Quelle: issuu.com/home/published 27.5.2021 Me - the miracle of You Chava Karin Roth An attempt on the heaviness of the outspoken, about the annihilation of the burden of the words in dialog, about different forms and process in the progress of togetherness, about traditions of thinking and questioning the self-evident, about the relational self, about what we are able to say, about statements already done and about the not-told, about ways and forms of listening. Selected thoughts on 3 years of dialog with Daniel and me, the art of open doors with different keys, the belief that something different is possible. On proper motion and on alternatives beyond psychiatry.
How much is the word? Daniel had volunteered in different fields every now and then and usually would quit. So he was told - being unable to work under common conditions -, he just might be able to work under supervised conditions also known as in a workshop for „handicapped people“. As an offspring, he was unable to find a way to establish himself into "normality, so he drifted away and into the world of gang-banging, excessive drug-use and abuse which leaded into drug-dealing and possession of firearms. He just slided away from being arrested. He quit taking drugs as a consequence of getting a last chance not getting thrown out of school. After he stopped taking marihuana he developed - in his own words - acute „depression, complete apathy and a generalized socio-phobia“. He cut off his social life and stopped going to school. After that he was institutionalized into a special program for young delinquents. Years later he would describe his time there as a feeling of having no responsibilities and the need of living the extreme, everything - from techno-livestyle to begging and being arrested. When he was 17, he just tried to turn it around and decided to start in another direction and gave himself in the hands of a private psychiatric institution for endangered young people. He turned 18, while he lived there.
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Being in his twenties he moved into his own apartment, still under state control and stated himself as „manic-depressiv“. He took medication to fight his „manic states“. This „manic side“ and the potential he developed in this phases caused fear. Also the fear being institutionalized and becoming the haloperidol-zombie he used to be back then. He never ever wanted to be like this again. Telling me this, his mimic was frozen. He sat opposite me. He could not believe someone just started his own life was petrified with a global horror in his future. He rarely left his apartment cause he couldn´t take crowd of people if not people in general. So he turned his night into day. He forced himself to buy groceries and other necessarities. Even he took a psychoeducative program everything which caused human interaction was very hard on him, he barely couldn´t take the pressure anymore. Significant others often told him: "You just don´t try hard enough. You would be able to achieve your goals if you just try harder". This statement of the people in his life was burned inside his soul like a tribal scarification. My first thought was a sentence from Edmond Jabès: We always die from the power of a frustrated word. His anger always founded his way onto the surface and he tended to make generalized statements. I listened to him. I felt the life and energy in him but I couldn´t see it. I just saw a mask created by the psychiatric-drugs, which took over years ago the natural mimic. This was our first meeting to get to know each other. Almost by accident he got my address and phone-number and didn´t know anything about alternatives regards psychiatry. He didn´t know anything what to do, not to mention about his needs. But he did know, that the "help" he used to get wasn´t the right way. Like learning to play the piano based only on a theoretical foundation like notes but couldn´t fill his play with life.
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He decided to fighting the statement that he just does not want, he decided to fighting the statement that everything is based on his own fault. We both decided to talk together, to speak and listen in a pure and open way. The "good-meant" warnings from his significant others by phone a couple of days later, that he just might use me and will take advantage of me – like always during the years before - didn´t bring me to change lane. What might happen to a person, to whom it will said, that he might not be able to learn under normal conditions, that he isn´t able to learn the way other human beings are...? What might be happen to the one, who was always questioned? How must his relationship towards society look like? In this moment Daniel gave back the guilt to the very people who accused him. So there were two perspectives, which were static and frozen in conflict to each other over the years.
„Words are like dust in the morning … they become dreams. They can hit the heart, agenda of death will take place if someone won´t consider and understand what words are.“ -Friedrich Hölderlin-
Thinking beyond guilt and beyond struggle for truth as an alternative?
