The first threshold.\u00a0 Maybe it’s birth.\u00a0 Crossing into this world and leaving that Other world.<\/p>\n
But there is an\u00a0earlier threshold that has to be crossed first.\u00a0 The two people have to cross the threshold from\u00a0being sexual partners\u00a0to being parents.\u00a0 At some level the empty space of no baby has to be filled with the conception\/decision of the birth so that the baby can be actually conceived and cross the threshold into this world from whatver place babies\/we come from.<\/p>\n
I imagine a circle of thresholds\/doors\/cliffs\/ bridges–one leading to another like spokes of a wheel.\u00a0 Some we are able to cross easily, others are more difficult.\u00a0 Some we retreat from waiting for the right time, some we approach and recoil from, and then there are some we never cross.<\/p>\n
Society clearly knows about these thresholds and has attempted to assist us\/ shield us from them by ritualizing these rites of passages, these bridges, into ceremonies–funerals, inaugurations, graduations, baby showers…. They all appear to be designed to assist us in the process.<\/p>\n
It is so obvious that is ignored\/taken for granted that for all of us our lives are framed by two thresholds–our birth and our death.\u00a0 Each one leading to some unknown, uncharted place- perhaps growth, perhaps life, perhaps death, perhaps a catastrophe or some wonderfully ecstatic state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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I am 23 years old working at a state mental hospital, fresh out of college.\u00a0 I have to make a home visit to a patient.\u00a0 She has missed several of her therapy appointments.\u00a0 When I get to her apartment, her two young sons let me in.\u00a0 Their mother is standing in a catatonic state at the edge of the kitchen sink.\u00a0 She is non-responsive with her hands locked\/fused to the edge of the sink, staring blankly out the window, as if she had been frozen in time by some catastrophic experience.\u00a0 Her sons tell me that she has been there for days.\u00a0 We take her into the hospital.\u00a0 When I get to work the following day, I inquire about how she is doing.\u00a0 She has had a massive stroke overnight and died.\u00a0 I am asked to tell her sons. I don’t want to, but\u00a0 I return to the apartment and sit the two boys down and break the news to them.\u00a0 I remember thinking that I was too young to be doing this.\u00a0 I felt helpless, useless and impotent. I wasn’t ready\/prepared to be inflicting such painful news on these two boys–forcing them to cross a threshold too early in life.\u00a0 It was a threshold I didn’t want to cross either.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many years later it is my turn. \u00a0I am\u00a0at a\u00a0hospital.\u00a0 This time it is\u00a0my <\/em>mother.\u00a0 She has been hospitalized for surgery to deal with the long-term complications of diabetes.\u00a0 The gangrene had started in her right toe.\u00a0 The doctors amputate one toe, then all the toes, then her right foot.\u00a0 But the gangrene continues to spread.\u00a0 Now they want to amputate her right leg just below the knee.\u00a0 I am in her room.\u00a0 Just her and I.\u00a0 I want to talk to her about the surgery.\u00a0 I tell her that she doesn’t have to do it, at least not for me.\u00a0 It is her choice, her life.\u00a0 Whatever she decides is fine with me.\u00a0 I know that she is a very vain woman, and that living in a wheelchair will be difficult for her, but she will never have to experience that.\u00a0 She will never leave the hospital alive.\u00a0 She tells me that she has to do it for my Dad.\u00a0 I say okay, but … The surgery is not successful.\u00a0 The surgeon meets with myself, my sister and my Dad.\u00a0 He tells us that there is nothing further he can do.\u00a0 She is being kept alive now by machines and mechanical appliances.\u00a0 The surgeon asks us to decide what we want to do, and walks away.\u00a0 My sister and father look at me, to me, to make a decision they clearly can’t\/won’t make.\u00a0 Once again I am asked to step up to the edge of the cliff and cross over.\u00a0 I make the decision.\u00a0 I tell them that mom has a living will and I will see to it that her wishes are respected.\u00a0 I tell the surgeon.\u00a0 She enters hospice and\u00a0 is withdrawn from the machines.\u00a0 We watch her for seven days as she wrestles with her final threshold.\u00a0 She finally crosses over.\u00a0 My sister and father have never forgiven me.\u00a0 Sometimes I can’t forgive myself\u00a0.<\/p>\n Lately, more now than ever, I wonder about how\/if we\u00a0can possibly develop the capacity\/incapacity to deal with life’s thresholds.\u00a0 At times life is just too much for any of us. \u00a0I know that we each have different thresholds to pain.\u00a0 Not just physical pain, but perhaps more importantly to mental pain and anguish in ourselves and others.<\/p>\n But how do we learn what to do with these doors\/cliffs\/bridges\/passages\/journeys–cross-over, avoid them, ignore them, retreat from them…?<\/p>\n I imagine, with no way of knowing, that how we learn to navigate thresholds starts early on, probably while we are still in the womb.\u00a0 What a shock and a joy\u00a0to be born.\u00a0 To come into this other world leaving behind the safety and security of the womb.\u00a0 Perhaps the way this is experienced by the baby and dealt with by the parents makes a lasting impression\/impact on the baby about thresholds and what awaits on the other side–a cruel joke, a loving presence, an absent mind, a nirvana or a catastrophe of unspeakable dimensions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patients coming to my office are about to cross a threshold, but I doubt that consciously they know this.\u00a0Once the patient\u00a0crosses the threshold into my office, they have entered into another place–perhaps it\u00a0can be imagined by me to be a\u00a0place where\u00a0the capacity to deal with thresholds can be developed.\u00a0 But\u00a0for the patient\u00a0they just want to get rid of the pain or the problem.\u00a0 I imagine if I were to start by talking to them about thresholds, bridges, journeys\u00a0they would look at me like I am crazy, so I keep my mouth shut until….\u00a0 Until we reach the first threshold.\u00a0 And we inevitably do.\u00a0 But once the patient makes the decision to call me and have a consultation, they have decided at some level to begin the journey, the passage–to develop the capacity as much as they can to deal with their thresholds.<\/p>\n And I know\/sense that\u00a0if I\u00a0can resist trying \u00a0to save them\/rescue them\/ protect them\/ shield them\u00a0from experiencing their thresholds, perhaps they will be able to decide to cross over and discover what has been waiting on the\u00a0other side\u00a0for them all their life.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Brody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first threshold.\u00a0 Maybe it’s birth.\u00a0 Crossing into this world and leaving that Other world. But there is an\u00a0earlier threshold that has to be crossed first.\u00a0 The two people have to cross the threshold from\u00a0being sexual partners\u00a0to being parents.\u00a0 At some level the empty space of no baby has to be filled with the conception\/decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}