Recently in our community a debate has raged over the care and support given to people who are struggling with mental health issues. It is not a new discussion; but it has taken on added intensity with the recent public awareness of the tragic deaths of mental health patients who have not been able to find their way to a place of wellbeing.
Those who feel let down by the care they or their family members have received, suggest that the system has failed them. The argument seems to be that the system has an answer but through inefficiency, stinginess, or simply lack of goodwill the system refuses to provide the treatment that could save those who are desperately in need.
The premise is questionable. The problem is not system failure. The problem is that the system does not have the answer. Mental health issues are incredibly complex because they are human issues. We humans are deeply mysterious beings. We cannot be summed up by any one view of the world. There is no single answer that fits every human being or that can be applied in the same way to every human situation. No one solution is adequate to explain or prescribe a solution for the variety of challenges we humans confront.
When we speak about mental health issues, we are talking about medical scientific issues. Our brains are made up of chemicals and electrical impulses. Like any animal, we humans are biological entities. But we are not merely mechanical, physiological creatures capable of being summed up by a materialistic worldview. We are much more than science alone has ever been capable of dreaming.
We are a product of our genetic inheritance, our childhood experiences and our family upbringing. We are affected by the things we eat, by the environment in which we live, and by the social policies of our government. Some of us suffer the devastating emotional effects of allergic reactions and mysterious misunderstood physical ailments. We may suffer from past trauma, present addictions, or lack of adequate dietary nutrition. We are shaped by our own complex personal make-up and by the unique way we have developed of processing our world. All these factors are thrown togeether into an uneasy mix with the consequences of the personal choices we have made throughout our lives.
It is a puzzling stew, incapable of tidy summary by any human system of thought or analysis.
Beyond this complex mix of factors, as much as some may choose to deny it, we are also spiritual beings. We are responsive to a deeper impulse of mystery that no system can ever adequately explain or single theory hope to contain.
There is a dimension of what constitutes a human that cannot be captured by materialistic science, intellectual psychology, academic philosophical, or sociological constructs. At the heart of what it means to be human lies a deep impenetrable mystery that reaches out beyond the physical realm into the unknown reality that has haunted the human part of creation since at least the beginning of recorded human interaction with the world. There is beauty, truth, and nobility at the heart of what makes us human that transcends our cognitive experience of life.
Mental health issues will never be adequately addressed until every dimension of what it means to be human is taken into consideration. Any system that refuses to take seriously the totality of what constitutes a human being is doomed to failure in dealing with the painful struggles that are an inevitable part of the human condition in this difficult world.
In a 1996 interview David Foster Wallace who committed suicide two years ago, spoke of his own psychic struggles saying
it may be what in the old days was called a spiritual crisis or whatever. It’s just feeling as though the entire axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion.
Tragically for Wallace “spirituality” was something for “the old days.” He had no hope in anything beyond himself. When his art failed him, the medical system failed him, success failed him, and even human relationships did not provide adequate motivation to continue bearing the pain of life, there was nothing left to keep David Foster Wallace from hanging himself.
But suicide is not primarily a system failure. Suicide is a failure of the imagination. People die when they can no longer picture a life different than their bleak experience of unrelenting pain. When our vision of what it truly means to be human is impoverished, we are unable to create adequate responses to the tragic realities of the human condition.
There is no path to health that intentionally bypasses an essential component of our human nature. For certain people of a tender introspective disposition, there is just nothing in the external world that has the power to sustain them in the difficult task of living. They need to be pointed to something deeper. They need to be guided into communion with the Mystery of life to which all spiritual traditions direct our attention and which we neglect at our peril.
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June 25, 2010 at 7:22 am
Jaqueline
It is important for all of us to develop our relationship with spirit, with that deeper reality. However there IS a system failure and to say that that has nothing to do with the plight of the mentally ill, I can’t help but feel is letting those with the ability to help off the hook.
A system reflects the society that have formed it and if it fails it is because people have failed: a failure of compassion, of imagination, of responsibility.
