speaker 1: makes you want to do that? Put it right? Is
Speaker 1: it the childhood thing you think?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think like, for as long as I can remember,
Speaker 2: I just don't understand how as fellow human beings we
Speaker 2: just don't take care of each other.
Speaker 3: It's just a weird I don't know, it's weird to me.
Speaker 2: So I feel like like I have selfless tattooed on
Speaker 2: the inside of my hands to kind of remind myself
Speaker 2: that my hands are here to serve other people, if
Speaker 2: that's what you know they want. And I just think
Speaker 2: that while I'm here, I should be helping other people. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: what's kind of I don't know, what's kind of point.
Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of interesting. So what is the point?
Speaker 1: Are you a religious person?
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, I don't think there's any point to life.
Speaker 1: There's no point to live. But yeah, really, like, but
Speaker 1: that's interesting because you fight so hard to make it,
Speaker 1: to make it better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, while we're here, like, life sucks. Life sucks basically,
Speaker 2: like you know, most of the time for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and so like if I can, as long
Speaker 2: as my presence doesn't cause.
Speaker 3: Any like.
Speaker 2: More pain for somebody or cause your day to be
Speaker 2: any worse, like I want to like help that for
Speaker 2: people like I don't want to like I don't want my.
Speaker 1: Exist to make like an informal Buddhist to me, I
Speaker 1: do forced to do no harm.
Speaker 3: I study zaza and meditation.
Speaker 2: That was one of the things that I started to
Speaker 2: do at like thirty five to kind of work on
Speaker 2: my mental health because I knew I was really burnt out.
Speaker 1: So I grit burn up for me. Because burnout is
Speaker 1: a kind of casual term. You get your actors saying
Speaker 1: I'm burnout from all the pretending. I mean, it's like,
Speaker 1: so what's burnout for somebody that's on the frontline of
Speaker 1: a very difficult career.
Speaker 2: Like, my patience was much shorter with clients, which I
Speaker 2: did not like it was a disservice to them. I
Speaker 2: wasn't sleeping. I was also on call for ten years
Speaker 2: of less ten years of my.
Speaker 1: Career, so that's just like the phone goes, you gotta go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker 3: I was, you know, drinking a lot.
Speaker 2: My patience was you know thin, I just didn't want
Speaker 2: to be at work, like yeah, things like that I have.
Speaker 2: I have depression and so I would just kind of
Speaker 2: pummel sometimes like down in some bad, bad areas.
Speaker 1: But how how is how is your life with you know,
Speaker 1: outside of work? Are you? Are you in a committed
Speaker 1: a relationship or are you Do you find it's difficult
Speaker 1: to do that? Do you?
Speaker 3: I used to?
Speaker 2: So I'm engaged now, congratulations, thank you. And he's he's great.
Speaker 2: He's like the kindest person. We just met not even
Speaker 2: two years ago before him. I love to be alone.
Speaker 2: I always kind of dated people that I knew I
Speaker 2: hadn't out because I didn't want to stick around very long.
Speaker 1: Right. So yeah, so you're not in any way religious?
Speaker 3: No, So I am? I hate this term. I guess
Speaker 3: you would say spiritual.
Speaker 2: So my mom died when I was one, so I
Speaker 2: kind of learned right off the rip that like tomorrow's
Speaker 2: not promised and like there's something something happens.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, So your your mom died when you one?
Speaker 1: So you do you don't remember your mom? Right? I don't?
Speaker 2: And she was like erased from me, so I didn't
Speaker 2: know her name or see a picture of her, know what?
Speaker 2: She died until I was sixteen because I snooped through
Speaker 2: my dad's stuff.
Speaker 1: You did you ever experience any guilt about that?
Speaker 3: No, because I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: Right. I've heard people who, you know, their parents died
Speaker 1: when they were young, and they've talked about a weird
Speaker 1: sense of guilt.
Speaker 2: No, I had no guilt. I was, I think because
Speaker 2: she was hidden from me. I just had like anger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel with that.
