How people Talk...

In crisis people forget how to talk.  Or perhaps more accurately, they get nervous and they forget how to talk with you and not at you.  I think they are afraid if they stop talking the person having the crisis will say something scary.  

After this is done, I might start a class on how to talk to people who are in crisis.  Some people have magical people skills and won't need to attend.  Some people might want to attend multiple times.   I wonder if those people who don't know how to talk to others in crisis have been so blessed in their lives that they have never had a major loss or trauma.


It has struck me over the last three weeks what works and what doesn't for me.  What doesn't work is people who try to be reassuring and end up crossing some invisible line into "shouldland".  At least that is what I call it.  Shouldland is when people start saying "you should" or "you have to" or "you must"  or you "really really have to" try this or do that.  For some reason when people talk to me with those words my mind just throws up a brick wall.  Even if it is a great idea.  It adds a layer of physical stress to be pushed into shouldland.   I have decided that no one likes being told what to do.  It makes my shoulders crawl up to my ears and the muscles up my spine tighten.  It has made me aware of how I talk to my 16 year old!

I am open and willing to learn from most everyone about how to handle cancer as I know nothing.  But what I learn seems to depend very much on how I am approached. When people say, "Have you seen?  Have you read?  You might want to look into ..."   All of those work fine.  I listen.  I wonder.  I am open to the world of possible.  Even when the possibility is wheatgrass and how it cures cancer.

It doesn't necessarily break down into categories the way you would think.  I have friends who are yogis and vegans who are living in shouldland and friends who are Type A driven individuals who run big companies who have been very supportive about what I might look into.  And vice versa.

And I know that the people who are living in shouldland are trying to contribute and be helpful.  Everyone wants to have some measure of control (there is that word again).  Control I think is at the heart of it.   It is very hard for people to see someone they care about be in trouble and not be able to control anything.  I have to admit that I have little control over what is happening right now and I have to come to terms and accept that.  I don't even have control of the people who live in shouldland and I should accept that.


The magical people-skill folks have said these things, "let me take a day or two off work and come sit with you after the surgery."  "Let me bring over a movie and we will watch it together."  Okay so these were all comments from my best friend.  But she gets it.  She knows what to say.  She hasn't once said, "you should".  She and many others have asked,  "Do you have what you need?  Do you need help?  Another friend called to make sure we had plans for Thanksgiving and had someone to spend time with, and then he invited me to lunch. The list is long for those people saying all the right things.  I am blessed.  But I still might want to teach that class.