Windows and Doors

I occasionally reflect on doors and windows and gates. Not an obsession about checking to see if they are locked and secured 27 times you understand. Its what they represent as a picture or illustration in common expression or anecdote. When you visit old places in England or Europe the height of the doors and physical doorways stands out as does the placement of windows. I also noticed in these long-abandoned ruins or castles as well that you had to bend down to get through the doors. The windows were a witness perhaps to the best upshot of the industrial revolution. No longer closet hovels but an invitation for the outside world to be observed and a place to let light in. The German theme of the Torschlusspanik, the terror at the closing of the gate was there in the old towns. It derives from the horror in Medieval towns when you found the gates of the town locked at curfew and you were outside the safety of the keep. You faced the potential harm of wolves and brigands and violence. And no way of entering or pleading for entry as the gate was shut without negotiation.

The builder is here. Replacing a door. The new door is solid. Like things that are meant to be protective. It conveys a sense of privacy and maintains an inside space from the outside world. Its a proper solid door. It takes time to hang. There are technical difficulties to hanging doors. You have to make sure it maintains privacy and security and discretion. The door is like the new windows he is installing. Doors and Windows are functional. They have  a job to do.  

I mention these things not as an excursion into home maintenance. It brings me to reflect on the analogy of doors and windows that occurs in counselling.

I reflect that some people can have all the doors and windows of their personal house totally bolted. Double deadlocked and curtained. No one is meant to come in. And no one is meant to observe the other side or the inside of their lives. You keep community and others out.  Fear and open defiance and even loathing might lurk within the doors and windows and gates. There is no invitation to the outside world or the people in it.  And there is no entry and the closedness is simply more than just prudent discretion. Suspicion and withdrawal and cynicism to the outer world and a shutting out is part of the imagery such people project. They appear in counselling often as conscripts,brought by a spouse or partner at the end of their rope with them. Or they appear by themselves and have an expectation that you will work hard to decipher the reason for their attendance. They are prickly and defiant and dying through lack of sunlight.

At the other end are those who seem to inhabit houses with no windows and no doors. Or perhaps I should say the doors and windows are wide open for all and sundry to enter.  Their house is open to the street and to the neighbourhood. There are no constraints. There is a blindness to their vulnerability and even to issues of their own health and mental safety. They make themselves and their families vulnerable by never imposing limits on who or how or what people may say to them or demand of them. They have little care for the impact on themselves or the capacity to say No or disagree or hold a contrary opinion. They are unable to say, thus far but no further. Others may choose to enter via the door front or back at will and others who should enter by the door simply climb in via the windows. Wide open to the house. Entering or exiting at will. They are there for other people in a naïve and unconstrained or even sentimental way. They have no borders nor boundaries. They see it as heroic to live that way.  The harsh and takers and violent seem to smell where those unguarded houses and their occupants dwell time and again.

Doors and windows and gates are there for a reason literally and metaphorically.  They provide boundaries and they are there to operate and make choices about when and how and under what conditions people come into your space and how you will choose to deal with them. Your “house” is your own. Its not healthy as a bunker nor is it a healthy space when it has totally fluid borders.

Trauma and Critical Episodes

What is a trauma or critical episode?

It can be any number of incidents that involve the loss of life or a near miss that could have involved death or serious injury. More specifically a critical incident might be a death or suicide or assault in a workplace. Or it might be a serious accident in a workplace which results in serious injuries for one or numerous people. An accident offsite or in its proximity affecting  family members or workers. It might include violent or very threatening behavior on a site such as a robbery. It could be a catastrophic industrial implosion or explosion. All might be considered to have an affect on people psychologically.

The time after a critical episode.

Critical episodes can be distinct and contained in a small discrete geography which affects the people directly exposed to the immediate circumstances of a trauma such as a armed robbery. On other occasions a trauma might involve a very public and significant number of people witnessing it or hearing about it or being on site and vicinity when it happens. For example a fatal plane crash. Or a significant work accident on a site.

If you or workmates or family members have been involved, or have witnessed or been in the vicinity of a traumatic event, it will bring about dislocation and disruption to your life in some shape or way. Being involved in a critical incident or trauma will affect people in their thinking, their emotions, their behavior and their physical health. At the time and the time after the trauma people can experience a spectrum of thoughts and emotions. There can be a sense of relief, guilt, numbness, regret, agitation or fear. The range of thoughts and feelings can be jumbled together or experienced like a rollercoaster ride. Trauma  is real in our lives and initially people can experience I sense of being emotionally and psychologically “all over the place” This is not uncommon and does not mean people are losing their minds.

 Some of the responses to trauma.

