Healing Delusions

November 7, 2020, Freeport

“How could they think that way?” Over and over this week, both in my work and from friends, I heard those words, tangled with a great sadness, about the 48% of Americans who voted for Trump. I wanted to ponder that question myself and found, this time, instead of an essay, a poem arose!

“Nevah! Challenge a Delusion,” Said Dr. H.

“Nevah do that again!” the Austrian psychoanalyst, whose name I can’t recall anymore but whom I will call Dr. H., was unnerved when, on the other side of the one way mirror he heard me ask the pretty woman seated across the desk why she believed her husband was endeavoring to make her disappear and how it was she came to be in the circus where sometimes her husband, a famous magician, she said, attempted to saw her in half, which scared her very much.  You see I was confused. I didn’t know much about circuses.

“Nevah! challenge a delusion,” the doctor decreed when I came out from behind the mirror. “If you do, the delusion will grow and toughen like gristle. She will lead you down underground tunnels where lions keep babies in cages. You will be lost, but she will become more certain of the way.” Which is what happened the other day when I asked my neighbor, sternman on a lobster boat familiar with pulling up strange things from the depths, why he was voting for that other man. He said it was because my man is too dangerous and will turn us all into socialists and baby killers. “But, but,” I said, and he said, louder now, “My man is brave and my man cares and my man will save me.” And so I stopped, recalling Dr. H.’s advice.  

I remember too when N. came into my office in a swoon.  Her psychiatrist was in love with her, she was sure, he sent her secret messages with his eyes, wanted her to give away her children so she could run off with him to Marrakech. Having learned my lesson, I asked her how she’d been sleeping, what kind of stress she’d been under.  Which turned out to be a lot as her mother had died and her husband had divorced her and she was all alone now. Oh, and she’d lost her job. It was my first case of erotomania, a delusion held by lonely, frightened souls. I even wrote a paper about it. It was published in a respectable medical journal. I have a copy of it somewhere in the basement so when I tell you I believe a large percentage of the population is suffering from delusional thinking, I hope you will trust me. 

I think this circus we live in is all too much for us. Under the tent, the heat is rising and the birds are flopping over on the merry-go-round, which isn’t so merry anymore. In the house of mirrors we don’t recognize ourselves in the glass, we see only strangers. The acrobats are throwing money  from swinging trapezes, but, look, only one percent of the crowd has caught ninety percent of the cash! And oh! the clowns! The clowns are all patting themselves on the back and aren’t so funny anymore. Meanwhile, we have run out of money for the ride and some of us are getting very sick and some of us are dying, right there in the ring.

But look, here comes a man striding towards center ring, waving his fists with lionlike ferocity,  promising rosy visions of ourselves in the mirrors and swearing it isn’t hot inside the tent and no one is dying in the ring. Now some in the crowd, the ones who can’t see an exit, feel all turned around, are on their feet cheering!  And look closer! He’s restoring order, inviting the proud white men to take their places at the front of the line. They believe him when he says he’s built new car plants in Michigan (though no one has ever seen them) believe he saved them from baby killers, outfoxed the deceitful Chinese.

Nevah! ask how it is they cannot see the snake oil shining in his hair, rather ask, are you sleeping, what kind of stress are you under, what does it feel like inside you chest, how can I help? And don’t forget to say you know just how they feel.

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