Mr. C doesn’t say he is sad. He isn’t crying. But his face is like stone, draped in a small disconnected smile, and my own insides have turned to lead. Hopelessness clamps down like a vise. I am sitting at the foot of his hospital bed in the nursing facility where I provide psychiatric consultation. Mr. C rarely leaves his bed, around which he insists the thin pink privacy curtains remain closed to wall off the three other men who share his room. The social worker had asked me to see Mr. C because he’s due to be discharged, and she’s been worried about him. Even the air in the room feels heavy. It’s hard to move or even breathe without hope.
Mr. C is only in his early 40’s, but diabetes has taken a part of each foot, and he can no longer work as a chef or care for his mother, who has dementia. “Now I’ve got nobody. Even when I was taking care of my mother and had a job, I could barely leave the house because of my anxiety, and I let my feet rot,” he says. “I’m afraid I’m not going to do the basic things to take care of myself. There really isn’t any hope for me.”
My thoughts start to churn. There is no way I can help this man. His problems are not solvable. What I have to offer is too puny, and my own background too sheltered. I even notice a small spark of anger at him rising inside me. I want to leave, to retreat to the comfort of my office and sit with thoughts unmarred by unbeautiful things.
I’ve had the luck of meeting a master of empathy, a meditation teacher I met last spring on a day of silent retreat. Attempting to focus on my breath as I sat on my cushion, my mind had erupted with grief over a recent personal loss. The pain was disorienting, concentration all but impossible. My teacher’s advice was simple: let the feelings come, notice them. Her words were ordinary, but her compassion was not. She received my sadness without flinching, letting it vibrate within her as she held my gaze and smiled with warmth and calmness. I felt my connection with her creating another dimension that allowed my sadness to find the space to take its own shape; I did not have to carry the pain alone. It opened like a quilt held between us, and I could see it for what it was and only for what it was. My pain was no longer the sign of inevitable and unending suffering; it was just a feeling I was having in that moment.
Now, as I sit with Mr. C, I gently shake myself from the trance of hopelessness and the trap of my own ego that sustains it. I can’t solve this man’s problems, but that is not shameful. His problems are severe and overcoming them will require a lot of hard work from him. He may or may not be willing to do that work. I can offer him empathy, compassion, and guidance. Those things might not be enough, but then again, they just might be. As I bring myself back to this moment at the foot of his hospital bed, I recognize that within an experience that feels like a burden is a remarkable privilege: that of being close to another human being.
“You can’t see things getting any better. You don’t have your mother to take care of anymore. You won’t have your job, and you are worried that you’ll give up fighting the anxiety. You remember how hard it used to be, and it’s going to be even harder now. That must feel utterly overwhelming, and you are probably terrified and feeling intensely hopeless. Is that right?”
He nods somberly, holding my gaze, and tells me about the spells that come down on him in the afternoons when things quiet down here at the nursing home. The feeling of tunnel vision, of unreality, of feeling almost outside of his own body.
“I have such a sense of sadness as I hear you speak about this,” I tell him. “And at the same time, I am grateful that you are sharing this with me. I admire the strength it takes to be honest about what you are facing. And I can see how believing that things are hopeless might almost feel like a kind of relief. You can stop fighting so hard.”
He almost interrupts me, showing more life than I’ve seen him show to this point, “Yes! It’s so, so hard. I hate it here, but all I want to do is curl up in this bed and hide from everything!” And for the first time, he starts to cry. As his tears fall, he asks me earnestly, “What can I do? Can you help me?”
At this moment, something shifts. He isn’t falling back into hopelessness and helplessness. He is asking me for help. In fact, I have plenty to offer him. “There are powerful tools to address your anxiety,” I tell him. And gently, keeping tabs on his level of interest, I explain how avoidance locks anxiety in place, and how exposure therapy can retrain the mind to experience anxiety differently. “If you want,” I offer, “I could show you how to systematically challenge your fears. It’s very hard work, but it could open a lot of possibilities for you. Would you want to work in that direction?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” he replies.
