Crazy School Preliminary Meeting

Part of my agreement with the court is to attend this "Batterers Treatment Counseling" or "Bridges" program for a minimum of 26 weeks and upon completion they will dismiss the charges against me.

So I make an appointment to go in for my preliminary meeting. Which consists of me sitting in a hallway filling out thousands of vaguely insulting multiple choice questionaires. I can't tell you how many different ways there are to ask you if you're an alcoholic, but I'm pretty sure that those tests covered all of them. It would go something like this

10. T/F I have many friends and form close relationships.

11. T/F I often can't make it to work because I am drunk or too hung over

12. T/F I feel that the World has caused me considerable pain and misery

13. T/F My family often accuses me of being an alcoholic

It seemed like every other question was trying to trick me into admitting I'm an alcoholic, like somehow I wouldn't answer 99 of the questions right, and then there would be that one question where they got through, like "True or False, I often fall asleep on the toilet with a bottle of Jack Daniels" and I would be like "Shit, who hasn't done that? This week." oh no, they got me!

Anyways after I fill out all the tests, I have to go in for an interview with this young woman. She asks me to tell her about myself, and all about the incident that brought me there. So I do, I tell her everything, the stuff she did to me, the stuff I did wrong, everything. I think this is going pretty well. In my head I am showing that I'm cooperative, and honest, and willing to work with the program. We talk for awhile, and it seems really casual, and at the end she's closing up and she says something about how they'll evaulate me and get back to me about which program I should be in, the 12 week, the 26 week or the 42 week program. I point out to her that the judge actually told me that I'm on a 26 maximum program, and she notes that on her forms, and then I'm on my marry way.

...the next morning

My lawyer calls me. He's upset. So he asks me in a very concerned tone "What the hell happened in there? Did you flip her off and tell her that you weren't gonna take any of her shit?" I was in shock. No, I thought it went really well, and I fill him in on everything that went down with the tests, and my interview with the girl.
Well it turns out, that apparently the head counseling guy read her notes on me and determined that I'm a "Very dangerous individual," and that I "showed sociopathic tendencies." Uhh, what? So, I'm left sitting here thinking, what the hell did I say?
I tell my sister who's a counselor about it, and my friend who is also in the counseling field, asking them for insight on what I could've done or said that gave this impression. We're all pretty confused by it. But we have our theories: either the DA (who didn't like the deal I got) gave the people over at Bridges a call and told them not to trust me or that I'm a psycho that got away with it or something. Or my personal theory that when you don't know me or my wife, and I tell you stories about things that have happened or went down, I think I might sound like a guy who's making this stuff up. It's all a little over the top, and I can see how especially in that field they get a lot of guys coming in their with some wild stories. So maybe she just assumed that I was trying to justify my being there with wild fish-stories, and put that in her notes. I'll never know for sure.

So my lawyer faxes over the judges comments about me (being basically a decent guy) and all my character statements, and his own opinoin of me. And a couple of days later, I give the head counseling guy over at Bridges a call, just to state my case.
He's nice, but really stand-offish, he's probably had to deal with a lot of weirdos calling him up on this stuff. But he explains to me that usually in such extreme circumstances, they wouldn't ever have a person in less than the 42 week program and he can't understand why I'm only doing 26 weeks. He says as long as I go along with the program, and do my assignments we shouldn't have a problem getting me out in 26 weeks or so.

At this point I want so badly to point out that the judge said "maximum of 26 weeks," but I don't want this guy thinking that I'm uncooperative or...you know a freakin' sociopath.