transition, part 11A

Melancholy:

Feeling, or making somebody feel, a thoughtful or gentle sadness.

            I am in the middle of withdrawing from over forty years of practicing, and continually trying to learn and perfect, the art and science of psychotherapy.  I use the term “withdrawing” in the medical sense, of going through a strange, physical reaction. Withdrawing from work is almost as hard as getting off of Effexor, which I believe to be an evil drug that no one is properly warned about its dangers  Except instead of sweats, trembling and nausea,  the overwhelming feeling is one of melancholy.

I am in the middle of a process that I know it is ending and I want it to end already.  I will be seventy at my next birthday.  I have been doing this for over forty years.  I still find it complex, fascinating and challenging, but once I realized I didn’t have to be doing this any more; that I didn’t have to worry about people who might get out of control, or too depressed,  or harm themselves, or flunk out of school, or get arrested, or pregnant, or too drunk, or even stabbed or shot – this is urban America after all--it just seemed as if, for the first time, I realized how much I’d been carrying around, and how exhausting it had been getting.

Saying good-bye to so many folks in so short a time has been very difficult.  I realize that some people have come to see me to get cover.  By that I mean they need a letter to get out of work, or school, or for their probation officer, or even to apply for disability benefits.  But most of the folks I see have come because they are suffering.  They suffer from psychological, emotional, and often physical pain.  They suffer because of loss, loneliness, confusion, stress, illness, and mostly because they have drawn a rotten hand to begin with.

People say that you have to play with the hand you’ve been dealt, and most of these folks have been dealt a bad hand: bad parents, bad neighborhoods, bad genes, bad illnesses, bad brains, been addicted, been too poor, or even too rich. They had to play that hand.  Getting new cards is very, very difficult.

After forty years of this I really feel that I did what I was cut out to do.  I put in a real effort.  I tried to learn my craft.  I feel I did some good, even more than that sometimes.

But I am a real child of the ‘60s.  We were going to change the world.  Make it fair, reasonable, bring justice, equality, and freedom.   And why not?  It was clear who the good guys were and what needed to be done.  Everyone around me seemed to understand that.

I guess that’s what happens when you surround yourself with people just like you.  It’s difficult to realize that the huge crowd over there, those folks jeering and throwing things, really believe that we are the ones who are wrong and crazy.

Yet, in my own, still naïve, still idealistic, still hopeful way,  I am still waiting for the answer to the obvious question: “(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding.”

Since I have not yet been given anything close to a satisfactory answer to that question, I am left, feeling

Melancholy.

Not their fault

Once again, I went away, lost focus, floated in the warm water of the deep South, just to get away from the endless sleet and cold.

I came back to the waining days of full-time practice.  These are more difficult than I had anticipated.  Forty-two years of psychotherapy, and still the world is full of troubles.  Yes, I feel I have been of some benefit to about 60% of of folks who have passed through my threshold and sat nervously telling me things they had never spoken about with anyone.  But the big picture, the changes in the structure of society that we, the idealistic children of the 60's, Peace, Love and Understanding, had hoped the world would move toward, has not happened.

Injustice, insensitivity, exploitation, still, in many cases, take over.  Even if it is a minority of the population, it is that minority that aspires to power and greed, and it makes it all so much more difficult for those who just want to live their own lives in peace and harmony.

The people I saw for treatment this week, the ones who remain as I have been winding down my caseload, are some of my favorite folks.  The folks who were dealt four cards in a game of seven-card-stud.

A woman whose mother was a prostitute and whose father was a drunk.  At the age of six she was told to "play quietly in the other room" while the men came and went. But now, sixty years later, after a long  struggle, filled with many terrible bruises and losses, she has found her way, and has learned that she can enjoy herself, her relationship and her life, despite everything that she has endured.

Another woman, also in her sixties ( so many of my patients are almost as old as I am), who has been a closet lesbian all her life.  It has made her anxious, paranoid, OCD, and ashamed. Suddenly she finds that can relax in this new world that has unexpectedly opened to her. This change is all very difficult for her, and she is amazed and mystified that maybe she has not been such a terrible freak of nature all along.

And me, just a product of my own time, place, family, subculture and genetic potential.  So I still wonder, tritely:

"What's so funny about Peace, Love and Understanding???"

Christmas Again

Christmas is rapidly fading into the darkness.  We drove around looking for lights here in colonial New England.  For the most part people are traditional, a candle (electric) in the window, with some lights, mostly white, around a tree in front.  This year Home Depot, in addition to selling those wire reindeer  must have put out strings of blue, green and purple lights, they seem to have caught on around here.

We came around a curve on one of the more traditional colonial neighborhoods and were suddenly rewarded by a four story house with what must be at least 30,000 lights.  Not just lights, characters, ornaments, shapes and trees, and the best part was that each segment blinked on and off in some kind of random, blinding pattern that added to the celebratory chaos.

A quarter of my clients spend Christmas by themselves.  Another 40% have to deal with difficult family situations, either choosing to see father or mother, or just plain old fashioned tension, due to constant criticism, rejection or something worse. But that leaves 35% who want to go home for the holiday.  They see their parents and siblings and they feel refreshed, sustained, welcome and happy.

As you may have figured out by now, I am not the biggest fan of the religious aspects of anything. But I don't want to get into that now; just ask Michelle Bachmann and think the opposite.  But I do believe that any occasion that makes people think for at least a minute about Peace, Love and Understanding is worth celebrating.

I hope everyone celebrated happily, and in their own way.  I hope everyone got what they wanted from Sanity Clause.