“My boss gives me a pain in the neck.”
“I despise doing dishes.”
“I detest cleaning my room.”
“My algebra teacher sometimes makes my head almost explode.”
“Most teenagers are stupid jerks.”
“I’m a stupid jerk.”
“I can’t do anything right.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“I don’t like myself.”
Dr. B: “Let’s take a few seconds to contemplate how saying negative things makes us look messy like the floor.”
Sammy: “I think saying or even thinking negative things made us feel bad, too.”
“Physically or mentally?”
“Both, right?”
“The ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, and other Eastern civilizations all knew that the body and mind work as one. Later civilization tried to separate them. Now we’re again beginning to realize how closely body and mind are connected. What part do you think negativity plays in your mental health or mental illness, Dana?”
“Probably lots.”
“Would you like to learn a little game called Ego Aid?”
Dorie started bouncing up and down. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Sammy, will you please set up the card table that is behind that screen? Dorie, will you please take two bottles of pop out of my little refrigerator and put them into this pitcher? Dana, will you please put out a green plastic cup for each of us?”
“Lance and I will pick up the candy wrappers,” Paula said.
“I want to be IT if there is an IT,” Dorie said.
“We’re all going to be ITs. The pop in the pitcher is ‘Ego Aid.’ When someone says something nice to you they pour about a half inch of ‘Ego Aid’ into your ego cup. When someone says something bad to you, you pour about an inch of your ‘Ego Aid’ back into the pitcher. Got it?”
“May I start?” asked Dana.
“Someone has to.”
She looked at Sammy and gulped. “I’m really glad you’re home, probably gladder than you’ll ever know.” She poured some “Ego Aid” into his cup.
Sammy poured “Ego Aid” into everyone’s cup. “You’re all the reasons I had the strength to come back.”
Lance poured his “Ego Aid” into the pitcher. “Not I. I drained all the ‘Ego Aid’ out of your lives…and cups.”
DR. B: “As we play this game we may sometimes do it for fun, but other times we must do it seriously and be aware of what we have done or are doing to others.”
SAMMY: “You did pour a lot of my ‘Ego Aid’ out, but I’ve got to take responsibility for pouring most of it out myself.”
DR. B: “Are you aware that at any one time there are over a million kids on the streets? What does that show?”
LANCE: “That ‘Ego Aid’ isn’t being poured as generously as it should be.”
PAULA: “And that we’ve not only got to get it from others, we’ve got to give plenty of it to ourselves!”
We played the game for about twenty minutes, giving ego trips and breaking down egos. At one time when we were taking turns being negative and hurtful, Sammy’s cup was emptied completely. He looked up solemnly. “I’m wondering…if your ego cup gets emptied often enough and stays empty long enough, could it be terminal?”
Lance and Sammy looked at each other knowingly. The others mulled it over.
Dana seemed unsure. “Being ego-emptied couldn’t possibly kill someone, I don’t think.”
Sammy started speaking. He seemed light-years beyond his chronological years. “Draining ego from a person is like adding pebbles, or grains of sand, or small stones, sometimes boulders. They add up in weight or they empty completely until the blackness and heaviness and the imprisoningness of them seem to make living no longer worth the effort.”
Dorie’s eyes were wide. “I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it,” Sammy said seriously.
“Believe it. Please believe it,” Lance echoed.
Dorie looked at me. “Believe it,” I said gently.
Dorie grabbed her mom’s hand. “That’s scary.”
“Yes, it’s very scary.” Sammy, Paula, and Lance agreed.
SAMMY: “Are you going to give us the Ego Aid Game set of instructions to take home?”
DR. B: “Get them off the shelf behind the screen when you put back the card table, okay?”
Paula began stroking Dana’s hair. “I’m so grateful we’ve got our bright-light to sit under and our tapes to listen to…”
SAMMY: “And our DISTORTED THINKING EVALUATION to fill out…”
DANA: “And our poison bottles to remind us…”
PAULA: “And our road maps to mental health or mental illness…”
LANCE: “And our TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game so we can always be aware of the poisonous effects negative things have on each of our lives.”