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What can we say beyond all traditions of meaning, beyond all frames of thinking and understanding, beyond all theories regards occurrences, about the world, about us? If we strip it down, what´s left to describe the world and us? Nothing - to follow Kenneth Gergen: beyond there´s just silence1. If we follow this view we can say also: nothing is neutral, nothing is self-evident and everything has the potential to be different. The way we are aware of everything around us, how we perceive the world and the way how we see us and others, all these are local- and time limited arrangements between persons - something that we do !together! and which is not separable from the social, historical and the actual correlation between person, space and time in which they originate. This is never a neutral connection, instead it´s always loaded with multiple values. Daniel was told the sentence: "You just always have an eye to your own interests!" - "You simply don`t want to work, to get your degree....you always quit as soon as you have to work for something...you don’t have the discipline to reach any goals besides the one to visit your girlfriend" ... And the experts suggested him that he needs to take his psycho-meds for the rest of his life to avoid worse. Dependent on the words and the kind of language we choose, the other one could turn away, could accuse us of something or quite the opposite – the other one could give us a smile, an embrace and even hope. Dialogue ...the words and gestures we share with others…the language-of-BeingWith, this elixier of life; well dosed it can set free the imprisoned one, pull down the walls, the cocoon of pain, inability, hopelessness and missing strength.
Kenneth J. Gergen & Mary Gergen (2009). Einführung in den sozialen Konstruktionismus. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. (Aus dem Amerikanischen von Karin Roth, 118 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-89670-681-2; Originaltitel: Social Construction. Entering the Dialogue. Taos Institute Publications, Chagrin Falls, Ohio 2004) 1
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Traditions of understanding do not handcuff us. But violence we experienced, humiliation, torture and annihilation cannot be undone. There is the pain, resistent to good therapy and resistant to loving and fulfilling relationship. Different keys to open the door of the experienced violence... maybe this is the main road in a good direction… Paul Celan, survivor of Shoa writes: "with changing keys" with changing keys you open the house, inside the snow of secrecy swirls depending on the blood, pouring out of the eye or mouth or ear, your key changes If the key changes the word will do as well the word that is allowed to drive with the snowflakes. Depending on the wind which pushes you away the snow clenches around the word.“ (Paul Celan, From Treshold To Treshold)2
The chance to create new space together. Construction, deconstruction and reconstruction under discussion. Original:
Mit wechselndem Schlüssel
schließt du das Haus auf, darin
der Schnee des Verschwiegenen treibt.
Je nach dem Blut, das dir quillt
aus Aug oder Mund oder Ohr,
wechselt dein Schlüssel.
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Wechselt dein Schlüssel, wechselt das Wort,
das treiben darf mit den Flocken.
Je nach dem Wind, der dich fortstößt,
ballt um das Wort sich der Schnee.
- Paul Celan, Von Schwelle zu Schwelle -
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I saw Daniel once a month for 2 hours over a period of 3 years to talk and share. In the meantime we stood in contact via telephone. I offered him to contact me by phone as well, if some unexpected problems came up. I was curious. I wanted to learn more about Daniel, for example what seemed important to him, what stories and themes were in his mind and also, which values and the goals he had. The question, what exactly might or actually gave him power and strength… His vulnerable side and part of his personality seemed as interesting as his strength he obviously had. I wanted to know for example how he established himself, his world, I wanted to know his reasons for choosing the way he described (created) something and the language he used to do so, in which context all this stood (resp. the contexts he created) and the effects as a result. I wanted to know why he became the one he was in this very moment. He became curious as well, he wanted to know everything about alternatives to the common psychiatry worldwide. He wanted to know for what reason I offer alternatives and the way which led me to do so. He asked me as well, if I "healed" “mentally ill” people and if there is the chance/possibility in general. He asked me to establish a contact to other people with the same diagnosis and people with similar problems: the problem of being unable to leave the house. He was searching for the ones, who were able to get over their fear, timidity and inhibitions, also their disappointments. After about a year he asked me for some self-help literature and was offered help by some employers, who do freelance work for my institute - within the bonds of possibility, based on their practical training to qualify in systemic therapy – they talked together once a month. Daniel always followed his appointments. In the beginning his first main goal was to get rid himself off what seemed the impossibility to move free, to be running around free, free of the anxiety, which dominated all other feelings.
