There is a law that says hospital emergency departments have to accept patients. They aren't allowed to turn them away. They're wide open and exposed to everyone who wanders in. Sometimes I feel like that. I am overwhelmed with the experience of everyone who walks in or walks by. I am forced to accept them. All of them. I am not allowed to ignore them. They throw photons and sonic compression waves at me and these drown out everything else. I interpret them all into sounds and pictures and ideas, and then I reinterpret them over and over and over again.
I was trying to tell jokes to the audience, but I could never get to the punchline before I started weeping. I would always lose my composure and end up standing there, shaking with silent sobbing while the people squirmed uncomfortably in their seats. "I'm sorry," I would say, sniffing and wiping my eyes with my sleeve. "This really funny stuff, I swear. I'm just having some kind of trouble or something." The owner told me not to come back.
The boss wants to get a group together to play video games, like a team or something. "Oh. Uh...," I said. "Are you a gamer?" he asked. "Well, uh... no. Not really." I hate computer games. I'm not sure why. What am I supposed to say? He said, "Oh, okay. Just curious. Thanks." He walked out. I'm plagued by worries that I've made some kind of mistake, that I should have lied, faked enthusiasm. "I don't like it either, Honey, but I think it helps my job security," I could tell my wife. "It's just six hours each night. And weekends."
I had a dream thet Kurt Cobain got on antidepressants, dropped out of the music scene and opened a little vegetarian cafe. He married a nice lady, a librarian, and had three sons and two daughters. He lived to be a grandfather and even a great grandfather. He died happy. I told a few people about the dream. They all seemed to think it would be sad to see that happen to Kurt Cobain. People need Kurt Cobain to be Kurt Cobain.
People will kill you or steal you or change you or use you all up if you let them. They don't mean any harm. Everyone has needs all of the time. It's simple economics.
Hence the need for the skill of drawing boundaries and defending them. Generosity is one thing, and it's a good thing. But it needs limits.
Posted by: shari | July 05, 2006 at 19:14
Ah a cogito entry after so long!
So after they get admission, when and how do they leave after throwing their stuff at you and accepting the interpretations?
Posted by: Shankari | July 05, 2006 at 20:08
Well done, Scott. I sooooooo relate.
I think SOME people need to have Kurt Cobain remain Kurt Cobain, not all.
I think EVERYONE needs healthy boundaries and this is easier said than practiced, boundaries being, at least for me, an art and a science not always taught thoroughly enough at home or in school but necessary life tools.
As a clinician, "good enough" boundaries are as necessary as air. I'd burn-out from "compassion fatigue" without them.
Yes, I absolutely agree some people would use you up if you let them. There are times I can't walk three feet out of my office to go to the bathroom or open my door a crack without someone, staff or patients or both concomitantly, calling my name in need....repeatedly. Awful. I call 'em "Jesus Days". I get to practice "no". Yeesh.
Posted by: wendy | July 05, 2006 at 22:35
I bought one of these lrntooclers from the you rock web site.Thinking it would suffice my need for a guitar shaped midi controller to control softsynths. While it does,it has NO sustain input on the guitar..The Midi out doesn't send CC# 64(sustain)So if you need to sustain chords via a sustain pedal,you're out of luck.Tried to return it for a refund,but the you rock or (you suck) people refuse to process a refund.If your needs require a sustain pedal,do not buy this controller.you'll be sorry!
Posted by: Shuffle | April 18, 2012 at 04:52