August 2019
by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M.
Couns., PhD
We all walk in the memory footsteps of
those who came before us. In a family, a child is born from a relationship that
may or may not have been loving, from parents who may or may not have known
love from their parents – perhaps through war or separation – but who may,
perhaps, have sought some love from their newborn. The need is reciprocal. There
has been, somewhere, a deep desire for connection and if it hasn’t been met, we
continue seeking it. This is true in families and the greater community.
Connection is the medium through which we
are held, nurtured, fed and, hopefully nourished from the time of our birth in
all that we are. Without it, we suffer, and suffer enormously throughout life.
The best connection is a sustained one so
that when we as little children prepare to explore the greater world, we know
that we can return whenever we like. This connection confirms to us that we are
free to return to our caregiver’s arms or go off and play somewhere. When
connection is intermittent, or worse, absent, leaving is hard and returning can
be even harder. A child who never quite knows if their caregiver will be there
or not, can never quite feel safe and secure with their caregivers, other people,
or even, themselves. A child who feels unsafe is an anxious one; one who is
hungry for sustained connection. This is true for a child and for all of us.
Being met, greeted, hugged, listened to, played with, accepted are the
requirements of us social animals throughout our lives.
Scared children grow up without any sustained
sense of security and safety and they
will tend to continue to seek security somehow, and can become addicted to it. Some turn to alcohol, glue and petrol sniffing,
some turn to other drugs and/or sex that help them forget their pain, some have
serial relationships with other people who offer them unsafe sanctuary (though quite
often with a price), some pursue power and money as ends in themselves, some
clamber after danger for the thrill of it all and the satisfaction of a
post-endorphin fix, and some reject other people entirely – going off on their
own because seeking connection with others is just far too hard.
We are social beings and, without other
members of a group that we can connect to, we struggle.
Johann Hari, a journalist who writes about
mental health issues and addiction, has proposed that instead of asking those
with addictions, “What’s wrong with you?” instead ask, “What happened to you,” to open up where
the pain has stemmed from, how it is being felt, who “missed” you when you
needed them and who is here who can be with you now. It’s in here that healing
can at least begin to happen, and it is not just their healing that will
happen, but ours as well. We are all affected by an act of outcasting someone
else. The sickness of exclusion damages all of us. We begin dividing the human
race into us and them and refuse to listen to other experiences of being,
becoming instead paranoid and selfish.
When we ask “What’s wrong with you?” we
put the blame on the individual and we treat them as though they are bad, crazy
or just odd. Effectively we excommunicate them from the safety and security of
our communities, which is exactly the act that made them seek their addictive behaviours
in the first place. Hari puts it beautifully, 'For 100 years now, we have been
singing war songs about people with addiction problems...We should've been
singing love songs to them all along.' Love songs include and reconnects us in
acts of caring communication and connection. Let’s ask, “What happened to you?” and celebrating
the homecoming, with music.