Some strong emotions come to the surface in the hours and days after a critical incident or witnessing something traumatic. Initially people can feel any range of reactions. Sadness. Numbness. Guilt or shame for no good reason.Anxiety or fear. Even relief about escaping themselves.

People react to grief and loss in different ways depending on their personalities and characteristics. With trauma it is very similar and the invasion of the unexpected into an otherwise predictable world sets the thinking and feeling world of individuals on its head. It should be noted there are no set rules of timeframes or measured and timed rules about what or when people should be feeling or recovering or not crying or feeling OK again. People who have gone through trauma are on a journey. They are  making sense and responding to the thoughts and feelings or images of life threatening events. Another way I put it is to say that the past present and future become tangled up all at once. With time and space and reassurance things will return to normal. The severity and the proximity and the relationship with the trauma and who was involved and its effect on immediate loved ones or friends or workmates are all factors in dealing with trauma and moving into a recovery from the trauma or critical incident. Individuals react to stress and anxiety differently. Some people have friends to talk with others have limited contacts or networks or families to reach out to.

Some specific responses to trauma.

• Confusion and disbelief that the trauma has happened at all. Some people report feeling physically numb or initially being in a dream like state.

• An inability to sleep and not being able to concentrate or focus.

• Disbelief and denial and an ongoing thought, that this awful thing, could not have occurred.

• People will feel overcome with emotion and cry or they can display great resentment or anger and want to blame someone for the episode.

• Guilt at surviving a critical episode or avoiding an accident where others were harmed.

• Self examination and blaming and questioning ones own culpability in the episode.

• “I could have, I should have, why didn’t I,”.

• Sadness and feeling isolated or hopeless in the circumstances.

• Feeling the trauma physically by having intrusive thoughts or failing to sleep or being hyper sensitive or overly vigilant.

What is important is that like many episodes in life  things will over time return to the safe normal. The critical episode however is still part of memory and bruising for an individual or group. However the severity and the proximity and psychological and emotional impact of any traumatic event and the make up of the person experiencing it will be a major factor in peoples response.  

Also the dynamics of the trauma and who was involved and its effect on immediate loved ones or friends or workmates are all factors in dealing with trauma and moving into a recovery from the  critical incident. Talking about what happened matters.

Individuals react to stress and anxiety differently. Some people have friends to talk with others have limited contacts or networks or families to reach out to. Other times horrific things happen and there is never an easy exit in the short term.  Talking with a counsellor confidentially can be useful.

Some practical ways ahead.      

• Being around a scene or site where trauma has occurred will be confronting for a while. But not forever. Just brace yourself and steel yourself and look after others who are in the vicinity.

• If you were close to the episode you will hav intrusive thoughts and images.These will go with time. Again there is nothing strange about them but talking about the images with someone you can trust matters.

• You could be emotional about what’s happened . You may even think you're the only person. You're not. It’s important to reach out to other people or workmates.

• Eat regularly and go easy on the alcohol.

• Keep up with your normal routines and if your alone be deliberate and time limited about thinking or exploring the episode in your head. Every reasonable person always beats themselves up with” I should have. I could have. why didn’t I.

• Try not to work or bury yourself in work with no rest or recreation time planned

• If you can’t sleep at least rest. Don’t ruminate or relive the event when you rest.

images and their power

Perfectionism is a hidden obsession in life and the workplace.

We carry in our minds many internal images. Images are powerful in and of themselves. Images are dynamic and powerful in our thoughts. They can be of events or people or conversations from our lived experience. They can be vicarious events lived through others stories. They have the capacity to comfort or instruct or gain joy in remembrance or just make sense of new situations because somehow, we have gone through an experience similar.  They also have the capacity to metastasize and poison and provoke anxiety or paralysis. 

In counselling, you know people carry images around for decades. Stuff that should have been dropped years ago. Or images that are replayed and feeds the imagination that does no one any good nor can redeem the past.  They are triggered especially during times of anxiety or flatness. The images can also hover like a sore tooth, just enough to remind its subject when people think its disappeared.  Sometimes people cannot say what triggered them. Sometimes they are not sure if the images came first then triggered behaviours and feelings or if circumstances triggered the images. The images are at peoples waking and give them vicious company when they should be asleep or near them in their everyday work or conversations. Constantly replayed. They are very strong. We should always be aware of that and the impact and currency in our thinking and behavior of images.  Its always good to have some strategies to deal with them as well.

At another but related level, as constant consumers we are also invited to feast on images and narratives that feed imagination, in diverse forms. Magazines and electronic media promote the perfect look. The perfect body. The perfect holiday. They write narratives about the perfect relationship with the perfect job. Popular psychology abounds everywhere, money and time expended on the perfect relationship or perfect balance of intellectual and behavioral performance. Be assured, unattainable tripe ultimately and a waste of money. Humans are human and not impersonal machines. Media promotes a whole range of other perfections as well. The high-performance engine of a car the powerful elegance of a hotel or even the perfectionism of cuisine. Lest we are bored by this all, is accompanied by perfect technology, in some form or other.

