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| MAXIMUM STRESS CHAPTER 10 |
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I want to begin this chapter with a story. And I want to end it with a story. In between, I want to share with you a few things about stress. I know that stress is so much written and talked about these days that the subject has become stressful itself. But I hope that if you have been experiencing a lot of whatever stress is lately (and this experience has led to thoughts of suicide), then maybe you will find something of value in the next few pages. Amy was twenty-one and beautiful. She had married her high school sweetheart one year ago. Her husband, an engineer, had taken a job in the city where I work, a job that required Amy to move from her home in Utah. The move had been difficult and Amy had to leave many important things behind -her apartment, her job, her best girlfriend, her mother, her home town. Shortly after the move, Amy learned she was pregnant. She was happy, her husband was not. Chuck did not want children just now and was angry with Amy for not preventing the pregnancy. They had assumed a big mortgage on their new home and he did not feel they could afford to start a family. Chuck began to stay out late and Amy suspected he was having an affair. He refused to see a marriage counselor when Amy suggested they needed to. Sensing she must begin to take care of herself, Amy started looking for work. Confused and distracted by what was happening in her marriage, she was driving to a job interview when she ran a red light. Her car was struck broadside and Amy suffered a broken collarbone and a painful neck injury. The baby was fine, but she would have to be very careful during the rest of her pregnancy. It was then her sister called to say their mother had not been feeling well. The diagnosis, confirmed a week later, was terminal cancer. When Amy broke the news of her mother's illness and that she wanted to return to Utah to be with her, Chuck said, "Fine. You can stay there. I want a divorce, anyway." Alone, desperate, depressed, in physical pain, and pregnant, Amy slashed her wrists. It was then that she came to see me. I won't detail how Amy finally worked things out, but she did and she survived. Amy had always been a strong person and, once the storm had passed and the hard decisions had been made, she was able to right herself and get back on track with her life. And she is doing very well now. The point of Amy's story is this: While into every life a little rain must fall, sometimes you get a hurricane. One Way to Think about Stress As I cannot know what stress you have been under lately, I can only guess that maybe your story is similar to Amy's. Or maybe it is worse. Or, maybe, the stress in your life has not been coming in large doses, but is rather an ever-present strain that is slowly grinding you down. I will try to cover both kinds of stress. First, there is nothing bad about stress. It is not evil. It is not toxic. Stress just is. It is everywhere and none of us escapes it. Without some stress, we could not achieve our potential. Without some stress, we would never be challenged to try our best and to learn of what stuff we are made. A little stress, the experts say, is good for us. But there are also times when the stress we are under exceeds our capacity to manage it. And, assuming you have been thinking about the suicide decision, I am going to further assume you are dealing with what I have chosen to call maximum stress. Maximum stress is, simply put, that amount of stress that you (and you alone) feel is intolerable. When it comes to measuring stress, it doesn't matter one bit what others think is or is not stressful. What matters is what you think is stressful. If you think public speaking is stressful, it is. If you think taking an exam is stressful, it is. If you think asking a girl for a date is stressful, it is. You and only you can define what is stressful, and you do this by reading what your own body says, what your stomach says, what your heartbeat says, what your sweat glands say. The body cannot but respond to what your mind perceives as stress. Called the "fight or flight" response, your autonomic nervous system goes into action when you are faced with what appears to you to be dangerous or possibly harmful to you. Most of us know this kind of body response to acute stress. If we are smart, we pay attention to it. We may use it to get "up" for some competition or other challenge or, if it persists and interferes with our ability to function, we find ways to avoid it. We change jobs or relationships that we feel are unduly stressful. And, sometimes, we avoid stress we shouldn't. But, in any event, most of us know the physiological side of stress and know when our body is ready for flight or fight. But not all signs of stress are so obvious to us. Or, as is often the case, we are unaware of what is causing stress in our lives. And it is this lack of knowledge about what is causing us stress that is the most dangerous to us. Because when we do not know what is causing us stress, there isn't much we can do to combat it. In terms of what I have chosen to call maximum stress and the kinds of life events that often lead people to think of suicide, I think it would be helpful to think of stress as change. (This not a new way to think about this subject, as stress researchers have been working on this idea for a couple of decades.) Consider for the moment that change, any change, requires us to adjust to that change. Once something changes in our lives, we can't go on the way we always have. Rather, we must make some kind of adjustment to what is new in our lives. This takes energy. And, according to the theory, if we have to adjust to too many changes in too short a period of time, we may begin to experience excessive stress. If you think of life changes as stressful events and accept for the moment that the effects of stress can add up, then what will happen to you if you are required to adjust to a great many changes over a short period of time? Might you, at some point, reach or exceed your ability to handle the accumulated stress? Might you, like Amy, begin to feel overwhelmed by stress and seek some way out of what appears to be an impossibly stressful situation? Here