When I was 10-11 y/o my family was going to Chicago for the day. We were going “downtown” to see a movie at the State Lake Theater. This was a very big deal back then. After the movie was over, we walked around and I was overwhelmed at the size of the buildings and the mass of people. I remember asking my Dad how he knew where to go so we wouldn’t get lost. He told me Chicago was a very easy city to get around in “Because it’s laid out like a Grid”. Since then I believe hundreds of people have told me the same thing. “You can’t get lost here because Chicago is laid out like a Grid!”
Well by God that has never helped me! I always get lost in Chicago (and most other cities too). I think I have a very peculiar type of learning disability related to directions. Once when I got my drivers license I picked up my sister at her high school. We had to run an errand for the family and it took almost four hours to get home. Another time the hospital sent me to a conference in Minnesota. I got off the plane, rented a car, and drove for almost six hours to get to a location that was 45 minutes from the airport. I always remember Blanche Dubois line about depending on the kindness of strangers because of asking for directions. Sometimes conflicting instructions would make it worse and I ended up going in circles. I do eventually get where I’m supposed to. I just don’t do it the way you are supposed to. Wandering around has led to many strange encounters. In Minnesota I ended up stopping at a church picnic to get directions. The people there were wonderful and helped me get on the right track. In Ireland a convenience store helped get me back to the hotel. It just takes a little longer
My family laughs about this now. My wife thinks it is genetic and tells me that the reason my grandparents didn’t emigrate until 1902 was because they got lost trying to find America. My sister has some of the same difficulty so maybe there is something to this. GPS has been a mixed godsend. My wife always wants me to take one and use it if I go someplace new or someplace complicated. I have even ended up swearing at the GPS. I hate the words “Recalculating” or “Make a U-Turn”. It seems even machines know how to frustrate me on this. The shortest distance between two places is a straight line just doesn’t seem to work with me.
I think that is why I had patience with people who were struggling with their own problems and decisions. With alcohol and drug users the “Just Say No” plan seems very logical. Marital problems, domestic abuse, anxiety attacks should all be able to be fixed quickly. However people don’t work that way. Addicts basically stop when they are ready and not one minute before. Everybody has their own speed. Sometimes the solutions people have to problems seem to cause more difficulty than their original situation. I had many people who had affairs basically to get out of their marriage. After the divorce the affair stopped, the abandoned lover would often end up in my office in their own crisis.
Sometimes it seems like there are people who go from crisis to crisis. They get one problem solved and almost immediately find another. The Grateful Dead has a song with a line like “I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe. But at least I’m enjoying the ride”. This can be very frustrating for anyone trying to help, until you step back and let them find their own way thru the maze. I know early on I would want to solve everyone’s problems. I thought if they would just listen to me everything would be fine. I soon learned that was not a good idea. I would often end up being blamed and just another problem in their lives. I was the GPS being sworn at. So instead I would just end up trying to support them in their struggles and complimenting any small gain. I would gently confront any backsliding and continue to urge them on towards whatever goal they had. Defining the goal is important because otherwise people can just wander. If you stop drinking and become sober, now what? If you get divorced and are still unhappy, now what ? Often relapse would happen because the answer to that wasn’t available. If there is a genuine positive for stopping, changing, deciding, then the journey doesn’t seem that long. Helping people find it is what I was supposed to do. I just had to learn that there is no grid that fits everyone
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