mea culpa: noche no te vayas

1, 2, 3, 4 Clearing out the old for the New.

Clearing out the old for what.

Noche no te vayas.

It is what it is.

 

White Privilege Systemic Eradication of the Other

I missed my trauma therapy appointment for the 3rd week in a row today and it’s showing through the cracks of my face, my hands, my mouth, my eyes, my voice… is cracking.

My primary diagnosis nowadays is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and so I wondered that my experienced childhood trauma has been exceeded by the adult trauma experienced living in the US as an out Gender Queer, polarized and profiled resistant, non risk averse woman of color raised on Queer Nation, ACT UP and fuck you bitch, stand beside me or step the fuck aside in yo face since my 20s.

Systemic White Privileged oppression, abuses, discrimination and hatefulness toward eradicating otherness based on race, culture, gender identity and/or presentation, color of skin and reversed discrimination of fair skinned people in a predominantly Black region (Atlanta, Georgia) pisses me off. It pisses me the fuck off, actually.

I often tell people that No, I do not believe in the premise and inherently false US Community Public Mental Health System, nor will I admit Mental Illness exists. The disease versus pussy recovery oriented system of care is the very basis of my work around behavioral health integration, mental diversity, substance use, isolationist first responder mobile crisis intervention (MH/SA) and finally, how I categorically espouse for  US Peer Workforce.

The hate I feel towards me when I walk into a predominantly white or BLACK environment in Atlanta is so thick, I can cut it with a brand new X-Acto Blade and leave marks, cuts of blood so deep it won’t bleed.

I listen to “Penthouse Floor” a lot and will rebel yell Resist, Fight, Fuck You in your face with my co-horts but to be reversed discriminated against because of my Queerness and because I’m not Black puts me into a position of being hated, feared, dismissed. My education, class, verbal upper class White Yankee, nay, Surfer Dude confuses, I admit.

We either work together against the real scourge of hate in 2017 or we don’t.

You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, either.

I dare you to walk your talk. Be transparent. Authentic. Speak your truth.

It’s now or never.

Step up or step aside.

color

The issue of color is an interesting thing to think of.

I experiment a lot with painting and while it seems as though I criss-cross with texture, oiling it up, glossily, sloppily, with slippery new paint colors, look at the above painting Triptych 1 acrylic on canvas 18 x 36″ (c) 2017 that I painted last night.

 

My early morning dialogue with Dr. Dan Fisher ended up with “dialogue” 12 x 12″ (left above) and another 3 cocks on a beach digital redux (Barnabe & Padron, (c) 2017) (right above) is filmic work.

Close Up of 3 cocks in gray on a beach shows reds, golds, whites, yellows Barnabe & Padron (c) 2017 digital work.

My first acrylic on wood “bug” (c) 2014 confirmed my like and predilection for working with wood because the surface is like hot molten volcanic lava that turns the paint into clay.

i like the color blue. it reminds me of nothing but her saying her favorite color is arctic blue like “blue triptych” acrylic on canvas 18 x 36″ Barnabe & Padron (c) 2017 digital work:

and of this same Triptych 1, is Yellow Tower (c) 2017

architecture rings true, too with more blues, greens, aquas, white and greys in “buckhead skyline and flag” photo original (c) 2016

and this dreamy atlanta skyline original photo (c) 2016

3 in red triptych (c) 2017 Triptych 1, acrylic with reds, blacks, purples, blues, yellow, green

on my Top 3 list is this study of yellows and golds and blacks and reds (c) 2015

Safekeeping

I started this blog in 2019, maybe before or after the Mary Jahntz/Joey Goodwin July-September 2019 debacle, maybe not.

So now it’s CVD19 and the time of. I’ve been thinking about “Love In the Time of Cholera” and am worried for my friends and colleagues who are front-line, first responder physicians, nurses, workers in The Front.

Were I able to, I would hold you, love you, and stand beside you.

It’s all I can to self-care, keep my own environment + clean, orderly, and closed off from most for self-preservation this morning.

I do, however, welcome you to meet me F2F on FB Messenger, Facetime, and of course di rigeur text, call.

I’m here.

it is what it is

promises made, promises broken.

stop this train

Not sure what would be better… this ultimate new freedom that I have and it feels good like when you sleep safe and sound or driving awake in the dark singing, “stop this train i wanna get off and go home again” or to be laying with my wife, in desire fully, hands and legs and fingers wrapped in on and round her.

