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Stories

"What Happened?"

Hard bitten reporter. That's what I wanted to be. That's what I thought I was supposed to be. Tough, cynical, uncaring. Just the facts, ma'am.

So one day I'm sent out with a photographer to cover a house fire in a pleasant, middle class  suburban neighborhood. We get there and I see a street  mobbed with fire trucks, police cars, TV news trucks, reporters' cars and a bunch of neighbors.

What I don't see is a fire.

Everybody else is packing to leave. I'm standing in the street, watching. There is a man in dark slacks and a white dress shirt standing in the driveway of the house where the fire was supposed to be. He is looking through the open garage door. Vehicles are driving away. The neighbors have left. Now its just me, in the street, and him, in the driveway.

I have no idea why I am standing here. No fire, no story, right?. But I can't move. I'm watching this guy.

Suddenly I find myself walking up to him and just barely above a whisper I say, "What happened?" and he starts crying.

He gestures toward the garage and sobs, "My books, from university."

And then, in a thick Eastern European accent, through more and more tears, he tells me of having grown up poor, of determining to get out, get his family to America, of struggling to get a university education to improve his chances of America welcoming him, of succeeding, of how, today, his mementos of his struggle and triumph, his precious books, have been destroyed in a tiny little fire in the back corner of his garage

What a story. Front page. Editor loved it. Scooped all the other media.

That was about three decades ago and until now I had no idea why I did it. I believe it has to do with the HSP traits of intuition, of unconsciously taking in subtleties, processing them deeply and getting awareness. I think this was coupled with the HSP trait of deep empathy.  Somehow I knew this man was deeply bothered. And somehow I knew he needed to say it.

This serves me as an example of how my HSP traits served me as  a journalist far better than trying to force myself into being the hard bitten, cold and cynical reporter I thought I was supposed to be.

Richard

"What Are You..."

I don't remember what she was talking about. I know I was paying attention to it, and I recall it was serious. I was focusing hard on her, but because of what happened next, I just can't recall what seemed to be the topic.

I was working as a counselor. That's supposed to be a good job for highly sensitive people. In my experience, probably because of the places I worked,  it was and it wasn't (that's another story). I had been working with this client for several years. I liked working with her. She was self-motivated to improve her life, she was honest, she worked hard, she was making magnificent progress and, I think, she had a lot of HSP traits.

I had come to know her pretty well. I could often tell when she was avoiding something. But we had gotten to the point where I wouldn't say anything about it, would not mention I could tell she as avoiding something. And, sure enough, she'd catch herself, own up to it and start talking about what she was avoiding.

I had learned as a counselor to pay close attention to body language. Somehow I seemed to get a lot of information that way, and could often help clients decipher what they were experiencing, even if they were unconsciously denying it,  so they could deal with it.  Stuff like, "I hear you saying you think you're fine about this, but your face is bright red and your hands are trembling. What do you think you're feeling?"

Nothing like that was happening. She was talking directly about something important that had happened to her that week, her body language was congruent with what she was saying, and everything seemed to be going well when to my astonishment I abruptly changed the subject by blurting out, "What does this have to do with the death of your daughter?"

"What are you, psychic?" she said.  "How did you know what I was thinking?"

I had no idea. 

But I had been asked those questions before.

"He looks right through you," one client said.  "No," another client responded, "He looks right into you."

For all I know, I had spent enough time with her that I had collected enough subtle clues to know unconsciously what she was thinking at that moment.  I doubt if such sudden knowing is uncommon among HSPs.

But trusting it, knowing that you suddenly know something, going with it with confidence, that, I think, is rare. I'm not sure why, in this case, I went with it. The sudden knowing was followed so closely by my saying it that I suspect I didn't have time to question, doubt, discount.

Richard

Wedding Present

When I was a counselor I often had to evaluate people to determine whether they had a problem with alcohol or some other drug. Usually this was because they had been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

Now, just because someone gets charged with a DUI doesn't automatically mean they have a problem. Depending on body weight, gender, whether you've eaten or not, lots of factors, its not impossible to be over the legal limit in some states after only one drink. And most of us know people with zero alcohol tolerance, those who get silly and clumsy after a single beer or glass of wine. You don't want them driving for a while.

So often all someone in this situation needed was a little education about the dangers of what they did and they would never drink and drive again and that's that. There was no need for counseling or therapy or a treatment program. Occasionally I'd get people who understood this and they'd accept they'd just made a mistake and get on with it. More often people would be angry and defensive and argue about why they had been treated unfairly and didn't deserve their sentence and if they had the money for a lawyer they'd have beaten the charge and like that.  Sometimes their attitude would change once they got it that none of that mattered to what I was doing. If they didn't need counseling, I didn't recommend it. Thank you, good luck and good bye.

But sometimes I'd get someone I now suspect was one of us.

Huge man comes in one day. Dark hair. A giant. Standing, I had to crane my neck to see his face.

But seated, he hung his head so low I had to bend forward to see his eyes. Sad ones. Throughout the evaluation he's soft spoken, looking at the floor. He drank like two beers, drove to a nearby  store, got pulled over, something innocuous like that. Certainly not smart, or legal, but combined with everything else I could learn, no indication of any kind of a problem or potential problem.  I told him so.

"Thank you." Almost a whisper.

"So, this part is over," I said. "You don't have to go to counseling. You've finished DUI school. It's only a misdemeanor and your probation is almost done."

"Yeah," he said. But there was something...

"Uhm. Before you go," I said, " I've just got the sense something about this is eating you up, I've got this feeling something about this is all wrong."

For the first time, he looked up. He didn't care about the legal stuff, he said, he was mortified and shamed that he put other people at risk like that, that he had acted irresponsibly, that he had put his family through all this.

"There's something else," I said.

"Yeah," he said. He felt alone. No one got how bad he felt. Everyone seemed to assume he didn't care, that he would try to get out of being responsible.   No one wanted to listen to him.

When I started as a mental health technician in a psych hospital, the senior counselor took me in a room, told me I could be a good counselor, and said he was going to teach me all I really needed to know, right there, right then.

"First," he said, "shut up. Most people just need to be heard."

So I shut up. And the giant talked. And I listened. And he went away.

About a year later I was no longer a counselor, I was on summer break from massage school and I was going to be married.  I took my dress shoes to a shoe repair shop to get them polished. I said hello to the woman at the counter and at the sound of my voice, from back in the work area, up came the head of the giant, all smiles. Around the counter he came, shook my hand, took my shoes, thanked me again.

We live in a culture in which avoidance of responsibility is assumed. An ability to get away with something is considered something to be proud of. Spin doctors become rich. If you do not have an instinct to beat out the other person, you face criticism, ridicule. You are somehow considered smart if you can put something over on someone. I, like many highly sensitive people I'm sure, have faced this all my life. Having an innate sense of responsibility and honoring it, being conscientious, is literally something I was taught to give lip service to but be ashamed of.

No wonder he felt alone.

I love those shoes.

Richard

If  you have a story or stories to share, please email them to me at RichardBrownkatz@Verizon.net or click  here.

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