Monkey See, Monkey Do...?

I just had a horrible thought. What if these kids, these poor, despairing young souls taking their lives in the face of overwhelming persecution, are getting the idea from one another?

Maybe I'm just late on this. Maybe y'all have already parsed this one out. But it goes something like this: a child who has never felt supported or understood, who is being constantly ridiculed at school and harassed online and tortured in between, witnesses the outpouring of love and support and pity and "What can we do differently" and "S/he's a hero" being lavished about his departed spiritual comrades-in-arms, and thinks: "Justin Aaberg has finally found a release from the pain."

If teenaged you ever had that thought, "You'd all miss me if I was gone," you know what I mean. It's quite clear from the fallout that we do, indeed, miss these vibrant souls. Talk about learning the wrong lesson - even witnessing the suffering parents has to have some appeal, to a child who may not believe her parents give two shits about her. A final release from the pain; a clarion call for change; confirmation that you are, in fact, loved. If not for the small fact that you don't get to live any more, I'd almost recommend it.

Suicide is not vindication, under any circumstances, no matter how much it might presently appear so. At least (because my conscience is saying, "Well, it's a little bit of vindication"), it's not the best kind. LZ Granderson knows it. Dan Savage and a host of contributors to the It Gets Better Project know it. (Thanks to Ell Deau for sharing these inspirational links.) The best vindication is to grow into the beautiful individual you are and will be. To take what was done to you and use it to do amazing things for others. To leave the world a better place than you found it. To survive through the despair so you can thrive in hope.

I was tormented as a child. Not to the extent that these poor kids have been, nor for the same reasons*. Although I was schooled in a time and place where intolerance was far more unacceptable than it still is to most of the United States; although I spent most of my schooling years without an online community to bring the torture home (so really, thanks to my neighbors for handling that aspect); I came to know despair fairly intimately. As an adult, I look back on that child with love and sympathy - and I realize that the empathy that drives me to look on this crisis in part as a personal problem for me to help solve is entirely the result of the depredations that child suffered. If I hadn't survived, I wouldn't be here to do what little I can to help. And as we've been told repeatedly, every little bit truly helps.

So pity these other youth, who didn't think they had the strength to continue existing in a world that called them evil and subhuman. But take strength from them, and continue on. Yes, it's a fight. Maybe it always will be, though I doubt it. It's a winnable fight, and the rewards are beyond the dreams of adolescence.



*If you want to know: I was just plain ugly, according to my peers. My society may have largely accepted homosexuality, but it also prized - prizes - beauty above nearly all else. My race was certainly brought up at times, but not nearly as often nor as thoroughly as was the catalog of ways in which I was unattractive.

Self Esteem

A Google Reader friend linked to this article. Now, as a trained (and training, and training) clinician, obviously it's going to punch my buttons as hard as Mario looking for fire-flowers. It took me a while to stop fuming, read through the article, and figure out just what got me going. I'll start with the most insulting stuff, then try to work my way backward into a counter-argument.

...the pretensions of the DSM to science are sketchy at best, when its real-world usage has more to do with rationalizing billing codes of shrink service.

This is both disingenuous and unfair. First, because of the actual science involved in every study resulting in an entry in or change to the DSM. The DSM is imperfect because our understandings of human neurology (the measurable), human behavior (the observable) and human nature (the intangible) are imperfect. It’s a living text - otherwise, homosexuality would still be a paraphilia. Second, because to conflate the ethical or unethical practices of clinicians with the text sitting on their desks, or the APA itself, is to create a horrible stereotype. But the most insulting part is the use of the phrase "shrink service" to suggest that therapy itself is nothing more than a shell game. Follow the queen, follow the queen, confront your issues…

Given Ron Rosenbaum’s apparent frame of mind regarding therapy and self-help, I’m inclined to ask: does he find no value in the concept of people figuring out what’s wrong with them and taking steps to make it better?

What he seems to be simultaneously ranting about and ignoring: narcissism and low self-esteem are not societal issues. They're psychological ones. They cannot be usefully generalized to the societal level or viewed in macrocosm. The manner in which narcissism operates in an individual life cannot be predicted from one person to the next; the same is true of low self-esteem. Therefore, the same is true of what treatment is most useful.

Ron Rosenbaum attempts this generalization – from character defect to national trend – but still wishes to use these elements as diagnostic tools. The apparent reductio ad absurdum of labeling Churchill a pathological narcissist is an oversimplification of a complex process, and more a non sequitur than a Socratic "gotcha." An accurate diagnosis of pathological narcissism requires far more in the way of symptoms than pride, leadership skills, and apparent overconfidence; no mental health clinician would make that call without taking a history consisting of a great deal more than the PM’s wartime bravado.

