No Longer Who I Was But Not Yet Who I Will Be - Part
2
Michael A. Harvey, Ph.D.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Jill was inpatient for change. As a busy executive in high-pressure
sales, she had no time to “dilly dally,” as she put it. She
requested that the transformation of her identity happen posthaste. She
had nothing against grieving, she said, so long as it could be scheduled
at a convenient time.
And sure enough, a couple of months after I had met her, she appeared
at my office, not lost and in pain, but exuberant! She proudly displayed
tickets she had bought for an off-Broadway production of Children of a
Lesser God. She had joined NAD, ALDA and SHHH; had joined several
deafness-related on-line chat rooms; subscribed to a half-dozen deafness
publications; bought videotapes on sign language and deafness; was
taking sign language classes twice weekly (one for ASL, one for PSE);
was regularly attending Deaf community events; was writing an article on
the “Deaf President Now” movement at Gallaudet; was advocating for
Deaf rights; and had become an expert on the Americans with Disabilities
Act. She pronounced herself “reborn” as a deaf person.
I didn’t know what it was, but something didn’t seem quite right.
It seemed too easy, too hurried, too much like TV - you know, when
everything miraculously turns out perfect by the end of the show.
Managed health care’s dream come true!
Soon after that meeting, my wife and I vacationed at a lodge in
Sedona, Arizona. It featured a huge, outdoor labyrinth which had been
written up in some new age magazine. Essentially, it was several hundred
pebbles placed on the ground, forming a series of concentric circles. It
looked like a giant maze. What you do is start walking from the
beginning of the labyrinth and follow the trail of pebbles, round and
round in different directions, until eventually you reach the inner
circle, the center. Now, you could easily cheat by taking a short-cut by
walking over the pebbles. You could reach the destination in seconds,
easily saving the required 15 or so minutes. Frankly, I was tempted, as
I was in a hurry. And I might have done it, if my wife wasn’t
dutifully following the path, at it were. So instead, I followed the
path, but made a bee-line to the end point at lightning speed, to be
sure not to waste any time!
I thought of my meeting with Jill. Perhaps she, like me on the
labyrinth, made a bee-line to a deaf identity at lightning speed?
The author, John Steinbeck wouldn’t have raced through the
labyrinth. He would have had a better attitude. In Travels with Charlie
(required reading in seventh grade), he chronicled his cross country
trip with his dog named Charlie. Although his final stop would be
Chicago, that wasn’t at all his goal. His goal was not to finish his
journey; it wasn’t to arrive at the destination. It was to appreciate
the ebb and flow of the long, exciting, largely unknown adventure.
The 64 thousand dollar question: Had Jill, in fact, successfully let
go of her hearing identity and adopted a deaf identity? Was I being an
overly negative psychologist by doubting her happiness and passion?
Some answers came soon enough. The next week, she was late for her
appointment - very uncharacteristic for her. And she looked disheveled
and pale. In answer to my looks of concern, Jill told me that she had
been bed-ridden for over a week with a bad case of the flu. For the most
part, she had been unable to even lift her head off the pillow.
I asked her to describe her thoughts and feelings during this long
week:
“I felt utterly terrified and helpless,” Jill began. “Old
feelings came back in full force that I had when I first become deaf -
like feeling defective, inadequate. If a burglar came, I wouldn’t be
able to hear him! I kept replaying in my head all those doctor’s
appointments and how afraid I was. And one night I dreamt that the door
into the Deaf world was slammed shut and the door to the hearing world
was left open only wide enough for me to peek in.
“I felt so lonely and sorry for myself. I don’t have enough words
to explain that week. In limbo, in a void - that’s all. Like my life
was put on pause.”
Jill, like many of us, minimized the benefits of not being outwardly
productive. But difficult as it was, there was a lot of important
internal productivity happening during that week; it wasn’t just a “pause”
- like you would do with a VCR. It felt to Jill like a pause only
because she didn’t have enough words to explain her in-between kind of
experience.
A Buddhist saying: “When the student is ready, the teacher will
come.” Jill would never had wished herself sick, and would have been
justifiably angry at anyone who said, “Congratulations, you have an
opportunity because being sick in bed is your teacher!” But in fact,
that week would be the first of several similar times when Jill would
experience this limbo, this void for which she didn’t have enough
words; a void that we now understand as the experience of feeling no
longer who she was but not yet who she will be. It would constitute an
important part of her growth, her journey. John Steinbeck would have
been pleased.
If this limbo is such a great opportunity, we need more words to
describe it. Instead, it has been defined by what it’s NOT: not
hearing, not yet deaf; not a caterpillar, not yet a butterfly. We’re
very clear what this in-between state isn’t. But what is it?
Mythology provides one answer. In most cultures, there is a myth that
has a common storyline. It goes something like this: A hero grows up in
comfort and security - with enough food, shelter, safety, enough fun -
enough of everything. But at some point the hero leaves all of this or
is taken from it and becomes perhaps lost in the forest or in another
strange terrain. There is danger at every turn, along with hunger and
deprivation. The hero becomes consumed with loneliness, fear,
depression, anger and despair. A long time passes. But at some point,
the hero is transformed and safely returns home. Although everyone and
everything in the environment are the same, the hero has adopted a new
identity, has attained wisdom. Joseph Campbell, a scholar of mythology,
referred to this theme as The hero’s journey.
You’re on a hero’s journey when you are no longer who you were,
but not yet who you will be. By definition, it implies uncertainty,
anxiety and fear. There’s a story about a Jungian analyst who led a
group of women into an underground cavern where they were told to sit
still for hours without light or discussion. Upon returning to the
"light," nobody reported enjoying the experience of darkness,
but everybody said they benefited from it. The group coined the term
"endarkenment" (a “close cousin of enlightenment) to
describe the archetypal wisdom that comes with going into the darkness
and coming back again.
The good news about heros’ journeys is you don’t necessarily need
to physically go anywhere - you don’t need real caves or real bears.
For Jill, her journey was being sick in bed with the flu, for it was a
time when she engaged in the uncertain and arduous task of figuring out
who she was. Her hearing self and deaf selves were known entities, for
which there were indeed enough words. She knew that perhaps better
hearing aids or a cochlear implant would nurture her hearing self; and
she knew that ultimately her embracing of the deaf world would nurture
her deaf self. But that week would be the first of many such times when
she was in the “unknown zone,” a psychological place where there
very well might be “scary bears.”
Her task was to honor the process of becoming; the journey between no
longer who she was, but not yet who she will be. Twelve step programs
teach this lesson well. They do not speak of having recovered; they
speak of “in recovery.” One is never self-actualized, but is
self-actualizing. Our growth is a never-ending process of becoming, a
never-ending journey - no matter how much we put our mind to it. It’s
not something you can will.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
