“Conscience is a man's compass”
Vincent van Gogh
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Vincent van Gogh
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As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap
Jeremiah 1 - 19
Jeremiah 1 - 19
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Something has been bothering me for awhile, but came to the surface of my conscience when I spoke with CL's supervisor earlier this week. Yesterday, I figured out what was nagging me about this whole episode with CL.
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I only wrote about the things I found humorous during my interview, but that wasn't the whole picture. The experience was worse than I depicted, as was the follow-up phone call. I left the office after our interview feeling confused and disturbed, but I couldn't name what it was. Now I can.
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CL reminded me of myself, during the last four months of the past year, when I was falling into a very deep depression, coming unglued and frantically trying to hold onto my sanity. I couldn't focus on my work, I couldn't remember where I put things at the office and at home, and my life, both professionally and personally, was in chaos. I needed help desperately and didn't know how to get it, despite the fact that I have a therapist I see on a regular basis every few months. Nothing made sense to me and I was easily confused by the smallest problems or surprises to my routine. Routine, in fact, was my only salvation, was something I could focus on consistently, make sense of in all the internal turmoil.
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I watched CL doing what I had done in the few weeks before I hit bottom. She was able to speak coherently as long as she was doing the mundane part of her job: handing me forms to sign, explaining the services offered and the qualifying process, asking questions from a form in front of her. It was when the interview became interactive, when she had to deal with this other person in the room personally, that she became discombobulated, confused, distracted and illogical.
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She told me her last job had ended suddenly, when new management came in. She hadn't been working with OVR for very long, she said. Less than a year, if I remember correctly. She had been trying to find work in the private sector, but had faced age discrimination. She advised me to apply for work with either Federal, state or local governments, because "they aren't allowed to discriminate," she said, several times.
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I've mentioned how, at times, she seemed to forget there was anyone else in the room. What I left out was how startled she was when she became aware, surprised to see me across the table from her.
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She rambled on about how some clients seemed to think they could call her whenever they felt like it, that the counselor who had her job before allowed his clients to call just to talk, without scheduling an appointment. When she made the comment about my being so focused, she went on to tell me that so many clients talked on end about their disabilities, about what kind of work they had done before, what they wanted OVR to do for them - in short, exactly what they were supposed to talk about during the intake interview.
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I know it felt like watching an accident happening, going through the interview with her. That sort of impending doom feeling where you can't turn away - the watching the train wreck syndrome. I knew there was something wrong, but, as Lindsay suggested, too, I thought perhaps she was just having a bad day.
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I fully recognize that I am not responsible for C's disintegration, or what followed after our interview and her follow-up call. There is nothing I could have done to help her, mostly because I didn't comprehend what she was going through in time to even try to help.
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My conscience isn't picking at me for those reasons. It is chastising me for making fun of someone while she was falling to pieces, even though I didn't see that happening at the time. I laughed at her behavior when compassion is what was called for, not ridicule. She didn't intend to screw things up, I'm certain of that. She wanted to do a good job. She wasn't coping well, but probably thought she was. She was losing it, right before my eyes...and her own.
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She deserved better treatment from me than what I gave her. I didn't use her name, nor did I post her picture. She'll never read my posts. None of you know her. For all you know, she might not exist. But I know she's real, and I now know she is more like me than not, and if I deserve the support and compassion of others, that is the very least I could have shown her.
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A conscience is a blessing, although a prickly one at times. I'm still growing up, and my conscience is my most valuable tool and guide along the journey. I hope I will remember CL, and my response to her, should I ever face a similar situation. Or, worse, should I ever be in her shoes again, as I was very recently, and have the misfortune to encounter someone who will treat me as I mistreated her.
11 comments:
Don't be too hard on yourself. The experience was very hard on you, very disturbing and upsetting if I remember rightly. You merely used humour to make it manageable to yourself, to suss out what had happened and make it digestible. This is perfectable acceptable. Even normal. We all do it. It is just a coping strategy and not something to warrant too much guilt. :-)
As I read this, I thought:
You are a grown-up, in the best possible sense.
