Out of Our Control

A blog “Growing Green Patches” blogs about her daughters attitude to Storm Sandy and I am struck by the familiarity of the situation. The thing is her daughter who is staying near New York is unconcerned about it, while she several thousand miles away is very concerned. Many will say as she implies that this is just a mothers reaction but I want to suggest something more is going on.

I have been there, the first time I recall this was during fuel shortages during the Winter of Discontent. Our relatives in South Africa had us all frozen to death in our beds, in actual fact, my sister and I were enjoying extra days holidays from school and every time the fuel tank seemed to be on the point of running out Dad tipped it up slightly more so as to allow the oil to flow towards the outlet which was not at the lowest point of the tank.

My fathers explanation at the time was newspaper hype, but thinking back, about Storm Sandy and other occasions I do not believe that. There is as much hype where we are as anywhere else.

Then there are my experiences of stalking. The first I was involved in it was not me being stalked! I can remember being very worried about my friend who was being stalked. I can only put some of that down to the fact that I knew I was really out of the situation and did not know what was going on and could not influence it. Equally some years later I ended up with a minor stalker. I would not class it as in the same category as the previous one but this time it was me being stalked. Oddly enough it was not until others began to pick up on this that I realised that people were actually worried about what was happening. I felt no personal threat at all. The thing was I knew what was going on, I had at least some ability to determine what was going on and yes some of that was to ask for help.

So what is happening in these situations. The person involved is nearly always well aware about what is going on. They are making rational decisions on what to do in the situation and then getting on with life. Oddly this provides a cushion from the over active imagination when you start thinking about what might happen. Participating actually makes you more able to cope with things. Those outside the situation are unable to see the elements of choice within it and their dire imagination takes hold.

Or take my parents my mum has mild dementia, nothing unusual in that know that before she showed signs of developing it both my parents thought dementia was one of the worst things that could happen to a person. Now they are living with it and adapting to it. Again the perspective of being directly involved seems to make the whole thing less difficult, probably because both my Mum and Dad are finding ways to adapt and tackle it.

Come to think of it, I can see this pattern in a lot of situations. When we imaginatively think our selves into a situation we tend to concentrate on what is being done to an individual and not consider the individuals experience of agency. The response is then a largely emotional one, while for those in a situation the response is often at least in part rational  (ask now what do I do, weighing up the options and responding).

I do not think this is quite normalising things. People know the situation is abnormal yet theie agency within it enables a far more pragmatic approach than those outside of it.