A narcissist goes volunteering
When six years ago a close relative succumbed to schizophrenia’s delusions, withdrew from family contact because of his paranoia, and started wandering around homeless, I could hardly bear my helplessness to make any difference in his life. So I began trying to make a difference in one or two other lives by spending a sociable hour each week at cafes with individuals who have mental illnesses or who live in Seattle’s tent cities.
My past volunteering had always been as part of a group — sitting on a nonprofit’s board, serving at a feeding kitchen, phone-banking — the kind of thing you’re urged to do because “you feel good about yourself.” Having coffee every week on my own with someone roped off in one of our society’s invisible ghettos is another sort of experience.
One day last year after Mina and I had our weekly coffee, I walked with her part way to the supermarket where she planned to buy some groceries. She reached into her shoulder bag to show me the vintage dime she’d found the day before and suddenly halted mid-stride, rummaging in its depths. "Oh, no!” she wailed. “Where’s my change purse?” Mina’s in no financial position to lose even a few coins.
Had she somehow dropped the purse at Bus Stop Espresso? We hurried back to the cafe, but nothing had been turned in. She dumped the contents of her bag onto a table, but the purse wasn't among the items tumbling out. Then on impulse I reached into the empty satchel, and there, caught in a fold of the lining, was a small sack with coins in it. Mina hugged me ecstatically, saying "Thank you, thank you!” and added, almost to herself, “I don't always think you have my best interests in mind, but maybe you do."
“I don't always think you have my best interests in mind”? I’d spent an hour with Mina every week for almost a year, but still she didn’t know that her well-being is important to me. She obviously didn’t see me at all. The realization was startling to a red-blooded American narcissist with a lifelong need to perform in ways that might convince others of my worth.
From early childhood on my goal was to be the Second-Best Little Girl in the World, Best Little Girl being out of reach because my mother held on to that title until her death. I especially wanted to live up to the name my parents had given me in the expectation that I’d be the next Judy Garland. My radio career started on Philadelphia’s WIP with “Judy the Juvenile Jockey” on Sundays, for which I was a 6-year-old DJ with scripted patter, a changing program of records, and a radio audience of kids whose doting elders sent in fan mail and requests.
Then came TV. Watch cute little me eat canned Oscar Mayer hot dogs! Watch me toss my wee white gloves into the wonderful Bendix! Watch me sew on the Singer any donkey could operate! For my weekly Philadelphia Zoo shows I delivered my lines with well-practiced casualness to the host and his sidekick the Magic Lady, lobbed the ball python to the reptile house curator, made adorable faces at the dromedary, and became a pro with pancake makeup, eyelash curlers, perms, even girdles. As the camera swung in my direction I’d lick my lips for shine and blink for sparkle — it was all terrific preparation for a life of “I’m on, therefore I am.”
Glamour-girl dreams faded naturally as I aged, but a 35-year teaching career fed my addiction to performance, and the urge to impress people is still strong in me. I want others to think I’m smart, competent, helpful, and kind (as well as modest). But Mina isn’t interested in knowing what sort of person I might be. I’m not part of the world that Gerald’s imagination inhabits. Benjamin is often so hung over he can hardly see, not to mention sleep-deprived because his bed’s under an I-5 overpass. Sometimes Alfred barely notices I’m sitting there having coffee with him. And since I can’t solve their problems — they have incurable mental illnesses, or their material needs could make a Bernie Madoff weep — I can’t take pride in helping them improve their lives.
What a relief! With my coffee companion, instead of “feeling good about myself” I can forget myself. I can focus my attention on the other person in the present moment, enjoying the uniqueness of the present individual and a sense of liberation from the need to make a good impression or steer the occasion toward the light. Americans spend fortunes to be instructed by gurus halfway around the world in the kind of freedom from ego demands that they can learn right here at home, by meeting for coffee once a week, open-hearted, with a person whose mind is truly different and of whom they hold zero expectations.
Curiously, knowing I can’t change Benjamin, Alfred, Gerald, or Mina makes me feel strong instead of helpless. I can sustain my commitment to them in the absence of quid pro quo: even if they don't see or appreciate me, I can see and appreciate them.
So Mina’s on to something when she doesn’t think I always have her best interests in mind. After all, I don’t fully know what those might be. But I do know it seems in my own best interest to keep on spending an hour each week with her.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Jul 2, 7:03 a.m. inappropriate
Interesting piece, Judy.
