Vicarious Pain

Do you have any traditions or little things that set you in the right frame of mind to do something? I do. It seems my life is totally comprised of these little traditions. Including traditions to add or change the current traditions.

For example, I am very slow to warm up to new people, ideas or activities. I know this about myself. Any one who has ever gotten close to me knows this. To off-set this hallmark of my personality, I have a rule (though I use that term loosely) that when friends ask me to do something, even if I’m really not sure I want to, I do it. This tradition has brought me many moments of unanticipated fun and joy… and a lot of new interests.

Traditions are funny things: They connect us to the past and build a bridge to the future. They bring a sense of continuity to our ephemeral existence. They can bind us if too many or too rigid and they can leave us three sheets to the wind if too few. By noticing who shares similar traditions they help tell us who is part of “our” group and who is not.

I have a tradition called work. It is work that I have wanted to do since I was 11 years old. I began formal study for it when I was 14 years old. Given those facts, I’ve been at this profession for about two decades. It is a source of joy and fulfillment in my life. I am grateful each day that I get to live my childhood dream of being a child psychologist.

I have many fun moments at my work. Laughter is sprinkled throughout my day. My patients laugh too, sometimes with me and sometime at me and the silly things I do. Little do they know the secret… I’m silly, I’m the stand up comic (those of you who know me off-duty will not believe that I’m a stand up comic at work, but it’s true), I’m the cute acting and dressing “Dr. JB” to ease the pain that they can’t get away from.

They can’t get away from it because it’s in their own head, their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own bodies. Their pain is palpable: It makes my head hurt. It makes my heart hurt. It makes me squirm in physical discomfort. But I can go home at night, to get away from the radiating pain, confusion, worry and sadness of these young people I affectionately call “my kids”.

That distance eases the hurt. But they are still in the hospital, right where I left them, and they are still hurting. And I know this. Distance does not bring amnesia.

Once, I had a patient very nearly kill himself. I got the message late at night, while with some friends. When I hung up the phone and turned back to them, feeling ready to vomit over what I had just learned, they stopped in their tracks and asked WHAT had just happened. Without betraying any of the confidentiality by which I am legally and ethically bound I told them a patient had just tried to kill himself. One dear, bold as brass and blunt as an old ax friend said, “You’re not doing a very good job if he is still trying to kill himself.” A cruel statement? Not at all. He gave words to my deepest fear. I went into work, to help my patient through this crisis with my own fear clearly articulated and set about to heal both my patient’s and my own pain at this, now historical, event in our lives.

Like multi-colored threads, these moments are woven through my life. The one as a third year grad student, at 25 years old, where a long-time and deeply trusted mentor commented that my adult male therapy patient had paid his dominatrix to have a relationship with him and (not having had any female relationships, even of the friend sort, since then) was now paying me to have a relationship with him. The one about a year before that when I had to tell two sweet, mentally retarded parents that their son was mentally retarded, a problem they had grown up struggling with and had told me, early on in knowing them, that they did not want to see their only child go through what they had endured growing up. Or the time I was subpoenaed to appear in court on behalf of CPS because they were seeking to terminate a mother’s custody of her child I had tested and I would not have to go if she did not contest the termination: I did not have to go. Or the time my client was so tired she just couldn’t go back to work and asked to sleep a little in my office while I sat and watched over her, or the time after time after time I came home, sick at heart with the stories of my clients and couldn’t tell my family or friends to ease my own pain. Finally, the time I spent the day testing a six year old who had been taken from his parents’ care because they wouldn’t care for or feed him to find out the extent of the psychological damage, and went to dinner that night and watched as my friend sat in horror when I said this, just this much, in response to her question, “What’s did you do today?” and I realized that I was becoming hardened against the pain I saw and vowed not become hardened to it.

So, I refuse to become hardened to the pain I feel and vicariously live with as I help my patients. I see the man hallucinating at the bus stop as I drive by. I see the mother being too harsh with her child because she doesn’t know what else to do as I walk down the mall. I feel the depression of the person standing next to me in my favorite past-time. I am a witness to it; we all see these problems all around us. I also have been blessed to learn enough about how people function to have a measure of understanding of the significance of these facts in the lives of my fellow humans.

Lots of people work as psychologists, as mental health professionals. I don’t see me as anything special in that group of healers. But sometimes, I am given an honor that I don’t expect and am not totally sure what I did to earn it. Once upon a time a friend said there was a family who needed help, and would I talk to them? I felt honored that they trusted me enough to send this family my direction. (It’s one thing to get clients off the street. It’s another when your friends, essentially, pre-screen you and still find your help of enough value to LET you help.) I did nothing more than listen to these friends of a friend a few times and point them in the right direction of how to help their child and family. What I heard back about what this family said about me was a little embarrassing in its praise. I had simply been grateful I could help.

So, what is the tradition that allows me to cope with the pain I’m flooded with nearly every day? “Where much is given, much is required” is a basic tenant of my life. And I am grateful that I have been given much.