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SEIU Local 535 Dragon--Voice of  the Union-- American Federation of Nurses & Social Services Unioin  

Jason

May 2002

Jason had an anger problem and was in danger of being kicked out of school before he was referred to social worker Jess Moreno. He had a lot of resentment toward his mother, who was a drug addict and worked in Las Vegas. He had recently left her to live with his father in California.

“My mother was born on the streets, like me,” Jason says. “And after seeing what she was like, I didn’t want to be like that. When I was living in Las Vegas I was heavy into drugs and only went to school stoned or drunk.”

Jason was able to stop using drugs, but replaced the sense of danger and excitement by getting into fights. “I would go looking for some reason to fight to get that adrenaline rush. If someone just looked at me wrong, I would fight them.”

Moreno worked with Jason and got him into an anger management group. Jason likes the peer support. He says, “As students, we don’t like to listen to people who think they know everything. Mr. Moreno just guides us. We do all the learning from the other students’ mistakes and try not to make them ourselves. We learn to control our anger, and different ways, when we get angry, to calm ourselves down, besides alcohol and drug abuse and other things that can be harmful to us.

“I was having big problems with my father. We would get into arguments and fist fights. But after a couple of years in the group, I learned not to raise my voice and argue. He would say stuff about my friends or the people I hang out with. Now, instead of arguing like I used to, we talk to each other as human beings, not rivals. I had to make the first step, since I would start the arguments. I would raise my voice, which in turn made him raise his voice. Now I don’t raise my voice, and then if he starts yelling, I wait for him to not be able to talk any more, and then I talk.”

Jason has also learned to control his trigger points. “I can figure out when I’m getting angry. I’ll clutch my fist or start wiggling my fingers, grinding my teeth, and rolling my shoulders back. That is when I can feel that I’m getting ready to punch someone out. So now I close my eyes and put myself in a place–like when I do tai chi–I go to that place and tune out everybody around me until I’m relaxed. I know there are other options besides the one at the end of my fist. I let the other person say all they want to say, and then I can say what I want. If they don’t want to listen, then I just don’t bother.” Jason is about to graduate and has enlisted in the Navy.