Fine Line

A few commercial messages before the meat (or, in my case tofu) of the blog:

Happy 20th Anniversary, LLL peeps!  Since October 1993, we've gathered at least twice a year--sometimes three times a year--for food, friends and fun. These are fine, upstanding women with whom I love to spend time.  We've done everything from kayaking to tye-dying, so we are a well-rounded group of people. We've played video games, card games, board games. We've gathered on college campuses, state parks, private properties. We've eaten more food than should be legal.  Despite the passing of twenty years, I think we look fabulous.

Speaking of aging and looking fabulous....when I mentioned to MJagger about my previous blog (glowing about how me and my friends look spectacular at our ages), she was silent....and, then spoke: "That's why eye sight gets worse with age.  You can't see as well and thus you think you look a lot better than you do."

Ouch!

Remind me not to have younger friends.  On to the main event.

I've always said it's a fine line between staff and client within the mental health field.  Some days the line is even finer.  Today was one of those days.  I was talking to a client about this and that and it turns out I was agreeing with a lot of what he was saying.  We had quite the in depth conversation. I found myself shaking my head in agreement.

The problem is that he has been deemed psychotic.

So, if I think the same thing as he thinks, does that make ME psychotic?

I think not, but only by the thinnest of lines.  Today, the only difference may be that I have keys and a name tag and he does not.

As he was talking, I thought about how in other cultures he would be revered, not labeled as ill.  I considered how he was indeed brought up in a different country and that what he was saying would be accepted without question there.  I thought about some of my friends and how they subscribe to the same tenets of which he was speaking. I thought about how he would have served as a good shaman somewhere across the globe. I recalled how I had written my thesis on the use of shamanism in the realm of art therapy. I thought about how we slap labels on people in the US and that those labels are based on a list of symptoms that really are nothing but subjective descriptors.  I was thoroughly enjoying the conversation and recalled that there really is a fine line between staff and client.....

....then, he started talking about being from another planet (actually, another galaxy), which snapped me back to my own reality.

For the record, I do not--nor have I ever believed--that I am from another planet or galaxy, so score one for the keys and name tag.

Or course, I can't prove that he is NOT from another planet or galaxy and I can't prove that I am not from another planet or galaxy, so I did not argue.  How does one prove such a thing?

So, I let it go.  I left him on his planet and I stayed on mine.  I decided to worry about MJagger thinking my eye sight was in question and that my changing skin might look different than what I was seeing. Me and my cronies, blinded by our own pathetic eye sight.

.....she best be careful, lest me and my blind friends knock her good eye sight and healthy skin right off this planet.

Then we'll see who's psychotic and who's not.