The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The pick for my book club last month was Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I had never read the book before. I am only thankful to have read it now.

This was Carson McCullers’ first novel. She was 23 years old

when she wrote it. Set in rural Georgia in the late 1930s, it brilliantly captures the conditions that existed in a poor mill town where ruin was just around the corner and everyone struggled to survive, whites marginally better off than “Negroes” who were forced to deal with constant humiliation and degradation.

The novel’s sociological portrayal is superb. But, as a psychologist, I prefer to focus on the five major characters and their interaction.

The pivotal character of the book is John Singer, a deaf mute, who all the other characters depend on to listen to them, hear them, and understand them, while projecting onto him all their needs and wishes. For me, John Singer is the book’s analyst. The reader knows Mister Singer to be an isolated, lonely person, whose only friend, Antonapoulos, is sent away to a mental hospital and even when he is present, Singer creates this friend to fill his needs, just as the other characters do to Mister Singer himself. Although it is never clear what Singer does understand, he is portrayed as a caring, generous human being.

Biff Brannon is the owner of the town’s café, a café he keeps open all-night to diminish his own loneliness and those of his possible patrons.  He is in a loveless marriage, but still grieves for his wife when she dies: “… when there is love, the widowed must stay, for the resurrection of the beloved – so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a second time in the soul of the living …” There is no one who is a regular reader of these blogs or, even more so, of my book, Love and Loss, who would wonder why I vibrate to those words.

Jake Blount, an angry, misshapen drunk, who talks constantly of his Communist principles, is consumed by loneliness. His incessant talking and drinking is an attempt to escape his isolation; his anger a way to distance himself from his despair and sadness. Both Singer and Biff are invariably kind to Jake, giving of themselves both personally and financially.

Doctor Copeland is the town’s “Negro” doctor, another disappointed, angry, embittered man who is both difficult to like, and impossible not to sympathize with. Educated and scholarly, he has put all his hope in his four children and the capacity of the Negro people to raise themselves above their lowly status. He is bitterly disappointed in both. His behavior towards his children was often hard to read, at least for me, who knew first-hand the rage and expectations of an angry father. And, yet, who could not feel for this man who had spent his life trying to better himself, his offspring, and his people, only to be faced with repeated contempt and horror.

I have left Mick Kelly for last, because she my most favorite character, a 13 year old tomboy at the beginning of the book who has tremendous spunk and an obvious artistic and musical talent. She dreams of something more than the overcrowded rooming-house in which she lives. She has her inside room - the room of her own thoughts and her capacity to recall and hear music in her head – and the outside room where she exists in her squalid, everyday world. Only Mister Singer exists in both worlds, again an example of my understanding of him as the book’s therapist. Life works against Mick and by the end of the novel she is a sale’s girl at Woolworth’s. At least to this reader, escape doesn’t seem very likely.

The night of our book club, seven bright, articulate women were present. Most of us loved the book and marveled at McCullers’ artistry capacity to create such a rich novel at so early an age. But the difficulty arose for some of the women who found the book too dismal, too lacking in hope. Those women felt that the message of the book was only that you lived, struggled, despaired, and then died, with nothing positive ever resulting.    

I awoke in the middle of the night after our meeting and thought that we had missed something important in talking about the hope in the novel. First, there is much love, generosity, and compassion that is evident throughout the book in many of the characters, an important aspect of hope when we look at the human condition. Secondly, the book epitomizes the indomitable human spirit: To fight, despite insurmountable difficulties; to struggle, even when the outcome is bleak. To me, that is hope, providing for the eventual possibility of something better, and demonstrating humankind’s capacity for courage, strength and determination that perseveres despite all adversity.

Submission

“I can’t believe that I’m spending all my time in therapy talking about my job,” Pauline exclaims, bursting into tears. “I thought you talk about your childhood or relationships, not a dumb job!”

I’ve seen Pauline only a short time and she’s correct, she’s spent most of her time talking about her job. She’s a graphic designer, a good one it seems, but she’s been in a state of panic since the administration in her company changed, resulting in her reporting to two different supervisors.

“This week the artistic director wanted me to drop everything and work on one project, while the marketing director wanted me to work on a totally different project. What am I supposed to do?” she asks, crying. “I’m think I’m going to quit. I can’t stand the stress!”

“Pauline, I understand that you can’t possibly do two different things at the same time, but what I don’t understand is why it is so, so distressing to you.”

“But I can’t do what both of them want!”

“I understand that you can’t do what they both want,” I say. “But I don’t understand why that throws you into such a state of panic. I don’t know a lot about you, about your history, your past, so it’s hard for me to know what might be going on for you, but since your anxiety is so intense, I would suspect it does have something to do with your childhood. I’m only guessing here, but was there a lot of conflict between your parents? Did you feel you had to choose between them?”

