Joining Other People’s Worlds

“Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.”
~ Phil Jackson

Last week, we got our furniture and carpets steam cleaned, which was a nice treat. I found the carpet guy on NextDoor, a site I use often when I’m looking for reliable service professionals.

I chose Adam because he was highly recommended. True to his reviews, he was super nice, polite, and friendly. After he completed the work, we chatted briefly about his business. I was surprised to hear that he used to be a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at various facilities, including a psych hospital. To my mind, his previous jobs could not be more different than his current role as a business owner.

Adam said he had worked at a nursing home first, but he enjoyed the psych hospital much more. To him, the patients were fascinating, and each day brought something different. I told him I’m familiar with the sentiment because my daughter works in behavioral health and says the same thing. She enjoys the variety of people and personalities and the unexpected events that take place daily.

Adam said he found the key was to “just roll” with whatever the residents told him. He played along, for example when a patient believed he was his cousin, because it made the patient happy. From my point of view, it’s a special type of person—one with a big heart for others—who is able to show that level of compassion.

My sister, a nurse for 50 years, described a similar encounter in a patient story in her new caregiving book. She said when her geriatric patients with dementia embraced her and called her a relative’s name, she didn’t try to set them straight. She believed it calmed them to think that a relative was there with them. She, too, found the interactions with her patients interesting and rewarding.

Adam has had his own carpet cleaning company for several years, and he enjoys the many benefits of working for himself, but he sometimes misses helping people more directly, although he sees his cleaning service as helping in a different way. (If you’re into Enneagrams, he sounds like a 2, the Helper personality.)

I was surprised, because many people would not put working in a psych hospital at the top of their ideal jobs list. With a degree in psychology and a sister and daughter who work in healthcare, I’m used to hearing stories about patient delusions, but the idea can be scary to those who don’t understand disturbed thinking.

In the main, people with irrational beliefs are not dangerous.

Thankfully, the fear is lessening as the stigma surrounding mental health decreases. Most of us are aware that otherwise healthy people can have bouts of depression and anxiety at more vulnerable stages in their lives. We’re all being more honest now about dealing with those troubling conditions. But the same is true with psychosis: people can slip in and out of reality during an acute phase. With the proper treatment, even seriously ill people can recover and go on to lead productive lives. If you met them at a later stage of their lives, you’d have no idea they’d ever been that ill.

Truthfully, the mentally ill aren’t the only ones with delusions, although theirs certainly fall at the more serious end of the continuum.

We all have them at times.

There are benefits to not facing the absolute truth at every point in our lives. Optimism can take us a long way, even when it doesn’t appear to be warranted.

How many times have we referred to others as delusional when they express seemingly unrealistic dreams about, for example, becoming an Olympic skier or a movie producer? To us, they are ignoring the reality of the long odds against them.

We like to think we’re accurate in our assessments of ourselves, but none of us can truly see ourselves as others see us.

We all have blind spots. Sometimes they’re helpful, and allow us to keep pushing toward a seemingly impossible goal. Sometimes they’re not, and we learn some hard truths about our limits.

Inventors, explorers, and big dreamers are the most likely to be labeled out of touch with reality, because their ideas can seem so far-fetched. Several decades ago, we would have called someone delusional if they believed that in our lifetimes cars would be driving themselves and drones would be delivering pizzas.

We need people in our society who are willing to dream big, even if they need to suspend belief at certain times and in certain ways.

It’s tempting to shoot down others’ grand ideas and set them straight when we believe it’s for their own good. I’ve always believed it’s better to encourage people, even when they have very lofty goals, because we can’t really know how things will turn out.

How much more interesting would the world be if we just rolled with people’s ideas and embraced their world a bit more?

The width and breadth of the differences between people are astounding, from where we decide to live, to how we choose to make a living, to how we entertain ourselves, to what we choose to wear and eat.

The older I get, the more I realize that the way of life we are exposed to growing up is just one way to live.

If we stay openminded and openhearted, we can learn a lot from others, especially those who are very different from us, by being curious. It’s an amazing world filled with fun and fascinating people.

As I mentioned in one of my first blog posts, adopting a curious stance allows us to meet people where they are.

There are times when truth and accuracy do matter, but there are many other times when joining others in their world for a bit is a much more helpful stance.

Affectionately,

Elaine