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Overview
Jacques Peters will do everything in his power to uncover the reason for his rejection from graduate school. Meta-power, a word Jacques Peters believes is behind the root of power in the English department and the reason for his rejection becomes the point of departure for a quest into the very root of power in New London. During this quest, Jacques stops at nothing to hold university officials, department offices, and the community accountable for terminating his education prematurely.
Mr. Peters will travel across New York State, visiting friends, loved ones, and old schoolmates from his High School days at Wales. Through his journey, Jacques will undergo another transformation while contesting the admission decision to the very end, putting his health and life at risk forever.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781728304502 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 03/21/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 148 |
| File size: | 615 KB |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
ONE LAST TOAST WITH MY FRIENDS
My diagnosis concerns social-epistemic discourses engaging amid "this cluster of uses, the aesthetic {...} variously identified with irrationality, illusion, fantasy, myth, sensual seduction, the imposition of will, and inhumane indifference to ethical, religious, or cognitive considerations" (1992).
J Peters (2008) Contesting Admission
Birds were chirping, the sun was out, and I was in the heyday of my young adulthood. On the exterior, I had above-average looks, more than enough friends, and a supportive family. Rocking out, jamming, and head bopping to Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, I was either driving around listening to music or partying with my friends. At face value, I was your average SUS New London student. Inside, I couldn't have been more miserable. I had recently dropped out of college and was working at a Nissan car dealership selling cars for a living. Little did I know what the next six months would bring as I dove head first into what was the most transformative summer I have ever had in New London — or at any other time in my twenty years of life. "Cheers!" I said. I still remember giving a toast with Kim and Patrick, my two friends that had made it up to New London before our other friends arrived, bringing with them a few shots of cheap Vodka and a full bottle of sleeping pills. After every successive shot of liquor, I snuck off into the bathroom to swallow another dozen or so sleeping meds. Noticing my behavior was increasingly bizarre and erratic, my friend, Kim, went into the bathroom and found an empty bottle of generic sleeping medication I had used and forgotten on the counter. Maybe I can say this was because I had just broken up with my girlfriend, my first real relationship in college. I really should be very cautious when I say "real." Nothing was real about this relationship. Sure, we were intimate and connected emotionally, but the entire affair was as difficult as it was psychologically rife with abuse, anger, and resentment of each other and our behavior. By the time the relationship ended, I was ridden with emotional pain and was tormenting myself over the mistakes I had made throughout. My goal was to exact one last vengeful blow to her, and this was my plan of doing just that.
Soon after, Kim came back from the bathroom with my empty bottle of pills in hand. I flatly denied taking them. Before I could protest, the effects of the medication were already beginning to take control. Immediately, I was rushed into Patrick's car. Soon after, I found myself in the emergency room at Burgdorf Hospital. I began to stumble around in the emergency room and finally collapsed on the floor.
CHAPTER 2MINI M&MS AND EXPLANATIONS
Burgdorf hospital was buzzing that night. Kim and Patrick, my high command as I like to think of them, were quick to press the triage nurse to transfer me into a hospital bed from the ER waiting room. I was laying down on the floor of the ER with a nurse rushing over to take my vital signs. The last thing I remember before completing losing consciousness was staring at my vital signs on the monitor and watching my blood pressure and heart rate decrease and then decrease further and then everything fades. I remember that I finally passed out to the thought that this would be the last moment of my life and also the most painful. There were too many toxins in my body. I needed to be charcoaled. If I didn't get immediate medical attention, my organs would completely shut down. I suppose now, reflecting back on that nightmare, that I should not have pressed my luck wishing for worse. I woke up next to my ex at my bedside, a catheter in my penis, and my parents by the foot of my bed. I am not sure what was more painful to deal with, looking at my parents' disappointed faces that their son was in the hospital again for attempted suicide, sitting next to a girl I had just broken up with the night before, or having a tube inserted into my privates.
Thankfully, when I did come around, I noticed that Kim was outside my room. My parents went outside to greet him, thank him, and — so I assume — look for comfort. When my ex saw Kim outside with my parents, she joined them. I was left alone with the nurse who was playing around with the tube in my mouth — she told me she was going to remove the tube, a process I thought to be harmless until I realized it was connected to the catheter.
Hearing me scream, everyone looked into my room but quickly turned back to their conversations. My parents then walked into my room and told me that I was on my own now, that this was the last time they would come to New London for a psychiatric emergency. I was in too much pain to really respond or understand their feelings at the time, but I told them I understood. They left to go back home that same night while I was still in the hospital. My ex went home shortly after them with Kim, and I was left alone with my thoughts.
The following morning, the nurse and social worker came into my room and explained my status. I told them I wanted to be discharged immediately, but the social worker said she had to give me a brief psychiatric evaluation before I could leave to ensure my safety. I agreed to one because I was no stranger to psychiatry and those evaluations, and, after all, being evaluated was my ticket to getting discharged from the hospital and going back home to my friends.
