Pregrieving

Someday I'll...

This is someday, round, full and rich
with possibilities.                                        

An agility of balance, strength and style
come pouring forth.

This is what you are waiting for,
the fullness of today
rife with meaning, tempered
by light, by dark and something
luminescent in between.

Open your windows and
breathe in the air.
Even from a cell
you can see the sky,
the stars.                       Susan R. Grout 2011


One of the sad facts of life is that many of us put our lives on hold and live only for the future. We lean toward a dark cast on the thoughts of the future and we become consumed with fear of what horrible thing might befall us. I call this pregrieving.

Remember from the previous post, our mind wants a job. If someone has been a chronic worrier, and that's how her brain has been nourished, the mind automatically will dive for that part of the brain--- the very long established groove for worrying. As you know from the previous post this route is escapable .

One of the important lessons for those who are always poised to anticipate the worst, the people who chronically pregrieve is to allow the them to go there. I say, "go ahead, worry for awhile". My favorite intervention is to add, "take a paper and pen with you and write down any insights that you come upon when you are worrying." Let that person figure out "what's the worst that can happen?" I say, "this is best done in a timely fashion, let it take minutes, even seconds and then quickly come to acceptance and move on." In moving on, go to that pleasurable activity to redirect the brain from the established groove of worry. This takes commitment and discipline.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water                         Wendell Berry

What we are all hopefully trying to do in this life is to live to our fullest. A famous sister frequently adds, "carpe them diems." To which I add, amen sister. So when you have an attack of fear and worry and find yourself pregrieving some future happening, carpe...

I had a nurse friend who shocked many a patient in the ER with the question "what is the worst thing that could happen...". Interestingly even if the answer was, "well, I guess I could die..." the reflection was oddly calming. Really. Then she could talk to them about an array of other choices and things that could happen.

This darling bunny never has a good reason to be fearful, so much love...

What really bollixes up life is fear. Fear paralyzes people and renders them unable to think clearly. Once someone is fearful they stop breathing freely, the breath becomes constricted and it clouds judgement. You become like a little bunny, frozen by the perceived dangers of life. You might notice this shortness of breath and if you do, catch yourself, breathe slowly with longer exhalations than inhalations. Then you will be giving yourself the gift of thought again.

Burying our dear Mother, literally.

If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.
John R. Miller

Death is always the end of the story. We all are going to die, and no one gets out of this world alive. So face death. I know that it's not a terrific thought, but it is the truth. We all must live each day as though it is our last. Live it with love, kindness, hope, charity and generosity as a way to make your place and contribution to this world. Go out with a bang not a whimper. May the powerful force of love be with you.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved.

Finding Relief from OCD

It is relatively easy to diagnose the perpetual hand washer, or the trichotillomaniac who pulls out all her hair, you see the evidence of this. But what of the people like my dear friend Mary who lives with the recurrent thought in her head "there is more and more to be done" hence the endless cleaning. She gets the societal rewards and the inner torment? Not nice. I went on a web site for people who self identified as compulsive cleaners and the answers from other people at the site were "come over to my house" just like I thought. No support or understanding. 

Our mind wants a job, and as Norman Doige says in The Brain that Heals Itself, "the brain is more like a living creature with an appetite, one that can grow and change itself with proper nourishment and exercise." If someone has been a chronic worrier, and that's how her brain has been nourished, the mind automatically will dive for that part of the brain, the one with the huge, long established groove for worrying. Sadly this is a seemingly inescapable route and you might be asking, 'how can I prevent this'?

"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due."
William Ralph Inge

Happily, with the modern aid of PET scans on the brain, patients tested prior to and after psychotherapy showed that their brains normalized after treatment. Good news, talking therapy works! Of course, since this is my profession I was pleased to report this study. The truth is many other methods can also work to calm the agitated brain. Prayer, meditation, exercise, chanting, swimming, singing, love making and a good hearty discussion with a treasured friend also calms the agitated brain.

