Arriving in Cook County in 1979 it was striking how quiet the streets of Grand Marais could be on an early winter night. It seemed odd that not too many years later Outside magazine predicted that we would become the Aspen, Colorado of the Midwest. The place we live has indeed changed over the last few decades and is picking up speed. We have before us so much information that our view of the world and our connectedness to it is forever changed. The days of Sunday afternoon phone calls to Grandma when we each took a turn have shifted to personal handheld computers and texting.
The art of conversation and perhaps the social skill of reading body language is morphing and it seems more folks are experiencing anxiety and depression due to technological isolation. So what are we afraid of? It could be anything! We and our children are exposed to so much today that free floating anxiety and the struggle to cope with it has led to self medication and a desire to disconnect and go numb.
We are encouraged to do that in many ways and a person can easily get lost in TV, gambling, shopping, online dating, religiosity, drugs and alcohol. Often it is difficult to find your way back to connectedness with others and a meaningful life.
As I slide into retirement it makes sense to distill what’s been learned in 40 years as a psychologist. So what really matters the most and what can we do about the people and situations around us?
A person can respond to only so many alarms. As a product of the ’60s it seemed I had a responsibility to change the world. The youthful arrogance of thinking I knew what was best was later tempered by life experience. In family therapy you learn that each of us has our own truth and attaching a right or wrong judgment doesn’t advance knowledge and only fuels conflict.
During the early ’80s Cook County began a very deliberate effort to break the cycle of child abuse within some families and organizations. The newspaper produced a powerful series of articles that lead to reports and gave rise to an advocacy office, numerous victim and survivor groups and a series of abuser and perpetrator treatment programs.
Those offenders were seeking connection and power inappropriately. Many people did a lot of work to reclaim their lives, assign responsibility for the abuse to the correct person and not let this one thing define them.
Nearly every day the world is told about criminal behavior directed at kids and we must not become desensitized to it. Nor is it all that’s going on in the world. Cook County has seen numerous scenarios of abuse over the years, and given human nature, more will transpire.
Our challenge is to continue to think clearly as we feel so much anger and outrage and find a balance. How do we assist all parties involved with compassion rather than damaging shame?
Fear is a challenge to live with and the people who remain vulnerable, connected and accepting of reality appear to have developed filters to sort through the scary and exaggerated statements generated by political parties, media, corporations, churches and our families. We need to find a way to embrace change and recreate within ourselves a sense of the calm, quiet and safe aspects of the Cook County of years gone by.
Or at least how we imagined it was.
Each month a local mental health therapist will discuss an area of mental health. This week’s contributor is Wayne Arnzen. Arnzen is a Minnesota licensed psychologist. He has worked in Cook County since 1979 for Cook County Social Services, the Human Development Center and now in private practice.
Leave a Reply