Ed Garren’s Weblog

I got an eMail today from an associate.  She is a member of a Portland City Commission, a gentle and loving woman who moves around in a wheel chair.

The eMail had a link to a digital movie short she had made about an incident of discrimination which occurred in her life last fall on an outing with her family.

I have been deeply troubled by that event all day.  I have talked about it with friends.  I remain troubled by the incident, and other recent incidents that have swept into my life in the last month or so.

Another friend, an elderly gay man, who is also wheel chair bound now, had an issue at his dialysis clinic, because he is “sweet” on one of the technicians at the facility.

In his case, he was friendly with the tech, nothing sexual, just trying to make conversation because his entire life consists of going to dialysis and going home.  He is about as harmless as a de-clawed house cat, and probably not long for this world at 77.

For whatever reason the clinic felt it necessary to bring him into the directors office and tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, and that he was to have no further contact with the technician.  The technician had never mentioned anything, expressed any discomfort or concern.  All of a sudden, my friend gets hauled in and dressed down for his harmless conversations.

In tears, he related this story to me, and his sense of betrayal over the situation.  His partner was also deeply hurt and angered and gets sick at the thought of ever going back to the place.

The woman who is mentioned at the beginning shared about how she was bullied out of the event, and her family went on to do the event without her, leaving her in tears outside.

I was shocked, not just that the bullies had run her out, or that her family had not opposed the injustice, but then they went on without her, leaving her alone with her tears.

As I write about this, I want to be very clear that it is not just my associate, or my friend, but a regional malaise, a mental illness if you please that seems to run a heavy thread in most “native” families in the region.

My comments are not meant to be accusatory of her, or her family, or my friend at the dialysis clinic.  This is a systemic issue, a cultural one, and most of us who have moved here from other places, or locals who have lived elsewhere and returned all have the same reaction to it.

Dumbfounded amazement.

This is truly “off the scale” to me.  I just don’t get it.  Not just because of my own sense of personal justice, but our national legacy of “taking a stand”, “sitting in”, and other non violent acts of courage that have formed a more just society.

What if Rosa Parks had cooperated and gotten up and given her seat to the white man on the bus?  After all of the blood shed so that people could live with more dignity, surrendering dignity in order to “get along” makes no sense, and insults those who died so that we could have freedoms.

The “South” is just as polite, just as “family oriented”, and has family roots that run just as deep.  But any of this bullying behavior would be met with a very different response “back home.”  The response would be measured and polite, but firm, “you and what army?”

Surrendering to a bully is the ultimate way to “lose face.”

The south is a culture that spawned the Dixie Chicks song “Good Bye Earl” about two women who poison an abusive husband and dump the body in a lake.  Capitulation is not celebrated, life is too tough.

People out here don’t seem to understand that all of the work of Gandhi and King was “in your face” direct confrontation of an oppressive status quo.  The actions were peaceful, measured and disciplined, but they were also confrontational and combative.  It specifically was civil disobedience, in other words, they broke laws that they believed to be unjust.

I have a wonderful documentary, “The Women of Country Music” about the rise of women in the music business in America.  Few realize that it was these women who were the first to write their own songs and sell millions of them.  They changed the music business forever.

One of the earliest, Patsy Montana, the first woman to sell one million records (”I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart”, 1936) shares about how in her career, they tried to pay her less because she was the “girl singer.”  She said, “I stood my ground, I didn’t let them scare me, I stood my ground and I got the cut I was supposed to get.”

In the same documentary, Loretta Lynn states, “you have to toughen up to survive in this business.”  Given the brutalities of current life in America, that seems like good advice for all of us.  What the documentary makes clear is that the only way people get ahead is to feel comfortable fighting for what is important to them.

There seems to be an ethos in the region about confrontation, and the avoidance of it, that makes it very easy for bullies to rule the day.   I would also suggest (as winter and “the rain” approaches) that our region has some of the highest rates of clinical depression in the country.  We blame the weather on it, but I suspect the weather is only a co-factor.

I think a lot of people are depressed because they don’t feel much control over their lives, and human interactions seem to be one long mine field filled with injustice and pain and no acceptable way to protect ones self from assault with one’s own honest anger.

In my private practice, every client I’ve had who is a native of the region (and usually trying to get off of the anti-depressants they have been on for years) comes to the conclusion that he/she has never learned an acceptable way to express anger when someone is hurting them.

So how did we get here?  To this place where we are obsessed with being polite to people who push us around, where we think we are being noble martyrs because we won’t say “No” when we are being treated unfairly?

Family Therapy theory and practice acknowledges the importance of culture with regard to belief systems, particularly regarding human interaction and dealing with people in daily life.  The culture of the Pacific Northwest is legendarily “Conflict Avoidant”, people here will avoid any form of conflict or seemingly adversarial behaviors at all costs.

In the case of my associate, even her family did not object to the way she was being treated, and then went on to the event without her.  My friend at the dialysis clinic was polite in the directors office, agreeing with her, and only when he got in the safety of his car, did he break down and cry over the humiliation of the event.

Depression is “Anger turned inward”, so when someone treats us in a hurtful way, where does our anger go if we don’t express it in the moment when the hurt is inflicted?  We all have a large capacity to absorb pain and process it, but even the largest storage has limits.  When those limits are exceeded, something snaps.  It may be a nervous breakdown, or it may be the guy who goes home and shoots up his family and/or the neighborhood.

Those “Summit Health” ads on TV, “If your anti-depressant alone isn’t working” give me creeps.  How much more “Soma” do you need?

I have lived in three cultures before moving here.  After four years, I still love the place, and the people who live here.  But for the sake of the mental health and the social justice of the region, we need to learn ways to express our anger when we are mis-treated back at the person who is mis-treating us.  Bottling it up inside is a slow poison, that adds to the “grey” of our lives, makes us sick, depressed and unhappy.

In the same documentary, singer Lacy J. Dalton says of the early days of the feminist movement, “I didn’t like the militancy of it.  But as I’ve become older, I’ve really become very understanding of that.  Because unless we really make a fuss sometimes, nobody is gonna listen.”

If you’re unable to defend yourself, can’t stand up for your own personal dignity and justice, then why would anyone else fight on your behalf?

I told my associate that I hope she, her family and friends, go back to the venue this fall, all go in, and if they try to boot her out, make a big ruckus.

Oh, I told her to invite the press too.

“You have to make the injustice visible”  Mohandus Gandhi

Thanks,  Ed Garren

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 am and is filed under Self Esteem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.