The toughest people to help, those who have extremely agitated brains, are the unfortunates who have full blown OCD--obsessive compulsive disorder. As I mentioned in the past two posts there is a continuum of OCD. Some clients have cases of OCD that are not so pronounced while others are profoundly affected. The people that have severe cases have brains whose frontal lobes are very activated. Why this is, we don't exactly know. Heredity does play in as a component.

Here's an example of what can happen. Let's say someone with OCD is at a friend's house and accidentally drops a glass which shatters. Part of their brain registers that a mistake has been made. Then it sends a signal to the deepest part of the cortex which in turn triggers the "dreadful anxiety that something bad is going to happen unless we correct the mistake" says Doige. In a normal brain this works rather quickly and the issue is resolved  by apologizing, picking up, then sweeping up the broken glass to a feeling of relief. With our OCD person the process gets stuck and the dreadful feeling and anxiety increases, no relief in sight or in mind. Hence the endless rethinking the event, over apologizing, never letting it rest and basically torturing themselves long after the glass shattered. I call this 'the rumination rumba'.

Numerous other examples of what OCD people do with their ruminations and anxiety are: hand washing, hair pulling, counting their steps, checking and re checking their work etc.  Some of this can be physiological. I have known entire families that have anxiety disorder.  How to get unstuck? There is a method to overcome the "sticky" brain and get some relief. 

Get thee to a good counselor. After acknowledging that excessive worry is a symptom of OCD, explains Doige, "the next step is to refocus on a positive, wholesome, ideally pleasure giving activity." [Pick your pleasure: friends, music, books, helping someone, cuddling a grandchild, singing, gardening, praying, yodeling...] Let me add numerous studies have shown that it takes about 20 minutes for the redirected focus to enable a compulsion or addiction to subside. This trick of refocusing takes diligence and time but is worth the effort. We are breaking a bad habit by creating a new habit with better feelings.

A good way to get unstuck from thoughts is to be thoroughly captivated by an activity 

To summarize for recovering from the milder to moderate cases of OCD:

1. Relabel what is happen to you as not an 'unforgivable mistake', or the 'dread of not having a tidy house', or an attack of 'germs' but instead an episode of OCD. Doige tells clients to say, for example, "Yes I do have a problem right now. But it is not germs it's the OCD."
2. Realize that this might take diligence and constant effort at first to literally rewire the brain. There is a book by Jeffrey Schwartz called Brain Lock which is on this very subject, the possibility of changing circuits in the brain.
3. Refocus on a positive pleasurable activity the moment she/he becomes aware of the OCD attack. In other words do something, anything, to shift the brain gears away from the groove in the brain.
4. Remember the struggle is to make the feeling go away, not to give in to it. This is like exercising an underdeveloped muscle, it needs time, practice and to strengthen and grow.
5. Some clients will need medication plus all the work with a psychotherapist on top of it. I recommend someone who is familiar with both Schwartz's and Doige's work to save time.
6. Encourage the client, friend or relative to set a deadline. This gives the feeling of training for a race or practicing for a performance which can enhance resolve. Mark the measurable results and cheer yourself on, let go of the set backs with renewed resolve.
7. It might be handy to have a formal cheering section: family, therapist or friends.

Open your windows and
breathe in the air.                                             

Even from a cell
you can see the sky,
the stars.   Rumi

susansmagicfeather copyright 2020 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved           

Beyond Neatniks

Cats can be referred to as compulsive cleaners

A place for everything and everything in it's place.  possibly Benjamin Franklin

Years ago one of my friends started a business in our small town called "Compulsive Cleaners". I really laughed at the name but he explained that he needed the work and since he was a notorious neatnik the job was perfect for him. He, however, was not obsessed with cleanliness and being orderly, it didn't adversely affect his life. 

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.                        Voltaire

  On the opposite end of the OCD spectrum from hoarders are the people who are compulsively clean and neat. I had a dear friend Mary* who had, no doubt, the most pristine, most orderly home I've ever been in. What made this more interesting was she had two lively little boys. It was a mystery to me how she was able to keep everything so perfect. At that time I also had two little boys and would have cheerfully let Mary stay for a week to help tidy and organize my home. Skip to years later, I visited Mary in her new condo [the boys were long gone] and it was remarkably similar, everything sparkled. I said, "Mary, your house is always so immaculate." "Susan," she said "I'm up past midnight every night cleaning, it isn't a blessing it's a curse." 

