To Friend or Not to Friend . . .

I have been marveling over the shrinking of the world for at least a few months now. The number of people on the planet is growing but somehow the size of the planet seems to be smaller all the time. People who had disappeared from my life for decades reappear in a second, as if they never left. Conversations that were interrupted twenty years ago can continue as if one of the participants just left for a few minutes to go to the ladies’ room. Photos that we took in our teens pop up on our computer screens like instant messages. And for the most part, it’s all good. Sometimes we exchange a few e-mails and call it a day. Sometimes we find that we really missed our old friends and we readmit them into our lives. Mostly, I think, we, or at least, I, feel connected to my whole life all at once, but interact with many of those old friends mainly out of nostalgia, and possibly a desire to feel young again.

But there is a flip side to all of this instant connecting. Recently I sent a friend request on Facebook to my first friend. This woman came to the states as a toddler; her parents arrived here around the same time that mine did, and I was born a few months later. I have pictures of the two of us in our pink party dresses at each other’s birthday parties, and with all sorts of unrecognizable adults lined up with their closed-mouthed, poor European dentition smiles. 

This girl, I’ll call her Gaby for convenience although it’s not her real name, grew up in my neighborhood, went to my elementary school and then my high school. We did not stay close after our parents stopped forcing us together, but, as far as I know, we never had any major conflicts or disagreements. Eventually she became the type of person I’d say hi to in the hallway - not a friend, but not an enemy. I haven't thought of her in years.

Enter the internet, and Facebook. Another childhood friend sent me a friend “suggestion” - that I add Gaby to my friend list. Wow, I thought, I haven’t heard of her or even thought of her in ages. I was curious to find out how her life had turned out. I sent her my friend request, with a little message. Nothing. She disappeared from my list. So, naively, I sent another request, assuming a system malfunction. Again, she apparently ignored me. 

I should have laughed off this incident, but instead, I got mad. I googled Gaby but the information was scant - more or less what my parents already knew from bumping into her parents every few years. I began to worry. Had I inadvertently offended Gaby? Had I done something back in high school which she never forgave? (not that I had any memory of such a thing). Did I have the proverbial cooties?

I’ll probably never know, but Freud did his own self-analysis and I’m going to do mine too. I did not do anything to offend my first friend - and while I have no clear memory of the birthday parties with the pink frilly dresses, I do have the photos, and I still treasure them because they are all I have of those early days - before I could speak English, before I had a sister, before I ever began my formal education and before the layers of school, society, friends, family, travel, work, and emotional challenges ever began to turn me into the person I am today. So I have decided that I actually feel a bit of pity for Gaby - pity that she has no connection to those early days, or any nostalgia for a time in her life that was not hers to control, but during which she - and I - were the darlings of a group of young immigrants. I have always felt a deep connection to my roots - not just to my parents and grandparents but to all the generations going back through Spain and Persia to ancient Israel and Egypt and back into the land of Ur. I love being part of a history, and trying to make a little mark that can live on. I am lucky enough to have three amazing sons who will pass on my legacy; I try to write and publish both fiction and non-fiction so that part of me will live on. Grandiose? Maybe, but I’m hardly alone in wishing for some sort of permanence, connection, and immortality. Gaby apparently is uninterested in either her roots or her immediate past. Too bad. In psychiatry to know a person’s history is to know a person. When people ask me how I can know so much about someone in a ninety-minute interview, I point them to the list entitled: “Sources of Information.” The interview is only a small part - it is the person’s history - his c.v., curriculum vita - which explains all of the details leading to the ninety-minute interview and resulting in my clinical impressions.

If Gaby changes her mind and decides to “friend” me, I hold no grudge. I am curious about the lives of other people - without this innate curiosity I could not do what I do for a living. If she chooses to remain distant, that is her prerogative. I certainly don’t need her in my life - but for someone like me, who does what I do for a living, the absence of information is sometimes more informative than any clinical interview could ever be.

Busy Hands are Happy Hands!

When I was really little I loved this song: “Busy, busy, busy, busy all day long. Busy hands are happy hands, and - they - can’t - go - wrong!” Anyone remember it? Readers who know my history of years of working with sex offenders will see this title and cringe. But don't worry, today's post is not about work. Or not about that kind of work, anyway!

Today, busy busy busy is the mantra of everyone I know. We seem to have to many more things to do every day than we had when we were younger, or that our parents had when we were younger. And our kids need full time parenting. When I was nine years old I was doing the wash for my whole family - I’d take it down to the basement where I’d put in the quarters to do one load of whites (in hot water with bleach) and one load of colors (warm, detergent only). My mother taught me how to do the laundry, what went in the dryer and what did not; everything would fit into one dryer which (I may be remembering wrong) cost a dime! I knew how to take out my father’s shirts while they were still damp, and shake them out and hang them on wire hangers for easier ironing. I knew that certain things (tights, my mother’s “undergarments”) did not go in either the washer or the dryer. It was not the worst job in the world, although I was a bit scared of the basement.

But here’s the amazing part: two loads of laundry a week for a family of four. Today we are a family of five and I generally do two loads a day! No bleach, no hot water, organic detergent - but lots and lots of dirty clothes. 