A breathtaking (would make you wince with every deep breath) woman I once saw told me, “I just wanna wake up with my legs wrapped around my lover… fuck and wake up” and my eyes widened, “… yeah… i get that too…” I uttered, nay, whispered.

The trouble I see with this intwinement, enmeshment, wrapping up and tied up, is that there are dangers inherent in it. For one, they leave. Look at who hasn’t yet.

I’m listening. I’m about to just set fire to everything I see.

I just don’t believe anymore.

organi(zized)

In Taxi Driver, De Niro tells the woman of his fixation, “… I’m going to get ‘organzized‘ (organized) and it’s poignantly pathetic and sweet but it’s where I am tonight

I’m currently studying (Mometrix NASW and the Social Work ASWB Masters Exam Guide, 2nd Ed., A.C., 2019) for the National Association of Social Workers test and am sitting for a Pre-Test Study at Valdosta State University’s Department of Social Work coming up soon.

(And) so I am excitedly and very curiously preparing for and studying towards my weaknesses. For me, as a seasoned Certified Peer Specialist (Georgia, Texas) and Community Health Worker Promotora (Texas) with the credentials di regeur in the US for Peer Supports, my experience in mental health, substance use, integration, trauma, crisis intervention management services and now disaster & terror management is broad. My network is larger than that. All that.

If you asked me, “Why Social Work, Jen?”

Here’s the thing.

I have simply maxed out as a US Certified Peer Specialist in form, function, practice, learning, study, research, social justice action, advocacy, activist resistance in any care environment (Public/Private Community MH, SUD). I will not and I refuse to be ornamental on a triage team responding to a Suicide/Homicide Live Rescue, for example, where as the CPS on the MCST Triage Team, I am the best to handle Suicide ideation, having a plan/not having a plan, redirecting, practicing my Emotional CPR perhaps, talking Recovery and listening. As a CPS I am impotent to the Clinical meds and beds model. I’m not used. I’m paid on average $17/hr.

I will not call the PD or the Troopers or the Sheriff’s or a Judge for an Involuntary Commitment simply because a person is in the throes of despair and states intent to opt out, to complete, to leave. People resort to interesting practice when a person who is in active ideation, maybe in psychosis, has a plan, access and intent, has expressed self-harm, self loathing and/or otherly harm. Why?

I’m particularly good at working within a crisis intervention from Go to discharge and eventual reintegration into community. If the CPS in Georgia and elsewhere throughout the United States, received as a subject matter expert on MH, SUD, SI/HI, you would see more active engagement, motivation and positivity in relational outcome(s). It’s a win/win. No brainer.

I’m second semester MSW at Valdosta State University’s Department of Social Work and the toughest thing I’m facing is to know when to shut up and listen. I’m down for Christmas Break. I’ve totally gotten into preparing and studying for the actual NASW boards/test to obtain my clinical credential and endorsements in ’22.

I remain interested in crisis, trauma, suicide/homicide, live rescue, mobile crisis intervention response and supports, immigration (ICE) and now disaster and/or terror management. I am available to begin my MSW Practica this Summer 2020 and have my sights set on a few Atlanta Metro providers in the field.

I’m working on two Pre-Tests currently, writing flashcards and outlining the 27% I’m weak on. At this point, I will master the content going into my first actual NASW Pre-Test (next week-end) and see where I land on the scoreboard. Look for photos.

open door

Jen Padron

Comrades:

As America fights to figure their stuff out, I’ll be holding doors for strangers, letting people cut in front of me in traffic, saying good morning, please and thank you, keeping babies entertained in grocery lines, stopping to talk to someone who looks lonely, tipping generously, taking back someone’s shopping cart, calling you by the name on your tag, waving at police, sharing food, giving children a thumbs-up, being patient with sales clerks, smiling at passersby, and buying a stranger a cup of coffee as often as I can.

Why? Because I will not stand idly by in a world where love becomes invisible.

Join me in showing love and judging less. Find your own way to swing the pendulum in the direction of love. Be kind to a stranger today and everyday. Pay forward any kindness shown to you in the past.

Be the change!!! Be the light!!

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