Hopelessness is a horrible feeling; it is no wonder we flinch from it. When we welcome it between us, it becomes all of what it is, and only what it is, and there is room for something else that looks a lot like hope.
File under: The Art of Psychotherapy, A Day in the Life of a Therapist, Musings and Reflections
Mr. C is only in his early 40’s, but diabetes has taken a part of each foot, and he can no longer work as a chef or care for his mother, who has dementia. “Now I’ve got nobody. Even when I was taking care of my mother and had a job, I could barely leave the house because of my anxiety, and I let my feet rot,” he says. “I’m afraid I’m not going to do the basic things to take care of myself. There really isn’t any hope for me.”
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My thoughts start to churn. There is no way I can help this man. His problems are not solvable. What I have to offer is too puny, and my own background too sheltered. I even notice a small spark of anger at him rising inside me. I want to leave, to retreat to the comfort of my office and sit with thoughts unmarred by unbeautiful things.
I’ve had the luck of meeting a master of empathy, a meditation teacher I met last spring on a day of silent retreat. Attempting to focus on my breath as I sat on my cushion, my mind had erupted with grief over a recent personal loss. The pain was disorienting, concentration all but impossible. My teacher’s advice was simple: let the feelings come, notice them. Her words were ordinary, but her compassion was not. She received my sadness without flinching, letting it vibrate within her as she held my gaze and smiled with warmth and calmness. I felt my connection with her creating another dimension that allowed my sadness to find the space to take its own shape; I did not have to carry the pain alone. It opened like a quilt held between us, and I could see it for what it was and only for what it was. My pain was no longer the sign of inevitable and unending suffering; it was just a feeling I was having in that moment.
Now, as I sit with Mr. C, I gently shake myself from the trance of hopelessness and the trap of my own ego that sustains it. I can’t solve this man’s problems, but that is not shameful. His problems are severe and overcoming them will require a lot of hard work from him. He may or may not be willing to do that work. I can offer him empathy, compassion, and guidance. Those things might not be enough, but then again, they just might be. As I bring myself back to this moment at the foot of his hospital bed, I recognize that within an experience that feels like a burden is a remarkable privilege: that of being close to another human being.
“You can’t see things getting any better. You don’t have your mother to take care of anymore. You won’t have your job, and you are worried that you’ll give up fighting the anxiety. You remember how hard it used to be, and it’s going to be even harder now. That must feel utterly overwhelming, and you are probably terrified and feeling intensely hopeless. Is that right?”
He nods somberly, holding my gaze, and tells me about the spells that come down on him in the afternoons when things quiet down here at the nursing home. The feeling of tunnel vision, of unreality, of feeling almost outside of his own body.
“I have such a sense of sadness as I hear you speak about this,” I tell him. “And at the same time, I am grateful that you are sharing this with me. I admire the strength it takes to be honest about what you are facing. And I can see how believing that things are hopeless might almost feel like a kind of relief. You can stop fighting so hard.”
He almost interrupts me, showing more life than I’ve seen him show to this point, “Yes! It’s so, so hard. I hate it here, but all I want to do is curl up in this bed and hide from everything!” And for the first time, he starts to cry. As his tears fall, he asks me earnestly, “What can I do? Can you help me?”
At this moment, something shifts. He isn’t falling back into hopelessness and helplessness. He is asking me for help. In fact, I have plenty to offer him. “There are powerful tools to address your anxiety,” I tell him. And gently, keeping tabs on his level of interest, I explain how avoidance locks anxiety in place, and how exposure therapy can retrain the mind to experience anxiety differently. “If you want,” I offer, “I could show you how to systematically challenge your fears. It’s very hard work, but it could open a lot of possibilities for you. Would you want to work in that direction?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” he replies.
Hopelessness is a horrible feeling; it is no wonder we flinch from it. When we welcome it between us, it becomes all of what it is, and only what it is, and there is room for something else that looks a lot like hope.
File under: The Art of Psychotherapy, A Day in the Life of a Therapist, Musings and Reflections