Learned helplessness.

"Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,

Twenty four

And there's so much more

Live alone in a paradise

That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,

Give me things

That don't get lost.

Like a coin that won't get tossed

Rolling home to you."

~ from Neil Young's "Old Man"

____________________________________________________

The papers were sitting in a stack on the counter in front of me. Question after question asking all of these things that I wasn't sure applied to you.

"How long can you stand?"

"How much can you lift?"

"How many hours can you sit?"

I had no idea. I was just meeting you. Plus I had no idea what would make someone so young want disability. 

Disability? Dude.

"These are disability forms?" I went ahead and asked just in case you thought it was something different. "You know these are for disability, right?" 

"Yes, ma'am."  That answer was simple. But none of the rest of this was simple.

You had walked in. One foot in front of the other without even a trace of a limp. Your slender body appeared to be rather de-conditioned from lack of exercise but otherwise it seemed fairly healthy. The questions I'd asked you initially were answered logically and without any flight of ideas so it didn't seem like you had some disabling psychosis. And the truth is that you looked exactly like what you were--a twenty-something year-old dude seeking disability. 

I squinted at the sticker on your triage sheet to make sure I wasn't reading wrong. Yep. A date of birth from the 1980's. Yet the papers still sat there in three dimensions. For disability.

"Disability?" I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my brow. "Why are you seeking disability? I'm a bit confused, sir."

"I got medical issues that make it so I can't work." You said it matter-of-factly. Like it was what it was and like nothing about a man your age seeking for a doctor to deem him disabled was unusual.

Newsflash: It is.

"What kind of medical issues?"

"I have bleeding from my stomach. I had a bleeding ulcer. And I got some problems with my liver."

I leaned my chin into my palm and perched my elbow on the desk. I waited to see what you'd say next because that still didn't sound like the full story. You were going to have to give me more than that.

"They had me in the hospital for almost a week. I was vomiting up blood and by bowel movements was black like tar. They put a camera down my throat and said I had a ulcer and a flared up esophagus. I have to take medicine and everything."

"I see. When was all that, sir?"

"Like six months ago."

I nodded and looked into the computer a bit. Tempted to review your whole chart right then and there, I paused and decided to wait. You--the chart--were right in front of me. 

"Sir?"

"Yes, ma'am?"  The way you said "Yes, ma'am" reminded me of the high school boys I see volunteering on the sidelines at Zachary's football games. Youthful, respectful, and Eddie Haskell-like. Way too young for a permanent disability request. 

"I'm a little confused about you wanting disability. You're not even thirty. And so far I'm not fully sure of why you got sick. Like. . . was there a reason why they told you this could have happened to you?"

That question wasn't fair. It was passive aggressive since I knew for sure that I could smell beer emanating from your breath and your skin. It wasn't even ten in the morning and there was no question about whether you'd had a drink very recently. 

Maybe that suggested some kind of disability after all. Even if the papers didn't ask about the kind I was thinking of.

"I mean. . . really, Miss Manning. . I don't know. I ain't working. Haven't been able to work too much either. Basically my life is just messed up."

"Messed up how?" 

That question made you drag in a big breath of air. Your face dove into your hands and then you sat up, still pressing your palms into your eyes. 

"Man. . .I don't know, Miss Manning. I just got . . . you know. . .mind problems and I got a generational curse on me. It's messed up."

"I got a generational curse on me."

Now.

You'd think that I would have thought you were crazy when you said that but I didn't. This made sense to me because I was familiar with that language and even that idea. A generational curse. See, I'd heard the Grady elders and church folk speak of this many times. Yes. . . . .those words that usually refer to strongholds of addiction or even the kinds of anger problems that get people locked up over and over again. Or they reference those long, long lineages of poverty and low-literacy and under-employment. The kinds of things that, without some kind of intervention, repeat themselves over and over again.

"Alcohol?"

"Yes, ma'am." 

There it was again. That same "Yes, ma'am." Juvenile and full of deference. 

"What kind of work did you used to do?"

"Department of Transportation. But when you get DUIs on your record that's a wrap."

"Are you still drinking?"

"Not really."

"When did you last drink?"

You paused for a beat and then decided to answer. "Alcohol? Like a week ago. But I had a beer."

Beer is alcohol, I wanted to say. But this wasn't the time for that. 

"Today?"

"Yes, ma'am. But just one." 

Damn. The clock had just struck 9:21 and you'd already had a beer. This was serious. And honestly? You were disabled from whatever it was that made you crack open a beer while somebody else was pouring coffee.

"What kind of beer do you drink?" I braced myself for the answer. 

"Icehouse. Or Colt 45." 

Malt liquor. Dang. 

"Do you consider. . . I mean. . .how do you feel about your drinking? Like. . .is it something you consider a problem?" 

You leaned forward with elbows onto knees and turned your face toward me. Next your mouth fell open and your eyelids lowered which was the silent movie equivalent of saying "duh." 

"You said it was a. . .  generational curse?"  

One corner of your mouth turned up when I said that. I thought it was ironic that you'd smile about something that I personally considered very sobering. Strongholds--especially generational ones--aren't anything to smile about. I called you on it. "I'm sorry. Did I say something that sounded kind of funny?"

"Naw, not really," you replied with a chuckle. "Just the way you asking me these questions seem like you don't know this kinda thing up close and personal. Like you .  . . .from somewhere else."

Somewhere else? Damn.

"Like 'somewhere else' meaning not Atlanta?"