We cannot rely on personal spirituality to let us off the hook of our public responsibility. Relying on personal spirituality to be the answer for all in a broken world is as much a mistake as relying on a system to have all the answers. We hear about personal spirituality ‘bubbling up’ and affecting the world. Perhaps we should take care that that does not become personal sprituality’s mantra, just as ‘trickle down ‘ has become our world’s economy’s mantra.
Where exactly does it ‘bubble up’? Spirituality is proven in it’s ability to love others in practical and compassionate ways. The story of the sheep and the goats ought to have made this plain by now.
It will not do for us to look at someone on the side of the road with broken legs and not offer them help or say it is a failure of imagination or a relationship with spirit that that person cannot walk.
Tender introspective individuals have as much need and right to have a world in which they can function as the more rowdy, forceful types. Those of us who see this and can speak up ought to.
( And rowdy types need the spirit as much as anyone else.)
June 25, 2010 at 8:34 am
Jaqueline
Not known for my personal reticence, I will venture with my own experience:
My family has had first hand experience with system help and failure for mental illness. But our experience with our very damaged dad has left it’s mark on me.
Not until recently (the last 4 years) have I understood that what I have been struggling with all my life is form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, quite probably Complex ptsd or else DESNOS ( disorder of extreme stress not otherwise specified ). It has only recently ( since 1994) been proposed as a condition by Judith Hermann.
Understandably because of the witness of my dad’s experience I have never sought help from Mental Health as an institution, but have struggled and healed damage with the help of fine counselling and most certainly spirituality and faith in Christ, which has had to prove itself or I do not think I would be reasonably healthy today.
It has especially affected my ability to be in a sustained intimate relationship, and my ability to enter into a sustained course of study..both producing a level of stress that have to date been too much for me, a cause of real sorrow and frustration, because I would be really, really, good at at least one of these otherwise, let alone allow me to alleviate the lifelong embarrassment and criticism of being a gifted ‘under-achiever’.
Recently I was encouraged to seek an official diagnosis, so that I could be provided the proper support at University. I was overjoyed at this renewed hope of being able to fulfill a lifelong yearning and move forward with my life, and plucked up the courage to approach Mental Health, only to be told after assessment that they could not help me “because you have recovered too much”. I did not know whether to rejoice at the good news of recovery or weep bitterly .
Without help I cannot move beyond where I am in terms of education, relationship or material support and security. How is it that anyone can be expected to do the hard hard work that it takes to become well and overcome their challenges if at the other end there is no help to be able to walk successfully in the ‘normal’ world?
Just imagine if there was help for me? What a contribution to people’s lives I could make if I could get my own degree in psychology, and contribute to our understanding of trauma and recovery from the INSIDE of the experience?
And that is MY story, someone who is doing reasonably well having grown up with and struggling with the effects of broken mental health. I can’t imagine the wide open fissures and cracks that others have fallen through.
Spirituality, the faithfulness of Christ has helped and sustained me all my life, and it is to that I must to turn again even more fully if I am to walk this road further, that somehow I will be sustained still. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot wish and hope that there will be some systematic, societal help for those of us who have walked or are still walking that hard road.
June 25, 2010 at 9:22 am
Rob H
Quote: ” But that doesn’t mean that I cannot wish and hope that there will be some systematic, societal help for those of us who have walked or are still walking that hard road. ”
Jaqueline’s contribution per her above quote is valid and incorporates the need for our spiritual life and the access to the gifts that God has given various folks in the medical field.
In her post she also reflects a very knowledgeable;e and caring person who each day struggles with issues the vast majority of us do not know. It is great that she sees Christ within her.
In BC, we have failed in providing basic needs for folks who need that support and leaving them on the street without support until they have a crisis is not the answer.
Sure, in some cases a medical prescription helps but it is people to guide one when they are in deep turmoil and a spiritual comfort is the overall protection.
We are so limited in our resources that we turn people away because w have now made a new definition of what is critical while before we would have had a boarder scope of care.
June 25, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Jaqueline
” we turn people away because we have now made a new definition of what is critical while before we would have had a broader scope of care.”