Speaker 3: Her side is irish, So don't we don't ask questions?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very familiar with it.
Speaker 3: We don't talk about it. We don't.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's Everything's fine. Yeah, oh it's great.
Speaker 1: I fine, evidence fine, Uh huh, that's great. You'll have
Speaker 1: a drink. Yeah, what about So were you mad at
Speaker 1: your dad then? So?
Speaker 3: I actually I was just in therapy a few years ago.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to talk about my mom's
Speaker 2: stuff because also, my best friend died when I was
Speaker 2: twenty nine.
Speaker 3: I was with her.
Speaker 2: She had sistic fibrosis, and so with her death I
Speaker 2: was able to grieve it properly. And I think I
Speaker 2: started grieving my mom at thirty because I had never
Speaker 2: gotten a chance to do that. So when I was
Speaker 2: thirty seven ish, I think I went to therapy, thought
Speaker 2: I was going to talk about my mom, and she
Speaker 2: kind of skewed it to my dad, who I adore.
Speaker 3: My dad is my best friend.
Speaker 2: I like, I moved back from LA for him, like
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that he is very happy,
Speaker 2: because I've seen him in very not happy situations, which
Speaker 2: was really tough as a kid, and so I would
Speaker 2: do anything for him. And she helped me like understand
Speaker 2: that I can be angry about decisions he made and
Speaker 2: still adore him.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, you can be angry at people you love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interest in situation, isn't it though, when you're
Speaker 1: mad at people, Because I was. I had kind of
Speaker 1: that relationship with my mother that I was really mad
Speaker 1: at her for some things. But she's my mom. What
Speaker 1: am I going to do that? Right? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an odd thing. It seems to me that, Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not a therapist in anyway, and I wouldn't dare to
Speaker 1: try and psychoanalygic, but it seems fairly obvious that you
Speaker 1: know the trauma of that and seeing your dad in
Speaker 1: difficulty as you're growing up, that the idea of helping
Speaker 1: people becomes innate in you, like I saw.
Speaker 2: Him in some very vulnerable situations, and I just I
Speaker 2: don't want people to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to have that. So what do you
Speaker 1: what's your take on, man? When there are religious organizations
Speaker 1: that do that the any help? I mean for example
Speaker 1: that I don't know the Little Sisters of the Poor,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I made that up.
Speaker 3: But if I did work for the Salvation Army, that
Speaker 3: was my first shelter, right.
Speaker 2: I have a hard time with them because they have
Speaker 2: they have like stipulations like there was a rescue mission
Speaker 2: in Albany and if you don't go to the Christian
Speaker 2: service on Sundays, you will only get a bag lunch
Speaker 2: that day.
Speaker 3: You don't get the hot meal.
Speaker 1: Like I don't.
Speaker 3: That's not okay to me.
Speaker 1: I think conditional charity is a little trick. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's still charing, you know. I mean, and maybe
Speaker 1: look just to play Devil's advocate with them then just
Speaker 1: saying well, what I want to do is encourage people
Speaker 1: to get salvation.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, And it works for some people.
Speaker 1: For some people, it does. I know people that have
Speaker 1: gotten sober through religion. It wasn't possible for me to
Speaker 1: do that, but I do find as I get older
Speaker 1: and become more interested in it. And I think because
Speaker 1: as I get older, I you know, it's the thing. C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis said, it's when death is a horseman three hills away,
Speaker 1: it's easy to ignore him, but when you hear the
Speaker 1: hoof beats, it's a little more interesting. Do you think
Speaker 1: you've clearly seen quite a lot of death and quite
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma. Do you think about your own mortality?
Speaker 1: Has it changed your view of it? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like fascinated of what's next.
Speaker 1: Though you think there is a next? Do you know?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I am very I'm incredibly open to the concept that
Speaker 2: there might be something I can't even comprehend that fascinates me,
Speaker 2: or it could be just absolutely nothing and I'll never know.
Speaker 1: Well, so that I mean, and I kind of nobody does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that that's the that's the fascinating.
