AL: Have compassion, understand, care, want to help-but don't get yourself mixed up with that person who is living with an alcoholic brute, whose mother is a narcissistic witch, whose daughter is now hooking in the lobby of a convention motel. If I couldn't separate myself from the readers, I couldn't help them. I have to look at something the way police check it and say "this is a helluva problem, but it's not mine." Many people in this field couldn't stay in it. Did you ever read Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West? Miss Lonelyhearts was a man, and he flipped out because he couldn't separate himself from the readers.
PT: It's a problem with most healers-a classic problem. They become one with the object of their compassion. And then they get compassion burnout. It seems that you have something tremendous to teach therapists about compassion. But you are seeing people only in their writing. If you were seeing their faces, might it be a little bit harder?
AL: You'd be surprised. You can see the faces when you see the letter. I relate to these people like they are almost sitting in the same room. I feel their pain.
PT: Have you ever cried when reading a letter?
AL: I'm not a crier. I don't cry at movies. I don't cry at sad songs. But sometimes the letters really do get to me. I don't cry but I really feel the agony. Then sometimes I've gotten involved with the readers on a personal level, which is not a very smart thing to do. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
A woman in California was plagued with boils in the armpits and groin. Can you imagine living like this? She would get so frantic she would take a razor and operate on herself without anesthetic to open up these boils. This is just about as hellish a life as you can have. For five years she couldn't get rid of them. The doctor she had seen didn't help her and she could not afford to go to any more doctors.
I called the dean of UCLA Medical School, who served on the Board of Harvard Medical School [where I serve], and asked him to help her. He said, "Send her over." So she went to see the head of dermatology there. Throughout this time I was in touch with her, and she told me, "I want to thank you but I wasn't comfortable with this man. I don't think he really understood my problem."
So I sent her to Arnold Klein, a great dermatologist in Beverly Hills. Mind you, my friends never charge the people I send. Dr. Klein put her in touch with a surgeon, Dr. Mitch Karian. He removed the glands under her arms, and her whole life is different as a result. She is absolutely cured of the boils. When you do that, it's great to know that you can really change a life.
There's another young woman who sent me pictures of herself, a beautiful blue eyed 27-year-old. Her face is totally distorted. She had a malignant tumor on her gum and, in order to save her life, the doctor had to remove a great part of her gum and the inside part of her cheek. I called Dr. Victor Lewis, a plastic surgeon who lives in Chicago. I told him we have to do something for her; if something doesn't help her, her whole life is going to be a mess forever. He saw her and said, "We are going to get her fixed." He is now waiting for tissue from different laboratories.
PT: This is going to cost a lot of money.
AL: I will find the money.
PT: How do you find the money? Do you call friends?
AL: I find the money. I find the money.
PT: These are problems that could be physically resolved. What about any other kinds of problems?
AL: There's a woman who owns a small paper in Virginia. Her 21 -year-old son committed suicide. He was her only son, the golden kid, the one for whom she had the most hope. She saw a letter in my column about a young kid who committed suicide and she called me up. She said, "I really related to that letter like you wouldn't believe. I just happened to be one involved, and your advice was perfect." And she said, "I just wanted to let you know that I think you do a tremendous amount of good. But it was just a shock to me that I picked up the phone and called you. I just had to let you know." I talked to her for about 30 minutes. I felt very good about that conversation.
And then she revealed that she was having trouble with her husband since the boy died. I said, "This often happens." She said, "I think this is the end of my marriage." I asked, "Are you shutting him out because of your grief?" She said, "Yeah, I am." I said, "When we're finished talking I want you to go to your husband and tell him that you and I talked, and that I said to say, "If I don't change my approach to you, this will end the marriage. And I want to know how to change things." She called me up two days later to say, "I think you saved my marriage. It's the first time I've been able to talk to my husband about anything that was really meaningful, because that tragedy that often brings people closer together pulled us apart." It does that. It alienates couples.
PT: Your advice is tremendously insightful. Experts on the subject of loss tell us they see this pattern. What is interesting is that you went a step further than most psychologists, a privilege of your position because you are a writer. You can direct people what to do and put the authority on Ann Landers. "She said for us to do this."
Tags:
advice,
advice columnist,
Ann Landers,
college graduate,
conscience,
dear ann,
editors,
eppie lederer,
half years,
healer,
intimate details,
listener,
media,
moral standards,
morality,
powerful woman,
private personality,
professional counselor,
professional personality,
professional writer
