Victory

One of Dr. Milton Erickson's main treatment objectives was to make people productive members of society. With some patients it is necessary for them to understand that having a disability is not the same as being disabled. Dr. Erickson contracted polio when he was a teenager and had to fight its after effects all of his life. I doubt that he had much sympathy for people who whined, were lazy or were full of bitterness or self-pity.

A man I see went back to work this week. He had been unemployed for 24 years! He lives at home with Mom and Dad. He lost his last job when the factory where he worked closed. He was also a drunk back then. He eventually lost his license due to DUIs. His truck has been up on blocks since 1984. He got sober in the late '80s and has stayed dry since. That in itself is miraculous, but coming out of the drunken fog he realized that all the guys he grew up with had jobs, were now married and had kids. He vegetated another ten years before his parents finally tried to get him some help. That amounted to a psychiatrist telling him to apply for disability and then tossing some pills at him. He didn't tolerate the meds well and the idea of disability made him mad. On one hand he was scared, lazy and immature. On the other hand, he knew he could work and he was insulted by the insinuation that he couldn't. I told him later that it made me mad that his doctor had given up on him.

Now I am a stubborn woman but I am also patient. For one solid year I treated him with his parents in the room with him. Little by little he has become a lot more helpful around the house. Last summer he painted two porches on his house. This year he and his Dad replaced the guttering and he has been re-roofing the large wrap-around front porch where shingles have to be individually trimmed to fit. He has also been fixing up his truck. It is now drivable.

Last year he was evaluated by my esteemed colleague to the east. The testing confirmed my belief that he was ready and able to work. There was still a lot of anxiety and I said that if it became too great, I knew his family doctor would prescribed some "nerve" pills for him. That has not been needed. He not only managed his first week of work well but he even liked it.

I'm looking forward to additional changes in him. He has lived in a strange time warp. A part of him was stuck back in the year he graduated from high school because he had become so isolated from people his own age. Living and interacting almost exclusively with Mom and Dad, he acts like an old person discussing his health, doctors appointments and who had died recently. He may not interact much with his co-workers at first but he'll be listening in on their conversations. And learning.