Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com
Kelly
17 as of March 2006
A painting Kelly did of a knife, blood and tears
I haven't heard from Kelly for a long time so I am going to try to write her or have someone contact her. Last year I wrote that teens like Kelly need a friend who cares, but they also need someone who is in a position of authority to help them get out of their abusive homes and start the healing process. Since I met Ocean in person I have been thinking a lot about how people can help abused, suicidal teens, and about what kind of help they need. For now I will just say that they need not only caring friends they can talk to and caring, emotionally supportive people they can get non-sexual hugs from, but they also need something like an advocate who will follow their case through until the teen no longer needs help. As I thought about this it remintded me of Sarah W. whose counselor told her she couldn't talk to her anymore once Sarah turned 18. I wrote a little about this in my teen journal.
S Hein
August 2, 2006
The first writing I did abou Kelly
The first writing I did abou Kelly
It is really hard for me to write about Kelly right now. When I think about what has happened to her, it just hurts too much to think about it very long. I feel depressed when I think about it. But I feel an obligation to Kelly to write about her life. I hardly know where to begin so I think I will just post bits and pieces for now. It will hurt me less to do it that way. If I try to put it all together and think about the implications, it will just plain hurt too much right now.
Kelly found my website and contacted me a few months ago and we started chatting. She lives in England. She says she was sexually abused by an uncle for years. Now it sounds like she drinks alot and has gotten arrested for being drunk in public. Her own mother even called the police on her and had her arrested for "breach of the peace".
She is now living as a ward of the court in a foster home. I've seen her on a web cam twice. I could see the sadness and insecurity in her face that would come from years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
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I think I wrote this in Feb 2005
Some names her mother has called her
last night i chatted with kelly again. this time she connected her web cam. it hurts me to describe what i saw. but i will try to do it.
i saw a sensitive, fragile, intelligent young person. trapped inside a suicide producing building called her mother's house. i saw her take out her lighter, then a cigarette and start to smoke.
her mother came to her room about three times while we chatted. like nicole's mother used to do. and like nicole's mother, she swore at her. i mean the mothers swore at their daughters, not vice versa, just in case there is any confusion.
once when i was talking on the phone to nicole's mother she said, "Whoever the fuck you are talking to, go live with them."
Nicole told me her mother also gave her the finger and said, "Fuck you."
This reminds me of how I heard Sarah's father say, "I don't want to fucking deal with that shit," when I tried to talk to him one night and she tried to hand him the phone.
And how he said, "No, I'm unhappy because you never do enough work around here and all you do is occupy space." This is when Sarah had gotten what society calls "good" grades and I askd her if Mike (her legal father) was happy. So she said, "I don't know, let me ask him." And I heard his answer.
I told Sarah's school counselor, Sue Milkus or something, this. But she never got Sarah out of that house. If I had the power I would get teenagers out of homes like this immediately, before the parents could do anymore damage.
These are just three sensitive teenage females. And small parts of their stories.
Kelly lives in England. Where Steff lived. I talked to Steff's mother and father. I understand why Steff felt worthless, bad about herself and undeserving of love. I understand why she felt afraid of her parents. Her mother and father both threatened me, for example.
What kind of a society have we created? Where this kind of thing is still allowed? In South America it is still normal to hit your children and teenagers. Females here are nearly totally controllled. I am surprised the feminists have not done more to change things. But usually it is the mothers themselves who are controlling the female children and teens. The fathers are often not even physically present, let alone emotionally.
You don't have to study psychology for 4 or 5 or 6 years to see what is going on. You just have to listen to what children and teenagers tell you. You just have to open your eyes. You just have to listen to how parents talk to their children and teens. You just have to visit a few schools in a few countries.
Seeing Kelly last night has changed me somehow. I feel the change. This was the first time I talked to a suicidal teen who had a web cam. It was the first time I have seen someone hurt themselves while I talked to them. Kelly was just smoking while I was talking to her, but I am afraid she cut herself after she turned off the web cam.
I asked Kelly what she wanted from me. She said a friend. Someone to listen to her. Someone to be there through the tough times.
I cry and cry over what I see happening to sensitive, intelligent teenage females. My heart and instinct tells me to do everything I can to protect them, to rescue them. This is the natural thing for a man to do. To protect the women in society. And to protect the children. So it is only natural I would feel the need to protect the youngest females. They are the ones who will become mothers.
Kelly needs patience right now. She never got it from anyone.
Sometimes you don't understand something, but you see it. So you believe it. I don't understand exactly why children like me so much, for example. I don't really understand why they just come and hang around me like the boy who sells bread here, Pablo. He rides his bike up and just stands and wants to talk. I haven't done anything special with Pablo. I really don't know why he felt safe so quickly around me. All I can say is that children somehow can sense when someone loves them or loves children in general. It must be something instinctive. I suppose it is part of emotional intelligence. To read a person accurately. To know who is safe to be around and who is not.
But teenagers like Kelly can't choose who they are around. They are forced to live in suicide producing buildings and go to other buildings called schools where they receive painful lessons about life everyday. Where other young people attack them physically and emotionally. Where teachers threaten them and confused them about what is important and what is not. Children and teenagers know what is important for life, but teachers and school directors don't. So the most intelligeht, most sensitive, most emotionally needy teenagers don't fit in in schools. So they have no safe place to go. They have no place where they can learn about emotionally dysfunctional families.
Kelly wrote once "If I kill myself will just you move on and forget about me?"
This tells me that Kelly needs to feel important to someone. Right now she is looking to me to as a reflection of her own importance. Like when Megan used to ask me if I had written about her. We all need to feel important to someone. But Kelly feels hated by her mother. You don't hate something which is important to you. You take care of it. You treat it as something valuable.
This is why Kelly doesn't feel worthy of my time. This reminds me of Steff, who also didn't feel worthy of my time. But Kelly is more likely to kill herself than Steff. Steff is more aggressive. I am seeing that it is the less aggressive people who want to kill themselves when they are in pain. The more aggressive ones want to hurt or kill or attack someone else. This is how the survival instince works differently in different people. The suicidal people would rather stop their pain by killing themselves. The survival instinct tells them to stop their pain, this is the same as with aggressive people, but they go about it in different ways.
So today all I really want to do is help Kelly. Help her understand. Help her feel valued. Important. Special.
Kelly told me her mom bought her some CD's. This reminds me of Anna R. I think Anna told me she has 992 songs in her IPOD. So the families that can't give emotional support in England can buy their teenage daughters CD's. .
So this is how society is. We buy CD's instead of giving hugs and the teens listen to music instead of the parent's listening to the teens.
Anyhow, seeing Kelly changed me. Changed the way I think. She helped me see that I can help someone like her just by being her friend.
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Other notes on Kelly.
Says I'm sorry instead of thank you at the end of the conversation. She has always been made to feel responsible for things, so she has had to say "Sorry" over and over in her life. I would guess she has never heard her mother say "Sorry". Or if she has she could count the number of times on one hand.
Doesn't say "thank you" when I tell her she is smart. She says, "No I'm not." This is because she doesn't feel deserving of compliments.
Some names her mother has called her
bitch, cunt, salpper, cow, daft bitch, stpid, nasty, moody, lying bitch, thief