Helpless, Real and Imagined

"Le Radeau de la Méduse" by Théodore Géricault (1818–19) The Louvre, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

Stricken by COVID right before Thanksgiving 2023, in the ER I felt helpless. Later during days in bed at home I had a recurring sensation during fits of coughing and fever and low blood-oxygen: Helpless is familiar to me, it's a ghost from the past and a shadow cast by realities of today.

Helpless, that totally personal enveloping suffocating powerless condition, gave way each moment there was caring contact by another person. They touched me. Their power to mask up, be bedside and do something good activated my awareness that I have some power. Experiences of helpless and powerful, alone and together, formed images in my mind like montages.

A client of mine lives in a country alongside the Baltic Sea. Material conditions that support personal health, professional identity and the joy of living began to erode after the end of the Soviet Union, now life is almost unbearable from the effects of Russia's unrestrained war to destroy Ukraine. Last winter, visions of Armageddon, physical pain and social isolation led them to imagine lying in the snow to die by freezing. Sometimes there's power in giving up - we're still talking, we're not surrendering.

Thirty-some years ago while a hospice social worker for dying kids, helpless versus powerful became unstable weather that consumed me and my young family. Countless times hospice families told me that I had helped them endure the unbearable grief, yet I had become insufferable at home as my zombie marriage drained me. I was sick like I had been as a child and my doctor tested me for everything including AIDS. Nope, he gave me an antidepressant and a counseling referral. I came to see that things my parents did to me were not alright and what I was doing to my kids was too similar - that absence of physical violence did not make me a good father. I was not helpless to replicate abuse, I had the power to change myself. I did, in some ways too little too late and in other ways just in the nick of time. What was the change? I've learned to notice when I turn myself or another into a nonhuman It and actively return to the Land of Share Humanity.

Currently, about 80% of my clients are immigrants or they were born in the United States after their parents' journey. All of my clients carry the indelible marks of being turned into Things while children and ongoing as adults. Think of the "isms", the injustices that turn people into beasts of burden and commodities.

An emblematic story from a client, "My Mom just took it from men all of the time and so she took it out on me." Someday, I'll tell my Mom's story. For now suffice it to say that she never gave up on expressing her humanity and she only stopped raging at me me as I cared for her through to her last breath. Another common story, "My Dad still tells me I'm stupid and worthless, he just doesn't beat me anymore because I'm too big." Someday I'll tell my Dad's story, how he became a person who used his brains to hurt others and was physically violent as long as he could get away with it. He stopped using his intellect to dominate others as dementia slowly overpowered him and he was calm as I watched over him as he died.

I have seen helpless and powerful as Yin-Yang since the mid-90s when I was Program Director at a psychiatric day treatment program for teenagers. I did manager things and therapy for clients. Success was defined as discharge to a lower level of care such as going from a group home to their family home. My client's treatment was declared a success and they were being sent home. The problem: home was abusive, but it wasn't so bad as to permit intervention by Child Protective Services. I met with the client the day of discharge and after they said their piece, I said, "You've learned to avoid the kids who are mean as much as you can. You've learned to tell me things because you know I'm nice. So play along to get along with the Meanies and have fun with people who are nice."