Age and wisdom do not necessarily go together. This was brought home to me again rather forcefully thru recent contacts with my 4 y/o grandson. My wife and I watched him last week for five days and nights while my son and daughter-in-law were at a conference in Portland, Oregon. I thought this would be a rather simple undertaking since we did raise my son who is now 37 and his brother who is 33. Both of them made it to their advanced ages with only a few scars that of course have been blamed on us. So watching a 4 y/o for a week should have been no problem.
It really wasn’t. My grandson is wonderful, bright and very funny. What was not bright and funny was his car seat. Most of us remember car seats as fairly simple. You strap the kid in and take off. My parents didn’t even have car seats. They had a station wagon and would lay the seats down so we could sleep in the back. I still remember rolling around trying to get comfortable. With our own children we had fairly simple car seats. They were not difficult. Sometimes a child would get out on his own, but no big deal. My wife does remember a time she was driving on the expressway when our oldest son was 3 or 4. He got out of the car seat and put a plastic bag over his head as a joke, but no very big deal. She got it off of him quickly. Probably because of stories like that car seats have become much more complex.
We were originally told that the car seat we purchased for our grandson would have to be installed by the fire dept. I thought this was joke, but it really wasn’t. We were told how to do it and did get it done. When he was an infant, the car seat fit perfectly. Now that he is older he hasn’t been in it for a while. We picked him up at his day care and tried to get him in the car seat. The straps were not adjustable and the clips to the harness were almost impossible. Once we got him in I wasn’t sure we would be able to get him out. The next morning I had the same problem and I kept hearing my grandson say, “Grandpa this is too tight”. I had fears of my grandson having a high voice for the rest of his life because of the damn car seat. I read the instructions again and still couldn’t fix it.
Finally I gave up. When we took him to daycare, I asked one of the teachers for help. She was about 22 and looked about 17. She asked what kind of car seat we had. When I told her, she sighed and said she had the same problem with her own baby. She came out and showed me this secret button that you push to adjust the straps. After that no problems and my grandson’s testicular development can continue.
The whole episode made me think how difficult it is to ask for help. Most of us don’t want to. We prefer to do it on our own. Asking for help can be a sign of weakness, especially for something as simple as a car seat. Getting over depression, anxiety, grief, addiction shouldn’t be that hard. “Snap out of it”, “Just say No” “ What are you, a Pussy” are phrases we all have heard either from self-talk or from those close to us. Often that’s all that’s needed—but what if it doesn’t work.
What finally motivates someone to reach out and ask for assistance? What has to happen? The German Co-Pilot who crashed the plane and killed over 150 people is said to have had a history of depression and suicidal ideation. He was in therapy and apparently made progress and then stopped. Anti-depressant meds were supposedly found in his home and it is unclear if he was still on them. One of the problems all therapists have to deal with is non-compliance or “flight into health”. The process of recovery is not structured like an escalator. There are frequent stops and starts and often long delays. It is easy to get frustrated and even to give up. If you achieve some initial growth and think you got it beat and then fall back, that can be devastating. No one knows if that is what happened to the German pilot. I have had patients feel better, stop their meds and stop therapy. Then a few days, weeks, months, years later I would get a desperate phone call asking for help. Humans are not machines that simple oil changes and replaceable parts can fix. Sometimes it takes constant care.
This care doesn’t need to be daily contact or weekly sessions forever. One old research paper found out that people could attain a more stable recovery by having longer contact with a provider. I had one family who would send me a Christmas letter every year after their daughter’s treatment. This went on for almost thirty years. They would come by occasionally for other family problems, but the fact that they knew I was there and would be there for them made it a lot easier to ask for help when they needed it.
I just have to keep reminding myself of this. Nobody knows everything. We are all experts in some thing and ignorant in others. Knowing when to ask for help and guidance is what’s important. Trying to accept this continues to be a life long adventure.