Furthermore, and this diagnosis I can provide: Winston Churchill was an alcoholic. From the diagnostic school of It Takes One to Know One: every alcoholic I’ve ever met, the dude in my mirror included, has struggled with concurrent bouts of narcissism and low self-esteem. So this ‘debate’ also proceeds from a false dichotomy: that narcissism and low self-esteem are fundamentally mutually exclusive. I’d go so far as to say they’re inextricably linked most of the time.

And to put a sock in Rosenbaum’s sarcastic observations, whoever said that a character defect couldn’t save an Empire or build an industry?

I don't hold any more than Rosenbaum with the rush to constantly diagnose people with this or that; but he doesn’t go far enough. Ron Rosenbaum details his ideological journey with respect to these perceived movements (using the imagery of political parties, just one more trouble I have with his article), and seems to arrive at the conclusion that neither has much merit; but he fails to take the next step, to rise above this faulty discourse and perceive its weak foundation. He ridicules the theories themselves, instead of their misapplication. In so doing, he fails to grasp the actual problem here. It’s not the diagnoses at fault; it’s their use. NPD cannot be used to exculpate a man from murder; it is, rather, a potential framework for understanding his culpability and preventing future crimes.

Rosenbaum takes issue with two diagnostic trends. I take issue with the notion of a diagnostic trend. I have since I was fourteen and doctors were handing out Ritalin to everyone with a short attention span. My sister had learning disabilities growing up, and attended a school for such children; I, having attended a “normal” school (only in comparison, trust me), was and am very clear on the difference between poor study skills and ADD/ADHD. (And here’s a diagnostic trend that did us all the favor of introducing wide swaths of misdiagnosed adolescents to prescription-strength psycho-stimulants! And they call marijuana the gateway drug.)

Finally: doesn’t the concept of “the banality of evil” intrinsically yield itself to overuse? I’d rather live in a society where everyone was on watch for it, and so hear the phrase bandied about too often, than one in which the concept remained novel because it failed to arouse concern. In other words: don’t talk shit about Hannah. I kick yo ass.

Complicated

This is not post-racial America. I believe such a thing to be unattainable, in our current understanding of the world, and wholly undesirable. (Rather, I aspire to a world in which our differences are celebrated - without arbitrary comparative value judgment - even as our similarities unify us.)

Reparations for American Slavery shouldn't be on the table right now. Now is not the time to look back, and certainly not with the purpose of assigning culpability for the Atlantic Slave Trade. Those responsible are long dead. It is the fallout from American Slavery that must be addressed. Black Americans are not being systemically persecuted by the descendants of the Africans who sold their ancestors to Europeans; this is an issue endemic to Americans. That fallout still settles around us, and now more than ever we must shine a light through the murk. We must use the ongoing teachable moment of the Obama Presidency to confront our inner prejudices. Now, while long-festering anger and fear surfaces, publicly, in those who feel disenfranchised (at least in part) by the presence of a man of color in the Oval Office. (A man who is, far much more than I am, African-American. How many generations does it take before I get to drop the hyphen?)

Yes, the lessons of our past must always inform us. But what care have I for the culpability of those who sold my ancestors into slavery? Really, what care have I for that of the buyers? If I wanted to discuss reparations, Professor Gates, then yes - the question of where I should send this bill becomes paramount. But I don't. I don't want to turn and confront the continent generations behind me; so many others and I, we struggle to find purchase on - ownership in - the country beneath our feet. It is today that concerns me: not the sweeping crimes of the past, but the little hatreds of the present.

I do not believe, as others do*, that Professor Gates truly seeks to exculpate White Americans responsible for perpetuating the Atlantic Slave Trade and for continuing American Slavery half a century beyond its end. But raising this point needlessly confuses an already complicated issue. As Barbara Ransby noted, the ramifications of American Slavery still haunt Black Americans today, in their daily struggles, personal and social and economic, medical and legal. The millions of acts of discrimination - often unknowing! - that follow from perspectives tainted by old prejudices are what concern me.

I don't want to be repaid for crimes against my ancestors; I want the crimes being committed today to stop. If I still live when institutionalized racism has been stamped out at every level, then we can talk about causes and conditions, and about reparations. Until then, why should I want any kind of apology from the US Government? It'd be like accepting an apology from someone who is not only unrepentant, but committing a similarly offending act while he apologizes.

Who would send the invoice, while the bill continues to accrue, will not receive the full sum of what is owed.


*Ms. Ransby's article is indicative of a serious problem in Black American intra-racial dialogue in America. She begins quite reasonably, disputing the frame of his opinion, but by her conclusion, has all but labeled Professor Gates an Uncle Tom, and has equated him with the very African slavers he condemns. However, I share in her question: why has Professor Gates chosen this moment, to present this argument? As they both note, African complicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade is well-known among any who even lightly concern themselves with the topic.