From Institution To Residential Living
state of Oklahoma. His parents were given no hope of his ever recovering, no hope of him ever coming
out of the hospital. He would have home visits which would be few and far apart. Life in the hospital
was not a normal one for a child, but Jean Paul did not know what a normal child life was.
Life for Jean Paul was school (if you call classes in a hospital school) and therapy. He had
some supervised playtime with the other patients. While the staff kept an eye on things, they claimed
that they could not always keep an eye out to stop the dangers. The truth is the staff just turned a blind
eye while watching the events unfold.
These events (as in an institution) would haunt Jean Paul throughout his life. Events
such as institutional homosexuality, rape, suicide, murder, and other things. Jean Paul may have been
innocent of some of the events, but they would all later on affect him in one way or another. In some
cases for now, they excited him.
There was very little time for excitement at the hospital except for maybe at night.
At night there were only two staff there. One was to watch the patients, and the other was to keep
eye on the staff watching the patients. How they missed out on the "events" going on is hard to say.
Perhaps they were too busy being entertained by the events to act upon them. They just kept their
mouths shut and cleaned up after a death, writing an incident report about it. Doing their best to keep it
out of the news, who would have a field day with it.
Jean Paul finally came to the age of twenty-one, though he still had some mental
problems, seizures, and behavioral problems, the hospital felt it was time to place him in a group home.
The group home explained to Jean Paul that he had been emancipated and most decisions were his own
now. He was given the choice of work, college, or play. Jean Paul had a thirst for knowledge, so he
chose college. The group home sent him to the Oklahoma University by day, then picked him up on
the van by evening.
At the Oklahoma University he took classes like any other student, and made sure to take
advantage of their Learning Lab. He majored in Philosophy with a minor in Ethics. He struggled with
such courses as Physics and Algebra. He would come home, watch the news, eat supper, then go to his
room and study. He would do this, Monday through Friday, he would then study on Saturday. then on
Sunday, he would go to church and come home and sleep.
This was the life for Jean Paul, but then again, being institutionalized most of his life, it was
not really a change. Then one day the house manager came to him after graduation and told him that
She did not care if he stayed in college until he had his doctorate, but they wanted to put him in a new
program called Residential Living. Which meant he would have one or more roommates or he might
live alone. Jean Paul liked this idea, it sounded like more freedom.
Jean Paul found a Residential Home he liked in Stillwater,Oklahoma. He taught a class in
Philosophy at Oklahoma State University, and took classes for his master's in Philosophy. He then
would have staff pick him up at the end of the day. All in all, things were easier for him, and he could
arrange to pick evening classes too.
Jean Paul never forgot his time spent in the hospital, nor the things he saw there. Which
could explain his phobia of males. His fear was so deep that he could not go to the bathroom when
other males were in the restroom. Jean Paul found many other problems awaited him as he reached the
road on independence.
Paul D. Eccles
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