Category Archives: disabilities

The Kahrmann Advocacy Center

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Some say its been a long time coming, but I’ve decided to form a not-for-profit company called The Kahrmann Advocacy Center.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is my ever-increasing awareness that grievance and complaint policies available to citizens are, in far too many cases, not worth the paper they are written on. There are some  instances where filing a grievance is tantamount to writing your concern on a piece of paper and then throwing it off a cliff. You’ll never hear from it or about it again.

Not acceptable.

All of us have a right to be who we are safely, with equality, in the world we live in. What I am talking about here is, in a word, freedom. The freedom to be who you are.

While the Kahrmann Advocacy Center may find its initial traction in the world of brain injury and the world of disability, its scope must, in the end, be universal. My dream is to see the center advocate for all those who find their rights infringed on. This includes, but is not limited to, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Gays, Lesbians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, people with disabilities, Veterans, and so forth.

In a recent speech I spoke about the importance of equal rights: “These rights – your rights – will die on the vine of hope if they are not given the water of respect and the sunlight of dignity.”

I’m hoping the Kahrmann Advocacy Center will bring a little water and sunlight to the world.

BACK ON DISABILITY: SOME REFLECTIONS

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I am going back on disability. I never wanted to say that sentence, much less write it. However, reality is a harsh master at times, and if there is one thing that has never been in the same room with bigotry, it’s reality.

Long ago, I learned that life happens to us whether we like it or not. What was it John Lennon wrote years ago? “Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.” So true.

If memory serves, I was on disability from 1985 to 1992. In 1992, after my mother committed suicide, I threw my all into getting off the disability rolls and succeeded. Although, when I told Social Security I wanted my benefits to stop I threw them into such a tizzy I began to think I’d asked them to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity by mistake.

My focus now it to do my best to make sure certain things in my life remain stable and strong: first and foremost, my sobriety (without that, all else perishes); my ability to help others by bringing them a message of hope that is based on real truths with real strategies, not just the kind of pie in the sky bullshit; my writing; and my ability to advocate for anybody who is being denied the right to be who they are safely in the world we all live in.

Human rights covers everyone and equal rights belongs to everyone – and I mean everyone: people who are gay and lesbian; people who live with disabilities; people from every religion; people who are poor; people who are rich; blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Israelis – everyone. Everyone.

You can rest assured I will keep writing too.

I am closing in on the end of my memoir and I am going to send it to some agents. If any of you can suggest a reputable one, let me know. I may well send it directly to some publishers. I’d be open to any suggestions on that front as well. I have two novels churning around and I recently decided to write a book about what it has been like to work in the field of brain injury for nearly 15 years.

I’ve gotten some interesting feedback on the book last mentioned. Some people are thrilled and some are, well, worried, and some are scared. All I can say is I have no targets. My intention is to write it honestly and, as the saying goes, let the chips fall where they may.

Like any field I suppose, the field of brain injury has some extraordinary people working in it. There are company owners and management folks who are great. There are , you may be surprised to hear, people in the government, in the regulatory agencies, who are also great.

However, there are those in the aforementioned categories that belong on the other side of the coin from great, the darker side, if you will. There are those driven by greed and the lust for power. There are others, too many others, who descend on a badly wounded population of people with the sole intent intent of controlling them and manipulating them, in some cases through intimidation, so they can keep them in their programs or in their facilities to make money off them. Sadly, many of our badly wounded in life brothers and sisters find themselves herded into socially-approved corrals where their vulnerabilities coupled with the design of these corrals makes it a near certainty their rights and dignity will be taken away. I have witnessed this and fought this and paid the price for doing so over the years. I am paying the price even today. But this is something I am willing to give my life for. And if that happens down the road, I’ll be in good company.

You need to know that while my pen fiercely abhors dishonesty and distortion, its loyalty to honesty and clarity is unflinching and ferocious. There are some in “high places” today who go through their days wedded to the sadly mistaken belief that they are invulnerable. Wrong. Remember what I said at the beginning of this essay? Reality can be a harsh master. Always it is a just master; it spares no one.