“No, not at all. They presented a united front. There was no room for discussion. You just obeyed. You did what they said. My mother was the tough one, though.”

Pauline hesitates. I wait.

“This is hard for me to talk about. I feel like I’m betraying her. She was doing what she thought was best.”

I can feel Pauline’s anxiety. I also see the beginnings of a connection, the issues of obedience and betrayal perhaps linking the past and the present.

“You never disobeyed my mother. She wouldn’t talk to you for days, for weeks if you did. She knew that she and Dad were right and that you just had to do what they said. I couldn’t stand that silent treatment. I felt like I’d lost her. So I did what she wanted. Even about work. I was really good at math and science as a kid. I wanted to be a doctor. But my parents said no, that I’d never find a husband if I became a doctor, that I’d never have children and a life, so I couldn’t do it. I was good in art too, so I became a graphic artist. It’s okay. At least it was.”

Inside I scream, “No! No! You need to do what you want to do!” Part of this reaction is probably my experiencing Pauline’s unfelt anger and rebellion. But I know that some of the feelings are all mine. My father was an angry, explosive man who hated psychology and psychoanalysis and always opposed my career choice, responding with both anger and contempt. But as afraid as I was of him, I fought for what I wanted. My grandmother taught me that. Pauline probably didn’t have such a role model in her past. She submitted.

“You couldn’t resist your parents and pursue your dream. You had to submit.”

“Submit. Yes, that’s a good word. I’ve submitted my whole life. With my parents, with men, with work, whatever.”

“It sounds like that’s why this work situation is so difficult for you. You have two authority figures wanting different things from you. You can’t obey them both. So you feel scared just as you did as a child. Then you can’t think from the place of an adult and figure out a way to handle the situation however you need to do.”

“That’s true! I always want to please. But I can’t please two people at once.” She pauses. “So what should I do?”

I smile. “I understand that you’re very used to having people tell you what to do, but maybe that’s one of the things we can work on changing. I suspect you know a lot more about your company and the people involved than I do and that you’re the one who’s best able to figure out what to do.”

Surviving Life Well

I’m returning to Alyce, the first patient in my book and the subject of an earlier blog. For those of you who have not yet been introduced to her, Alyce was a young woman I treated much earlier in my career. We had an intense, tumultuous relationship filled with both hate and love. It was one of the most successful treatments of my career and one I am particularly proud of. 

When I found Alyce many years later to ask her permission to include her in my book, I discovered that she had been in two horrible accidents, had a brain injury that had affected her mind, her speech and her ability to walk. I was devastated, for both Alyce and for the young therapist I once was. 

As I wrote in my earlier blog, “Alyce represented the time of my life I most cherished: the time before my husband’s illness, the time before I left the home I loved, and most importantly the time before my husband’s death. Life was now painfully different for both of us, although I in no way equated them. Alyce’s losses were tragic, mine, although terribly painful, were an expected part of life.”  

I spoke to Alyce the other day, a day she returned from having twenty injections in her back, buttocks and legs, to attempt to reduce her searing pain. She told me she had to go see her neurologist, concerned that her back was degenerating further and that she might lose still more mobility. She also told me that her 17 year-old daughter, the person she loved more than anyone else in life, had mostly cut herself off from her and that even their brief contacts were filled with cruelty and rage.

I feel myself sinking. How is it possible that anyone could continue to survive one loss after another, one tragedy after another?

“You sound sad,” my previous patient says to me.

“Well, yes,” I reply. “You’ve had to cope with so much in your life. How could I not feel sad for you, for all you’ve had to endure?”

“Hey, I’m alive!” Alyce replies, her voice strong and bright, her indomitable spirit shining through.

I feel myself brighten along with her.

She continues. “I’ve asked myself if I’m sort of manic these days, but I don’t think so. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I can just take every day as it comes and I’m still here. Nothing has killed me yet. I love my daughter more than any person in the whole world. I would do anything for her. I would die for her! But I can’t change who she is and right now she’s an angry teen-ager. I remember being an angry teen-ager. I bet you remember, too,” she says laughing. “I’m here for her and when she needs me I’ll still be here. And in the meantime I just have to go on living, putting one put in front of the other – well, sort of – I don’t do that so well - but you know what I mean. I have to keep myself alive and enjoy every day for what it is.”

What do you say to this kind of spirit? What response is there? Is part of this denial? Perhaps mania, as she herself suggests. It doesn’t matter. Her determination, her willingness to keep pushing, to keep smiling, to find the good in her life is nothing short of miraculous. 