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He just had one term for his state of situation which he described as something he got overwhelmed by and wasn´t able to control: “extreme indisposition”. He felt "it" physically. My attempts failed to find out anything concrete about this state of mind. He just had this very one term on his hand and in his mind. We spoke about when and in which context "it" had come up the first time, and also if it had shown up all of a sudden or if had sneaked in. We tried to see a sense and we looked for exceptions. This state of indisposition just could be reduced during interaction with a very few people and just inside closed rooms, never outside. Every single new aspect, facet and story, which came up during our conversations was an additional reason to ask new questions, also for new curiosity and new attempts to understand, new de-constructions as well as new re-constructions: it took Daniel about 18 month to definite the state, which he got overwhelmed by, when he had to go into the outside world, with additional words besides the term "indisposition". He became more specific, was able to see a connection to his frames and many of his experiences, for example the fear of being stigmatized by other people, the feeling of his own worth, the feeling of shame, fear of failure and the protection from this, fear of crime and for losing control, the fear of disgrace and the fear of compulsory hospitalization. He even brought up the theme: „genetic disposition“. His biological mother killed herself in a psychiatric context. He had no memories of her, neither did he know much about her. The same with his biological father, he even knew less about him. Gradually he took new aspects into account and he took first steps towards the sights/goals, he had set himself. He took the initiative, startet being aktive. After about 2 years he startet to do things, which were out of question for a long time: he startet his fitness-program again and also riding his bicycle, which he soon increased to 1 hour daily. He also volunteered in the psycho-social field for some weeks and educated himself via internet. He got in contact with other person affected by negative psychiatric experiences and built up a network; he found a psychiatrist, who supported his attempts-together with his GP (family doctor) and with me - to get off the psychiatric drugs with professional
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knowledge and support. He took the necessary steps to break off the guardianship by law. Over the period of three years, where Daniel and i worked together, I never tried to push him neither to convince him. I wasn´t the one who took the lead in our conversations, but was there, present, with him. In our dialogues I tried to understand his understanding. There were some relevant questions, for example: the way how something is said and what stays unmentioned; in which context; what´s the intention; with what effects; which voices will be restrained; which way of thinking won´t be questioned anymore; who takes benefits from this; who or what will be preferred by this; what will be pushed aside; what´s the consequences and for whom; what future will be created by this or other kind of self-construction and world-construction? Daniel changed. His scope of thinking and action became more colourful, varied and flexible. He didn’t feel caged or infested any longer but quite the opposite: he was the one in charge now, not the static and paralyzed one. The conversations gave us the chance to create new keys to let the wounds breath to give it the chance to heal: the inactive "tissue" underneath became active again. “The me is the miracle of you", Edmond Jabès says. Our dialogues reflected different realities, we actually created new ones, realities in which Daniel saw ground and was able to set his feet on. Friedrich G. Paff, poet from Marburg and close friend, describes dialog as the chance for new encounters and meetings... the chance to drop stereotyped patterns and old cliches...to stay open...to give "it" a chance in a way not just accepting the variety in our present life but being curious and open about the new aspects of our existence which might knock on the doors of our future presence and life. Successful dialogues in its full potential has the chance to lead into enchantment, which always includes transformation. In language, with language, through language. Dialogues, which fail, dialogues, which didn´t took place are petrifications, narrow passes and blockades, which wait for transformation, often a life-long... dialogues are the chance to create new space, not alone but in relation… in human relations something third can be created, an unfixed, loosened and free break off and melting of barriers... the chance,
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to break chains…a space where one is carried by wings while the abyss falls apart… wings never known before.… Thank you Daniel, for these common experiences, for our mutual dialogues.
Translation from German into English by Bernd Beneking & Chava Karin Roth
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