Row boat
I had a conversation this morning with one of my chronic pain patients. I may have mentioned him in the past. He is schizophrenic. When he first moved to town he called all the pain docs in town and none of them would take him just because he was schizophrenic. When he called my office, my secretary told me about him and his call, she said he seemed “normal”, a phrase that doesn’t apply to many of us. I told her to call him back and bring him in for an initial consultation. He ended up being very nice, well controlled on his meds and apologetic for being schizophrenic and needing pain management (totally unnecessary). I took him as patient that day, and we have built a trusting doctor patient relationship over the last couple of years. At first he was afraid of doctors and would insist that his wife (nonschizophrenic) attend his appointments, once he realized that I wouldn’t judge him, she was able to stop coming.
Unfortunately, they are getting a divorce…..two kids later. Anyway, he was in my office today and I asked him how he was doing on a human level. He said he was doing OK and as he discussed his divorce, the conversation went something like this:
“Yea Doc” he said, “I realized that I was doing all the work to make the relationship work.”
“You don’t think L was living up to her end of the bargain?” I asked.
“No”, he replied….”marriage is like steering a row boat, and I realized that I was doing all the rowing. The only problem is that if just one person is doing all the rowing that ya just go around in circles, both people have to sit side by side and do the equal amount of work…”
I looked at him with my head cocked, having never heard this analogy before. I asked ” is that an original idea …about the boat rowing stuff?”
He smiled as he replied, “Oh yea, I come up with all kinds of crazy shit.”
I thought about his simple schizophrenic wisdom, the profundity and eloquence of a certified ” crazy man”. We think that valuable creative thought is reserved for those of us who haven’t seen the inside of a loonie bin, we are wrong. Wisdom doesn’t know the boundaries that we as a culture set up for all the inmates of this big loonie bin we call the Earth. I thought about how over the last decade that I have played all three possible roles in my marital row boat.
At different times I have been a solo rower, a team member shoulder to shoulder with K, and even at times been the piece of crap passenger. In all humility we all have either rowed or fucked off as the other person carried the load, and no matter who is doing the solo work, the relationship only goes in circles. In order for a relationship to go anywhere that will satisfy both parties, everybody has to have the same vision of a desired shore, the same strength and willingness to work, and the ability to stay shoulder to shoulder with your mate even when the seas are rough.
I love learning from people such as my patient. It is so easy to judge, so easy to dismiss, so humbling to walk upright and be a human.