SAMMY: “Yeah. And now that we’ve learned that negative things can defile and cripple and weaken and poison and even destroy our bodies and minds, it should make a gigantic positive change in each of our now and future attitudes.”
LANCE: “Dana, do you see how playing the TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game would make a change in our lives, in your life?”
“Yes. I think it would help me have more self-confidence. In fact from today on, I’m going to start seeing ‘negative’ as a dark, tearing-down word, and I’m going to start seeing ‘positive’ as a bright, light, building-up word.”
DORIE: I’m going to see ‘negative’ as an unhappy word and ‘positive’ as a happy word.”
SAMMY: “There’s another word I hate that we haven’t talked about. It’s HATE.”
DR. B: “You’re right, Sammy. HATE is one of the blackest, most poisonous words of all.”
DORIE looked surprised. “But everybody uses it. It’s like…like a nothing word.”
DR. B: Are you sure its a ‘nothing word’? Can it be a ‘nothing word’ when it is the exact opposite of the word…”
Everyone answered, “Love.”
Sammy’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I remember when I hated everything and everybody. It was like a huge black stone around my neck and a spike through my heart; with the most awful of sulfur stenches in my nose and the taste of full-blown rotten eggs in my mouth. As I look back, the scariest thing was that I didn’t recognize that all my pain and unforgivable ‘acting out’ were rooted in HATE. First I hated Dad…”
Lance winced perceptibly.
“…then I hated myself. That hate germinated and then exploded! It sent out longer and longer octopustype, suction-cupped, tentacles to hold me fast and suck out all the goodness and lovableness from my body and mind as well as my soul.”
Lance was hugging Sammy tightly. “But you’ve conquered that old demon HATE now, son, haven’t you?”
“I hope so, because it came so near to sucking the life completely out of me…”
“I know.”
Sammy shuddered. “I think you do, Dad.”
DR. B: “We’ve explored HATE and the negatives it brings into one’s life. Now what say we explore the antidote for HATE?
DORIE: “What’s…a ant…a whatever?”
DR. B: “An antidote is a remedy to counteract a poison, or anything that tends to counteract an evil.”
“Oh.”
PAULA: “I’m grateful we’re trying to find an antidote for HATE. I hear the word thrown around all the time as though it weren’t deadly.”
SAMMY: “I can’t think of an antidote for HATE right now, but I see its color as cold, dark, empty black.”
DANA: “And I see Love as pure, clean white, or sunshine-soft summer yellow.”
DORIE: “Then maybe LOVE is the antidote to HATE. Could that be?”
DR. B: “Maybe you could experiment and find out.”
SAMMY: “Well…if HATE is the antithesis—I learned that word in spelling and thought I’d never use it—anyway, if HATE is the exact opposite of LOVE, maybe we could gear up
our minds so that when we hear the word HATE, we’ll gently and automatically shift into our LOVE mode.”
DORIE: “That’s super dummm…I mean ummm, doable.”
DR. B: “Anyone want to give Sammy’s theory a try?”
LANCE: “I HATE having to go back to California after being here with all of you.”
Sammy snickered. “How are you going to replace that with LOVE and still have us all smiling?”
LANCE: “I…I…LOVE going back to California after being here with all of you because I know each week brings me closer to staying here permanently.”
Everyone clapped and whistled and shouted.
DR. B: “Dorie, do you know that LOVE is a primary emotion?”
DORIE: “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
DR. B: “Sorry…that means that it was first in time or order of development, the basis or foundation from which all other good things derive.”
DORIE: She grinned. “That sounds right, and I believe it because I feel good when I do good.”
DR. B: “That’s as absolute a reason and proof of the power of goodness and Love as there can possibly be.”
SAMMY: “I second that.”