is a brief summary of Amy's changes (both positive and negative changes) as stress factors: (1) Marriage. (2) Move from comfort of own apartment. (3) Move away from her friends and family and sources of support. (4) Loss of her job when she moved. (5) Assumption of a large debt (the new home). (6) Learning she was pregnant. (7) Negative changes in her marriage. (8) Injured in automobile accident (loss of physical health and sense of well being). (9) Anticipated loss of her mother through terminal illness. (10) Separation and divorce and the associated loss of self-esteem and sense of self-worth. No matter how you slice it, Amy was not having a good year. Ten major changes, ten major realities to adjust to. It isn't difficult to see that if you add up all the changes in Amy's life over the past year that she had, even though she had always been a strong person, exceeded her threshold for adaptation to stress - which is why, according to Amy, she cut herself. "I couldn't take it anymore;' she said. "It was just too much." In talking with me, Amy agreed that it would be pretty impossible to have another year in her life quite as stressful as the one she had just been through and her depression made sense in light of all the stressors. By giving herself the benefit of the long view of her life instead of a short one, she was able to see that the odds against of a similar series of events were nearly impossible. And so, soon enough, she began to feel her old strength return and she began to cope for the better. Her thoughts of suicide diminished quickly. As Amy said toward the end of our sessions, "I wouldn't dream of killing myself now." Amy's life is not so different from the rest of ours. We are, all of us, bound to have bad years, years of maximum stress. The trick, as I see it, is to know this year is coming and to greet it with a kind of grim determination to make it through. If we can do this maybe we can, like Amy, be the stronger for having made it through and, even if we are broken, our healing will make us stronger. Sudden Overloads I have, pinned on a corkboard over my desk at work, a little piece of wisdom that came to me one day when I was dealing with some major changes in my life. That little wisdom reads: "The only thing worse than change, is sudden change." I keep this little note stuck to the message board above my desk to remind myself that even though I know I can handle a fair number of changes in my life, the day may come when things are happening so fast I'll need to remember this basic rule about stress. And that rule is this: If change is stressful, sudden change can be catastrophic. If you, at this moment, are caught up in sudden and catastrophic changes in your life, exposed to major trauma, or experiencing major losses or reversals or setbacks from which you can anticipate no relief, then you may be undergoing a sudden overload of stress. And, if you are, then maybe it will help to know that certain things are likely to be going on inside you - things which, if you understand them, may help you to control, if not the events themselves, at least your reaction to them. First, I think that there are times in our lives when certain events can throw us into a tailspin. Sudden changes entirely beyond our span of control sweep over us like a tornado and there is nothing, but nothing, we can do to alter their course. The stock market may crash and, with it, we lose our life savings. Our employer may go bankrupt and we are suddenly thrown out of work. Someone we thought loved us suddenly announces he or she is leaving us for someone else. Without warning our lives are turned upside down and backwards and we are, like a person swept up into the funnel of a emotional tornado, sent tumbling, tossed and turned and every which way but loose. It is, during these sudden overloads of stress, that we begin to grasp at solutions, at any solution that will give us some relief from our present circumstances. We need to regain some sense of control over what is happening. And it is then that the idea of suicide seems better than our present turmoil and sense of despair. Once a massive load of stress – as it frequently does – triggers a depressive episode and we begin to experience symptoms of hopelessness and suicide, at least we know that though our own death we can at least come to a final outcome, we can get control of what is going to happen next. But I want you to think about something for a moment. What if, despite how impossible things may seem right now and how guilty or angry or depressed you may feel, you are, in fact, not in control of these events. What if, instead, certain things are just going to happen and neither you nor anyone else can do anything to stop them? What if, rather, you are simply going to have to ride this one out and let things happen the way they are going to happen? The people in Alcoholic's Anonymous have a wonderful prayer that helps them stay sane and sober. Called the Serenity Prayer, it reads: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Of all the phrases by which people live their lives, I can think of none that contains more good sense than this one. Because, within it, is the notion that there are things that happen to us in this life that, despite however much we would wish them different, they will not be different. And that we, if we are to survive, must come to accept those things as they are and to do so with grace and dignity. So, if by chance you are undergoing a sudden overload of stress and are feeling confused and disoriented as to your purpose, your values, your beliefs, and your traditions, then maybe it is time to stand firm in the eye of the storm and accept that which you cannot change. From such a stance, you just may find that which you seek - a sense of serenity and peace. Up or Out? Because of the way the world seems to be going these days, I want to say a couple of words about life in these times and the stress with which we must all learn to cope. We are, each of us, required to change and adapt constantly. Some of the futurists say that the world will continue to change; our values, our ideas, our technology, where we live, our jobs, and people we know. Te futurists say these constant changes will take place rapidly, more rapidly than ever before in the history