Almost Lost (10 page)

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Did you know then what you know now:
that people see others in direct ratio to how they see themselves
, in color, meaning, importance, feelings and everything else?”

“I've been thinking about that since you men
tioned it before and I've accepted that it positively and absolutely is true.”

“Gold star for you. Can you remember exactly when the unfamiliar discomfort took over?”

“Well toward myself and…you know…it came down in one black swoop like a bigger than person-size vampire bat. I told you that after that incident everything in life was like a slow-motion, old black-and-white late, late, late, late-night movie, didn't I?”

“What about other people? I mean besides you and—” I shrugged.

“
Everything
in life lost all color, even the trees and grass and flowers became black or dull grey. They were even more colorless than anything. Well, at first not my mom and the girls and my home and stuff, but they too gradually drifted down to nothing—sort of dark, evil shadows.”

“Sammy, have you ever had ringworm?”

He looked startled. “Yes. Dorie brought it home from school once, and it spread like wildfire.”

“Did everyone get it?”

“Yeah, some more, some less.”

“Who got less?”

“I think me.”

“How come?”

“I think by then we knew what we were looking for and caught it before…Oh, I see what you're getting at. You think
I let
the black, disgusting, mind-eating…begin…” Sammy stopped and bowed his head until it almost touched his waist.

“Extending?”

“Expanding…”

“Enlarging?”

“Defeating…”

“Imprisoning?”

“Mind-controlling…”

“Ego-deflating?

“Confidence-shattering…”

“Distrust- and unhappiness-causing?

“Consuming…”

“Isn't it scary to think that the common, old, everyday variety of black
depression
can become completely consuming?”

Sammy's voice was little more than a gentle, pained whisper. “But only if I let it be. Is that what you're trying to get me to say?”

“Only if you thoroughly and completely believe it.”

“I not only believe it! I lived it!”

I touched his hand softly. “I'm so happy that you're emerging out of your long trip through a tunnel of darkness. How would you measure the light in your life on a 1 to 10 scale today?”

“Where does…say…112 grab you?”

“Right in my bright-light-, sunshine-, happiness-filled heart.”

“Don't
you
ever feel depressed?”

“Of course! Everyone does! There are times when pain, sadness, emptiness, and/or depression are a part of each human existence. Can you think of some of those times?”

“For sure when parents divorce their kids.”

“And?”

“Well…I'd feel…I don't know how I'd stand it if Mom died, or even Uncle Gordon, or Grandma Gordon, or…I guess anybody I love, even Dread Red Fred.”

“What about when someone is treated cruelly or disrespectfully, especially over a period of time?”

“Yeah, or loses a job, or doesn't make a team, or
gets sacked. Man, there must be millions of things that could make us depressed to the max.”

“So should we learn how to handle trauma
before
it enters our lives?”

“Is that possible?”

“Yes, if we retain the knowledge that
any
trauma deserves time and space for grieving and healing.”

“You mean like a short time for a small wound and a longer time for a deeper one?”

“Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, and they should find a friend, a family member, a minister, a coworker, or even a crisis line to help them verbally ease their stress and pain so they
don't hold it in
until, like a pressure cooker, they explode!”

“Great simile, smart Sam.”

“Great because I lived it. Grandma Gordon's pressure cooker blowing its top, leaving all sorts of straggly, multicolored gook dangling from the ceiling. And the ringworm simile helps, too. We shouldn't
ever
let any problem multiply until it gets out of hand completely! Right?”

“Right.”

“Did I tell you that Mom once wrote in fancy script
CHOOSING NEGATIVE PATHS CAN LEAD ONLY TO NEGATIVE DESTINATIONS
and framed it and hung it in our front hallway, beside the mirror? That's kind of the same thing, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is. Does it make sense to you?”

“It does now that I'm getting my life unscrewed.”

“Good. Let's consider
what you might have done
at the time you gave up your free agency.”

Sammy thought for a while. “I honestly don't know.”

“It's very hard to think rationally when you're in shock, isn't it?”

“Terminally trauma-trashed.”

“Not terminally, thank goodness. You're still here.”

“Well…I guess I could have…I know what you want me to say…
NOT
handed over to…the monster…
all
my thinking, rationalizing, judging, cognitive powers.”

“Not what I want, what you want! Did you at the moment of trauma
GIVE
him your remote control ability?”

“Absolutely and completely, I allowed him to make me a hate-filled clone monster just like him, always looking for the negative, not caring about anyone else's feelings or wants or needs.”

“Do I hear you saying that after that you began hating, not only him, but everyone, including your neighbor as yourself, instead of following the Biblical teaching of loving your neighbor as
yourself?
”

“I hate to admit it, but that's true.”

“What if you had
put your emotions on hold
long enough for you to talk to someone and ease your pain. Suppose you had
taken time out
to recognize
‘him'
doing his thing, as the evil, terrible, BAD THING it was, with you still continuing to
love and respect yourself
enough to go on with your doing your good, loving things?”

“Maybe if I'd known then what I know now I
could
have seen him as the thoroughly crazy, lunatic, every single which way demented abuser…” He hesitated. “
Abuser…loser…abuser
he is, and not let
him
rub off on me; making
me
feel too dirty and disgusting to live on the planet!”

“And you could have thereby controlled some of the contagious, debilitating hate and disrespect for both yourself and others that began
taking over
your thinking. Right?”

“Probably…absolutely. If I had just retained command of my thinking and actions, instead of giving that power to the person who deserved it least…man…it was stupid of me to have tried to O.D. and become a complete hog-head just because
he was one
.”

“And…”

“I'd have
not
stopped using my brain just because he had stopped using his.”

“Good! Have you ever thought about how much energy it takes to HATE?
Energy that should be spent on
loving, caring, helping, healing. All the things that make others, as well as oneself, happy, belonging, nestled harmoniously into the environment.”

“Hadn't thought about it…but it feels true. A teacher, or someone, once told us that
‘if you aren't happy and at peace with the place or the people where you are, you aren't going to be happy and at peace with yourself or the people where you're going, no matter where it is.'
”

“That, as you say, ‘feels true to me.'”

“I wonder if trying to have love and hate in your life at the same time isn't about as impossible as a bird trying to fly up and down at the same time.”

“Which do you think is the stronger force?”

“I suspect love would be if we'd let it.”

“I agree. I believe love and respect for self and others is the answer to the world's problems, as well as to our own.”

“I wish like everything that I'd gotten out of that hellhole and gone back to Mom's when I first sensed that I was in a dangerous situation.”

“Do you think next time you're in a traumatic predicament you can be in control of
yourself
instead of allowing them or it, whoever or whatever, to control you?”

“I hope I'll never have to face anything like that in my life again.”

“Probably not exactly like that, but you will face other difficult situations, everyone does.”

“Well…I may not handle all situations perfectly in the future, but I certainly will be more prepared to keep my control buttons to myself.”

“Then you've learned one of the greatest lessons anyone can learn!”

“Just too bad I had to learn it in such a hard way.”

“If you're sure you've learned how to respect and appreciate your absolute and sacred
self-control mechanism
which
no one else
should ever be allowed to master, except you, we will soon be ready to go on to dumping the last of the putrefying garbage of your past once and for all.”

Sammy looked pained. “One more thing. I'm not sure how I'll face…school on Monday. Trying to go from the gang thing back to my old friends isn't going to be that easy.”

“None of us were ever told that life would be easy,
only that it would be worth the effort!
What about telephoning a couple of your old buddies, explaining what has happened in your life—of course, without gory specifics—and asking them to forgive you and accept you back as a friend?”

“That sounds more scary than…most anything. Got any other bright suggestions?”

“No. Sooner or later you're going to have to, one way or another, face those you've hurt or embarrassed or whatever and make amends and rebuild bridges. I know you can do it! You're a bright kid, and you deserve better than what you have mainly dealt out to yourself.”

“You can say that again.”

“Okay. You're a bright kid and you deserve…”

“Enough, already. I'll try. No! I'll do it. I'll talk to the principal, and I'll get my mom or someone to take me to school and bring me back, and I'll…”

Sammy shuddered. He was wondering, as was I, if the gang would make him “jump out” as he had jumped in—with a merciless beating by five gang members. I doubted he could stand such punishment in his weakened state and suggested maybe he should have home schooling for a while.

He grinned from ear to ear. “No thanks! Say good-bye to the
new
Smiling Sunshine Sam who is going off to fight and win both his physical and mental wars by himself.” He crossed his heart. “I hope!”

SUMMARY OF SESSION

Giving away personal self-control buttons.

Facing being “jumped out” of a gang.

Possibility of home schooling.

Calling an old friend, explaining his past, and asking for support.

Samuel Gordon Chart

Wednesday, August 24, 4:30
P.M.

Seventh Visit
SAMUEL (SAMMY) GORDON, 15 years old

 

“Yo, Sammy. You look great.”

“You mean like you weren't expecting to see me all in one piece?”

“Hey, I wish you hadn't asked that question.”

“I knew you were worried about the ‘gang thing,'
and don't think I wasn't! I've heard some pretty scary stories about kids trying to be ‘jumped out' of a gang. I wasn't too concerned about the other stuff. Actually everything went even smoother than I ever dreamed it could. Probably because like you suggested, I called my friend Marv, who I've known since we were in grade school, and told him just a little about what a mixed-up, screwup I'd been. I told him, too, how I wanted to repent and come back. I used the word ‘repent' because we used to go to Sunday school together sometimes when we were little.

“We blabbed for hours, talking about our nutty old English teacher who made us read gooey poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in front of the class, and the time we were playing team tennis and I came up behind him for a ball, and his backswing hit me in the head so hard that I googled out on the court. We laughed till we cried. It was wow! And I really did feel like maybe someday I would be able to live back in the olden, no hassle, no hang-up days.”

“I knew you could do it.”

“I don't think I could have done it without knowing that you knew I could do it before
I
even knew I could do it.”

“It looks like you've still got some work to do in the self-esteem, self-confidence area,
BUT
I'll be behind you; your coach, your mentor, your pep squad, your leader, your teacher, your booster, your admirer, your I-know-you-can-do-it, your positive thinker, your light turner-onner. All those things and more. Also I'll give you a couple of books that will help you to
help yourself
if you'll let them.”

“Adults have a lot of self-help books, but I've never seen one especially for kids. Why don't you write a self-help book just for kids?”

“If I ever do, I'll dedicate it to
you
, promise! Now on with
your
life.”

“Well, after I talked to Marv I felt so good I called Tommy Tompkins. He's always been like the major class clown. Me and him have been buds for years, too. For the first few minutes after I called, Tommy and I were both kind of uncomfortable, and his sister kept bugging him for the phone, but when we finally got to really talking from our guts, it was stratospheric. He understood more than I ever thought he could, and he said he wanted more than anything else to be my friend again and to help me get better in my head and my heart.”