“Lots of good things have happened in my life,” she continues. “Lots of people who care about me have come back into my life, starting with you. You were my first mother. You grew me up.”

Does Alyce cry during parts of our conversation? Yes, she does. She’s not unaware of the bleakness of her situation. But her grit remains. “They wanted to move me out of this apartment. I told them no way. I told them I’ve moved six times in the last two years! I’m not moving again. I’ll worry about it when I totally run out of money.” Her voice cracks. “I don’t have any money. That’s a big worry. But something will happen, something will turn up.”     

Am I really worried about how I’ll get my car back from the repair shop? Does it matter if I can’t get my voice mail messages from my cell phone? Does it matter if I lose a few hours of sleep so that I can finish my blog? Or what tragedy would befall if I didn’t get the blog done after all?

Surviving life well. We can all take lessons from Alyce.

Surviving Life

Those of you who read my book will meet Alyce, the young woman whose five-year treatment was one of the most tumultuous of my career, filled with both rage and love. You will also meet me as I was at that time of my life, a relatively young clinician, married to the love of my life, living in an idyllic setting in the home my husband had remodeled.

I was immediately drawn to Alyce, hooked by her underlying fragility covered by a defensive and defiant toughness. Within two weeks of beginning treatment, Alyce decompensated into a florid psychosis. I saw her two and then three and sometimes four times a week. In addition, she often called me between sessions, sometimes pleading that I make her better, sometimes railing against my incompetence. 

Even after she improved Alyce, who was an adopted child, maintained the belief that I was her biological mother. 

“Why don’t you just admit it!” she would rage. “Why are you rejecting me again? Why did you reject me the first time? I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!!!”

Or she’d try a gentler approach. “Please just tell me you’re my mother. I won’t tell anyone. I understand. You don’t want anyone to know. I won’t tell. I promise. Just tell me you’re my mother.”

My reaction to these exhortations varied, both internally and verbally. There were times I wanted to yell, “Enough already, you know I’m not you’re mother.” At other times I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her that everything would be all right; that she didn’t need me to be her mother, that I would protect and take care of her as if she were my child. 

Alyce and I worked very hard. She struggled with the reality of my not being her biological mother, of my having a life outside of her, of my going on vacations. But through it all Alyce definitely knew that I cared deeply about her. She blossomed.

Even after Alyce left treatment we remained in occasional contact for many years. I knew that she had married and had a child. I knew she had two Master’s degrees, one in psychology and one in writing. Eventually we lost touch.

When I decided to write my book, Love and Loss In Life and In Treatment, I knew that I wanted to write about Alyce. I wrote two chapters and then went searching for Alyce to ask her permission to use her material. Although she is partially disguised, I felt there was too much information about her to publish without her consent. 

I emailed her, looked her up on Facebook, wrote to the last address I had for her. Nothing. No response. I tried again. Then, one night, there was a long message on my machine that I could barely decipher. A halting, drawn out, barely understandable voice said, “Li…n…da,… This is Al…yce.”

Although I couldn’t make out all that she said, I gathered that she had two accidents: the first some years ago which resulted in a long undiagnosed neck injury, the second a more recent car accident. The car accident resulted in a brain injury causing her speech problems, an inability to walk, difficulty in concentrating, and the need for twenty-four hour care. The message ended. I sobbed. My beautiful, accomplished Alyce! After all she had struggled through, this horrible tragedy befell her. I, who always tell patients life isn’t fair, wanted to rail against the unfairness of life. 

Sometime later I realized that I wasn’t crying only for Alyce, but also for myself. Alyce represented the time of my life I most cherished: the time before my husband’s illness, the time before I left the home I loved, and most importantly the time before my husband’s death. Life was now painfully different for both of us, although I in no way equated them. Alyce’s losses were tragic, mine, although terribly painful, were an expected part of life.     

I finally spoke with Alice, a painful conversation both because of my difficulty understanding her and the details of her injury and her life. Yet I could still hear Alyce’s grit and determination. She wasn’t giving up. She was suing the insurance company. She was in physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychotherapy.     

I have continued to follow the ups and downs of Alyce’s life. She lost the insurance case. She could no longer afford an aide. She was moved to a group home. Her daughter could no longer live with her and went to live with her father from whom Alyce was divorced. She rarely came to visit. And still Alyce persevered. Her speech improved. Her mind improved. She went back on the internet. She became more interested in life. 

After poor medical attention Alyce was hospitalized and almost placed in a nursing home. Instead, she now lives in her own apartment. There are many things she requires but cannot afford. And still she perseveres, determined to survive, determined to improve, determined to be present for her daughter. She is, after all, my beautiful, accomplished Alyce!