Category: Childhood Trauma

I LOVE THE LADY IN THE RED DRESS, by Art Smukler, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Childhood Trauma, Psychiatry, Self Examination, Writing

A patient told me a haunting story.

Forty years ago, a young man from New York had occasion to order a piece of machinery for his boss from a company in Virginia. The young woman he spoke to was engaging and very helpful. One thing led to another and they started chatting on the phone as the piece of machinery was being built.

When the job was done and ready for shipment, the young man prevailed on his boss to allow him to go in person to make sure that the machinery was up to the expected standards. When he told the young woman the plan, she was delighted and offered to meet him at the train station. She would then personally escort him to the plant.

“How will I know you?” The young man asked.

“I’ll be wearing a red dress.”

When the train arrived, just as promised, a pretty, dark-haired woman wearing a red dress was waiting for the young man. As he descended from the train, she smiled and waved from her wheelchair. The young man, who had no idea that she had suffered from polio and had been wheelchair-bound from the time she was a child, fell instantly and irrevocably in love.

They married, raised a family, and had a wonderful relationship.

My patient, who just recently met the now 62-year-old lady with the red dress and her husband for the first time, said with a sigh, “They were in love.” He sighed again. “Most of us married people love our spouses, but this was different. They were obviously still as madly in love as when they first met on that railroad station forty years ago.”

So why do I, a person who has never seen or met this lady-in-red, also love her?

I love her positive attitude and her ability to accept what she couldn’t change and still make the most of her opportunity to have a good life. It is what I want for myself, my wife and children, my friends and my patients. The woman-in-the-red-dress never defined herself as a woman in a wheelchair with polio, but only as an attractive, intelligent, exciting person who never bothered mentioning the fact that she was impaired because in so many ways she wasn’t.

The story is for me what love stories are all about. Love, mystery, spirituality and the magic of the human condition. It is what I believe in, what I write about, and what I dream about.

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WHY ARE PENN STATE AND BILL O’BRIEN CHANGING THOUSANDS OF LIVES? By Art Smukler, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Childhood Trauma, Penn State, Psychiatry, Self Examination, World events, a psychological view

The vision of the Sandusky horror is almost too much to fathom — a sexual predator allowed access to a hallowed sports facility because the men in power just couldn’t and wouldn’t systematically investigate one of their own. Disgrace to Joe Paterno, football sanctions, a mass exodus of players to other teams, and a university disrespected and threatened with a loss of accreditation, was accepted as the righteous result of their transgression.

Enter the beleaguered team and Bill O’Brien, the new coach, to start the season. The resounding “We Are Penn State” was down to a muffled embarrassed whimper. Then the team lost its first two games and it appeared that the humiliation and devalued attitude was here to stay.

Week three, and the team dumps gallons of Gatorade on O’Brien’s head after their first win. Weeks four and five and six, they win again and again and AGAIN. Is the Phoenix finally dragging itself out of the ashes of shower rooms and sexual perversity?

It’s fun and wonderful to win, but in this case, it’s not just winning a football game, it’s winning the battle against an infectious stigma that made a great majority of Penn Staters feel humiliated and devalued by what their elders did over a decade ago. I wonder how many PSU Ts and sweatshirts stayed hidden in closets?

Is this any different than what so many of us experienced at the hands of our own parents? Insensitivity, violence, sexual abuse and flat-out stupidity can obviously influence an entire life. The results of poor parenting —  depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, are rampant in psychiatric offices. Helping a patient unravel how the past has unduly influenced his view of himself is often very helpful.

Like the changes happening at Penn State, we can also change. We don’t have to continue to feel trapped or controlled or humiliated by what our parents did or didn’t do. It’s wonderful to have a new hero like Bill O’Brien, but let’s keep in mind what happened with our old hero, Joe Paterno. He was simply a human being with his own set of limitations.

We need to embrace the hero inside each of us, the part that doesn’t follow the herd and does the right thing, whatever it takes.

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