Speaker 1: Has that changed over over time?
Speaker 2: So the only thing that makes me a little curious
Speaker 2: is since my best friend died, so she had sissy fibrosis,
Speaker 2: and it was myself, her mom, and her fiance in
Speaker 2: the room when she passed and you just you drowning
Speaker 2: your lungs.
Speaker 3: So for three days she's just drowning in her lungs.
Speaker 2: So she finally passes away, and there had been this
Speaker 2: whole she'd been arguing with her fiance. She was a
Speaker 2: crazy little Italian that he broke the like censored paper
Speaker 2: towel dispenser in her room, right, So it was like
Speaker 2: she just could not let it go, and I was like,
Speaker 2: can we just get along? So it was like this
Speaker 2: kind of running joke. And then when she passed, we
Speaker 2: were all sitting around her bed, you know, we're crying
Speaker 2: and everything, and her fiance had kind of made the
Speaker 2: call of like we just we need to up the
Speaker 2: morphine more like this is this isn't okay, you know.
Speaker 2: So he was a little nervous that her mom would
Speaker 2: be up set that he was the one that made
Speaker 2: the call and it caused her to pass. So he said,
Speaker 2: you know, he's like, are you mad at me? And
Speaker 2: like it still gives me chills from like across the room,
Speaker 2: the censored paper towel spencer just pit spit out a
Speaker 2: bunch of paper towels and like nobody was near it.
Speaker 2: It was the weirdest experience, and I've had like a
Speaker 2: couple weird things with her like since you passed. So
Speaker 2: it just makes me, It just makes me question and
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: Does it make you feel more hopeful about the universe
Speaker 1: because you, I mean, you said in this conversation you
Speaker 1: know life sucks and there's no point. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't think you really believe that.
Speaker 2: No, I think life can be beautiful. I think I'm
Speaker 2: very jaded because of my career and have seen it where.
Speaker 1: Still the worst I mean through you through I mean
Speaker 1: that's an improvate reaction. Yeah, thing, Yeah, but do you
Speaker 1: find yourself now you've been out of it for by
Speaker 1: eighteen months.
Speaker 3: Less than a year, less than a year October last year.
Speaker 1: Do you feel a change in your in yours? Psyche?
Speaker 1: Do you feel a change?
Speaker 2: I sleep about five hours a night solidly. I I
Speaker 2: don't have to take a bunch of stuff to sleep, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean my whole point is, and I moved out
Speaker 2: to the country. I'm with my fiance. He's great, we
Speaker 2: have our two dogs. Like, life's really beautiful right now.
Speaker 2: And so I've been working on like recalibrating my central
Speaker 2: nervous system out of fight or flight, because that's all
Speaker 2: I've known, literally for forty years. Yeah, and so I've
Speaker 2: told myself, I don't want the next forty years to
Speaker 2: be just in this state of fight and flight.
Speaker 1: So what do you want it to be? What do
Speaker 1: you want to I want.
Speaker 3: To be able to enjoy life, Like I want to
Speaker 3: be a happy person.
Speaker 1: I seem like a happy person.
Speaker 2: I know everyone says that I just have I always
Speaker 2: have this underlying current of just I mean, I have depression.
Speaker 2: So I'm always treading water to just keep my head
Speaker 2: above the depression. You know, There's things I have to
Speaker 2: do every day and like mentally just kind of to
Speaker 2: just make sure I don't dip, right, And it's just
Speaker 2: kind of who I am.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so what would you like to have happened
Speaker 1: in the future? You just want to keep going the
Speaker 1: way you are.
Speaker 2: I want a peaceful life, like the forty years event
Speaker 2: not come and I chose part of it, you know,
Speaker 2: with my career. But right, I just yeah, I just
Speaker 2: I just want to be peaceful. I wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning, I make coffee, I can hear birds. We
Speaker 2: have a creak in the backyard, like it's like, that's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like simple. I want simple.
Speaker 1: It feels like the you know, the movie True Romance.