Mary came by her OCD honestly. Her father was a terrible hoarder, famous for box cars he purchased to store all of his stuff. Don't think treasures, he collected things like 400 lbs. of rebar and 27 boxes of nails, car parts for cars he didn't own. He was a nasty tyrant and his wife and all his kids tip toed around him. No one dared suggest that he rid himself of any of his "goods". He was ill natured and had no nurturing skills. So, Mary's curse was her desire to be the exact opposite of her father: she was diligent about throwing things away. Mary's mind was never free to let things go or be, she was obsessed with order and cleanliness.Therefore, she was on the same spectrum of OCD and she showed me that OCD does indeed have a genetic component.

It takes incredible concentration to keep all those hoops in the air spinning

The breakthrough for people like Mary and her dreadful father and the other people on the last post was back in the early 1990's: http://susansmagicfeather.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-mystery-of-hoarding.html
This is when the new medications of anti-depressants came into flower, Prozac and the like. Hailed as miracle drugs for many [and before the long range studies showed the side affects hampering the miracle], these drugs were used with some success on people with OCD. The best example of that drug being miraculous was a client of mine who had body dysmorphic disorder.  This man believed when he looked in the mirror that he was hideous. Untrue. He was not handsome but a very pleasant looking gentleman. His psychiatrist prescribed an SSRI and as soon as several weeks later his disorder went away completely. That was lovely. With OCD of the hoarding variety, I have not seen those startling results. 

How on earth to 'fix' someone who the world appreciates as not broken? See tomorrow's post [or soon] about what therapy works the best for OCD and for that matter any of the clients on that spectrum.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved

The Mystery of Hoarding

Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction. Fiction after all has to make sense.                                                     Mark Twain

Sometime people get too comfortable in their trash

Since I retired from my job as a psychotherapist, my husband and I have been sorting through and clearing out many of the things that we have accumulated over more than thirty years in our home. This got me thinking about how easy and refreshing a task it is to toss away the detritus and yet how hard and nearly impossible it was for some of my old clients. 

Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful.                                  William Morris

Years ago I went to a workshop on "Hoarding: the problems with obsessive compulsive disorder [OCD]". The pressing need at the time was in the form of a delightful client, Dottie* who was unable to throw away anything she had attached meaning to. Sounds sweet and sentimental until her husband, Ralph*, explained, "she had fifteen years of LL Bean catalogs because she loved their covers. Do you have any idea how much room those catalogs take up in our tiny house?" he said with deep frustration. That was just the start of it. She had bottles and bottle caps she saved from recycling due to the memory of sharing a drink with her family. Ralph went on and on about all the horrors of living in a scrap pile--their house was loaded with useless trash. So I went to this workshop hopeful that I could persuade Dottie to come to her senses and start the process of letting go of junk.

From this workshop I came away amazed and perplexed. I was amazed: we watched a film of a family in a four bedroom house that looked fine on the outside. When the cameraman tried to enter the house, his way was blocked by an incredible volume of garbage. One of the most surprising things to me was this family was living in this ungodly mess. Children were being brought up next to mountains of trash strewn all through their home. Poor dears probably thought this was normal.  Here's what was most perplexing: I can more or less understand one person living alone accumulating all that garbage... no one was there to stop them. But how a young family could live in such an unpleasant and painful filth was indeed baffling. Were they all hoarders? 

In my nicest voice I asked the workshop leader, "aren't the ones who aren't afflicted with this illness [OCD] basically enablers? Can't they put their foot down and insist the mess be cleaned up?" She cleared her throat and said, "we have to move very gently and carefully, it is a very slow process to recovery." Again remember, I was at this workshop because of Dottie who paled in comparison to what I saw on film. But I wasn't looking for a description of pack rats, I was looking for answers, to solve the problem. I tend to be somewhat of a hard ass when I see a problem and no one is willing to address it head on. Being realistic I knew I had only a few mild cases of OCD in comparison to the workshop leader who was out in the deep, dark trenches. She said, "I recently dealt with an old man who had never given away a tool and kept all of the magazines and newspapers he'd ever read". Another case she cited was "the older woman who had many cats and fed them on the floor never threw away food cans. Also the home was overrun with her own cans, garbage and pizza boxes. Sadly, despite the cats, the rats were literally running over the mantle, in broad daylight." Imagine my incredulity that her only advice was to "go slow and suggest simple and small goals", I'm thinking, "what, like torching the house"? 