I'm don't think it's a permanent state of being, but once in a while we experience a kind of awareness that results in this kind of insight.
Thanks--it's inspiring to see someone else hitting the sweet spot.
It sounds to me, when you reported what happened, that you did not DO anything to mistreat her, and you were not in a position to help her. Having said that, can relate very much to your feeling of dismay at watching someone do just the sort of thing you have been doing and needing to dissociate from it. I have been through this myself quite recently and am still struggling with it.
In particular, you were in a double bind, assuming that you want to get a different job and didn't make time for the interview out of curiosity.
I went back to learn more about your interview. It seemed to me that you did pretty well, without knowing what would come out of CL's mouth next. You provide a good reminder of what my mother always said: "Don't judge someone until you've walked in their shoes." thank you!
Steve, it isn't guilt so much as it is shame. I know better, but didn't act as if I do.
Fresca, thank you for thinking I'm grown up. I keep working on it.
Susan, I didn't do anything during the interview. It was what I wrote that could have been done differently. I hope your struggles are over soon. It takes time, doesn't it?
Femminismo, not being able to anticipate what might happen next was disconcerting, to be sure. And my mom said the same thing to us, too! Universal Mom-Wisdom at its best.
Remorse is a great teacher.... as much as I hate feeling it, I am perversely grateful when I do because it reminds me I am still human: human enough to screw up and human to care.
your self honesty is rare ... it is ultimately an act of hope.
It all falls into place now doesn't it - I even feel a bit bad about the comment I seem to remember leaving on that post. But what the others say is all true, you laughed the situation off a bit here to make it manageable, and you weren't in the position to help, you couldn't have gone to anyone with your impressions without risking harming her more.
And when things and people start going to pieces, they do get absurd, we don't know how to respond constructively so we laugh, it's a kind of helpless reaction.
It sounds as though someone should have been looking after her better perhaps, but it wasn't you. to have somone in that state in a position of responsibility over others who were potentially vulnerable themselves was an oversight somewhere.
I guess we all have to be a bit careful how we turn the stuff of our lives into writing and stories, and to consider our motives etc, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, we can't always get it right at the time. But I don't think you got it very wrong anyway, and in re-examining events now, and facing how it makes you feel, you're getting it very right.
I hate remorse too, and seem to have to spend too much of my life with it. When I'm in the throes of it, whether it's from some recent cock-up I've made, or from something that comes welling up from way back, I often think that I'd rather be the innocent victim than have to suffer the sense of shame of being in the wrong. But I think it must be better to feel it than not to, and to have the courage to sit with it for as long as necessary. I think you've probably done that now.
Crow,
Consider it laughing at yourself, even if it wasn't conscious at the time.
I have great compassion for my patients. And I reserve the right to laugh at their stupidity, as long as they can never be aware of it. It's a coping mechanism, one that allows me to keep my own sanity, not take it all too damn seriously. Just as parents laugh at their children's ridiculous actions, but not to their faces. Or when we laugh at our pets when they get in undignified pickles. No loss of affection or regard. Not laughing at the person, but at silly actions, weird behaviors. Beats getting angry at them, blaming them.
It seems to me you read the situation well and, considering the fact most of us have had dealings with officials who feel quite justified in paying little or no attention to what their client is saying and still plan on being back at their desk the next day, your ability to take it somewhat humorously when it happened was a good sign. The fact the poor lady could no longer cope might be a positive sign for her growth as well. You were a witness, not a proximate cause.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.
Harlequin: Remorse is the more accurate description of what I felt, more than shame.
Thanks, Lucy.One can sit with something far too long.
Zhoen, I will look at it that way.
Susan, I am hopeful for her that she is no longer under the stress she was during our interview.
Thank you all. You've given me much to ponder.
An interesting perspective that displays your compassionate understanding and how much difference compassion makes to our responses. It seems as if it has been a good learning experience and strengthened your resolve to enrich your future dealings.
I like the way you have assessed the situation in hindsight, since many never are able to do that and hang onto grievances
Frequently in hindsight I have come to see things much differently as well and it is usually due to a more compassionate understanding. . Best wishes
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