"Naw. Somewhere else like not the kind of family where most black folks come from. You know. . .like a family with no alcoholics or drug addicts in it. And, real talk, I don't know nobody like that."

I froze on those words. I immediately felt like surveying everyone nearby in our demographic to see if this was a valid statement. Instead, all I could go by was the "n = 1" sitting in front of you. 

Did I have any people in my family of upbringing who struggled with alcohol dependence and drug abuse? Yep. What about the family I married into? Yep. 

"No. I'm from the same place. I can't say every black person fits that description, but you're right--I do. I have family members with drug and alcohol problems." 

You smirked again. I knitted my brow in response so you clarified.

"Must not have been your mama or your daddy, though. I can tell from looking at you and listening to you."

That punched me in my chest. You were right again. It wasn't my mother or my father. It was someone who didn't live in my house at all. The relatives whose necks I hugged on holidays and who laughed louder than all the others at the grown up table. 

"What about you?" I quietly asked. 

Your back was hunched over in a 'c' and your forearms were still pressing into your thighs like a high school sixth man waiting for a coach to let him in. With a shake of your head you answered. "Both. Mama and Daddy. But what's going on with me came from my daddy. That's about all I got from that dude." 

"Is he alive?"

"Yeah, but he all messed up from his liver. Stomach be all big like a pregnant lady 'cause he got cirrhosis and all that. And he always was a mean drunk. Be hitting people and fighting and shit." You let out a gentle laugh. "And me, I got me a parole officer that I get to talk all about that to." 

Dang.

"What about your mother?"

"My mom? Yeah. She got mixed up on crack so I grew up with her but, you know, she one of them every day crack smokers. The ones that ain't shaking on the corner like Pookie but still do it enough to eff they whole family up." Again the sideways smile.

"The ones that ain't shaking on the corner like Pookie 

but still do it enough to eff they whole family up." 

Now that was some real talk. The image of Chris Rock as "Pookie" in the nineties cult classic "New Jack City" flashed inside of my head. Then I tried to see your mother, talking loud and dancing like a teenager on your front porch when you wished she wouldn't. I pictured electricity turned off, belongings stacked up on curbs from evictions and report cards that you signed yourself. All signs of "just enough to eff the whole family up."

"Have you ever looked into getting some help? Like rehab or something?"

You shrugged. "They make you go to stuff when you get a DUI. I been to AA before, too."

"Have you ever seen anyone in mental health?"

"Naaah. This shit is in my blood. Can't no counselor or psychiatrist fight demons that run in your family." 

"You know? I think this is what they do better than anyone else. Plus they can probably help you to do it better than what you've been doing up until now." 

This time you just looked at me and didn't say anything else. Your eyes were warm and hoped mine were, too. 

We talked some more about your family and your father and how you grew up. We talked about how much you really drink and where you live and how getting some help might really change your life. You told me that your mind is strong but that since all you know is a life with people drinking and ruining everything that you couldn't see past all that. Also you said you have a little daughter but you don't see her none because you hit her mama in the face once and her mama's mama won't let her mother have nothing to do with you. But that you're glad because you don't want to mess her life up, too.

"That's all a part of the generational curse," you kept saying. And every time you did, you said it like it was so final and non-negotiable and with no antidote that anybody could gain access to.

Not me, not you, not AA, and not mental health. Not anybody. 

All I had was the time remaining in your visit. And I wasn't even the main one seeing you; I had just come in to talk to you behind a resident doctor. I knew I couldn't get all this stuff back into Pandora's box and I felt kind of bad that I'd even started pulling out the contents. Kind of like when neighborhood kids come over for play dates, pull all the stuff out of every single crevice in your yard and then just leave all the stuff in the driveway for somebody to run over with their car.

Like that.

You didn't mind when I said that disability didn't seem like the best thing for you. You listened carefully and you were cooperative through the SBIRT referral (screening, brief intervention, referral to treatment.) And eventually I just had to let you go. 

That was several weeks ago. Maybe even some months now. But I haven't stopped thinking of you. Thinking of your despair and your learned helplessness. Feeling this pang in the part of my stomach that is connected to my soul because I knew that you presenting a stack of disability papers was nothing more than a manifestation of that same learned helplessness. Like those lab animals described in those classic psychological studies. . . . shocked and harnessed or thrown into vats of water while scientists took notes as they scrambled and scrambled until eventually they realized the there was no way out. The ones who over time when tossed back into the same situations by those same scientists would just lie there because they knew that there was just no use. None at all.

And this is the theory of learned helplessness. 

When I think of you I worry that, if I'm not careful,  I could succumb to the same as your doctor. Listening to your truths and your reality, but somehow desensitized to it all. Fearful that it will all end up floating in a giant tank full to the brim with unfixable generational curses and social catastrophes. With me just lying there flaccid, immune to the shocks and not making a splash.

________________________________________

"Lullabies, look in your eyes
Run around the same old town
Doesn't mean that much to me
to mean that much to you

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you

Old man take a look at my life

I'm a lot like you

I need someone to love me

The whole day through

Ah, one look in my eyes

And you can tell that's true

Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were. . ." 

***

Welcome to October.

Now playing on my mental iPod. . . this song punches me in my chest.

I love this soulful remake by N'Dea Davenport (formerly of The Brand New Heavies). The way she chants "daddy" in it is haunting. This version speaks to my soul -- and makes me wish I could play electric guitar. It also makes me wonder what she was feeling inside when she recorded it. (SO annoyed that I lost my original CD of this version because it's not on iTunes for some reason! BOOO!)