In two days I’ve written two blogs, and both mention laundry. A coincidence? A preoccupation? An obsession? It’s not a huge challenge for the Freudian in me to understand that I am obsessed - with making order out of chaos. I want to “clean up my act.” I need to simplify my life. So what do I do? Give myself an additional deadline - a column a day. Just like newlyweds who think they are going to make love every single night for their whole lives, some people (like me) think they can give themselves an unreasonable standard to live up to.

Nobody in my family seems to know that there is no laundry fairy. As my boys grow up and pass me in height, they do not pick up any domestic responsibilities along the way. We are supposed to be consistent and firm with discipline. All the magazines tell us, and all the websites and even the textbooks. Only nobody told the kids that they were supposed to respond to this treatment a certain way. They “forget.” They “didn’t see.” Their lives are much more complicated than ours were. Our phones were attached to the wall. We had a few TV channels (cable was all for adults back then - I think that was the point of it!). We had a couple of hours of cartoons after school and on Saturday mornings; we had an occasional ABC After-School Special. My kids have about 20 dedicated kids’ channels which broadcast 24/7. They have cell phones and iPods and laptops. They don’t just play basketball in the park (although they do that too) - they have to play in a league, with organized games and practices, and guess who gets to drive them everywhere? And at the end of the season, every player gets a trophy. They shake hands with the other team at the end of every game, and they (we, the parents) chip in for a gift for the coach. But hey - the mom who makes an additional 12 car trips each week to the practices and the games - not even a thank-you. I can’t remember the last time I heard a carpool beneficiary thank me for the ride. I know my kids have good manners when they visit people and places without me; I actually get good feedback about my boys. So why is it that whatever Mommy does for them is taken for granted?

Busy, busy, busy. I have a job, and I also have a dream. But I feel like everything has to take second, third, or fiftieth place to all the chores that contribute to domestic bliss (whatever that is, and whoever is experiencing it). Everyone writes about balance, but I noticed in a recent magazine article that all the husbands have to “leave for the office early.” The moms, somehow, find a way to leave late, or to work at home, or to somehow postpone their career goals until their kids grow up - or forever. I promise you that the 90% of forensic psychiatrists who are men leave for their offices whenever they want. They don’t plan their work schedules around the Hebrew School carpool. They don’t throw in a load of laundry before going to work, and they don’t spend the minutes between cases making shopping lists or calculating the time it will take to get everyone picked up and dropped off and dinner made before it is time for a guitar lesson or basketball practice. They are Doctors - with that capital D. And we women? We fit in our work in our spare time, or else we hire helpers who teach our kids to like Jerry Springer and put sugar in everything, even spaghetti sauce. 

So I tell my children that my success as a person will depend on their success - and then I feel guilty because that pronouncement is just a new-millennium variation of the same Jewish mother guilt that my mother heaped on me. New millennium, new generation, new technology - same guilt. 

Is there an answer to our busy lives? Would I really be happier living off the grid? (are you kidding me? Without my computer? Without a library card? Without Facebook?) Could I just homeschool my kids? (insert hysterical laughter here as well as synonym for homeschooling: committing suicide). Can I use my desire to decrease my carbon footprint to get out of some of these millions of trips in my minivan? What can I do?

The answer is: Nothing. I live where I live and I have my kids, whom I love. We will continue to drive each other crazy until one day the last one will move out, and I’ll find myself with all these empty hours to fill each day. Then I can blog all I want. But then - who will I blog about?

Boiling Over

Once I had a patient who, as they all do when they are really crazy, denied any auditory hallucinations. In fact, he had only one problem. Inside his brain, something was dripping. He could hear it drip, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, but it never stopped. He was convinced that this condition was extremely grave and a portent of his impending doom. I would agree - if numerous CT scans, neurological consultations, and possibly even an exorcist found nothing wrong with him. The dripping and bubbling were - pardon the pun - in his head.

We have medication for that, and, from what I remember, he got better and went home. But what about my brain? I don't hear any dripping, but I feel - I sense - so much bubbling and boiling over; so many ideas and thoughts that I need to write down but instead, I store away for later, for when the laundry is folded and the kids are grown.

Last night I made soup. Chicken soup, or "regular" soup as it is known in my house. First it boiled over, and I ran to the kitchen to turn the heat down, just as I write little essays like this one to appease the bubbling in my brain. Then I got distracted and I forgot it on the stove for a while. When I remembered to check, my big pot of chicken soup had reduced to something like Campbell's, requiring reconstitution. Will my brain require reconstitution if I neglect it? Is a brain full of ideas like a soup, which needs a delicate balance of fire to cook properly? Or, to return to my patient's intracranial dripping, will something inside dissolve if I neglect it for too long?

My work is interesting, and it requires some thinking. Maybe even a lot of thinking. But my audience is limited - everyone skips to the "Recommendations and Formulations" part, and then somehow they don't even understand that! I can't post confidential psychiatric evaluations on the internet - so what to do? I'm taking this first jump into cyberspace without a safety cord. I'll wait and see what happens. The worst that can happen is that my boiling brain will have an outlet for all the nonsense it accumulates every day. I know it won't actually drip. We have medication for that!