How to Save a Life- Part Two

Terrorists from Pakistan attacked institutions, innocent people, in Mumbai last November; a group of about sixty armed Muslims (please read comments, no disrespect here to the entire family of Muslims), ready to die to make a statement, responsible for at least eighty deaths, more than 250 injured.

Not that I want to dwell on suicide and death, it is not the winter upper you're looking for. But we need to build a little on that last post, How to Save a Life.

I don't know if you noticed, but that one bled values. Not that that's bad, having values, in fact, the National Association of Social Workers has a code of ethics that uses the word repeatedly, values, and the American Psychological Association's code implies them, standards, beneficience, fidelity and responsibility. The American Psychiatric Association piggy backs on the American Medical Association, and you know doctors tend to be death-avoidant.

We're talking about saving lives, here, on this blog, in a society in which suicide is endemic, becoming more and more prevalent. And that salve, hope, although presidential rhetoric aspires to make it so, (thanks Star Trek, Next Generation), is sorely lacking. It's missing from among the poor, and the rich, as well.

Lost millions, to many something new, is lost identity. Lost jobs, lost identity. At least a piece of identity, self, is lost. Hard to stay hopeful, so confused, rudderless. For many hard-working people, the tagline might be, I am my money. If I'm doing well, I'm well. If I'm not, I'm not.

Tear money away, for the first time, from the identity of an income-earning adult, and you have an uncharted psyche. It's like being sixteen again. Who am I?

And that's fine, in fact we can all appreciate a make-over, it could do us all a world of good to redefine ourselves, reassess who we are and what we should be. Can be. But if other plates aren't twirling well, if the marriage has gone south, and the kids are using drugs, if your mother's been diagnosed with something you can't pronounce, and your dog just bit the neighbor, then not having money can be the stress that tips you over. Bring out the Puffs* about now, for sure.

I made a bad joke yesterday, forgive me, please, but I meant it, sort of, really wondered. Upon hearing that Japan is officially in a recession, I asked FD, "Does this mean that hari kari will go up in that country?"

Bad taste, he said with his eyes. And he's right. But I'm really worried about this trend, in general, the value on life disappearing in society. Life is less meaningful for so many when times are tough, and we are in an international recession. And our safety, our physical security is not even an assumption anymore, hasn't been, some say, since September 11, 2001, the day that terrorists declared war on the West, The Enemy, and smashed flying machines into buildings in New York City and Washington D.C.

The West is the enemy for terrorist suicidists (my new word of the year, people who encourage others or believe in the benefit of suicide, the right to take one's life, although maybe euthanasia applies). Those who see Western values as evil focus on our lack of modesty and promiscuity, as if these are only Western phenomena. We don't redistribute wealth as perhaps a communist society might. Or a king. A king? Or perhaps a benevolent dictator. (Someone stop this rant)

I don't know about you, but the other day a young man came to my door asking for money for Save the Children, an international cause. I get solicited quite regularly and give what I can. From the look of the pages of names on his clipboard, am apparently not alone.

Until recently, it is true, The West represented affluence, good health, the good life. And America, especially, is a country that defines itself with wonderful things, but these things include individual rights, freedoms, and a system of government that has functioned relatively well for over two centuries. The system shows signs of wear, but it is running better than ever.

The greatest country in the world, we used to say when I was a child, and if you listened to President Obama's speech on Wednesday night, still believe.

We will all cut back. We'll get by.
Someone said to me this week, "I can stay in denial for just so long, and then. . . reality sets in."

And I had to respond, "You can grieve what you've lost, that's fine. But it's what you have that matters."

If we define ourselves by our affluence, what are we? And if a nation defines itself this way, as some, apparently believe is true of America, and affluence disappears, then happiness does, as well.

But any mental health professional will tell you that mental health depends upon much more than money. We can't obsess on this. And America's future, in particular should be bright, has to be, because this country is not about affluence, it is about opportunity.

And we have enviable, unbelievably enviable rights.

These rights make us happy, too. Suicide isn't included as one of them, but freedoms of speech and religion, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we take these for granted. They're in the "have" list.

The terrorist approach to Western ideals seems to be: Destroy people who express themselves (the entertainment industry, especially); destroy yourself if necessary to destroy others; nuke America, if at all possible, and by all means, while you're at it, destroy that Zionist state, too. I think the idea is that if some people have to be poor, others have to suffer. A good society suffers together.

Not so different from holding a friend's hand, as we discussed in the How to Save a Life post, or is it? Oh yes, it's much different.

Those of you who saw Slum Dog Millionaire saw hundreds of poor people in the streets of India, barefoot, hungry, wet from the rain, homeless. And yet India is not a hotbed of terrorism, indeed the country suffered a hit in Mumbai. Osama bin Laudin has not got a grip on India or its people, probably because there is meaning in life in that country. Meaning and a search for harmony that is not about having money or being angry if you don't have it. India is about survival and peace, although we surely see the underbelly in the movie. But there's not a readiness, a willingness, a value for blowing oneself up, murdering others to make a point.

Or have I missed something?

It is hard to understand how a culture could glorify suicide, how any child's life, anyone's life, could be distilled down to something that a society is willing to sacrifice to make a political statement. Last week the human sacrifices that delivered suicide bombs in Iraq were all women, not women who were depressed, who couldn't take it anymore so they killed themselves, but women who wanted to be remembered for their deeds, for the glorious deed of killing themselves. They wanted the glory of dying for their values, and valued dying.

All I can think is, desperate or brain-washed or both. Mentally ill? I haven't given the status exam. My guess is that the night before, before a person commits this atrocity, murdering innocent people, murdering oneself, there is a going away party.

A different suicide altogether. How did that song go?

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend. Somewhere in the bitterness. If I had stayed up with you all night. . .Maybe I'd know. . How to save a life.

Something like that. Every life is invaluable; our worth, incalculable. Where there is life there is hope. Even now, when denial is hard to hold onto.

therapydoc

*Puffs is a Proctor and Gamble product. As soon as they pay me (this is America) I'll put a link to the P & G website right there!

Pillow Talk

FD hates it when I do this, tell you what we talk about horizontal.

But it's usually not very interesting, and rare that I share. What we talk about, often, when it's just the two of us, is incompetency in the hospital (that can be the answering service) and very occasionally, the last patient the service had to call us about, woke us up about.

Here's a sample of the kind of ranting I get to hear early in the morning.*

FD will groan. Do you believe that guy? He tells them at ICU, No more, no thank you, I'm out of here. Then he stops the transfusion, gets dressed and checks himself out of the hospital! For this I've spent three hours talking to residents in the middle of the night, so he should walk out on a procedure that will buy him a few more months in the Land of the Living. You couldn't have slept through that.

Well, uh, no. I heard it all.

And continue to hear about it. Could have been an ER episode.
And that's okay, that he complains, lets off a little steam. It's healthy. And I'm a paid consultant. He gives me some of his stress, leaves it in the bedroom (not always the most romantic idea). He never uses names or identifiers, and since it's ER call, it could be virtually anyone, and is. If it's someone I might know, someone I'd actually want to hear about, he won't say a word, won't rant, but he might slam a drawer.

I tell him, throw shoes, pies, muffins. Save the furniture. When we recycled at the recycling center, we threw bottles. Now that was great.

It's nice if you have that capacity to complain, nicer still if you hold others captive to listen. (We'll get to nagging another day). As his consultant, had this been a real case, I would have told him that his patient probably came in looking for opiates and left the hospital looking for opiates.

So this morning I get up and don't even bother looking at the clock. I know it's somewhere between 4 and 5 and I'm telling my brain, Just go back to sleep, when FD murmurs, "Time to get up. It's 5:05." He's really telling himself to get up, not me.

"5:03."

I am up, so I excuse myself for a minute, but come back to bed. He's happy. Usually I don't come back to bed. "Why are you coming back to bed?" he asks joyfully.

"To be with you," I say. "I know you think our relationship is all about companionship, so I'm being a companion."

Immediately he launches into a complaint. "I can't get over that guy walking out of ICU the other day. If I ever see him again. . ."

I want to say, Get over it, it's not about you. But that's not therapeutic, you know. So I don't say anything, close my eyes.

Out of nowhere, total non-sequitor, I ask, "What percentage of your waiting room is composed of black people?"

I don't use the PC term, African American, because it's just we two and color, not ethnic origin, matters at this moment to my visual brain. Healthy skin is nice in any color.

"Some days it's mostly black."

"You're a magnet for people with soul."

"Must be. Or could it be the neighborhood?"

And then I tell him how happy I am that Barack Obama is going to be President, even though I was truly on the fence, and no, I won't tell you who I voted for. But I love the feeling of patriotism in America right now, love seeing Hope visit Washington, the White House, the national cemetary. I love that so many people came out to vote, that people, so many Americans, now feel that they are a part of the political process. It's been a long time.

"It wasn't only black people who elected the President," he says.

Right, right. But you know how it is. The Irish, when they weigh those choices for judge, vote for Irish first. The Italians vote for Italians. The Poles vote for Poles. The Jews vote for Jews. People do vote ethnic, I'm pretty sure, and when their candidate wins, it's a good feeling.

We had some company on Friday night, and in the haze of serving and clearing, picking at my tofu and stir-fry, here and there I caught some of the conversation. Someone mentioned this feeling, a ground-swell within the African American community. He thought it comparable to the wonderment within the Jewish community after the Six Day War, when the Israelis trounced the surrounding Arab nations. All of them.**

Triumphant, proud. People didn't like it, those who didn't understand, didn't mind so much the victory, as the pride.

Some of us are scared of people who get happy like that, people who strut, shout, celebrate a victory. It feels too much like power, face it. People are afraid of exhilaration when it's ethnic.

And yet we love those songs. Hold your head up, hold your head up, hold your head high.

Did anyone see Boston Legal the other night? Roe, 11/10/2008. If you didn't and you still plan on it, SPOILER ALERT. But I'll only spoil one plot, if that helps you any.

Jerry Espenson, (Christian Clemenson, simply brilliant) the attorney with Asperger's Disorder, is buying muffins and coffee with his dear colleague, Katie Lloyd (Tara Summers, I like her very much, too).

A smart-talking mortgage broker thinks the two lawyers are listening in on his cell phone conversation in line. The broker taunts them, calls them Mr. and Mrs. Snoopy. He makes fun of Katie's South African dialect and Jerry's tics. Jerry keeps cool, but he's getting visibly upset.

They finish their order, turn to leave, and Jerry accidentally bumps into the broker who subsequently escalates his insults, calling Mr. Espenson Dimento.

Katie takes her friend by the elbow to get him out of there, but Jerry has a moment of clarity. He glares at his nemesis, takes a muffin in hand, aims like a marksman (all in slow motion, just terrific work here) and deliberately pitches the pastry overhand, fastball, hard.

And whack! The muffin's on target, clips the guy's profile, smack dab on the cheek.

It gets wild, of course, and wonderful, and Jerry ultimately chooses to defend himself in court. He tells the jury that having had emotional issues and Asperger's since childhood, he has suffered abuse and bullying for forty years. He simply reached his max in that coffee shop, his passion, years of anger simmering inside, got the better of him.

He had to react, couldn't take another insult. He isn't sorry for what he's done, although he is sorry for celebrating with that little dance that he does.

There's more, and this is a great episode. I won't even tell you about the abortion subplot, which is almost as good. In fact, it's better.

The rise in pride in this country, surely muted by our economic woes, is not something we should associate with the rising frustration that drives someone like a Jerry Espenson to throw a muffin, although you could argue the similarity. These are very different tides. The political process is a constructive process.

Back to our pillow talk.

FD says, "You know, we're pretty much out of food."

"Yeah, I haven't been in the shopping mood so much."

"But just because you're not hungry. . . Okay, I'll go to the store after shul."

"No, don't. We have blueberries. That's really all we need right now."

This is a cue for me to make muffins. For some crazy reason, my goofy home recipe makes only 10 muffins. The pan with the first six went into the oven first, and I heard the timer, took it out in time. Perfect. Soft. Yum.

But the second pan, the one that went in later, I forgot about. And as I luxuriated in the shower, they burned, my first decimation of muffins since we got the new stove in April. It seemed a real waste and I felt badly, but the last four were hard as rocks. so I tossed them into the garbage.

FD thought they were salvageable, but you know.

These things can be dangerous.

therapydoc

*Anecdotes about patients on this blog, medical or psychological, are always sheer fiction.

** Wikipedia says, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, Six Days' War, an‑Naksah (The Setback), or the June War, was fought between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms to the Arab forces.