Some people offer no resistance. They may even boast of being perfectionist, as if it’s a badge of accomplishment or that it might be an employable trait worth investing in. Therapeutically, you might as well tell me you have contracted an aggressive Tapeworm. I won’t be congratulating you, I’ll offer my sympathy and an invitation to do something therapeutic and medical about it.

Interestingly, very few, have, over the years, boasted of being perfect or having achieved it. The occasional immortal does creep through into that category. On their way to the perfect mental health facility, in my observation.

Media and life generally sells on a smorgasbord of enticements. We are surrounded by them.  If you look through the magazines in the glossy pages or movies or commercials, smiling or pouting or sternly staring back at us, you will find the well turned out models. They are of course, what is suggested we ought to aspire to. Its tied up with the subject of what is constructed for us as heroic or beautiful or something to be aspired to. But always unreachable and just beyond our grasp.

Loneliness

Loneliness is nothing new. Verbalization of it, particularly in counselling, over the past decades is. I hear it talked about directly or obliquely in counselling more often. Common sense suggests the topic has always been there in some form. Perhaps there is less inhibition about talking about it. Perhaps social demographics and disintegration of families make it a stronger social reality and it has wider currency and plausibility as an issue. Perhaps its symptomatic of geographic and social mobility. Perhaps in sociological terms it’s a post-modern condition. In a life where all authority and structures are uncertain, relationships are the one feature that promises permanency and predictability. Loneliness encapsulates the essence of the loss of both these features.

I notice that people across age groups allude to it or voice their fear of being lonely. Old and young people facing the reality of a relationship or marriage collapsing. Individuals cemented in relationships, staying because the fear of loneliness, is greater than the pain of staying. Individuals making dangerous decisions and being manacled impatiently to incompatible strangers because they fear loneliness. Decisions made to be single mothers to virtually unknown or unknowable donors. For fear of loneliness. People being conned for large amounts of money in lonely heart scams.

Social media emphasizes the world-wide connectivity of people. On the other hand, it leaves people totally barren and alone in terms of real relationships. You can be befriended on a screen with total strangers. You can be befriended by people just collecting the largest list of followers. Facebook loneliness is avoided by forever being vigilant to promoting yourself and tapping away in the pursuit of your own news coverage.

Virtual relationships seem to offer the hope of real face to face relationship. At its worst it leaves people suspended and fantasizing about unreal possibilities and futures. Social media is a virtual world. The translation of that is that it is not real. Its a fantasy world. People will even believe the lies and fantasy because it offers some escape from the present.

Impatience goes with loneliness. We want and demand to be fulfilled now. We must not be bored for that is the new Millennial sin. That is our 21st Century expectation. Its our new Millennial entitlement. We want to have friendship and relationship instantly. We want the entertainment and stimulation and recognition now. Friendship and relationship doesn’t occur with the ticking of a Like box on a screen or a meme. Friendship and relationship doesn’t occur instantly, and we can’t buy it or subscribe to it or down load it.

The Pursuit of Excellence and Perfectionism

Media and life generally sells us a smorgasbord of enticements. We are surrounded by them.  If you look through the magazines and the glossy pages or movies or commercials, you will see manufactured perfection smiling or pouting or sternly staring back at you. You will find the well turned out models. They are, of course,presented to us ,as what we ought to aspire to. Its tied up with the subject of what is constructed for us as heroic or beautiful or significant and to be aspired to. But always unreachable and just beyond our grasp.

Art of the renaissance or the later reformation periods presented beautiful forms of ideal and romanticized men and women.  Michelangelo’s David in Florence is really the ideal renaissance man.  Not a real model but the renaissance view of what humans were to become in that heady age when they believed that nothing but their own intellect and cleverness could overcome all the foibles and superstitions of the past.  Michelangelo could construct an imaginary beauty. But knew it was a dream. Michelangelo got old and his sculpture and his paintings got real to life. Grieving, hurting, reflecting, plainer looking. His Pieta or even the Sistene chapels ceilings  are truer and uglier to life.

Down south and then a left turns you come to Venice. I mention this because it was in Venice that I am told that much attention was given to George Clooney recently and his new wife. A most well turned out and very cool couple indeed. I honestly didn’t dwell too much as its time better spent and none of my business at one level. But Venice really is a lovely place. But I couldn’t but help be struck by the sense of perfect setting and elegance. Not simply of the couple... Mrs. Clooney’s name escapes me… but she apparently is not simply elegant but also a lawyer of no small substance on the international stage.

