Authenticity

I 've been t hinking about authenticity lately - that is, what it means to live from our authentic self. Of course, this means we must know who our authentic self is - know the real 'me' that lies deep within. Years ago - it's like a lifetime away, now - I was talking with a waitress who said she spent three years in a commune in the British Columbia interior trying to 'find herself'. I remember thinking, 'Find yourself? Why - were you lost?' I joked about it afterwards. When I look back on the incident now, however, I realize that I was the one who had no idea who I really was. When I think of all the ways I tried to fill that longing for God and for wholeness and healing in my life... well, I spent a lot of time and effort not knowing something was painfully amiss in my heart; a lot of time and effort in denial and avoidance.

There's three guys I've encountered at the Mission in the last week or so. One is a lanky, odd kind of character who was having dinner one night in our dining room when a nearby teenager threw a dinner roll across the table. It missed its intended target, of course, and whizzed past Mr. Lanky Oddness. He, in return, hurled unbridled invective. Mr. Lanky Oddness was displeased with the staff reaction to the incident - they displayed a rational calmness amidst the fireworks that did not meet his expectations of screaming fury. As a result he wrote a letter that was combative and antagonistic. This again did not receive his expected response and so he wrote a second letter, ratcheting up the tone and making some pretty serious allegations. Tonight I encountered him outside the dining room and he joked with me. Ha, ha, ha, he said, I decided not to write a letter today! Hope you don't mind! I said absolutely nothing in return.

The second man was asked to leave the dining room after losing his cool on one of my cooks. That happens - we are dealing with a volatile clientele facing extreme stress. But then he waited outside on the sidewalk for my cook to get off work so he could 'settle things'. Of course, we called the cops and, of course, Wild Guy disappeared moments before they arrived. Today he arrived at lunch time, asked if he could use the phone, asked for a bowl of soup, carried a bus-pan of dishes into the kitchen, was all skittles and beer like that.

The third guy is The Little Mouth That Roared. He's an adult whose diminutive stature has him often mistaken for a twelve year old. He has no filters in his brain whatsoever and his response to any slight - no matter how slight -  is to bellow, swear, curse and call people names. Of course, the teens bait him for the entertainment of it all and, last week - after trying for half an hour to calm him down - I simply banned him for a month. The ban came because every time he's here we go through the same scenario. The plus side? At least now he listens and verbally responds when we're trying to calm him down. He used to go into a kind of hysteria where he simply couldn't see or hear anyone else. He came by tonight and asked for some groceries - all happy and joking with me - and agreed to come by later this week for a coffee in the afternoon. I'm hoping to work with him on a (at least somewhat) regular basis. I don't imagine I'm going to change his life - if I can get him through a dinner hour without going ballistic it will be a victory.

Okay, so here's the deal: With each of these three guys, I have no idea who the 'real' guy is. No clue. My experiences with them have all be in episodes that are like night and day. One's mind is plagued by paranoia, another is in and out of crack and alcohol binges, another has severe learning disabilities. And, somewhere along the line, each has learned that going postal is the way to get what you want. So how do I find the true center of each of these three? How do I connect with that authentic self? How does one communicate with that true self? Do they even know that an authentic self is  possible?

This is the sort of thing that trained therapists make a career out of. Personally, I have no idea what the answer to those questions are. What I do know is that the only thing I can do - perhaps the best thing I can do - is simply to live from my own authentic self, to model wholeness, to live out grace and mercy. And when I don't know how to do that - which happened twice today - perhaps the most authentic thing I can do is to affect an air of cool indifference; to keep some distance between me and the abyss.

And maybe that's not inauthentic at all.

Comments

[anonymous]

It is quite likely that they may be suffering from dissociative disorder (what used to be called multiple personality disorder, or MPD). It's quite common for people who have dealt with abusive situations in their lives to split into alter personalities. Some alters carry some of the trauma away from the others, and it's actually a survival method of the mind. For some people, it would be too painful to carry all of life's hurt and trauma all in one place. So they are split. And sometimes, you never know "who" you're going to get when you see that person - the jovial one, the ballistic one, or the timid and scared one. I imagine a lot of people who live on the streets suffer from dissociative identity disorder as many of them have suffered such horrible abuse.

[Michael]

Hey:
Sometimes We Need To Eliminate Ourself From The Equation.

LOVE LIKE JESUS,
G.B.U.,
Michael <>< <>< <><

[[rhymes with kerouac]]

anonymous - I'm quite sure that at least one of the three is dealing with some pretty serious psychological conditions - for which he does not appear to be medicated. Mostly, though, I think these guys are just practiced in the art of manipulation. They're all sweetness and joy when they want something, and go nuclear when they don't get what they want.

Michael - I'm not sure I understand what you mean (and just out of curiosity... what does G.B.U. stand for?)

[The lady at the end of the couch]

In our own little corner of chaos I've seen some of the postal/placid things you describe, but what we face the most is people who, for whatever reason (and there are reasons), simply haven't gotten past a high school level of emotional maturity. Little intrigues and who said what to whom and I'm not talking to you kinds of things, but among people who are mostly in their 40s and up.

Both levels of emotional mis-allignment can be poisonous.

It can be bewildering to know how to deal with this stuff, especially when you know that the people in question are intelligent, decent and strong for the most part.

My team has made some effort to find resources or training to help us deal with some of this stuff, but no luck so far.

I think your last paragraph, about modelling grace and wholeness is the best answer we've got. If only because remembering what that looks like will help keep us sane. -ish. :)

[nancy]

am i the only one that does not know the answer to this....who is that a photo of?

i am wondering if it is a continous journey of life to return to or maybe to get to our authentic self. maybe to be part of the world takes us farther away from who we are and that getting closer to God brings us closer to who or what we really are. so as we get closer we might start to realize this path and have a desire to be our authentic self.

[nancy]

oh and i find it hard to plan ahead in how i will react to something. however, i am thinking that it could good to have a base plan to start with so as not to feel like a victim of others behavior especially when there is no reasonable understanding behind the behavior. i pray that God does help you in this.

[Michael]

Hi There: G.B.U. IS GOD BLESS YOU. When I say take ourself out of the equation I mean let God handle it. he Knows why these people acted in the way they did. We have to simply as he does just love them. We have to however, keep others around us and us safe in the process.
LOVE LIKE HIM,
G.B.U.
Michael. <>< <>< <><

[nancy]

is that a photo of your own authentic self?

[nancy]

ok i will drop it....some questions just go unanswered. a lot of them actually. :-)