of the world. What is steady and sure and right side up today, will be shaky and upside down tomorrow. And while we may not like this constant change, this underlying sense of insecurity, it isn't like there is much any of us can do about it. You can't stop the future, and you can't stop change. So what must we do? My own personal feeling is that since we cannot greatly reduce many of the sources of stress and the requirements for change made of us, we must, then, come to a different and more healthy perspective on what it means to live in these times. We must, by thinking differently about our lives, come to know that we will all undergo changes; little changes, big changes, constant changes. And we must learn to grow in such a way as to be ready for change, yes, even learn to embrace change. But to do this, I think we need to examine something I feel is pretty crazy in our society right now. And that craziness has to do with the stress and pressures we put upon ourselves as a result of thinking there is only one path to happiness and satisfaction. The direction of that narrow path is up. By "up" I mean that many of us look at our lives as requiring that we always be moving in a direction that takes us from wherever we are now to some new, more successful, and higher place. We are a B student now, we should become an A student. We play high school basketball, but we should be shooting for a college scholarship. We are a college player, but we will not have fulfilled our mission until we play for the National Basketball Association. We have a job we like as a skilled craftsman, but we must move up to that of a supervisor. We like being a mother and a housewife, but we are not fulfilling ourselves if we do not go back to school to start a career so we can move up. Up. Up. Up. Everywhere I look in my counseling work, I see troubled people dissatisfied with who they are. I see people dissatisfied with themselves because they are not moving up. Or, if they are moving up, they are not moving up fast enough. They, themselves, may be satisfied with their jobs or schoolwork, but their spouses or parents or friends feel they should be moving up. College students fret and worry about their grades because, as sure as there is a life after college, they won't move you up the corporate ladder if you don't have excellent marks. Up. Up. Up. The only path is up. And this is not the end of it. More and more these days I work with men and women whose lives, by any reasonable standard, are entirely successful. They have cars and microwaves and digital cameras and good health and friends and they have accomplished what every American one day hopes to accomplish: arrival. They have arrived and taken the American dream in both hands. But guess what? They are not happy. Why? Because now that they are all the way up, there is no place left to go. I had one successful lawyer tell me, "I wish I could start over, back at the beginning." "Why?" I asked him. "Because then I could start moving up again," he explained. What was interesting about this man was that, at the peak of his career, at the peak of his powers as an attorney, at a time when his personal and family life were going perfectly and he was making more money than he ever dreamed was possible, he was thinking about suicide. Why? Because, as I came to know Jim and his view of life, he had run the course of moving up to its logical end. He had arrived, and now that he was there, he had nothing more to do, nothing more to look forward to, nothing more to dream for, plan for or to work for. He had, simply put, lived out his life until his dreams were spent. And now he was bankrupt and wanted out. And where did Jim want to go? Just out. Suicide seemed a logical destination. Sure, Jim was depressed, but he was also much more than depressed; he was out dreams. I have sometimes wondered if our obsession with always moving up doesn't set the stage for depression and suicidal thinking, both on the way and once we get wherever it was we thought we were going. The game of always moving up doesn't permit us to stop and smell the roses. We haven't time. We're too busy. Because we need to be moving up, we feel guilty if we stop to feel good about our accomplishments. It is as if we can never be satisfied because, in our drive to get someplace else, we can take no joy in where we are. Too many people, at least in my view, live to work rather than work to live. It seems fewer and fewer people know how to play. Play is for kids. In my work, I see dozens of grown, mature people who, at the end of their work careers, are suddenly adrift. They don't know how to play. They don't know what to do with themselves now that they no longer work. Life has no meaning for them. They get depressed. And when they get depressed because life has no meaning, they start thinking suicide. As one man told me, "If I can't work, I might as well be dead:” The second part of this craziness of up and out, then, has to do with getting out. If you can't move up, then you'd better move out. The military works this way at the higher echelons of the officer corps. If you are not moving up in some corporations, then you must be stagnant and not contributing. If can’t move up, the implication is you'd better move out. You see it in young people who are told that if they don't get going on their studies, they won't make it into college. And if they don't make it into college, they won't make it into a good job where they can start moving up. And so, if they don't get going on their grades, they might as well get out. Many young people do just that - and "out" means the suicide decision. Japan, a country that pushes its young students to the breaking point generation after generation, has a higher-than-expected suicide rate among its young people around the time of the national exams - the exams that determine whether or not you will even have the opportunity to move up. In my opinion, this up-or-out philosophy is nothing short of insane. It does not permit people to be happy being average. It does not permit people to be comfortable doing a job they like. It does not permit someone to get a C in a history class and still feel as if he or she has learned something worthwhile. It doesn't allow us to take a little time to relax and enjoy what we have already