On the one hand their coupling evokes a sense of all the best and hopefully it won’t be another Hollywood Marriage. It made me wonder about what a construct of perfection by the media was surrounding them. Hopefully Mr. and Mrs. Clooney will hopefully make things work even though the media jackals will gather

Here are not simply a couple with style but a constructed and stylized couple for us to consume and to acclaim here is constructed perfection - until the Media gods wish to act against them and deconstruct their marriage for the audience in the coliseum.

What I am suggesting is that there are many parts of our life that we consume or read in hard glossy copy or digital form and that give a message that we can attain (with a suitable pay packet) perfection. Not quite now. But like Michelangelo’s David and the ideal ,its always around the corner.

I do some relationship counselling and what used to be called marriage counselling. I think I have some therapeutic skills in it. But I don't really like it as I grow older. Much of it, in my observation, is too late. Give me a trauma or critical episode or attempted self harm any time. Inevitably one of the individuals is more keen on being at counselling than the other. What is sad is that people want their relationship to succeed and to be different. They have ideas in their head, and so they should. Some of those ideas are glossy constructs of masculinity or femininity created by thrice married cinema script writers and bundled together with cynically researched story lines and actors that the producers know people will pay money to see. Or some ideas emerge out of the glossy magazines which are evangelical about living the life you want which usually means  living for yourself and always looking for better options . Why? Because you deserve it. -There is no particular philosophical monologue given as to why you deserve it !  You just do.

Our occupation with heroes a heroic image has been around for a long time. Recently looking at the pre-war movie synopsis along with commercial posters of movies from the 1930 s and 1940s one can view the characteristics of what constituted heroes and heroines in that historical space. In 2018 they look shallow, twee and quite wet by modern graphical standards.

However, look at them long enough and they’re no different in theme or even stance from modern movie presentation’s. They are strangely similar. Cool or pouting or stern or masterful individuals.  Shallowness and submission to fashion and manners and its composite desire for the perfect look or to be part of the culture of perfection, we live in hasn’t really changed They are in some strange sense supposed to be stereotypes or fantasies for us to reflect on. Images that offer something to be strived for.  In some way we might attain something of the perfection of the form and manner or affect the manner of the so cool images that would engrave themselves on our minds.

More recently I noticed we have had the 50 most powerful business people or the 50 most influential women. There are various variations of the theme. Such things cycle around the media. You can pick the current zeitgeist over the glossy magazines in the plane or the hairdresser or on the Morning TV programs or numerous other settings. If you look carefully the question is  "What cultural group or political bent or gender is upbeat and who is currently a has been. And what are we subscribing to or what are we being told to subscribe to in our thinking "  Image and language matter in the arena of perfectionism.

 Fame or beauty or status or wealth is of course transitory and fical. Some new upcoming starlet will replace todays chicken or rooster no matter who or what they do or how they sell their lives or bodies to attach themselves to, or by what sacrifices venal or talented that they climb the slippery pole of success.

I need to say that excellence or having a high standard is by no means to be dismissed. If my dentist was nonchalant about my root canal work or my Surgeon about my torn knee cartilage I would be along with any responsible person a bit miffed. And why wouldn’t we want to do a good job of something or do something properly rather than half baked. It will reflect badly on us, we won’t get return business, and it comes back to bite. Importantly and beyond these things however is that doing something well reflects what means to be human. Doing something perfectly is different than having an attitude of excellence.

I think I want to break it down to excelling at something being a noble pursuit and a safe place to be. I think with perfectionism we need to ask what or who is it in the imagination that says, “Not good enough”. That audience needs to be named and exited.

Perfectionists can be dangerous to themselves and dangerous to others. We value friends for example who say they are going to do something and then go and do it. I think there is an excellence and integrity in that. Excelling is not that we pursue significance it is that we privately hold to an integrity.

Depression is a first cousin to anxiety.  Perfectionism is a cousin to obsession.  With obsession comes fear and paralysis or in its extremes cruelty and manipulation of others. Pity the staff that have to work for a perfectionist. Pity the perfectionist who cannot live up to their own imagined standards. Work tasks will never be good enough and failure and inadequacy of others will be the watch words. Alternatively, work started will never be completed out of fear that the final product will never be good enough and therefore failure is denied the final word.

Key performance indicators will strangely never quite get there. Perfectionists will be paralyzed to make any decisions. Never finish tasks and work long hours without any apparent result. Blaming others is always a suitable escape hatch for the perfectionist. It can make for disaster in marriage or families.

Punting the critical audience in our imaginations is a great place to start. The exiting of the perfectionist voice in our heads needs to happen.