The irony of my experience is that when I asked ” how can I move forward ?” it was suggested that perhaps I could enrol in Uni and see if I become ‘symptomatic’ and then I could have help made available to me. Having negotiated that gauntlet of starting school and breaking and then the painful process of putting myself back together many times I don’t know that it is a risk I am willing to take.
June 26, 2010 at 10:08 am
Jaqueline
sorry my above comment is meant to illucidate the ‘crisis model’. I wanted help so that the activity and intensity of study would not have the adverse affect on me as it has in the past…but help could not be offered unless I was in crisis ( at which point I couldn’t study anyway!)
June 25, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Lindsay
Hi Jacqueline,
Perhaps if I can suggest another way of looking at it? ….
Having read some of your posts, I get the sense that you are well on your way to being a counsellor – psychologist, if you are not already there. There’s nothing you can learn at university that can surpass the knowledge you already have … that’s already part of who you are … and in relationship to the people around you …. both past and present.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your internal need to complete your university degree. I understand why it’s important for you to have a degree to work in your field. I just hope you don’t lose sight of what your degree represents (not the degree itself), and how far you have already come.
The way I see it, the irony of your experience is that it’s your painful experience itself which is preparing you to be the phenomenon psychologist you already are. The breaking and painful process of putting yourself back together many times is preparing you for what might be your vocation in a way that no amount of book learning can.
May I suggest that perhaps instead of balking at what could be another crisis, that you embrace it completely. Take the risk. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Don’t try to run the whole distance in one sprint. Take your time. Enjoy the journey along the way. Relish the detours. Let the future take care of itself. The future will inevitably turn out to be whatever it will be. Relax and enjoy each crisis. Welcome the pain and despair you might feel, when it happens to come along again, as you would welcome any other long-time old familiar acquaintance. It is a gift.
June 26, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Jaqueline
The tenderness of your words Lindsay, is palpable and yours and Robs words are soothing after choosing to be more public with this.
However I did write ” those who see it and can speak up ought to” and I felt I should put my money where my mouth is. There is a piece to this that is little understood though, which I hope to explain with hopefully a not too unwelcome extra comment.
One of the more difficult things to understand about “what is wrong with me” was that it is in essence an invisible disability, as Romeo Dallaire puts it, it is an injury to the brain as much as losing a limb is or worse. Judith Herman describes in her book Trauma and Recovery, the process of the brain rearranging itself. I have been ‘lucky’ enough to have found a way to some degree of healing. Hermann however warns we cannot tell those who have recovered that the symptoms of any sort of PTSD will not return, enough stress will trigger recurrence.
Which explains why no matter how much pain I bore and drew close, how much healing of hurts worked through, when I came to a place of feeling confident enough to excercise my primary gifts, intellectual, artistic or musical, and encountered pressure that others would endure and perhaps push through, I would end up in difficulty.
I am most reluctant to again put myself in a high risk situation without support. If my legs were damaged, there would be no doubt that I would need a wheel chair but it is too easy to wonder about people like me and think it is laziness or lack of determination or courage that holds them back. Sadly I am not alone.
Many children have been damaged severely and no one can tell because they look intact. Photos from childhood do not convey the damage behind sweet little faces, we see problem behaviour or we don’t see brokenness until children become teens and young adults and then we call them ‘problems’ and or ‘losers’ or worse.We hear time to time about people from terrible backgrounds becoming stars..but we have to be careful about making rules from exceptions. As they age, many more wonder what must be wrong with them that they ‘can’t get it together’.
So what to do?
I prayed once “Lord how do I explain the effects of childhood trauma to others?”, a little girl was playing with pencils beside me when I prayed this.
She dropped the pencils on the floor and I said ” Sweetie, you have to be very careful with pencils, you cannot be rough with them. They will break.” She, of course, looks at the pencils and sees them intact.
“They break on the inside and you won’t be able to tell until you want to draw with them” With many children we cannot see they are broken until they try to make their mark on life. I realised my question had its reply.
“OK that explains it but where does that leave me?” I asked, and then what came to mind was this: “Learn to draw with the broken pieces”.
I do hope that that means I might make something beautiful and that that something might , somehow, be of help .