You describe something quite common among people involved in causes or movements. Many such persons may not necessarily be deeply committed to their cause (social, political, cultural, etc.) but often participate because they want to create a portrait of themselves which they wish to communicate to others....or because they get gratification from the feelings of moral satisfaction they derive from their participation. Such persons often are unable to explain the intellectual bases of their involvement.
Go to Westlake Center almost any weekend. You will see people rallying for or against something. Usually only a small percentage have any real knowledge of the matter; the rest are there to display themselves..to feel morally superior...or to escape loneliness by adhering to a group activity.
Another example: Read the Sunday New York Times section containing photos of well-off people attending charity events. Typically, the costs of the events almost equal the total of the attendees' financial contributions.
Why not just give money to the charities and forget the social event? Ah,
the donors would derive no satisfaction unless they showed themselves to others, both at the event and in the subsequent Times photos.
Yet another: The Hollywood and show-biz types who spend time and effort
identifying themselves as humanitarian or socially conscious, usually at the instigation of press agents anxious for People magazine coverage.
Those trying to raise money for causes---political campaigns,
charities, social-service purposes---will tell you that few who generously give money or time will do so without getting recognition for it. Few among us, regrettably, are that selfless. You are not the only narcissist.
Posted Thu, Jul 2, 2:37 p.m. inappropriate
Having a schizophrenic person react this way is common and is in the nature of their illness. While you are taking a useful look at your own motives and tendencies, it is still laudable that you have decided to share a little of your time in a very human way, with people who don't get as much contact and social interaction otherwise. Being mentally ill is devastating and most people shy away from those who have these illnesses. I would congratulate you for reaching out. Unfortunately, the mentally ill will not always react the way you want and this is the nature of their illness. Even if you don't receive positive feedback, you are still making the world a little warmer by making the effort. Thank you.
Posted Thu, Jul 2, 4:56 p.m. inappropriate
This self-revelation rings true, except for one part. Bernie Madoff has not wept, does not and will not weep. He is eligible for coffee in the Freestyle Volunteer program.
Posted Thu, Jul 2, 10:48 p.m. inappropriate
It probably goes without saying that people who donate their time, money, or image to worthy causes are at least making gestures to benefit others - doing the right things, even if for what might be called the wrong reasons. With so many temptations to be wrong both ways, half a loaf seems better than none at all.
What's weird is the idea of picking a stranger who is mentally ill or homeless to spend solo personal time with. Helping such people because although they live right beside us they're stuck outside the human circle is not a very sexy cause. They aren't children, venerable elders, or brave chemo recipients. If they have an incurable mental illness, they won't make the kind of progress that gratifies a volunteer, and some may never clearly see what's being done for them, let alone the person doing it. The work has no complex or strenuous challenges; it's just sitting down for an hour of one-on-one, receptive conversation. Then why does the hour feel so rewarding? Is it because in a world full of mirrors, where we must constantly burnish our resumes, the encounter offers some blessed relief from Self?
Posted Sun, Jul 5, 1:36 p.m. inappropriate
What gets me so much in all of this is our refusal as a society to accept people for exactly who and what they are; to be willing to deal with them on their terms and to do what is required, without question, without the sense of 'doing good', without the sense of sacrifice, to enable them to live life as they see fit, not how we 'think' they 'should'...
In all of the thinking above, there is still the sense of the writer somehow being a better, more complete, more able person, spending some of her valuable time 'helping', 'companioning' those less fortunate than herself... why would sitting for an hour with a person who has schizophrenia be any more 'worthy' or 'laudable' than spending an hour sitting with your best friend?
This appraoch, unfortunately, perpetuates the situation where we think we have to 'fix' 'damaged' human beings.... instead of giving them access freely and willingly to whatever resources they say they need.
What would this world look like if we accepted all people, in their myriad expressions of humanness, as our equals, deserving of our respect and admiration instead of our pity; if we stepped off our pulpits and pedastals to deal with them on their terms; if we gave them free access to whatever they need to live their (equally valid) version of well?
Just bugs me so much that all of us 'normal' people have decided what 'abnormal' people need ... what we're really doing is saying that we are uncomfortable with difference and we want everyone to be the same so we dont have to deal with that emotional discomfort...