Almost Lost (12 page)

“Want to talk about
them
for a minute?”

“You mean like I was one of
them
at one time?”

“I didn't say that, you did.”

“Well…let's take Casey Millburn in my class. He's a smart-ass if there ever was one. I'm not sure anyone, anywhere, anytime could ever help him. He's a bully. He bosses everyone around. He thinks he's been elected dictator of the universe since the gangs left. He lords it over everyone and pretends he's always right, always best, always in charge, on top, the greatest of all great Moo Goo's.”

“Is there a possibility that he might have a low self-esteem problem?”

“Cardboard Casey? Low self-esteem? Are you out of your mind?”

“
Clear your mind
for a moment and think about this: Is it possible that Casey's outrageous behavior might be because
he has zero self-esteem?
”

“No way! If anything he's got too much self-bloating self-esteem. What I think he needs is stiffer consequences when he gets out of hand. Mr. smart aleck, show-off, better-than-anyone-else tough guy needs a little humility knocked into him.”

“But what if the arrogance, the bullying, the bragging
aren't
signs of self-esteem?”

“Well…”

“What if Casey's
feelings of worth
come only when he can convince himself that he's better than someone else? What if
the only way he can build up his own ego
is by tearing someone else's ego down, or by scaring them or by humiliating them?”

Sammy chewed on his thumbnail for a few seconds. “Then I guess he would need some redirecting, repatterning, wouldn't he?”

“Can you imagine yourself as Casey? Close your eyes and try to put yourself in his place. He's probably been programmed by negative conditioning, and
it doesn't matter at all whether it was environmental negative conditioning or parental negative conditioning or
self-inflicted negative conditioning. They all come out of the same container
.”

“Man, now I'm seeing Casey from a completely different perspective. In fact I'm seeing him like he's the old
me!
He's probably feeling that he's of no value or consequence, so why should he try to act
good
when he's positive he's
no good!
That's really a haunting, hurtful place to be in.”

“It sounds hurtful.”

“He probably feels that there's no way he can compete.”

“
Why
can't he compete?”

“Because
he
, or society, or his parents have made him feel like he
can't!
He feels useless, worthless.”

“Unlovely, unlovable?”

“Yeah. Like a failure, a bad kid.”

“Is it possible that he can then justify himself by becoming the
best bad kid
around? That maybe even subconsciously, he tries to fill his ego needs through negativity, belittling, and hostility toward himself and others, and through crudeness, rudeness, loudness, and other socially unacceptable behaviors?”

“Yep. You got it. We're talking about Casey, plus probably me and all my sell-yourself-short mates of my olden days.”

“Do you think maybe a better term than ‘low self-esteem' might be ‘low self-respect'?”

“Either way, attitude is everything. You long ago convinced me that people with self-respect and self-esteem don't need to bully or cut to feel important.”

“I agree with you, Sammy the Significant!
Love and self-respect are this world's greatest equalizers
.”

Sammy grinned. “Ever were! Ever will be!”

We got up, stretched, had a drink, and ate some nuts and popcorn. “Want to take a little pop test?” I asked as I handed Sammy this sketch and a black felt-tipped pen.

He grinned.

After Sammy had drawn strange hair, glasses, a mustache, a huge frown, and some moles with hair sticking out of them on the above sketch, I handed him the drawing on the next page and asked him to do with
it
what he had done with the first sketch.

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's Jesus.”

“So?”

“It wouldn't be showing the proper re…Oh, I get it now. You're trying to
graphically
teach me the
Respect Lesson
, the ‘do unto others as…as…I would do unto Jesus.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe we'd better start trying a little harder to
live
what we believe, right?”

“Right! And with your help and Mom's and Dr. D.'s, I think I can…NO! I
know
I not only can have more respect for myself, but I can help teach others to have more respect for themselves! Dr. D. is an ideal example of the respect thing.”

“From what you've told me about him, I'm sure he is. It's too bad all kids don't have a few Dr. Davidsons in their lives.”

“Oh, another thing I wanted to tell you about that Dr. D. and I have in common. When he was about four and a half and whining and bawling and lying on the floor and banging his head because he wanted
to go outside and play, his grandma and mom found an old piano for him to take his frustrations out on. It was so out of tune that now every time we talk about it, he starts laughing. A lot of the strings were broken, so he'd have to hum the note that was silent if it was part the melody line. Anyway he said sometime he'll come over to my house and we'll have a piano duet jam since we can both play by ear as well as read music. Doesn't he sound like the dandiest dude of dudedom?”

“That he does! And I think I'm almost as glad as you are that he came to your school before you came back.”

“I hate to think what might have happened to me if he hadn't.”

“Then don't!”

“Don't what?”