Speaker 1: It feels like you're the end of the movie, like
Speaker 1: you made it to the beach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we're good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But when you when you think back on your time
Speaker 1: doing it, do you think that you were better equipped
Speaker 1: for dealing with that life because of your difficult star?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'll tell you where I'm going with this.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to kind of cover moment tracks, but there's
Speaker 1: no point. So here's what I think. Sometimes when I
Speaker 1: see a drunk, I think, there, but for the grace
Speaker 1: of God or the universe or whatever you want to say,
Speaker 1: go why. And sometimes when I see a drunk, I think,
Speaker 1: get your fucking act together. If I can get sober,
Speaker 1: you can get sober. And both of these things can
Speaker 1: coexist within me and I I don't like when I
Speaker 1: I don't like when I feel angry, but I do
Speaker 1: sometimes does that happen with you?
Speaker 2: I don't know that I'm like ever angry, because I
Speaker 2: think I just know I feel bad. I like, there's
Speaker 2: a reason nobody would choose to live a life of homelessness,
Speaker 2: like it's not great, you know, I have long term
Speaker 2: Like sometimes I would have young clients that thought it
Speaker 2: was cool and they were just like, you know, they
Speaker 2: left their parents and they were you know, they were
Speaker 2: just doing whatever. But I just so whenever I see
Speaker 2: somebody still like my stomach still turns, like I still
Speaker 2: feel I feel bad for them, like there's a reason
Speaker 2: they got there.
Speaker 3: So I'm never really angry.
Speaker 2: And I would have clients come through the shelter all
Speaker 2: the time, you know, just kind of recycling, and it's like,
Speaker 2: let's just keep trying.
Speaker 3: I don't know, and it would never get really angry.
Speaker 1: What does success look like for a client?
Speaker 3: It's totally different.
Speaker 2: And that was something that I had to learn right
Speaker 2: off the rip, was that my idea of success and
Speaker 2: my priorities I cannot put on anybody else. So if
Speaker 2: I had a client and he was I got him
Speaker 2: an apartment and he was housed for three months, that's awesome,
Speaker 2: Like let's celebrate that, and then if you end up
Speaker 2: back on the street, we'll just try again.
Speaker 1: What do you say, Because you hear a lot of
Speaker 1: politicians are not my favorite people, but you hear a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about you know, the causes of homelessness,
Speaker 1: the causes of people living on the street. But it
Speaker 1: seems to me, obviously that is as individual as the
Speaker 1: person who's on the stoe. Yeah, pretty much. Right. Do
Speaker 1: you think that there is a huge contributory fact or
Speaker 1: is there one thing more than anything else that puts
Speaker 1: people there?
Speaker 3: I mean cost of living?
Speaker 1: You think so? Really? Yeah, yeah, there's.
Speaker 2: I mean when I would try I worked with veterans
Speaker 2: specifically in LA and like trying to find them apartments
Speaker 2: with the VA, like housing voucher was impossible. There's there's
Speaker 2: literally nothing we could afford. And it's like, that's federal funding. Like,
Speaker 2: what are you guys doing. You're not even giving us
Speaker 2: enough money to house anybody?
Speaker 1: And these are the veterans that you're dealing with.
Speaker 3: Yes, well yeah, and then the VA shut my shelter down.
Speaker 1: Why that they.
Speaker 3: Didn't want to re up the grant after five years?
Speaker 3: So I hate the VA. They are awful. They were
Speaker 3: awful to work with.
Speaker 1: Really what why.
Speaker 2: So they brought us in as a nonprofit to open
Speaker 2: the shelter. I don't know if you know about the
Speaker 2: whole lawsuit with the VA campus in Brentwood. I don't
Speaker 2: know so there was a huge lawsuit that was going
Speaker 2: on for years because they were literally renting out the
Speaker 2: campus to like UCLA and other things and not writing
Speaker 2: services to veterans.