I realize OCD and hoarding are mental illnesses but they are also a form of addiction. Sometimes bystanders and family members can be too sympathetic and become paralyzed by the fear of the person with OCD. The client will claim, "it would kill my soul to throw away anything I've collected..." I have yet to see a soul scorched by recycling.

One of the truisms in the field of addiction is the best motivation for a person to stay sober has to come from within. This can take a long time and patience is required. However, external consequences can speed up the process and coax the unwilling to become more willing. Anyone who has ever raised a child or trained a dog knows that logical consequences, positive feedback and rewards work well in training behavior. Bless the poor workshop leader who was attempting to keep some of these old ones from being evicted from their homes or shut down by the health department. I believe she did herself and her clients a disservice by giving them too generous time lines for change. Heavy tasks---and as far as I could tell these folks were unwilling to change unless they were offered a hefty reward or by contrast, a cattle prod.

It is not enough to know what is right. Courage also is needed to do what is right.                                                        Arthur Dobrin

How to overcome hoarding:

1. If you love a relative whose hoarding is out of control be frank and tell them they have a serious problem and need some help.
2. Give them the name of a therapist or at least a housekeeper to help them.
3. Give them a deadline of when you expect to see results, this is important, stick to your agreed upon date.
4. Tell them they will be rewarded for cleaning up. A dinner out? Reassurance that they won't be evicted...
5. Warn them that if they are not able to stop collecting you will get someone in to do the cleaning/hauling away and that will have to pay.
6. Be kind but do not listen to their rationalizations as to why they must hoarded useless crap. It is sick and irrational.

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order.                  Katherine Patterson

Dottie really resented the above suggestions that I gave to Ralph and for a time I thought she was going to quit counseling. She cried pitifully and begged that there need be no change. I urged Ralph on. Once Ralph manned up and set the dead line things got enormously better, she decided to only keep the covers to the catalogs [progress not perfection], he was able to do some serious recycling in their home and felt so much better. 

Your objects are not your soul, they may be meaningful so you could always snap a picture of them or scan them and treasure that memory in an album. Families need not give into the misguided fears of the hoarder, tough love does work in this instance.

Time to let go of things that are broken

The craziness will go around and around if no one puts a stop to it.

*Dottie and Ralph would take great exception to their fake names.
susansmagicfeather copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved

What All of Us Stand to Lose

"My paintings never turn out the way I want them to but I'm never surprised". Andy Warhol
Mom and Mr. G at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Charity is no substitute to justice withheld.                                               St. Augustine

Awhile ago I listened to Anna Quinlen on Terry Gross's show 'Fresh Air'  and brought up tons of memories on how it was to be a woman growing up in the era where certain rights, [that today's young women take for granted] were not present. My own Mother, rest her soul said, "when I'd get my period, I'd slide right off the toilet and on to my knees in thanksgiving." Yes, it's funny-- but can you imagine? She also said, "I had six beautiful children by the rhythm method" and knew that she couldn't physically, mentally, financially or emotionally handle another baby. The Catholic Church at that time was much more condemning and frightening to their women parishioners. The priest would lecture the women to have more babies from their lofty pulpits with little regard to the woman's circumstances. Today most Catholics, thank God, ignore that dictum and plan their families with the help of birth control. Yet also today, control of family planning and birth control is constantly being challenged by the leading Republicans. What is this? It's simple: they want to control what goes on with a woman and her body. Especially poor women. Pretty nutty, huh?