I told the social worker that I had simply mixed up the sleeping pills with a container of mini M&Ms. For the first time since high school, I passed a psychiatric evaluation. If I hadn't tried to kill myself, I would have been impressed with my performance during the evaluation.
Despite running a slight fever, I discharged myself against the doctor's advice under the guise that I would see a therapist on an outpatient basis.
CHAPTER 3FROM STUDENT TO CAR SALESMAN
My ex wheeled me out of the hospital and into my Toyota Camry. We drove off listening to her music, but I was quick to put my mixtape back into the CD player. The entire ride home I was in a depressed state. Feeling a number of different emotions — guilt, shame, sadness, anxiety — I went upstairs to bed the minute I got back into my apartment. I lay in my bed for days. Back then, filled at all times and ready to go at a puff's notice, I kept a vaporizer with the best pot available in the southern tier of New York by my bedside. I vaped for days on end before finally realizing it was time to part ways with my ex forever and begin the healing process. She was toxic, and I needed to start making decisions that would impact my health in a positive and nurturing way. I needed to be able to love again, and having her at my bedside was just not working for either of us. I'll never forget the words of my ex when I dropped her off at her place on the campus of New London University for the last time: "You really are crazy, Jacques." Then, we parted ways. All of my friends who were away for winter break were starting to trickle in for the semester. Jonas and McDaggot joined Kim, Patrick, and me in the house where we all lived. And they were all upset with my behavior, but what else, I thought, is new? I would like to think that over the course of our college careers, they would eventually forget about my foolish behavior, but I knew I would be just as foolish for believing that. There was no question it was time to find a job and be productive again. So I cruised the parkway for sales jobs. I had just made a lot of money working for Sears the previous year, selling large appliances. I figured it was time to step up my game and go bigger. Much, much bigger. I would sell cars.
CHAPTER 4THE HOUSE
Running late, wearing the same clothes for two weeks on end, slightly unkempt, and hypomanic, I held down a job for a little while. I never sold one car. Every day, I would come into the sales office and gaze at the sales board where every salesman was listed along with the number of cars he or she sold that month. Next to my name was a big "0" for the tenure of my career as a salesman. But it wasn't my inability to sell a car that lost me that job. Instead, it was reenacting Hitler's last days in his bunker for the sales manager using figurines I picked up at the local Michael's store. I found myself at an exit interview not too shortly after being hired only a week earlier Without a job, doing an overabundance of cocaine, and thinking about my good friends, most of whom were getting ready for graduation, I began to get nervous. Two weeks before my friend's commencement, I went home to make the most important decision I have ever made.
I still remember knocking on my parent's door back in Wales when I told them I had something urgent to discuss. After realizing the only way I would start feeling better about my life was to take matters into my own hands, I talked about my decision to begin summer school and finally graduate from SUS New London. Before leaving for home, I spoke with an academic advisor and came to the conclusion that if I completed a full summer session, I could graduate with the last of my friends in one academic year. The plan was to live with my friends Patrick and Kim, again, my personal high command. In plain English, these were the two friends who kept me safe in times of uncertainty. I would graduate successfully with them at my side. My parents didn't agree at first, or even during the second appeal to them, but they folded in the end. To this day, I will never forget telling my mom to sign next to her credit card account number for the billing and payment for the summer session credits. I wasn't totally shocked they hesitated to send me back to New London after everything, but I was surprised that I was able to convince them to do just that. With payment for the summer credits in hand, I raced back to New London University just in time to watch my friends graduate and leave. The people I had spent my last three years with were all leaving, except for Patrick and Kim.
As the house began to empty, Patrick, Kim, and myself went to look for a new place to live, something smaller and that would accommodate just the three of us. Eventually finding a new apartment on Seminary Avenue on the west side of Liberty, we began the moving process quickly, despite not having electricity or hot water in our new place. I told Patrick I just wanted to get out of the old house and leave my memories behind. Thankfully, he agreed.
Joining us in the apartment for the summer was Cynthia, Patrick's girlfriend. She decided to spend the summer in Liberty with Patrick before graduating in the fall. Admittedly, having a female presence in the apartment instead of an all-male household gave me a feeling of family. Quite frankly, I needed that feeling after watching my parents leave me in the hospital bed and having all my other close friends jet off after graduating.
