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THE MONSTER OF SIMILARITY
Apparently we are 95% similar to each other according to recent genetic research. The 5% of difference refers to height, gender, hair and eye colour, skin colour. Underneath those peripherals we are the same. And yet those smallest of differences are at the very core of conflict. We are the same and capable of the same deeds of the Good Samaritan and the most wicked deeds ever committed. When we vilify Sadaam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Genghis Khan, we are vilifying our own shadow. It is said of serial killers and child murderers that they must be insane, because no normal person would be capable of such deeds. What type of monster is capable of these unspeakable deeds? The answer is simple, the human monster. One of our own. I sit with that for a moment. I sit opposite someone who has been terrorised and hear him or her talk about revenge. Not bloody, eye for an eye, revenge. Simply that the other says that they would like the culprits to be made to experience some degree of their terror. But not to the extent that it would harm them. My god I think, and why not, they deserve what you experienced and more.
SILENCE
I watch the disbelief slowly appear on the faces of those telling, and I am aware of my own. I don’t even bother to search for a theoretical context for my own experience, never mind the other person’s. The roller coaster is off and running and I am holding on, white knuckled, sick in the pit of my stomach. Tears well up in me, anger grips my gut, I clamp my jaws to silence my outrage, I am aware of staring, just staring. I feel some relief as I imagine the worst of the story is over, only to be pinned back by the next horror. They were gently easing me in through the overture, building up to a crescendo of Mahler like proportions.
I SIT IN SILENCE
I sit in awe at the capacity of human beings to inflict such brutality on fellow human beings. But the greatest awe is reserved for those fellow humans, classified as ‘Victims of the Troubles.’ How I hate that phrase. Who is ‘troubled’ by murder, cold-blooded, thoughtless murder, sickening maiming, crippling, and a legacy of sweating, repeating nightmares? Troubled. We call the terror in the Twin Towers in New York last September, ‘911’. Turn horror into an insignificant word or number and we can all cope. Those Victims are Heroes, they are 21st Century Odysseus or Jason, they are Herculean in strength, they are heroes. They hold the pillars of the world on their shoulders and hold the hope for all of us. They feel that the Gods have deserted them, and yet each seems to have gifts that have carried and are carrying them through their ordeals. And I, a mere mortal, have some place in this journey.
HUMBLED
I sit humbly before heroes who have been through, are in the labyrinth, waiting for the centaur to charge again. Somewhere is hope and a search for answers. I notice that I am being watched, as if I too might run from the chaotic brutality. I notice a sense that the other person is conscious of how much more they can tell me, or is judging how much more I can take. Perhaps they are wondering if I have a ball of string with me, so that if they survive I can show them the way out of the labyrinth. They are calm until the fall into a cinematic flashback, and are back there to the very second in time it happened. I throw a string so they can find their way back. My string is a slight shift in the chair, a gentle cough, just enough to say, ‘I’m still here.’ Time stands still as I am led through, shown in greater and greater detail the sickening horrors, until I am there in the place with them. I do not know if my images are accurate and it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is that the other knows that I am still there. In the room is another who is sharing the same air, the same stench, and the same horrors.
SILENCE SOMEHOW
I can’t explain, but somehow I know that something will make a difference. I do not know what, when or how. I only know that it will. It may not be with myself. It may not be this week or in the next ten years, and it may be just before their death, something will make a difference. My belief is that being able to sit in the room as myself is sufficient. That I can listen and not be blown away by what is to come. That what I will hear will not destroy me, and that I do have a ball of string that I secured somewhere before entering the labyrinth, and that I can find the way out. I am also aware of the other person watching me closely in order to see if I can manage and survive. My ability to meet the challenge will determine how much I hear of the other person’s account.
THE ENDING
I search for a way of ending, of interrupting the horror. There is a look of relief, not only that it is over for today, but also because I have kept to the agreement about time. I have not been consumed, eaten alive, by the story. We chat about generalities for a few moments, both fully aware that we are ending and that a chat will enable the other person, as well as myself to disconnect, until the next time.
THE AFTERMATH
I leave in a trance. I am aware that a relationship has begun. I am aware of the feeling of chaos, of a lack of sense. What is it all about? Some happenings in this life make no sense to me. I could go back to the textbook in order to understand the mysterious, but I am too far into the experience for rational thinking to be of any assistance. I am afraid that there is little comfort in what I have just experienced in the theory books. I do not understand the human condition; I am only able to experience myself in the present, by myself and with others. That is my only true and real understanding. It is only now that I am beginning to understand the half of what Carl Rogers described in his life. I am only beginning to grasp the true meaning of being and being Person Centred.
Christopher Murray, in Private Practice, Northern Ireland |