I was harassed by a 74 year old geriatric who needed a hip replacement

I can’t believe that I have an imaginary dog named Toto, and forgot that they did “Rosanna.” And in the category of weird: How can I go from being a large mammal in TLB to not even being able to find my blog? Wasn’t a large mammal–but sure photosnapped it. Was almost one. Could be called one in real life

Found it to be too thrilling. Not that I care about ranking. Am so beyond all that, yeah right…

This post is not about disparaging older people. Just one man who made my life miserable. Writing this turned out to be incredibly cathartic. There is a theory that you have no memory until you understand language and can put words in order. I think I can’t get over things until I can write about them fairly succinctly. Feel like this incident was hindering my progress and can go on now. So in love with this hypothesis, it might be my next post.

Though I begin by recapping the story, it sort of turns into the whole thing. And I’m putting it in now instead of Friday as I have no intention of reading it again.

I did write the entire story of being harassed by a 74 year old man, Dr. Gene Kravitz, a retired Latin professor, who needed a hip replacement. It was long, and I was going to divide it into two parts. When I hit “save” only the first third was saved.

I even admitted to being slightly culpable as I once went out to lunch with him. And I didn’t report him until after he repeatedly called me a seductress. He honestly believed that I had one ambition and one ambition only: To find a demented old man who was a private pay patient and seducing him into marrying me. Yes I have always been confused with a low rent Anna Nicole Smith.

To quickly recap some of the highlights as I have no intention of writing this story anytime soon: The Social Work Supervisor and the Director of Social Services soon realized that they had made a really big mistake in offering this man an internship. He had no intention of being a social worker and every intention of being strictly a therapist. He advised a resident who had a history of psychotic breaks to stop taking his meds if that’s what he wanted to do. Nobody but a doctor, a medical doctor, could make that decision, and in theory it’s a decision made with the consent and knowledge of all relevant departments.

Gene couldn’t follow simple directions or instructions. He asked me every week how to get to the IDCP meeting which was held directly over our office. As Gene had responsibilities taken away from him, and I had more added, he began to resent me even more.

I was “seducing” the residents and the staff into liking me. I reminded two thirds of the residents of their granddaughters and the other third liked the way I dressed and my manner. I have a perky but professional work face that never failed me.

Each week I was supposed to have supervision sessions for an hour. My supervisor complained about Gene and I gave her advice.

Gene became increasingly irrational; I began to cover for a social worker who was going on maternity leave and was going to take her place the next semester. Social Work isn’t brain surgery. I had been a large scale litigation support manager for over a decade and then was an SSI Claims Rep prior to going back to school. Yes I was used to getting people to do things that they might not want to do. I was used to interviewing people and finding out their needs and wants.

Social work allowed me to practice more fully what I had always loved to do. I was counseling my own supervisor, and while I would have preferred another type of learning, I realized that I was finessing my skills in a slightly unorthodox but maybe more worthwhile manner. I had to remain positive.

As I was always in the residents halls or in the social worker’s office that was soon to be mine, I only saw Gene for ten minutes in the morning in our office and at the mandatory staff lunches where we were supposed to discuss social work concepts. While nobody but the director enjoyed the lunches, Gene’s Freudian take on everything would have confused Freud. Freud, social work and a nursing home aren’t a good fit.

During those ten minutes each morning Gene would accuse me of one thing or another. No matter what the complaint was Gene would make it sexual. I couldn’t take him seriously. The man could barely walk. My day was too filled to even think about his remarks. I did finally tell my supervisor because it was inappropriate, and social work is about appropriate behavior.

Our only assignment for our social work practice class was to write a paper about a patient and her treatment. It counted for 90 percent of our grade. One paper was going to be singled out for discussion. For some insane reason known only to the irrational side of my brain I agreed to go out to lunch with Gene.

Gene told me that he was re-imagining Freud’s treatment of his patient Dora. He was sure that it was going to be the paper that was singled out as it was going to be the only truly intellectual paper. I of course was capable of nothing worth anything, except some type of seduction. I had never thought of my self as a seductress, and I have to admit, I found it funny but unsettling.

Though I would never find it funny when he told me that I was sexually aggressive and obviously desired him. He said this more than a few times. I just wasn’t into a 74 year old man with more than a few screws lose who needed a hip replacement. Once he introduced himself as Dr. Gene Kravitz, and said that I was his assistant. I corrected him.

He had almost every responsibility taken away from him.

I couldn’t understand why they kept him. They couldn’t either but they couldn’t summon the courage to get rid of him

My paper was on a resident who was resistant to living in a nursing home but had no choice. I liked the resident. She was cognitive, sharp, nasty and sarcastic. The paper took a long time and I used many references. It was of course the paper that was singled out. Gene shot me a look that could have killed, and continued to stare at me throughout the class. Everybody but the teacher noticed.

I had worked many hours the first semester and had enough to take the first week of the next semester off. I wasn’t there when Gene did something that finally drove the staff over the edge, and don’t remember what the incident was.

Though he had been kicked out of our field placement he was allowed to go to class. Before each class began he would ask who I had seduced that week. He would say other lewd and gross things. I told my adviser and my teacher both of whom asked me not to go to the school administration as they would.

Yes I should have won idiot of the year award. I finally did go to the people who were “investigating.” They told me that they needed more time as he could have a case against the school. I really didn’t care if he was kicked out of school or not, I just didn’t want him in my class.

About six weeks into the semester, a teacher and dean, a woman about my age put her arm around me and told me how I would learn so much from this experience. I finally blew up.

“Excuse me. I was stalked for over a year by a former boyfriend. What am I supposed to learn from this experience?”

She began to tell me how I would be empowered and learn to be truly free…
” Empowered? How? Free of what? Being harassed? Do you know that in New York State a woman who has been stalked perceives that she is being harassed, she has a legitimate case?” I’m still not sure if I read that or dreamed it

The Dean’s face turned red. The hearing was several days later. Though our social work practice teacher spoke for him, he was kicked out. My supervisor retired early. I really should have dropped out or transferred to an Ivy because I felt cheated.

In the preceding nine years I had learned that I had many learning disabilities and other problems, I had met my birth mother who spent the entire weekend calling me her mistake, my father had died, my mother was going totally blind, was frail, and needy. I had remained empowered through all that.