LANCE: “I third it.”
DORIE: “I fourth it.”
Dana looked at Sammy and started giggling. “I passed it on to you and you ate it.”
They all began laughing uncontrollably. Between snickers, Paula explained, “That’s part of an old game we used to play called, There’s a Dead Horse on the Hill.”
The laughter was contagious, and I soon joined in.
After we’d simmered down, Sammy asked thoughtfully, “Is it possible always to stay loving and kind and happy?”
“That’s not likely,” I answered, “for life is filled with both joys and sorrows, ups and down, sunny days and stormy days.”
“Sometimes it’s too hard.”
“That’s the precise reason we’re learning some skills and techniques to help us through those rocky times.”
Sammy took a deep breath and said all in one sentence, “So we’ll have the strength-and-mental-computer-locked-in-ability to stop little BOGIES before they become big, black, bone-crushing, overpoweringly monstrous, mind-boggling BOGIES.”
We all laughed and clapped. “Yeah for Sammy. Sammy the big, black, boggling, bugger BOGIE bopper.”
Everyone tried Sammy’s line about the black BOGIE boppers and got their tongues tied up in their teeth. It was fun and refreshing as well as solidifying and healing.
I said, “I hate to bring you all back, but there’s one more thing I’d like to add to your mental arsenal: a good understanding of how fear and pain translate into ANGER, which is HATE’s twin brother.”
Sammy agreed. “I’ll buy that. Maybe I should say I’m going to try not to buy into either one of their programs anymore.”
“You’ve lost me,” Dorie and Dana both echoed.
“Okay, lets go back to the lowest denominator: the first sign of either HATE or ANGER coming into our lives. Can anyone guess what the precursors, the forerunners of hate and anger would be?” I asked.
No guesses.
“Can any of you see how fear and/or pain could translate or grow into HATE and/or ANGER?”
Sammy folded his arms tightly across his chest like he was trying to keep something in or trying to keep something out. “I think…when Dad and I first had our…” (He looked at Dorie.) “…disagreement…I felt so much pain and fear that I…I…guess I just let both of them loose to mutate into whatever evil they wanted.”
“Ohhh…I get it.” Dorie nodded. “A few weeks ago I heard that my best friend Sara had said something bad about me, and at first I was hurt, then I dwelt on it until I started some bad gossip about her.”
“Did that heal your pain?” I asked Dorie.
“No, it didn’t. It made it a hundred times worse.”
“So?”
“So then I got mad, at both her and myself, and let my pain grow into ANGER.”
Dana looked sad. “Last term Miss Swanson gave me a low grade on one of my papers, and I don’t know if I was more pained or scared, but it just got worse until I HATED both her and myself.”
Dr. B: “The next time you recognize fear or pain coming into your lives—and they will come—what might you do?
Dana: “I hope I’ll remember that pain and fear can’t be kept out of our lives, but HATE and ANGER can; so, I better find some way to let the pain and fear heal normally, like not let it get a terrible infection in it so I could become crippled.”
Sammy frowned. “Maybe truly crippled mentally! And another thing. It’s kind of like there’s a stink that goes with HATE and ANGER. It’s a…like stink that…a stink that you can’t consciously smell, but it still stinks and after a while nobody in the whole world wants to be around you. Actually you don’t even want to be around yourself.”
Paula: “I see pain and fear as two little orphan words that are so helpless and vulnerable that the horrible, big, bullies HATE and ANGER will come in and take over their little souls if we let them.”
I stood up. “As Sammy says, you’re all ‘getting your gonzos together,’ and by continuing to trust, talk with, and support each other, you’re all going to make it to your own promised lands!”
“With each one of our candles burning brightly,” Sammy added.
Lance put his arm around his son’s shoulders and smiled knowingly. “Yes, precious son, with each one of our candles burning ever so brightly.”
