Step into the scream

I wish I could write sounds “because then I could write about the screams I have heard throughout my career. Screams of pain; screams of joy (although not as often as I would have liked); screams of surprise; screams of fear. I have heard too many of them I think “well, at least too many of the negative ones “I am not sure I would be writing this if all I had heard were screams of joy or delight.

So, why am I talking about this ... well, I was in a program a few months back “a guest, visiting, no real role ... and as I entered the program I heard this screaming “loud, painful struggling, rolling into hysterical laughter after a minute, then the pain scream again, rolling into the hysteria, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I was so uncomfortable, sitting there in a distant, but close, outer office. I wanted to scream myself “Stop that!”, “How is that helpful?”

So ... I have heard a lot of screaming “truth be told I have even stimulated some of it myself. “Thom. You Asshole,” comes to mind. As does “I don’t care. I won’t go. I don’t care what you think!”

Screams. Not just yelling, which is, to my mind, altogether different. Screams. Pain, joy, surprise, whatever. Screams.

I am working in the reception centre. Mary has been there for weeks.
I walk in and say–Hey Mary. How are you.”
–Fuck you, Asshole!” she screams at me before I can even blink.
“Why me?” I wonder. “Why is she screaming at me? I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even here”.
–“Why me, indeed?” Probably because I am there. That’s a good enough reason. No need for more.
If you are in the line of fire, you might just get shot. Stand in the rain, you get wet, jump in a raging river and you might get swept away “unless you have something that attaches you to a safe place.
So, I decide to ask her. “Mary, why are you screaming at me? What did I do?”
–you’re just one of them,” she responds, still in the high jet scream pitch.

And “scary as is to say “I understood what she was saying “or at least I had my way of understanding it “which may, or may not, be the same thing. After all, on a good day, I felt like “one of them”. I was paid to act like “one of them”. I even wanted to be “one of them”. So what was wrong with that, I wondered, pretending to myself that I didn’t know.

–Ya, so,” I responded intelligently to Mary. “So what?” Intelligent, right? It’s one of my specialties “articulate reflection for the benefit of other.
–you’re all the same”, she screamed “now, really, believe me. She was screaming, not yelling, or shouting, she was screaming. I can tell the difference . Yelling and shouting, well, they just make me duck, “bop and weave”, as Jack might say. Screaming makes me cringe, that’s how I know. Screaming reels me full force back in to my own childhood rage, pain, isolation, sense of not-being-understood, and that’s why I cringe. Pulling back from the buried me that I keep tucked away somewhere inside my shelled self.

Now I’m thinking, “okay, she may see that as a problem but “we” might think it is a good thing “consistency, teamwork, a common front, and all that. Good for the program, good for the staff, good for the plans.”
“Well”, I wondered out loud, “Is that a bad thing?”
“Of course it is, you Idiot.”
The optimist in me thought that I seemed to be making progress here “a few minutes earlier I was an “asshole” and now I am only an “idiot” “really, I do think that is progress towards a positive therapeutic encounter, don’t you? I mean, in the hierarchy of insults, surely I was moving up, or would that be down, the list.

“One has to keep a sense of perspective” an early teacher had said ““measure everything against the moment before”. Okay, cool, I can do that. After all, it was only the moment before and so I don’t have to worry about forgetting, do I? I mean, one moment leads to the next, the stream of immediacies flowing like water to the sea.

I do remember. A minute ago I was the Big “A”, now I am the Big “I”. Progress. Time to step in. Grab the umbrella, get out the life jacket, anchor myself firmly to the shore and plunge the depths of this relational maelstrom.
–I’m not getting it,” I say to Mary. “I went to school for years, practiced and studied, followed the best role models I could find, educated myself in various approaches to helping, and now, after all of that, you think I am an “Idiot”, capital “I”, if you please, without even talking with me for a minute or two to assess your initial evaluation which may, or may not, be correct? No “hello Thom”, “nice to see you”, “how ya doing”? Just a screaming “Hello Asshole, you’re an idiot”.”

I looked at her sideways “don’t ask why “perhaps I thought I made a smaller target that way.
“So, well” I mumbled quickly, leaving no room for her to interject. (Hey, when you are crawling desperately towards the shore in a raging river it’s no time to admire the view) “I’m wondering. Can we maybe start over with a simple greeting and then move to the “Hello Asshole, you’re an Idiot” part? I think I would find it easier to take that way. You know “a little conversational greeting leading to an unrealistic confrontation for something I must have done but have no memory of, but am feeling like I should apologize for anyway. And maybe, if we start over, when you finish with the “you-idiot” part, could we then move to the “let–s-explain-to-Thom-what-he-did-so-that-he-knows-what-to-apologize-for” part? That would be really helpful for me and we seemed to have passed right over that part without pause or reflection. Oh, and no screaming if we could. I have a bit of a headache and I am feeling somewhat fragile this morning. Unless, of course, you feel that’s asking too much and I can appreciate it if you feel that way. I mean gosh knows I might, if I had experienced whatever you did to make you feel this way “in which case, I mean if we can’t do it without screaming, could you hang on for a minute while I go and take a “preventative” aspirin and then I could join you and we could go climb the hill out back and scream at the world together for all the injustices we have each experienced while wandering through this painful passage called life. Yes, that would work better for me. What do you think?”

She looked at me like I was a wet sock hanging from the rear view mirror. But her rage seemed less.”you’re nuts” she laughed, a little hysterically, I must confess. “I don’t understand a fucking word you’re saying.”
–Good. Good,” I responded. “Now we’re on the same page “the page where we don’t understand each other “so let’s rewrite this story shall we? Maybe we could just start with a new opening line and see where it takes us. I'll start.”
–Morning, Mary. Wanna go for a walk?”
–Morning Thom. How are you, idiot?”
I noticed the capital “I” had disappeared. This was going to be a different story.
Somehow, it seems to me, that we all have to find our own way to “stand inside the screaming” if we are going to last, and be helpful, in this field. Standing inside the screaming anchors us in the relational.

One is and is not in the centre of the maelstrom of it all. “Harold Pinter

Thom
June 2008