Speaker 1: Were making money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it was Obama during his when he
Speaker 2: was president, shut it down, and so it was called
Speaker 2: a great plan or something ridiculous. And our shelter and
Speaker 2: drop in center was kind of the first program to
Speaker 2: come out of it. So I had to work with
Speaker 2: a lot of VA people who did not care for
Speaker 2: how I looked, which was awesome, but they also didn't
Speaker 2: pay my paycheck, so you know, I could kind of
Speaker 2: be a little bit more free in how I spoke
Speaker 2: and like the things that they needed. But then once
Speaker 2: the once the grant was up after five years of
Speaker 2: the VA just was like, Nope, we're not funding it.
Speaker 2: And so what they put in this place, there's nothing
Speaker 2: in there right now.
Speaker 1: So veterans have nowhere to love.
Speaker 2: They built some housing, so there are some other like
Speaker 2: programs that came out of kind of the lawsuit, but
Speaker 2: they shut the shelter down.
Speaker 1: Are you ever drawn into because I can see even
Speaker 1: just talking to you right now, that you're a human
Speaker 1: being of some passion and there's certainly I've sat close
Speaker 1: enough to I wish women before to know when it's dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you are not afraid of a fight, that's clear.
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, do you ever for other people?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's what I was going to say. Do
Speaker 1: you ever think that there may be a when you
Speaker 1: may be drawn into not frontline you know, client care,
Speaker 1: but taken on the politicians?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. I would. I would lose it.
Speaker 1: I think what I'm saying is I really think you
Speaker 1: should run for office. I really do. I really do.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why. Because you don't want to.
Speaker 1: And that's and that's who we need. We need people
Speaker 1: that don't want to be politicians but don't see a
Speaker 1: way out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that was like one of like the client everyday stuff.
Speaker 2: That stuff would sort of burn me out obviously. But
Speaker 2: the system and like the federal funding, the state funding,
Speaker 2: and like all the stipulations, like even when we would
Speaker 2: get state funding, it would very specifically would map out,
Speaker 2: you can pay your case managers this much, this much
Speaker 2: can go to this, this much can go to this,
Speaker 2: and that's it. We'd have to prove every year that
Speaker 2: that's how we're spending the money, like it's so tightly
Speaker 2: kind of wound. And then even when you're in the systems.
Speaker 1: So they basically they don't let you do your job.
Speaker 2: No, No, they give us like knots of money. So
Speaker 2: every nonprofit I've worked for, we'd get state funding or
Speaker 2: county funding, and then also have to beg for donations.
Speaker 2: And then if you're a client and you're in the system,
Speaker 2: like say you're getting your Social Security check which is
Speaker 2: like maybe seven hundred bucks a month if you want
Speaker 2: to work, if you start working over twenty hours or
Speaker 2: make a certain amount, they will start to dock your
Speaker 2: SS check. So like there's really no way out of
Speaker 2: the system. Like I remember very vividly in college, we
Speaker 2: read a book called Amazing Grace about when Lovely Giuliani
Speaker 2: shut down cleaned up Manhattan and shut down the shelters
Speaker 2: and it kind of pushed everybody into the Bronx and
Speaker 2: other boroughs. And this caseworker was talking about how she
Speaker 2: was helping people in the Bronx and things like that,
Speaker 2: and she realized that she was just teaching people how
Speaker 2: to live in the system and how to like it
Speaker 2: because there's no way out.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's it's always stuck in your right. Is
Speaker 1: there any way you can break it? We need money,
Speaker 1: need money, We.
Speaker 2: Need money, we need housing, we need like jobs at pay,
Speaker 2: we need like Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't make that happen. Julia. It's been an absolute
Speaker 1: joy speaking to you. You're a fascinating human being. I
Speaker 1: wish you well, I wish you peace.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And it seems to me that, look, I don't know
Speaker 1: you very well. I don't think you're done, but I
Speaker 1: think you need a rest.
Speaker 2: I need a rest, I need a break. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: been in the back of my head though. I don't
Speaker 2: know how long I can stay away.
Speaker 1: No, that's okay, stay away for a while and get
Speaker 1: get a little a little me time maybe. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks Palm, thank you for coming on.