I have a friend who is very well educated, and very intelligent, but who allows herself to fall apart during crisis. She becomes almost incapacitated when trouble strikes. I have been with her during these difficult times, and I have seen her make the choice to fall apart, instead of being strong. I know she can do better, and I don't think she is doing herself any favors by training her brain to react in this way. When speaking about certain types of potentially dangerous situations, some people say they could never deal with that situation. But I believe the human spirit is strong, and we can deal with anything if we just make the decision.
I remember once when this friend came out of her house crying, and announced to me and another friend that she had cut off her finger tip! We ran over to help her. She was clearly in a state of panic and couldn't even decide what she should do next. She allowed herself to lose control. We sat her down and I called the doctor. They asked me to describe her wound over the phone. What I found was that she had NOT cut off the tip of her finger, but had cut a very small portion of skin. She had hit a main blood vessel that wouldn't seem to stop bleeding, so ended up getting that cauterized, but by no means had she cut off her fingertip. I think I use humor to cope with difficult situations, and so I couldn't help laughing as I tried to describe the size of the cut off piece of skin to the nurse on the phone. I finally decided that the best description was that it was the size of a flattened grain of rice. lol I do think that my laughter helped my friend to calm down and be strong.
I fear that if my friend doesn't learn to find her inner strength, that she could lose some mental stability. To me, stable means being firm, and strong. She must find that in herself if she is going to deal with future, more serious traumas! She has been divorced, and her children are all grown. She can't lean on anyone else at home. She must find that support and strength within herself. I know she can do it if she just makes the decision to be strong!
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5 comments:
I worry about people like your friend. They 'cry wolf' so often, that when a real emergency strikes, nobody will believe them!
Your story of the broken finger brings to mind another tale. I took a young Elly to school one crisp autumn morning and when I returned, Jack was standing at the kitchen sink holding his hand under a running tap. He had fallen in the back garden while I was out.
Looking at me he said "I think I have broken my finger"! I moved closer to take a look and sure enough the first third of his left hand little finger was hanging by a thread of skin.
I set the hand on a clean face flannel and put the broken piece as close to normal position as I could, and wrapped it. Then taking a towel, I pulled a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and set them in the middle of it told Jack to put his hand on top, covered the whole lot up and got him in the car and straight to A&E.
They were able to rejoin the finger ans with time he gained 85% movement back in the finger.
In my classes, the professor mentions people like your friend. It is a facet of your personality how you handle stress. Some people, like your friend, have a low capacity. It is based on your self-image and ego. If you have a strong self-image, you handle stress better. Yes, you can chose this type of self-image, and you can develop it, and/or be taught it.
Delirious, just to rib you a bit, let me be contrary. Mentally stable people are usually bores. I would go so far as to call them barnacles and you know what I think of barnacles. An unstable mind, like mine for instance, on the other hand, delights in being unbalanced!
Some people just go off the rails when things go wrong as they sometimes will. My husband is a bit like that.
Ah well mental stability is an elusive topic even for me. But the contexts are different :P
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