SUMMARY OF SESSION
FAMILY SESSION WITH SAMUEL, PAULA,
LANCE, DANA, AND DORIE
It is fantastic and wonderful that the Gordon family now know how much they need to, and can, rely on each other! Dear Sammy has traded hostile, unhappiness-causing, depressive negativity in on HAPPINESS-RADIATING AND SUCCESS-INVITING POSITIVITY! His new thinking patterns will ever be worlds away from thoughts of suicide.
Charles Dickens wrote that the 1800s were “the best of times and the worst of times.” I think our time is the best of times and the worst of times with the best of kids and the worst of kids! When I read teenage studies, always in the back of my mind is the wonderment: how many of the hostile, troublemaking, abnormally-acting kids have been brought up in environments which have taught them that that kind of HOSTILE ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR IS NORMAL!
Samuel Gordon Chart
Friday, October 28, 6:20 P.M.
Telephone Conversation
SAMUEL (SAMMY) GORDON, 15 years old
Sammy telephoned.
“Hi, I’ve got some awesome news. Have you got a minute?’”
“I’ve got the rest of my life.”
“I know you’re busy, so I’ll hurry.”
“Don’t! Just make this a social, not a professional call.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, I’m sure! You’re my friend, and I’m as anxious to hear about the good things that are happening to your nice family as you are anxious to tell me. How’s Dana doing?”
“She’s coming around. I think her trust mechanism is beginning to kick in again.”
“Are you the playing the TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game and some of the others?”
“Yeah, and we’re listening to our family tapes together and really working at the communication thing. That making appointments to talk to Mom and Dad thing, one to one, in complete privacy, is awesome!”
“I knew you’d like that.”
“But let me tell you the best news. Dad’s getting a job here.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“And guess what else.”
“Oh, come on, just tell me.”
“Mom and Dad are getting remarried.”
“That is, of course, what I hoped would happen.”
“Me too.”
Sammy hesitated for a couple of seconds. “Actually what I really called to ask you was…” He hesitated again.
“Hey, it’s me. Remember, you can as
k me anything.”
“Well, okay. Mom and Dad are coming home from their honeymoon a week from Sunday, and we wondered if you’d like to come over and help us welcome them back into their new old life. Does that make sense? Anyway, Dorie and Dana and I, and I’m sure Mom and Dad, would like to have you here. Dana and Dorie are making all kinds of cookies and stuff, and Grandma Gordon, who is staying with us while they’re gone, is fixing a big turkey.”
“Whose idea was all this?”
“Well, sort of mine, but Grandma and Dana and Dorie are doing all the work.”
“You’re just furnishing the brains?”
“Ha! Together we’re making banners and stuff for inside the house and a big WELCOME HOME MR. AND MRS. GORDON sign for over the driveway. It’s covered with flowers and music notes and hearts and arrows and stuff, and it’s thoroughly awesome.”
“Sounds thoroughly awesome.”
“And you know what’s really the best thing of all?”
“No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“This is just awesomely awesome. Dana and Dorie and Grandma Gordon have been sneaking around working almost continuously on this big original embroidered motto. They even let me put in a few stitches down in one corner where they wouldn’t show. Anyway, it’s got hearts and flowers and music notes on it, like the banner, but in the bottom righthand corner it’s got five stupendous candles—five superstupendous, brightly burning candles that no one can ever blow out!”
“I’ll bet that was your idea, precious Sammy.”
“Yeah, and it’s kind of nice to know that you and Mom and Dad and I are the only ones in the whole world who will ever know what those five, forever brightly shining, no-one-can-ever-blow-them-out candles really mean. Maybe someday I’ll explain the candles to Dorie and Dana. Do you think I should?”
“I think you should if…”
Sammy laughed and finished my sentence, “If I think I should.”
Samuel Gordon Chart
Wednesday, November 23, 12:15 P.M.
Telephone Conversation
SAMUEL (SAMMY) GORDON, 15 years old
The phone rang. It was Sammy. I turned the recorder on. “What’s up?”