CHAPTER 5THE THERAPIST ON RECORD
Although my therapist was in Liberty, I would journey home for medication from my psychiatrist or hold our appointments over the phone. Sitting and smoking pot, watching episodes of daytime television — usually Matlock — my sessions with this psychiatrist were useless. The psychiatrist's name was Dr. S, and he was referred to me by my father, who also met with him. My therapist, however, resided on the west side of Liberty. He was a local social worker, mild-mannered and equally ineffective as my psychiatrist. Thornton was just another therapist in the long line of psychotherapists I've had since I reached adolescence. Thornton wasn't exactly a well-researched option, which might have led to how little he could help me: prior to my first appointment, I was racing through the local phone book after being discharged from Burgdorf Hospital, knowing it was a part of my discharge plan to get connected with a therapist after my suicide attempt a month earlier. The usual visit to my therapist consisted of first smoking some pot, getting a sandwich or a light lunch, and then heading over to Thornton's office. His office was on the top floor of a small professional building, and it looked more like a residence converted over to commercial use. But I couldn't complain — he helped me get discharged from Burgdorf Hospital, in a roundabout sort of way. To pay for my treatments, my parents would send Thornton checks in the mail. Thornton was never shy about reminding me or letting me know when my parents were late on a check or payment for services rendered. I tried not to let this aspect of his treatment bother me, but his behavior should have been a giant warning bell for the later phases of my treatment with him. Thornton, both as a social worker and as a clinician, let me down time and again throughout the ordeal with my mental health condition. In a review of the timeline from his initial assessment after my discharge from Burgdorf to the time my symptoms became active, his focus of treatment was so narrow it consistently missed my problems and, even worse, left me in the lurch when I really needed the help. Reviewing Thornton's clinical records, there is little documentation on symptom management and/or goals related to mapping the markers for improvement in my condition. There is also little evidence of collaboration with my prescriber, Dr. S, or any linkage to my school to discuss or monitor how events unfolding at the university were impacting my mental health. Obviously, this was a huge gap in his ability as a therapist to assess my mental status outside of the office. When a person is becoming increasingly unstable, it is vital to know how he or she is doing on a moment-by-moment basis. This is how a therapist plans for relapse and monitors further decompensation. More importantly, a review of Thornton's records reveals little to no assessment of risk, danger to self, or danger to others. While as a patient I make my own choices and must own them, the therapist must also use his or her judgment and insight to educate the patient on the implications of his actions and the risk that he or she runs when making possible life choices instead of just telling him: "Jacques, your nails appear to be very dirty." What a wonderful assessment. In a school setting and in my home life, both of which I was completely isolated in, there needed to be a greater amount of day-to-day knowledge of my behaviors and activities given the profound risk I was exposing myself to at the university and in the community. Without this information, a therapist is without the scope of the chance a person has of relapsing or decompensating.
CHAPTER 6FROM LAW TO ENGLISH MAJOR
Nobody back then, least of all me, was thinking about decompensation. I was more medically and psychiatrically compliant than ever. Before every class, I would take a dosage of medication and found myself participating in class like never before. I began to socialize with my fellow classmates more, perhaps because most of my friends graduated or because of the effect of the medication, or maybe because the therapy was actually starting to help. I do know, however, that the quality of my work improved exponentially, and I went from a student who had withdrawn from the university from acute depression to one who was seemingly fully recovered.
I received high marks that summer and began to make preparations for another successful fall semester, and it was in that summer I met Dr. G. This was when I truly fell in love with English class. To this day, I remember those English classes, especially Dr. G's literature class. All my applications to law school were in the mail. I should have been content with my goals, but I wasn't. In fact, for someone who was so close to graduating, I wasn't looking forward to the future. My connections with the English department were steadily developing, and I was beginning to get my second wind at the university, specifically within the English department.
Each day that passed meant further entrenchment in the English department. I had more students, adjuncts, and professor friends than I could count. Walking down the hallway corridor in the department, I would be stopped by either a professor or a friend in a class of mine. I felt connected to the department in an integral and intimate way, and I didn't want to leave to go to law school anymore.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "University on Watch"
by .
Copyright © 2019 J Peters.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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Table of Contents
Foreword, vii,
Introduction, ix,
Acknowledgments, xi,
One last toast with my friends, 1,
Mini M&Ms and Explanations, 3,
From Student to Car Salesman, 5,
The House, 7,
The Therapist on Record, 9,
From Law to English Major, 11,
Major statements, 13,
The Plan, 14,
Winter session, 17,
The Break During the Winter, 19,
Is Islip Burning?, 22,
The List, 24,
No Purpose, 26,
The Barracks, 27,
The knock heard around New London, 29,
The doctoral Guard, 31,
King George III and Forgiveness, 33,
Meeting the Chair, 35,
The Evaluation, 37,
Dad's Advice, 38,
Body Odor and Theories of Hygiene, 39,
The Eye Patch, 41,
Voices of Foucault, 43,
Manifest Lane Park, 45,
The Other Doctor and Her Yard, 48,
Artificial Nutrition, 50,
Language on Notice: Writing and Meaning Making, 51,
Meta-power and Transformation, 53,
The Strategist, 56,
Campus Reception, 58,
The New High Command, 62,
The CIA and Belgium Government, 64,
The Community Garden, 67,
Pass the bill, 69,
One Last Trip Home, 71,
School Psychology and the University, 76,
The Queen and Her Baby, 79,
Car Windows and Medication, 84,
Suspicious Signs, 86,
Memorial 5, 89,
The Visitors, 92,
Greater Liberty Hospital Center, 93,
On Trial, 97,
War Weary, 99,
My New Purpose, 102,
New Vistas, 105,