I am divided on how to approach this issue. Part of me wants to enjoy the good rollicking laugh that all of the comedians can have with this issue. The other part of me is horrified to think that all of the blood, sweat and tears [literally, folks] that we put into attaining the right to privacy between a woman and her physician could be jeopardized. That this right could up and vanish is utter foolishness. Hillary Clinton said it best, "we [Americans] are the ones who have to show the world that women's rights are human rights." Dear people, isn't that obvious? Otherwise, what does the lack of rights imply? Women are not human? Doesn't that sound exactly like the argument that was made in 1700's about slaves?

So, you might say that I'm indignant to have this battle in front of us repeatedly. I am. I can truly understand why this issue would be of little importance to older men. What do they care if it's difficult for a woman to have access to birth control or abortion. However, I find it fascinating that first in line with their teen age daughters in the abortion clinics are all of the fundamentalist. That is marginally better than in other countries where the offending female is stoned to death by the males in her family. [Now, who was it that got her pregnant?]

This control of a woman's body should be a non issue. We have a big world to save from wars, starvation, climate change, illiteracy, hatred and greed. So what's with some politicians that all they can find to talk about is withholding a woman's right to privacy with her doctor?

Mom and I

Do me a favor. Please mock any and all attempts to take away a woman's right to privacy. Mark it 'like' any time support of woman's rights are mentioned. In addition, when anyone brings up the supposedly viable candidate who is against human rights, vote them down. If they are not laughed at and voted down we are looking square in the face of, not the 1950's, but more accurately the 1700's. What's next on the agenda, witch hunts? I'd be a goner for sure. So help save Susan Grout from the stake!

susansmagicfeather  copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved

How Do Honesty and Laughter Help in Life and Therapy?

Tell the truth and run.                   Old Swedish Proverb

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.                                                                                Sir Winston Churchill

I tell the truth, not as much as I would but as much as I dare --- and I dare more and more as I grow older.                 Michel de Montaigne

Being a psychotherapist can be tricky at times. The temptation is frequently there to consider myself the Queen who wants her subjects to take notes and do what I say. Ha. One of the best ways to conquer this tragic flaw is to hit it up front and say to the clients, "Do you have to do anything that I say?" Most people answer immediately, "No!" and that's just the answer I want. The information I give is always from my perspective, as I see it, but the client may not be able or willing to hear it. Someone once said to me "you have to let your clients follow their own destinies." Nice, however this is particularly difficult if you see them repeating the same mistakes over and over again. After all, aren't they paying me to steer them in a different direction? So, what comes into this head and out of my mouth is my truth. I believe in telling it like I see it. Being human, and this always comes as a shock to me, I'm not always right. But I say it anyway. Sometimes I soften the truth with humor but there it is: tell the truth and run. Makes life easier.

There are exceptions to being strictly honest and one of my favorite interventions is brought to you by Mr. G.  I'll ask him [foolishly] "do I look fat or thin in this outfit?" and his stock answer is, "you are perfect." Ahhh, need I say more?

Cheerfulness is the atmosphere in which all things thrive.    Jean Paul Richter

Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness its poison.   Stanislaus

In the 1979 Norman Cousins wrote a book [Anatomy of an Illness] about his recovery from what was supposed to be a fatal illness. He found that by making himself laugh for 45 minutes a day he could get a better night's sleep and better still it helped the pain. Stranger than fiction it worked, he recovered, wrote the book and then became a crusader for laughter therapy. I hopped right on that band wagon.

Don't confuse laughter with the circus; laughter and ridicule are the most devastating tools an organization can use.           Saul Alinsky

Laughter does a marvelous job of interrupting cycles of depression, tension and hopelessness. Good examples are "Springtime for Hitler" from the Mel Brooks movie 'The Producers" as well as the film, "Life is Beautiful" both made fun of the most unbelievable atrocity: the Concentration camps and Hitler. Seemingly not funny but they worked brilliantly making us mock the unthinkable.

Laughter does all kinds of wonderful things for us physiologically and psychologically. It gives every organ in the body a hearty workout--- stimulating the pituitary gland which sends out endorphins that among other things, eases pain. So why not employ one of the easiest remedies when working with clients? Of course you have to revel in a strong sense of humor if you are going to pull this off, but again, why not? The old schools of psychotherapy would be appalled. Me thinks that the "professionalism" of psychotherapy takes itself a bit too seriously.

