worlds we inhabit
Sun 8.16.20
If you look at my resume, https://www.luhrenloup.com/mes-apprentissages-luhrenloup-lorraine-saint-pierre-resume you will see that I worked in the field of mental health for quite a few years. Emergency services was my field. I was hired for my ability to condense long complicated stories and pick out the telling detail. I counseled people, young, old, kids, who were finding it hard to navigate in our world. They came to my office, or it was to the hospital emergency room contacting me when was on call to see someone.
Most people are not aware that folks will go to the emergency room if they are having a dangerous psychological experience that they cannot handle on their own. My position as psychiatric social worker placed me betwixt two worlds, the real world that my patients were experiencing and the societal world that has been created to, lets be honest, keep us in line. My bandaids were few. I could get the patient off the streets and into a hospital with stress-free time to resolve their situation. If lucky, they might end up connecting with a wise person, able to decipher what they are trying to convey.
Then if a person had the potential of harming others, or themselves, for instance, not eating or bathing for a month. That person was committed to the state hospital for 30 days, and longer if they didn’t conform. Notice how I distance myself in the former sentence. It’s as if some power other than me did the dirty work. But I did it, got the psychiatrist up in the middle of the night to make his pronouncement, then the judge who signed the papers on our words and patient was handcuffed, placed in the sheriff’s vehicle for the long ride to nowhere. Thankfully, the psychiatrists I worked with were as stringent as I was in declaring a person insane. My third bandaid was to schedule a series of sessions with someone like me to receive counseling. The first two bandaids were employed on those for whom home was not feasible.
Doing such work you burn out very quickly. There is not a measure by which we can assess human beings as a whole. Placing a label on a person tells you nothing about that person, but about a set of symptoms, a classificatory system to impose some order on what is perceived but not understood or accepted. Sadly, patients soon figure out what is expected of them and give you the schizophrenic, the neurotic, the bipolar you are looking for in them with a flawless performance.
A story. I was once called by the police to come evaluate a man they had picked up for kidnapping a woman. I went down to the jail and was led to a large cell where the prisoner was held. A rangy guy, 40’s with long greasy hair, bare chested, greeted me. I could tell without any exchange that he and I were not in the same world. I would say that he was closer to the animal world. He was operating from a different set of signals that I was receiving. They completely bypassed him. He began to tell me why he had been picked up; a very rational well told story of how he found himself in need of killing someone which he described as a needed spiritual ritual. Upon thinking it over he chose as victim a female past the reproductive age. Useless, as he explained.
People we label as mad have a great deal of psychic energy. No longer blinded by society’s mores frees them to tap into other ways of perceiving their surroundings. The prisoner told me that he was able to divine where such a woman lived. Sure enough, he walked up to a house where a middle aged woman answered the door to him. At this point I began to be uncomfortable in this enclosed space with him. No sooner had the thought been formed than an officer came and opened the cell door, in case of trouble, he said. I was very glad of it.
The victim was assaulted, had violent things shoved inside her vagina and she was badly cut up. It wasn’t enough for him; he needed to kill her. She, fearful that her family was due home shortly and would be murdered, suggested they go for a ride. Yes, there are good, loving people in the world. He quickly assented to this proposal which was a perfect fit for him. He could take her to a beach somewhere and do it. This happened around midnight. They were driving along on an empty street when, from out of nowhere, a cop car appeared with its sirens and flashing lights. The good and loving woman was also smart and had placed her car lights on high beam, which caught the officer’s attention.
I phoned the psychiatrist on call to come and sign the commitment papers. Normally, I would sit with the psychiatrist when he conducted his interview to see if there was more to learn about the situation. But in this case, after a few questions when I saw the half-naked skinny prisoner with greasy hair flaring jut out quickly across the floor like some venomous bug to snatch a half smoked cigarette butt, I exited the cell. Is there a moral or a point to this story? Perhaps, it’s that we don’t want to acknowledge the prisoner as one of our species. We prefer to identify with the brave and decent woman who under pressure behaved impeccably. But truth be told, the prisoner is with us every day insatiable, righteous, rapacious, and quite mad. We see him everywhere, the monster. We even cheer him on when he slays our enemy.
