Autopilot

One of the things that I'd learned in a social psychology class back in college is summed up in a simple statement: Robots Are Good. Our teacher explained that this means that most of what we do in our day-to-day lives is done on autopilot. Here's a couple examples of that. When was the last time you had to stop and think about exactly how you go about tying your shoes? If you're like me, I learned to do that as a kid and, ever since, it's just something that I do. I don't have to think about it. I don't even really have to pay attention to it. I take hold of the laces and then—magic happens—and my shoes are miraculously tied. Most of the time when I”m doing that, I'm thinking about something else entirely, like what else I need to clean up in the sink or which load of laundry needs to be done next or wondering what work will be like. No real thought or attention necessary.

Here's another one. How often during the day does someone ask something along the lines of “How's it going?” or “How're you doing?” When was the last time you had to stop and think about the answer? With a lot of people, it happens when one or both are walking by. There's not a lot of time to give much of an answer, and some we don't really want to tell what's really up. So there's an autopilot response along the lines of “Doing all right” or “Fine, you?” Depending on who's asking, the answer may be more or less formal. But most of the time there's not much thought that goes on with that. Heck, when thought does come up with that, it's usually when someone we like and trust has asked, and there's stuff on our minds that we've wanted to talk about. That's not usually the case, though, so the autopilot gets us through.

I'd run across another idea from a psychologist I talked to. He said he'd read up on some research that says that the brain keeps changing throughout our lifetimes. The nerve cells make new connections as we learn new information or habits. They also break connections for things that aren't true or aren't parts of our lives anymore. During a fairly normal life, those changes are small enough that they don't really mess with the rest of how the brain works, so we don't even notice them happening. At most, it might be if we're having to learn a new computer program or process, spend a lot of time on it, and then feel a bit scattered afterward. That usually doesn't last long, and either getting some rest or doing something familiar will help smooth that out again.

However, when there's a really big, traumatic change, the brain's got to do a lot more work to adapt. In the case of losing a spouse or a child who's still at home, that's a major change. They're the people who we use to help define who we are and what our lives are about. I can't help it's something similar to someone suddenly being blinded in an accident or losing a limb or being paralyzed. If you've never done so, stop and think about one of those people around you now, the ones who're there pretty much every day and affect a major percentage of your life, especially what's important in your life. Maybe they're not huge everywhere, but they affect almost everything. Your kid might have nothing to do with your job or where you work, but I'd bet there are a fair number of days when you've got to think about what time you need to be out of the office to pick them up or get something for them or be home for a birthday party. If it's your spouse, odds are you have the same thoughts about an anniversary or a date night or figuring out who'll cook dinner or even just remembering what you were asked to buy at the grocery store. The effect on our lives is pervasive and it's a great deal larger, deeper and more profound than we tend to realize.

When they're suddenly gone, all of those neural connections associated with them need to get rearranged. Remembering what my wife's favorite foods were is no longer useful if I'm stopping at the grocery store. Thinking about what time I need to leave work to maybe she and I can spend time together suddenly serves no purpose. Being aware of what her work and sleep schedules are so I know when to be quiet at home isn't a useful function anymore. If anything, all those serve to do after her death is remind me she's gone. And so the brain has to rewire all those connections.

When it's a massive rewiring that needs to happen, one of the things that goes on at the same time is that the autopilot doesn't work so well. See, the autopilot is using a lot of the background resources we don't usually realize are getting used. It's similar to how your computer is able to keep the clock accurate (or at least in theory does so) that you check in the corner of the screen. On the other hand, if your computer's having to do a bunch of other stuff at the same time, say running a major virus scan and defrag your hard drive AND update your operating system, all of a sudden those automatic functions don't work so smoothly or well. Things freeze or skip or jump. With a computer, it's always only doing one thing at a time, so it can put things on hold until it's got time to get back to them.

Our brains don't work like that, though. Our brains run lots of processes simultaneously, and the parts running one process are often interconnected with parts running at least one other, often more. So if one thing is getting scrambled, it makes another part shudder or jump, too. When it's all working well, there's enough redundancy that it's covered and we don't even notice. On the other hand, if the brain's having to do massive rewiring of connections, then all of a sudden that autopilot doesn't work so well anymore. We find ourselves walking into a room and not remembering what it was we went in to get. One day, I got to my office and realized I'd forgotten to put on a belt (which doesn't exactly look good in an office setting). I'm sure my cat didn't mind the one morning I was so scattered I fed him three times. On bad days, I know that my wife and I had a long time together and there are a lot of memories as a result...but I can't get most of them to come up at all.

I don't know of any way to help hurry or smooth the process along. I wish I did. It just helps sometimes to know that I'm not really losing my mind. In a very real sense, my brain is knitting itself back together, bit by bit.

I just wish it didn't take so long, or hurt so much. But that's better than the alternative...to never heal at all.