In our family a sense of humor starts early

Just as selling a home is most effective if you have the right location, location, location using laughter and humor,  you have to have the right timing, timing, timing. To work properly humor in therapy must be well timed, relevant to the person and the situation and the client must be well regarded and respected by the therapist. A good example is one wonderful client, Bill* came in and following my dictum: be aware and amused, he proceeded to tell me the following story. "I came home after a grueling day at work to find my 8 year old son making costumes for his guinea pig for a 4 H contest. He was trying to fasten an antenna to the guinea pig's head with little success. Soon the kitchen was filled with his older brother applying silver paint to cardboard for the rocket ship and I was wrestling with the guinea pig..." at this point we were both laughing so hard, just picturing it, he then said "and I thought --this is my life!" The eight year old said joyfully, "hey Dad, it's Pig's in Space".

we roar for more, humor that is

A simple but favorite intervention of mine is to role play the mistaken behavior and then contrast it with what can be done differently. Mr and Mrs Touche* were in the office after yet another one of their perpetual fights. She has a job that takes her away from home for weeks at a time and he is left in charge of the elderly cat. She said, "when I came home after being gone more than a week I opened the door and saw all of the cat's bedding and her heating pad strewn all over the floor. I was immediately furious and yelled at him. I'm not proud of myself." He said, "that was so unfair, I was merely moving everything so the cat could have a new place to sleep near me during the day." Grim tension filled the air and so I said, "been there, done that myself." Sad but true this is one of my tragic flaws as well: jumping to conclusions. So I stood up and said, "OK, try this Mrs. T. Pretend you have just said your crabby sentence and he is answering with that explanation." She shook her head in agreement, and I added, "immediately walk backwards out the door and re enter with, a "hello honey, what's up?" I over dramatized and demonstrated being crabby and then exiting and coming back in as a nice person. They both laughed and the atmosphere went from hopeless to hopeful. The grim tension fled and their faces lit up. 

Whole books have been written about "change one thing" in your interactions to break up repetitive problems and it works. My favorite change intervention is lightening the situation with a slug of humor.

Many people and therapists believe that it's only through heavy heartache and overwhelming suffering that change can occur. I say to clients, "you don't have to continually walk through broken glass to gain insight, you can gain insight through laughter as well as tears."

Laughter at one's self can be an important sign of maturity. Raising children taught this to me best of all, watching my little boys become able to laugh at themselves and then learn from their mistakes. Some of the best humorous stories, revolve around our human foibles. My Dad was a great one for recounting these moments. Once he played in a golf classic and was paired with Glen Campbell. "I was nervous with the huge crowd watching me in hushed silence as I was about to tee off. Well, I did a flawless practice shot, stepped up to the tee, swung with all my might and missed the ball completely. A gasp went out from the crowd, embarrassed for me. I put my hand to my forehead as though seeing the ball sailing away in the distance and said in a loud voice, "tough course!". The crowd roared with laughter."  His humor created a lovely moment, dispelling all tension, creating fun and laughter by making fun of himself. His humor was so infectious that I caught it. Would that everyone could look upon the world with those sunny, funny colored glasses.

*Obviously the names Bill and  Mr and Mrs Touche are pseudonyms.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved.

Generosity vs. Stinginess

 The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.                               Charles Lamb

  It is imperative if we are to lead a successful and happy life that we learn to be generous, loving and giving. This is absolutely true statistically. It starts with ourselves and needs to grow into loving our fellow humans. What good does it do if one claims to be loving yet approaches the task from a platform of indifference or hatred toward others? This is like being on a diving board and diving head first into an empty pool. Ouch!

The golden rule is of no use to you, unless you realize it's your move.                                     Doug Larson 

It distresses me hugely that so many messages given by some religious groups emphasize churlishness toward anyone who is not in their club. Worse, they propose if you are rich it is God's favoritism and the poor--- well it's their own fault. However, the fact is, in most countries in the world, most wealth is inherited.  Only a very minuscule percentage of the very wealthy have "earned" it themselves and some of those who have "earned" their wealth did so by shamelessly exploiting the working class. Odd, this sounds like the worst aspect of capitalism, doesn't it?