June 25, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Rob H
Well said Lindsay, your thoughts were part of my original thinking but you express it much better. Jacqueline with her faith doe shave control and can walk with that strength.
tc
June 25, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Rob H
spelling muck…
” doe shave control and can walk with that strength’ is actually
s/b “does have control and can walk with that strength”
cheers
June 26, 2010 at 10:29 am
Lindsay
Yes, absolutely. Thanks Rob …
Jacqueline, sorry, I tend to get a bit more wordy than Rob. What Rob is saying is fundamental … because you have faith you can trust you’re not alone. Even when it feels that everyone and every institution has failed you, and you don’t have any strength left in you to carry on your own, angels appear in the most delightful and unexpected ways … often so quietly and so naturally that you might not even notice them at first … and they will bring you what you need … you don’t have to do anything except wait for them and watch for them. These are precious moments.
I realize I’m probably telling you stuff you already know, but don’t you find it’s the coolest thing when it happens! I suspect the angels appear more often on the detours, don’t you find?
June 26, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Jaqueline
oops Lindsay, I was working on a reply to your earlier post and if I had seen this post would perhaps have posted it here….*smile*
Anyway perhaps enough for now? Thank you Christopher for allowing conversation.
June 27, 2010 at 1:46 am
Lindsay
Yes, thank-you Christopher for allowing conversation …
Jacqueline, I saw your post mid-stream and your subsequent post at the end there … I want you to know I really appreciate your courage to be able to talk about your own experience.
Yes, I agree, one of the problems with invisible or newly diagnosed conditions is limited public knowledge. So much explaining and education has happen before others can understand what makes people like us tick. More so, when we seem to function, and actually do function “normally”, for a while, only to have the same condition emerge again. What makes these challenges doubly difficult, is not only having to deal (again) with our own loss of function and the loss of self esteem that invariably goes along with it, but also having the humiliating experience of having to explain all over again to the people around us what is happening to us, in order to get the assistance we need. Sometimes it’s hard enough to understand it ourselves. And then there’s the risk of being externally labelled entirely by our condition, instead of just one part of the many, many parts, that makes us who we are, and the danger that we start to believe this ourselves and allow ourselves to become victims of those same labels.
>>If my legs were damaged, there would be no doubt that I would need a wheel chair but it is too easy to wonder about people like me and think it is laziness or lack of determination or courage that holds them back. Sadly I am not alone.<<
Jacqueline, it seems to me you are blessed to have the words, motivation, self-knowledge, courage to be able to explain what it means to have a condition such as yours. It seems to me it is important that people such as yourself do talk out, not just for your own sake to get the assistance your need yourself but also for many who do suffer silently and live in smaller boxes rather than risk being noticed or labelled as different or in any way inferior.
I have a question which perhaps you might be able to answer … why is it, do you think, that we often start to relapse when we reach a new plateau of sorts, ie. when we are at our most on top of it and when things are really going well for us? I wonder sometimes if, perhaps, we are more afraid of being 'normal' and 'happy' than we are of being victims of our affliction. That sounds weird as I write it … the words aren't quite right … but I'll leave them there for now and hope that you can figure out what I'm trying to ask.
June 27, 2010 at 1:56 am
Lindsay
Actually, on second thoughts, having just reread what I wrote, can you please ignore my last paragraph … it doesn’t explain what I’m trying to ask. It’s really just a question for myself. I’d delete it but it’s gone off into cyberspace and I don’t know how to undo what I wrote.
June 27, 2010 at 7:46 am
Rob H
Hello Lindsay,
Just send an email to Christopher and request he adjust your post.
Sometimes as most of us at times have some hidden injury spiritual or physical we do not know when we have been cured. This means we do not leave the place we were at which is why we need a good support crew or person around us to remind us that the physician said you were fine or what ever now has changed.
I can remember people treated you differently to some degree when you had a broken wrist or a kidney ailment and were on the prayer list.
Which is natural as we are seeing people..
June 27, 2010 at 8:24 am
Jaqueline
“I have a question which perhaps you might be able to answer … why is it, do you think, that we often start to relapse when we reach a new plateau of sorts, ie. when we are at our most on top of it and when things are really going well for us? I wonder sometimes if, perhaps, we are more afraid of being ‘normal’ and ‘happy’ than we are of being victims of our affliction.”
A ggod question! I would ask the same questions and wonder the same things about myself…
But look it: occasionally a diabetic will black out, we don’t ask that question do we? Or epilepsy floors us, no matter how well we are doing. From what I understand, if someone is able to ‘reach a plateau’ they are not willing to be defined by their affliction, they are doing everything in their power to be well. And add to that choosing to get up and try the climb again, no matter how many times you fall on your face means someone is very determined indeed. Relapse is not due to that person’s love of misery.
“>>If my legs were damaged, there would be no doubt that I would need a wheel chair but it is too easy to wonder about people like me and think it is laziness or lack of determination or courage that holds them back. Sadly I am not alone.<< we could add to it: lack of faith, wanting to remain a victim, loving their affliction, fear of normal, whatever.
It might be seen like this: a person in a wheel chair being determined to walk strengthening their muscles enough to be able to stand, then thinking" I can run now!!!" and then trying to run and falling over wondering if, because they can't run they indeed prefer to be stationary. But give that person a wheel chair and see them go!!!
June 27, 2010 at 8:43 am
Jaqueline
oops “a person in a wheel chair being determined to walk strengthening their muscles enough to be able to stand” should read ” a person with damaged legs….
June 27, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Rob H
In my case I have a couple of Chronic health issues, all of them just happened and not due to some form of self abuse where I over indulged or smoked or what ever.
As each one happened , I asked for prayer while I tried to understand and work with the medical community. What I realized in some cases was I now had to change and adjust such that I was on an injection for rest of my life.
In another case I could be dead in the worst progression of the illness a few years from now or my body would adjust to the new regime of lets try this medicine. An then we just have simple aging , things change.
In all of this when I looked around my decision was this could have been worst , look at the other person who lives with some lack of whatever for the rest of their life.
I’ve made some changes, know my limitations, people cannot see but who cares. It is my life and I do have support and love from various good humans and from my church.
So, I do have a plateau and it moves up and down, more up than down so enjoy be true to yourself.
Cheers
June 27, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Lindsay
Hi Rob,
I didn’t see your post before I clicked the submit of mine … guess I took a long time to submit and you posted in between. Sorry ’bout that. Just want you to know I’ve read your post here, and also your post in Christopher’s blog on ‘Success’. What’s happening to you sucks, no doubt about it, and it doesn’t seem fair that you should have to deal with the chronic illness you have. I guess “life isn’t fair”, “it is what it is”, “we all have challenges to deal with”, etc, etc. But I want you to know, your perspective is inspiring. And I thank-you for being there, and that our paths crossed again, albeit in a different setting
Lindsay
June 27, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Rob H
Lindsay,
Thank you for your thoughts. Overall I`m fine , it is just the thoughts you go through when things change.
Really enjoyed your post about your eye condition and could not stop myself from chuckling about the reactions from your sons and the class room situation. Sorry about that
How do you handle work,,…
Cheers
June 27, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Lindsay
Hi Jacqueline,
Something happened to me recently which I found amusing. There was a time when I might have been mortified. I don’t know how it relates to anything we’ve been talking about, but for me there is a part ‘lesson’ somewhere in there, I just don’t know what part … yet.
First maybe a bit of background … I have an eye condition called kerataconus… basically what happens for many kerataonus people is that round the age of 17 years old the corneas start to become elastic and instead of retaining their ‘perfect’ convex shape start to slide downwards. If you think of really bad astigmatisim, it’s something along those lines. The effect of this is that light coming into the eyes which makes it possible to see clearly becomes refracted in all directions, and we see double, triple … I once counted 5 images of one thing. So… quite literally, we don’t see what other people see. It makes for an life interesting life at times.
The amazing thing about all the research related to eyes that’s happening worldwide is there is a simple ‘fix’ … which allows many of us to function ‘normally’, ie. hard contact lenses. The thing with hard contact lenses is it doesn’t just hold the shape of the cornea, but it allows the tears fluid behind the lense to form a secondary lense, directing the light to enable clearer, albeit not perfect, vision. As with many fixes and life changes the lenses continually need to be adjusted and there is a price to pay in terms of scarring that invariably happens on the cornea caused by the lenses itself. Those of us who are fortunate can get through reasonably well with hard contact lenses and minimal scarring. Those of us who don’t, have the option of perhaps having a cornea transplant …. which is weird in itself … imagine looking at the world through someone else’s eyes And of course, there’s no guarantee the condition won’t come back, even with someone else’s eyes.
Now, I’ve had this condition for a very long time. I accepted my rather distorted view of the world a long time ago … there are some ‘normal’ things I don’t do … for example I don’t drive and I have to be careful at night because my night vision sucks. My condition was diagnosed when I was about 23 years old, so after 6 years of constant problems and lense fitting I finally had a name I could put to it, and a way I could explain it to myself and others. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve explained to people that wearing glasses doesn’t help and when I’m wearing glasses it usually a good indication that I cannot see. Perhaps similar to your example of sitting in a wheel chair…. at least if I were sitting in a wheelchair the significance would be a bit more obvious.
Anyway, so far so good. Then a good 10 months ago I started having problems with my vision again… I ignored it as long as I could, as usual, making minor adjustments to my life to compensate … until I started getting scratches on my corneas again … and had to do something about it … ie. go see my wonderful eye doctor who has infinite patience and expertise and is helping me to sort it out. Because I’ve had it so long I know the drill .. a new challenge this time round is when I started encountering new flavours of the same problem, and couldn’t really make adjustments myself.
My amusement was caused when one the many crutches I relied on didn’t work so well anymore. My son plays baseball. Now that he is growing up and getting taller, I can’t recognize him from his physical shape/deportment as easily from a crowd of boys his own age as I could before. When I go to watch him play, I don’t know if the kid I’m quietly cheering on is my own son or someone else’s. I can’t point out my son to all the other proud parents at the game. It’s kinda funny when I’m asked and have to acknowledge that I don’t know my own son.
About 3 months ago I needed to pick my son up from school for a dental appointment. I went to his classroom door resolved to quietly fetch him from the classroom with minimal disruption to the class and minimal embarrassment to my son. The problem was that when I got to the classroom door I couldn’t see my son. By process of elimination, as usual, I figured out that the people wearing pink or with different skin tones, hair colour, different heights, different deportment etc. were not my son, and so ended up with the one most likely candidate sitting at the far end of the classroom. I waited patiently for him to look up from his work, and when he did I waved up him and gestured for him to come .. as we had to go. He looked at me a second or two and then quickly put his head down again and tried to continue with his work. I figured he had some work to finish off but was also thinking we had to go. We couldn’t be late for our appointment. When my son looked up again I gestured again, this time a bit more wildly, trying to express to him some sense of urgency. My poor son looked at me … a few more seconds this time and continued to work at his desk, he looked at me a few more times, each time quickly looking down at his books again.
It was only when another boy in the class, a tall thin dark haired fellow recognized me as belonging to my son, that he called out to my son hidden at the back of the classroom huddled in a group of kids … that the penny dropped for me.
My son came to me beaming with a big old grin on his face. I told him what had happened … he thought it was funny. It turned out the boy I’d been waving to was a friend of his whom I’d been hoping to meet for a while. I begged my somto explain to his friend that I wasn’t some kind of weird woman who made a habit of waving at strange kids in classrooms. I am weird .. yes … but not that wierd. He teased me that he would tell his friend that I’m every bit as as weird as I appeared .. we laughed about it.
There have been many incidents like this … my brain interprets things I see in a different way … I was in an airport with my family and feeling hungry. I kept looking longingly at the baskets of fresh bread rolls in the chocolate shop over the way … trying to get my oldest son to go over to find out how much they would cost … we had limited foreign currency left over from our trip. I eventually gave up and went over myself, only to find out the delicious baskets of breadrolls were in fact all fluffy teddy bears … cute but not very nourishing. When I came back to my son and told him what had happened he rolled his eyes and shook his head. I asked him if I often talked about weird things and if that might be why he was ignoring me. The answer was something along the lines of yes … now leave me alone … he is a teenager and as anyone with teenagers knows, common teen speak. Not a problem … I did my usual I need attention routine. This time, because I was standing right in front of him … he is very tall and I’m quite a bit shorter … when I started waving my arms about … calling up to him … asking him to look down .. , he broke into a grin, shook his head, and went to sit down with a book. A common everyday incident, but tickling in a warm funny way. I love these moments!