“Don't think about negative things. Have you ever considered that you may not be able to keep an occasional disease-carrying fly out of your house, but you don't have to prop the door open so he and all his dirty, disease-carrying friends are invited in to swarm on your food and produce and reproduce till they—”

“Your allegory comes in loud and clear to me. But I still think it's a bummer that being smart and trying to learn is allowed to bring on abuse in some schools. Actually it was in mine to a degree before Dr. D. I remember lots of times I didn't do my best because I didn't want to be labeled ‘computer head' or ‘boodie brain.' Some of the kids would taunt that if your brain was too big for your ‘boodie,' they'd have to whittle both down a bit. Or they'd say you were bringing up the learning curve so high it was making it hard on them, so they'd have to make it hard on you in return, which they did to a couple of kids. It was kind
of gruesome seeing kids beat up right outside the schoolyard just because they were bright.”

“Didn't anyone go to the principal?”

“No one dared. We'd all heard there was a snitch in the office.”

“How did Dr. Davidson change things?”

“I heard he got rid of a lot of teachers and office staff and even some kitchen and custodial people, and that he really had to fight to do it.”

“Good for him! And for you! Now how about we…”

“I'm reading your body language…do a little more stirring around in
my
head.”

“Right. You don't know how wonderful it is working with someone like you where we are sort of in harmony in our thinking. People who aren't ready for change only compound their negative thoughts and attitudes and bring more discord and dissonance into their lives.”

“Don't include me in that group, lady. I am out! Out!
Out!
I want the old light and happiness and…I guess you could call it
MENTAL FREEDOM
from the black, squeezing-out-all-beautiful-and-good-things-in-reality, mental monsters. The blackness really does seem to have a life of its own, you know.”

“Therefore, poetic Sammy, I hope you've learned to be very, very compassionate toward any others you meet who might be suffering through their own menacing, monster depressions.”

“
Suffering through depression
is a good way to put it! I broke a couple of ribs skiing, and my arm Roller Blading, and I was in a car accident with my Uncle Milton, and in the drive-by shooting, but nothing ever hurt like the blackness inside my head and
heart and soul. It's like…if you haven't ever been there I hope you never, never, ever have to go.”

“All of us feel the colorless, emptiness of depression to one degree or another, at one point or another in our lives, Solemn Sammy, but usually those feelings are temporary and can be borne. Those of you who ‘feed your problems,' knowingly or unknowingly, have a greater, blacker, sometimes permanent, or recurring, debilitating weight.”

Sammy tried to smile, but it was difficult. “At least I'm facing up to it now and scrambling my way out of the dung dungeon. I should get credit for that, shouldn't I?”

“You deserve and get all the credit in the world, all the stars in the sky.”

“Why doesn't everyone else just
do it
, too?”

“Some people have a physical chemical imbalance that sucks them down into a state so restricting that they find it difficult to eat, think, work, study, sometimes even to take care of their personal needs. They are imprisoned in their own kind of dark solitary confinement.”

“You mean they really
can't
get out?”

“Usually they can, once they start taking antidepressant drugs, tranquilizers, or whatever medication is needed for their particular problems.”

“I don't understand how that works.”

“It's not simple. Let me explain a little about Prozac. It is not a euphoriant or a sedative, and it doesn't have many of the side effects most of the drugs introduced in the late 1950s have.”

“And?”

“Okay, you want-to-know-it-all person, let me get my file. All right, Prozac comes in a little capsule containing about thirty-nine quintillion molecules of something called fluoxetine hydrochloride, which mi
grates to the brain when ingested. In the brain the molecules attach to nerve cells and prevent them from picking up serotonin, a neurotransmitter that passes electrical impulses from cell to cell.

“With less serotonin being picked up by the nerve cells, more of it remains in the brain, delivering small jolts of electricity from nerve to nerve, in a way sort of stimulating the voltage in the patient's head. Science doesn't, at this moment, understand precisely how this works, but the patient begins to find his/her way back into the light and freedom that once was his/hers. There are a
few
people who may need medication for the rest of their lives.”

“I guess I'm pretty lucky to be me, aren't I?”

“Any way you look at it you're lucky to be you!”

“You think
some
of the people needing medical fixes could make the comeback without it?”

“By changing their attitudinal sets, their concepts about handling stress levels, and other things,
many
people certainly could improve their overall lifestyles and make their lives less complicated and threatening. Also by incorporating positive light therapy, positive exercise therapy, positive eating therapy, and all around enthusiastic, optimistic, reality therapy, they could help their bodies become more balanced in all areas, including chemically.”

“That sounds like work!”

“It is work! But isn't anything worth having worth working for? And doesn't work seem like challenging fun if one has the proper attitude?”

“I didn't know you had to work at being happy.”

“You don't!
After
you get into a pattern of putting the ingredients that cause happiness and balance into your life.”