I've been reading a series of books lately that describes how very wretched poverty has been throughout the ages. [How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Museum of Extraordinary Things to name two.] Another of the books: Call the Midwife volumes I and II [also a TV series on PBS] by author Jennifer Worth describes in Dickensian detail the abysmal conditions of the poor in London after WWII. Basically the entire country was suffering in the aftermath of the war but none so great as the already poor.  I kept reading wishing that there was someone with more heart overseeing the conditions of these people, but there was intentional neglect, callousness and rationalization as to why people lived in these horrifying conditions. Sadly, many of the men and women in these families were veterans of WWI and WWII.  

Although dreadful housing conditions are not new or shocking information, there had been a small safety net of  sorts, in the centuries before. The churches would help the poor. Then King Henry VIII put an end to aid to the poor when in 1530 he broke off with the Catholic church and started his own church. Ah, the ego of a narcissistic murderer. It was only when his daughter, Elizabeth I came into power in 1601 and wrote "the Act for the Relief of the Poor" that some compassion came back into England.

Let's look at our country. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness [NAEH]:

"the decreases in chronic and veteran homelessness [in 2011-12] indicate that, with federal, state, and local investment in strategies proven to end homelessness, progress can be made. The ongoing and increased development of permanent supportive housing, a proven solution to ending homelessness for people with disabilities, is bringing down chronic and veteran homelessness numbers in communities across the country. Emphasis needs to be placed on creating more affordable housing and strengthening the safety net to prevent homelessness."        

That got me thinking about the poor and the homeless in this country. When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's there weren't throngs of homeless that you'd see on the streets of the big cities. However, there were tons of homeless people after the crash of 1929, but the situation was greatly reduced by FDR who created the WPA projects which put many of the homeless back to work. Good use of the country's taxes.  Of course the population was much smaller then. Though far from perfect, in the '50's and 60's we  had institutions that took in the people with disabilities, and the ones who were unable to make it in the world due to mental illness. That all changed in the 1980's with Ronald Regan. He opened the flood gates and the inmates were released to fend for themselves. Supposedly this was a good thing, they were being sent back "home" but the truth: his government just didn't want to take care of or pay for the crazies anymore. "Send them back to their communities," sounded so good but there was no money provided for these communities to handle the mentally ill and drug addicts. Many, many of these people were veterans with PTSD with no place to go. "Do unto others..." Shame on the heartless.

Today many homeless are families and the principal wage earner lost their job. So, not all of the homeless are mentally ill or drug addicts, but you can bet a good percentage of them were/are. You can turn a blind eye to the homeless, but they exist and there has got to be a more humane and civilized way that we treat the impoverished and the unfortunate in our own country.

Right now there is a movement afoot to raise the minimum wage and it is being fought tooth and nail by big business, they still believe in 'Trickle Down'. They don't want to pay more to their employees, even though their CEO's get exorbitant salaries and typically make thousands times more than the workers. Yet because the employees do not have a living wage, they have to file for welfare or food stamps which we all pay for with our taxes. Hence, this is the system that is being fought for and quite simply it is called corporate welfare. It's got to stop.

 What's so interesting about corporate welfare is some believe that we can afford it. In my state Boeing paid no taxes, they "earned" a refund of $199 million. That money could be put to such good use for their employees or even for housing, or treatment programs for the homeless. Think about that money and then read the sentence below. 

"Federal assistance that was previously available to fill some of those gaps [for people that are homeless]—through the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP)—has been depleted and not replaced." [NAEH].
There needs to be overwhelming public support to restore the funds for this very necessary and needed program. Instead the talk is about reducing the tax rate for the very wealthy. Make sense of this for me.

Every good parent teaches children the joy of sharing

And I'm stuck like a dope with a thing called hope and I can't get it out of my head...                                Rogers and Hammerstein

We are better, finer than the people who preach stinginess. It is generosity, not stinginess that makes this country great. Time to demand it--- for goodness sake. Please, do unto others.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2014 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved