Super Love

Last year at this time, I received the following question:

Dr. Guterson:  I once heard a story about a guy who was with his buddies watching the Super Bowl.  He was having a great time and then suddenly his wife called him in a state of desperation - she was out in the middle of somewhere with a flat tire.   What advice would you give her husband?

This was my answer:

A:  Well, some questions are easy and some are more perplexing. This one is in the easy category:

He should get off his derrière and go help his wife - and never breathe a word about what a ‘martyr’ he is.

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Interestingly enough, since then I received three other proposed answers:

(1) “It’s the Super Bowl!  The Super Bowl! Who answers their phone during the Super Bowl?”

(2) “He should talk this out with her, tell her it’s the Super Bowl, and see if calling AAA would be reasonable.”

(3) “Time to find a different wife.”

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Love. 

In analyzing these three proposals, I’ll assume that (1) and (3) are attempts to be rather cute and/or ridiculous.  As for (2), I’ll come back to that one.

Ladies and gentlemen, this Sunday evening the Chiefs will be playing the 49ers in The Super Bowl!  So - what to do, in case your spouse urgently needs you??

Healthy love, according to Chassidic philosophy, is a love that motivates us outward, beyond ourselves.  The Hebrew word for love (‘ahava’) can be translated to mean, “I will give.” 

Healthy love is not so much about receiving, as it is about giving - giving of oneself, and making sacrifices for others.

In this spirit, my use of the above word “martyr” in my answer last year was not appropriate.  “Martyr” implies that what I am doing is about me, makes me feel good.  And that should not be the focus. 

As for the above proposal (2), I believe it has a weakness because the husband is still giving a not so covert message to his wife that the game is more important to him than she is.

Let me add: last year’s question asked what advice to give the husband alone, not his wife.  So, to be fair in this Super Bowl drama, I would conjecture that his wife certainly knows that her husband is together with his buddies watching the Super Bowl. She herself  apparently has no interest in the game since she is out driving.

So…in the ideal world, the ideal world of healthy selfless love, yes - when the husband says he’s coming to help her, she could respond proactively that she knows he’s having a football evening with his friends and that he should enjoy himself immensely, and that she is just informing him about the flat tire and that she has already called triple AAA!

Two people, two people with separate backgrounds and separate early lives who have found each other, two people with souls that give to the other, two people in love.

You may ask, what is Super Bowl Sunday like in a psychiatric hospital?  Well, unlike the scene in the film, “Cuckoo’s Nest”, where the controlling Nurse  Ratched did not let the patients watch the World Series, our patients are able to enjoy and relish the entire Super Bowl game, commercials and halftime entertainment included.  And we give them popcorn and other treats.  (Is this better medicine than pills…?!)

So…enjoy this Sunday evening, no matter how you spend it, and if you wish to experience love, then give, and give some more.

(P.S. - please note that if you should have a point of view different from my own, please write to me.  I would love to hear from you.)

Too Late

Tom was 60 years old when he told me about his 85 year old father who was losing his memory. Tom described how for decades he felt intense anger toward his father.  But now, with his father aging so with dementia, Tom sat slumped in my office chair, crying.

Sure, his father had made mistakes when Tom was a boy.  He yelled at him to go to bed when it turned out that his arm was fractured. He never took the time to go to any of Tom’s sporting events. He didn’t let Tom transfer to the high school of his choice. He hit Tom when he disrespected his mother.

As the years went by, his father did say he was sorry, many times. But Tom’s resentment was too intense and he could not bring himself to forgive.  In fact, as time moved on, Tom’s anger seemed to grow even stronger and he openly told his father many times that he couldn’t wait for him to die…..

As a psychiatrist, this is a scene I have sadly witnessed all too often:  an adult son who harbors years of anger and resentment.   An adult son who is too proud to forgive.  An adult son who never takes the time to look at himself.   

Certainly, I cannot say that I have ever met a perfect Mom or Dad.  But short of significant abuse, forgiveness is one of the greatest things that we can do. With forgiveness, we can break the seeming irreversibility of the past.

As the Beatles sang, “Life is very short…”

Marianne Never Budged

“I just want you to give me my meds”, Marianne announced as she walked into my office.

This was our first meeting.

“Can we talk a little?”, I asked.

“What’s there to talk about?…..

I take Prozac for my depression, Xanax for my anxiety, Lithium for my bipolar, Zoloft for my trauma, Trazodone for my insomnia along with Melatonin, Seroquel for my obsessive thoughts, Adderall for my attention disorder, and Haldol for my voices….. The meds work, doc, they’ve been working for years.  I’m only seeing you because my previous psychiatrist retired.”

I was keeping count. 

Nine medications, nine psychiatric medications!

Madness, I thought to myself.   

But for Marianne this was no madness. This was her life.   She had neatly categorized each medication with a particular diagnosis, as if the complexities of life could be reduced to a label and a pill. 

Marianne had little interest in talking about her life.   Having been abandoned by her parents at a young age and raised in foster homes, she trusted no one.  In our third meeting, I softly inquired about trauma; she looked away.

The years have gone on.

Marianne has remained a closed book.

I once told her that I made up a song about her nine medications and sang it to her -  but her facial expression remained stoic, neither humored nor insulted.

Marianne never budged.  And after time I realized that I had become her enabler, dutifully keeping her on her nine, count ‘em, nine psychiatric meds.   

In her odd way, Marianne was happy with her lot.  She felt safe, reassured, cared for.

Not coming out of her comfort zone.

A little bit like all of us.