struggles

I've written here before about how it is much more difficult for me, as a psychotherapist, to deal with the folks I see who are physically crumbling, hurting and in pain. I can deal with anxieties, depressions, wild ideas, bad judgment, bad behavior, as well as the lost and lonely, but the the suffering from illness, pain, especially when it is chronic and in a few cases, fatal, is the most draining for me.

Now, in my own home, my wife is dealing with a disease that is probably going to be chronic, is a long way from fatal, but is certainly life changing.  Although she has always been strong, healthy, active, alert, and for the most part living a much more correct and risk free life than I have, she has somehow contracted diabetes, in a form that seems to be a mixture of both Type 1 and Type 2.  Suddenly, from a life that was open and free flowing she has to take measurements, count carbs, and take a regimen of shots and pills that is still being calibrated.

I have no doubt that she will do all that she needs to do, and find a way to balance her life. Yet being hit with this, with really no warning or any way to anticipate that it would come, except for a sudden thirst and weight loss over a period of only a few weeks, is such a shocking smack of mortality that it has just washed me over with the sense of melancholy that comes with the realization that we are all so fragile and ephemeral.

As a husband, it is frustrating because I cannot reach in and turn her pancreas back on and drive away the virus, or toxin or whatever it is that has shut down that organ. I can only be here as best I can.

As a therapist, who works with so many other people who are suffering, and who has done so for so long a period, it seems to highlight how slow, inexact, and inefficient the process of psychotherapy is.

Since this has begun I have been more tired, and I have had to make an extra effort to be focused and attentive in my sessions.  What I see is that so many of the patients, who I have come to care so much for, really are more deeply troubled than I had wanted to see before.  Part of the way I work, which has been successful, is to regard all the people as basically able to function, and even if they are messed up I try to draw out their strengths and show them the expectation that they can improve their lives.  I am sure that this helps them reach for that too.

But when I really dig into their lives and minds I often see how difficult what they have to deal with is, and how their thinking  has been crushed by either/and emotions, family, illness, society or just bad luck.

And, as it is with my wife, all I can rally do is be there, reflect upon it, and talk to them about it.
These are not very powerful tools.

A Post about Posting

In some ways it was gratifying to see that my last post struck a nerve and was passed around a bit.  It wasn't quite "viral" but it was read by many more people than usually view my occasional thoughts.

If ever there was gong to be a critical moment in my life as a blogger that could have been it.  I should have followed up immediately with clever, insightful posting on each of the next five days, with the hope that my mumblings would become the "go to" place for psychological insight into the evolving and/or decaying state of our wired, digital, always on, always expressive society.

But I didn't.  I had a cold.  I still have a cough.  It is the holiday week so I only have to work one day of  eleven. Due to my coughing, and everyone else's illness also, we canceled our trip to the Big City, and I stayed home and read old books, old and new magazines, blogs and weird web sites.  I watched things on YouTube, I listened to things on SoundCloud, I almost caught up on my email, I watched really meaningless football and I spend some time with the grandgirls, who had been sick also.

After all of this I have come away thinking that before I say anything else; before I rush to post my brilliant insights out here in the great and ever expanding world of cyberspace, I really ought to have something unique and interesting to say.  Even then I have to make sure that I am putting it out there because I want people to read and comment on it, more than I want to become known for saying it.

Russ Douthat, one of the NYT's more conservative columnists wrote today that people should take the time to read opinions that don't agree with theirs.  They should try to understand that the opposition, no matter which side, may not be just a bunch of brainwashed nutjobs.  While I think that idea has a lot of merit, for me, at this time, I am recommending that I stop reading almost everyone.  The political noise has become deafening.  Everyone has an opinion, many people put them out there, and then even more people write mean, trite comments, dismissing what was said.

There is a constant flow of opinion, information, music, art, good and bad science, family pictures, famous people, naked celebrities, half truths, the other half of truths, ways to be creative, ways to be creative differently, ways to make money, creative ways to make money, ways to spend money, ways to stay healthy, things to eat, how to cook them, how to grow them, where to buy them.  Individually, people post about the parties they are at, the restaurants they go to, the drinks they make, the people they don't like, the pills they take, the things they buy, pictures of their kids, their plants, their private parts, on and on and on and on........

My friends and colleagues are making "apps" as I predicted they should.  One is even making the exact app that I had designed one day last summer.

Everything is in the marketing. My app, which I never actually finished, is no better or worse than her app, but if she can get it our there first and fastest, then maybe, perhaps.....

The good thing about having a cold is that I didn't feel like doing much of anything.  I just let myself stare out the window at the early setting sun and just let my mind wander, without the pressure of doing anything worthwhile, and without trying to keep up with what is going on.

What I seemed to learn from this was that things will keep going on, and on, but that they really don't seem to be going anywhere particularly quickly, except "over the fiscal cliff" which could happen because no one can make anything happen.

So, my job now is to make sure I move back a little, for a while.  I will just sit here, or walk somewhere, or play with one and two year-olds, and give my own mind a chance to clear.

I will finish Moby Dick, (only 1/3 left), listen to some Bach, and I will watch the sunset, and sometimes watch the sun rise.
Perhaps, if I gain some brilliant insight, I will write about it here.  But I don't expect brilliance, and that's OK. It's enough to be alive and getting healthy.

Happy New Year to all!

I hope all of you stay healthy,  find some peace, some prosperity, find some fulfilling activities, and enjoy being with a few people who are important to you.