Over the years, we have all seen many of the so-called mighty toppled from toppled from their perches, their eyes glazed over with disbelief, their expressions seem to say, “How could this happen to me? I was in my impenetrable fortress?” We’ve all seen it. Their faces etches in bewilderment, shock and dismay, their tormented expressions crying out, “Poor me! Poor me!”… Oh well…

But for now, it is back onto disability for me. As time goes by the impact of the damage I live with from the shooting changes. However, there is one thing that will never change: my unflinching commitment to doing all I can to advocate for every person’s right to be who he or she is safely in the world in which we all live in.

KAHRMANN MEMOIR – CHAPTERS 1 & 2

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Chapter 1

I DON’T UNDERSTAND

I am dying on the ground bleeding to death and I don’t understand. I wasn’t bothering anybody. I was just going to work, minding my own business. I wasn’t doing anything wrong and now I’m on the ground dying.

I’m 30 years old and just a little while ago I’m walking down Bergen Street to pick up my cab from the fleet garage. I have a block and a half to go. I hear the sound of keys behind me. A hand grabs my shoulder and a kid with wild floating eyes is pointing a gun at my head and he says, “Don’t fucking move.”

I say, “I won’t,” and I look away because I don’t want him thinking I’ll remember his face.

The gun’s against my head and somebody’s behind me now going through my pockets and getting the sixty-three dollars I have to lease the cab today. I’m waiting for wild floating eyes to hit me on the head with the gun because I know he will so they can get a running head start. But he doesn’t hit me at all. He shoots me.

I’m on the ground and feel nothing neck down. Nothing. I can’t see. The top of my head feels like it’s been blown off there is so much pressure. I open my eyes and I can’t see and can’t feel and I know I’m going to die.

There’s Jennifer’s face listening to someone tell her Daddy’s dead and maybe if I can get up and die trying to get to the hospital she’ll know I didn’t give up. She’ll know I tried the best I could. I can leave her a courage note that way – if I can only get up.

A dark damp blanket tightens around me and I think of Daddy and how he died when I was fifteen so if he can go from here to there, from life to death, maybe it’s okay then. Maybe it’s not so bad dying. Now I feel less scared. Now I can see smoky light and dark images and shapes and they make little sense to me. Jesus fucking Christ I’m dying and I’m seeing a black and white movie and I don’t understand.

The smoke clears for me and I see I’m on the sidewalk on my right side. I see a tree near me.

I’m standing and I don’t remember getting up, I’m just glad I’m standing. I lift my hand to my head and blood hits my hand before it gets there. I untie my blue hooded sweatshirt around my waist and press it against my head to stop the bleeding.

Chapter 2

“OOF!”

I am six years old watching my father at his desk reading and marking college papers. He teaches English in Columbia and John Jay College for Criminal Justice. I am sitting at the foot of his twin bed because it faces his desk. He and my mother have separate rooms. They say it’s because my father snores which is true and my mother is a light sleeper which is also true.

I love watching my father work. He wears half-glasses and a draftsman’s light is clamped to his desk. Smoke from his cigarette curls like a white snake up to the light and rolls along the length of the flourescent bulb before rising up and disappearing into thin air. Behind him is a wall of books. I feel a surge of love for him, do an end run around the desk and throw my arms around him. He says, pretending I’ve knocked the wind out of him. We laugh and hold each other and then I go back to my seat on the bed and return to watching him. He returns to his papers. I run and hug him a lot like this and he always hugs me back.

I am two, three, four and I already know my parents are God. Everybody knows their parents are God. I’m on to this right from the start. My mother isn’t even looking when she catches me doing something I’m not supposed to.

She says, “I have eyes in the back of my head, young man. I do. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up too.”

I know those eyes are in the back of her head somewhere because she says she never lies so I know they’re ther. I can’t find them no matter how hard I search her graying hair, but they’re there alright.

My parents are in charge of everything, of course, because they are God. On Sunday’s we go to the Naurashaun Presbyterian Church. I don’t understand this because my parents are God and they live with me. The Reverend Bill Daniel talks about God like he is invisible or something but I’m not fooled for a minute because I have God sitting on either side of me. Why don’t they just say so? Why don’t they just admit it?