Ah, Jacqueline, this is turning into a long story, but if you can bear with me just a bit longer…
Because my eyes are in a state of transition, there are some days when I can see very well and some days when I don’t see very well. I’ve gotten used to that … it is what it is … but what I found interesting was when I went to doctor and got a really good lense for my right eye, I could see very clearly.
Afterwards, when I was relating what had happened to my colleague, a good and long-suffering friend, he asked me if I experienced that surprising moment that one gets when given a new pair of eyeglasses and suddenly being able to see again. His questions was a good one, and it puzzled me that I’d taken my being able to see again, albeit for a short moment, for granted. The question lingered on .. while I tried to figure out why it was that I didn’t have that sensation. While waiting for the bus outside i took a good look around and noticed things I hadn’t been able to see. When the bus came round the corner I realised I could actually see the number on the front of the bus.
The question I kept asking was … what happened to cause this phenomenon that even when I was given the ability to see clearly, albeit for a short time, that I didn’t.
The conclusion that I came to was this … my brain had gotten so used to reinterpreting what I actually perceived in order to make it possible for me to function relatively ‘normally’ in the outside world. When I could actually see clearly, my brain didn’t trust what my eyes could see. I’d relied on my crutches so long, and kept my head down for so long, that I had essentially forgotten how to hold my head up to take a good look at how things really are, including even the simple things like the leaves on the trees, the shape of the bark, the signpost over the road, the dirt on the pavement.
I figure there might a broader lesson in there somewhere … my question from yesterday and yours and Rob’s responses, … I’m not ignoring both of your very kind responses….and Christopher, what you wrote in your blog today about “Success” could perhaps be related … I need to throw it all into the pot and let it brew for a while …
June 27, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Lindsay
Rob,
I tried to reply in-stream, but there’s no reply button up there … I guess we can’t go more than 3 levels down in reply … so posting a response here … My apologies Jacqueline and Christopher, if I hijack this space for a bit … Rob and I need to catch up a bit …
>> Thank you for your thoughts. Overall Im fine , it is just the thoughts you go through when things change.
Really enjoyed your post about your eye condition and could not stop myself from chuckling about the reactions from your sons and the class room situation. Sorry about that<>How do you handle work,,…<<
Work has been a bit more of a challenge lately … don't want to say it too loudly 'cos up to recently I've been able to fly under the radar … lately I've had a few more problems than usual. Like reading large volumes of data or text on the screen can be a challenge. I used to be able to speedread all the time but now I have to slow down and block each paragraph while I'm going along 'cos it seems I can read the left side or the right side but struggle to read across the screen. It affected my productivity quite a bit. My bosses put it down to being too detailed. I'm not sure if it was related to my eyesight or something to do with my brain from the stuff that happened when I stopped sleeping, focussing, etc which was also when I stopped reading books etc. My doc reckons we'll focus on the eyes first. For the most part I'm getting kinda used to it, and keep trying to figure out new ways to do things. I've had to be a bit more vocal about my eye problems at work recently though. I now have a bigger monitor at work. Last week we had people out from the UK doing training I kept my dark glasses handy when my eyes started taking strain.
The really neat thing about the training is it's in data analysis … what I've been wanting to do all these years. Not everyone's idea of a good time, but exactly what I'm made to do … love trying to make sense of those details!!! Dana made me laugh 'cos she saw the irony … I went to the UK to try to get the data mining training – didn't happen so now the UK is coming to me instead … cool eh! I didn't realize the coincidence until she said it … I sense the Big Guy's hand in this … He's sure got a sense of humour
How's your work going? Are you still working … is it 17 hours a week?