Who Am I Now?

One of the things that doesn't often get recognized about losing a spouse is that grieving the death is only one part of the process. There's a ton to deal with in there, and it can take a long time, especially when it's sudden or there were unresolved issues or conflicts. In the case of a suicide, both sets of aggravating factors are there. There's anger about what they did and what we're left to deal with. Often, there's question about what we did (or didn't do) that might've played a part in the choice they made. We wonder why we weren't enough, or why they didn't ask for help. Sometimes, there's wondering what's wrong with us that we'd choose someone who'd do that or wouldn't see it coming or wouldn't be good enough to stay and try for. And those just scratch the surface.

A whole other dimension to it is when we get to the point of having to figure out who we're going to be now. When you get married to and live with someone, a decent-sized chunk of identity gets based around that relationship, around having that person around in your life. It's pretty much inevitable, and, for the most part, it's a good thing. From that comes learning how to compromise, how to think of what's important to the other person, how to look at what's good for the relationship and not just what we want at any given time. It creates the tension, sometimes, of the conflict between what we need and what the other person wants. We get the chance to learn how to communicate, how to hold our own boundaries, how to figure out what it is that is really important to us. Those are things we don't always have to learn, especially not in that kind of intimate and consistent context.

And suddenly that other person isn't there anymore.

On the one hand, it can create freedoms we didn't have before. We don't have to think about what plans someone else might have for a given evening. We don't have to consider how he or she might react if we're going to go hang out with a friend they didn't like. We don't have to stop and figure that finances have to get discussed before going ahead to do something. Even simple things change. We don't have to pay attention at the grocery store to get the kind of soda or lunch meat or toilet paper that they preferred. We can play the radio on the station we want, as loud as we want, when we want. Or, just as valid, we can have it quiet when we want it quiet. But that freedom can be scary at times, too. The longer we were with someone, the more time we had to develop the habits around their needs and preferences. If there were things they took care of, the freedom to make those choices for how to do it now are coupled with the responsibilities, too. It might not seem like much to decide whether to pay a bill right on the first or to wait a few days until the paycheck's come in to cover it. Added to all the other things, though, and even those little extra responsibilities can quickly feel overwhelming.

It can take a long, long time to figure out how we want to do things, how we want them to be, how we want to be ourselves. It's a pretty major shift to go back to just thinking of what we want. In areas where we'd decided they weren't all that important and made some significant compromises, we might not be used to even thinking of what we want. Suddenly faced with that option, we can find ourselves drawing a blank...and then feeling fucked up in a new, special kind of way. Aren't we all supposed to know what kind of music we like? Where we'd want to go for a trip? What kind of job we want to have? Where we want to live? Those things that are “normal” suddenly feel alien, and sometimes leave us wondering what the Hell else is wrong with us that those answers don't just pop into our minds when the question comes up.

The psychologist John Bowlby wrote about something like that in describing the model he put together for grief and dealing with loss of loved ones. The third stage, which he called Disintegration, is where we have to go through the process of dismantling all the beliefs and habits built up around having that person in our lives. By extrapolation, the bigger a part of our day to day lives that person was, the more work there'll be to do there. The final stage, which he called Reintegration, was where we start building new beliefs and habits to replace those we had to let go. He gave rough estimates of how long each could last, and the final one was projected to take at least as long as the others, if not longer. It was the one where the guess was most tentative, acknowledging just how much there could be to that process.

This all got highlighted for me earlier today in, of all places, the shower. See, in the latter years, my wife had developed sensitivities to any kind of chemical or synthetic scents. It meant that I ended up switching to the natural shampoo and deodorant that she could tolerate (and I didn't find too annoying or offensive or flowery). She'd also gotten increasingly irritable about noise in the house, especially anything that was unexpected. One of the things that meant was I stopped singing in the shower (which I'm sure some would say was a kindness to humanity, but that's an issue for another post). It hit me today that I could buy a different shampoo if I want to. That raised the question for me of whether I'd kept buying the natural, herbal stuff after she died because I prefer it or if it was just the habit of those old compromises still playing out. I also found myself singing in the shower, at least for a bit. I couldn't do it in the goofy voices I once enjoyed, or intentionally mangling the lyrics for comedic effect. But at least I could sing a couple things that I liked and, for the first time I noticed, was able to enjoy it. It brought up some of the other stuff, too, like some guilt about enjoying singing now and wondering if it had really been worth it to give that up. But it was a step in the direction of working those issues out for me.

I still am not sure where I want to live. I still am not sure where I might want to work. Hell, I'm still not sure about the whole dating thing. I just have to believe that, like many of the other things I've faced, that as I keep working on it, things will get clearer. Until they do, it helps to remember that this is a long, uncomfortable process. I don't get to dictate when I come to resolution on some of these things. I just get to do my part, look at my stuff, and trust that I'll eventually get and then be able to see the progress.