done. Rather, the up-and-out philosophy drives us farther and farther and faster and faster until we become victims of our own relentless chase to be someplace else. And, though we complain of the stress, we don't seem to understand that it is stress of our own making. If, by chance, you have bought this up-or-out philosophy of life, then what will happen to you if you hit a major and unexpected life stress? What if, out of the blue, you are the victim of some unforeseen tragedy? A promising athlete, you are badly injured and can no longer pursue your sport. An up-and-coming business executive, you are fired when the new management takes over. The man of your dreams whom you are about to marry dies in an automobile accident. The farm you inherited from your father is lost in a bankruptcy. These things happen. They happen to perfectly good people we know and they happen to us. And when they do, they amount to a dose of maximum stress. But are they things that signal the end of our lives? If we can no longer move up, must we move out? Is our path through life so narrow? Or, maybe, does our path fork around the next bend? I ask you these questions because it is my strong feeling that too many of us see only one way to make it in the world. We see our future tied too tightly to our past and our present. However we come to believe it, we believe that we must succeed in whatever we set out to do and that not to succeed is to fail - and I mean to fail utterly. This either-or, black-or-white, win-or-lose thinking is a dangerous place to be when we are hit with some kind of major life change. Because, if we are trapped into thinking we can live only one way, or with only one person, or by doing only one kind of work, and that we must always be moving up, then we lack what every creature that has ever survived on this planet has - and that is the ability to adapt. If we cannot roll with the punches, then even the little punches can put us down. So if you have been under some kind of maximum stress that is requiring you to make major changes in your life and, as a result, you are feeling that you cannot make these changes, then maybe you are trapped in that up-or-out philosophy. Maybe, in thinking about the "out" part of it, you are thinking that at least by killing yourself you will be getting out from under the stress. If this is true, then I want you to consider something. I want you to consider that despite how traumatic the stress in your life has been lately, it is at least possible that how you are seeing this stress and how you are reacting to it has something to do with your philosophy of life. When bad things happen to us (and they are bound to), we must interpret them. How we interpret them is part of our philosophy of life. In the last chapter of this book, I have taken the liberty of asking you to think about your philosophy of life. I don't ask that you share my philosophy about how one gets along in this world, only that it might help to examine your own philosophy and, if you haven't done so lately, give it a once-over. I ask you do this because, though we may not be able to change the world, there is one thing we can change - and that is the way we think about it and what we do with our lives while we have them. So, I will ask again: Is what is happening to you really the end? Or is it a crisis that will pass and, coming on its heels, will there be some new opportunity, something you never dreamed possible? Finally, I hope that if you have inadvertently bought the up-or-out philosophy of how one is supposed to live one's life and all that that entails, then maybe you, like me, feel this is not a healthy way to think, especially if it has led you to thoughts of self-destruction. At the beginning, I said that I would end this chapter with a story. This is a story I heard from a friend of mine and I do not know its origin. Therefore, I will apologize beforehand if the author is offended at my borrowing it. The story is of an old peasant man named Ivan who, though poor in material things, is rich in wisdom. He lives on a small farm with his wife and only son. His wealth, such as it is, is in the form of a single, but fine, stallion. One day in the early spring, the stallion breaks its tether rope and runs away into the mountains. Upon hearing of this news, Ivan's friend and neighbor comes to call. "Oh, Ivan!" his friend cried. "I heard your horse has run away. Now you have nothing. All your wealth is gone. What will you do now that you are even poorer than before? How terrible it is!" “Maybe;” said Ivan."It is too soon to tell." Then, two days later, the stallion returned. And with him were five mares. "Oh, you lucky man,” said Ivan's friend, filled with envy. "Now you are rich. Now you have six horses. What good luck! What good fortune!" “Maybe;” said Ivan. "We will see. ..;” When the mares had been caught and corralled, Ivan's son set out to break them to saddle and plow. But in mounting the first mare he was thrown by the wild horse against the fence and his leg was badly broken. “Ahhh,” cried Ivan's friend on learning of the accident. "Your luck is bad after all. This is terrible! This is awful! Your only son has a broken leg! Who will help you with your planting and your harvest? I feel sorry for you, Ivan. I have two healthy sons to help me and now I feel I am the lucky one and you are the unfortunate one. Such bad tidings!" “Maybe,” said Ivan. Then, in the week that followed, the king's soldiers came to the village to take all the healthy young men off to fight the king's new war. Injured with a broken leg, Ivan's son was spared. I hope the reason I tell this story is clear. I hope that what is in this story for us all is that, no matter how terrible and awful things may seem today, something quite unexpected can happen tomorrow. If we will but wait the bad times out, things just might get better. In the end, I think the good life lived is not one without tragedy, but one in which the tragedies were endured and risen above. Because, as sure as I know anything, the view backward from our own future will teach us that today's miseries are tomorrow's memories - some sad, some sweet, some even comic - and that what we have to do is hang in there … even if by our fingernails. |
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