When I finished writing this, I showed it to my dad and he was worried that this is the direction I see my life going. I of course responded with no not at all. The only non-fiction piece to this story is the names of my wife and kids. I think the inspiration for the story was I was thinking about how my grandfather dealt with lonliness after his wife died. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. Oh, and to my boss, I wrote this at home. I didn't use company time. :)
As he bends to sit on the steps for his last cigarette of the night, his knees loudly crack. Damn softball injury he mutters to himself. His lower back hurts daily now and has a hard time sitting for any length of time. He doesn’t remember when it started hurting this much.
He lights his smoke with his zippo and takes a long drag. He pauses and looks down at the lighter. Jody gave me this lighter for our 10th wedding anniversary. He flips open the cover and inside he reads the inscription, just as he always does with each smoke, “All my love, Jody”. It’s been almost ten years since she died but it feels like yesterday. Even though they grew old together, things sagging and drooping he always thought she was as beautiful as the day he first laid eyes on her. He always loved her smile and laugh. His goal to himself was to hear her laugh each day. Now there’s no laughter, just sadness and emptiness.
While he takes another drag he tells himself he should quit tomorrow but is also quick to say “to hell with it” out loud to himself. Just another empty promise he makes. He feels his whole life has been full of empty promises to himself. He was always going to “do it tomorrow”. He always had the best intentions but tomorrow never came in the way he had hoped.
He puts the smoke out in the folger’s coffee can. He notices his thin knuckles looking weak and bony. He remembered a time when his hands were strong and was in great shape. “Gunshow” he says to himself with a half smile. “That used to be my nickname.” He wonders what ever happened to his friend Marcus. Last he heard, ten years ago, Marcus moved out east to Boston, or was it New York?
Glancing around the garage he sees the piles of old leftover bikes and children toys. He sees the pedals missing from the boys bikes. He starts to say he would fix the pedals tomorrow but before he has a chance to emotionally beat himself up for not fixing it sooner, he realizes the boys are in their 30’s and live 6 hours away. His girls are all married living on their own with families. “My kids don’t want to be bothered by an old fart like me,” he says. He misses his children dearly and longs to be a bigger part of his grand kids lives. But is to stubborn to admit his mistakes to them.
He sees the worn baseball gloves and remembers playing catch with his kids so many years ago. Or was it last week? He has a hard time distinguishing when things happened anymore. He picks up the swords he made for the kids on a camping trip in northern Minnesota and remembers the looks they gave him when he showed them the swords. He sees the dozen old bikes that haven’t been ridden in years. Some of them almost look brand new, with the exception of the tires falling away from the rims. “I’ll get rid of them tomorrow,” he says half aloud. He remembers the hours he spent trying to fix these same bikes with his now dusty tools and how frustrated he became when he couldn’t get it done right. More failures, he thinks as he remembers all of the swearing he did when it came to the bikes. He wishes he could turn back the hands of time to experience that frustration one more time, to see his kids as small again. To hear them ask a hundred questions about everything. To see their face light up when they smile, to feel their hugs one more time before they go to sleep after a ‘rough’ day of playing.
He regrets how things turned out with his kids after his wife’s funeral. He said lots of hurtful things to them. Many of which he didn’t mean. Each time his phone rings, which is once per week at best, he hopes it’s one of his kids calling to just say hi.
He finishes his smoke and goes back into the house. Locking the door behind him, “I wonder how many times I’ve locked that door over the years?” He’s tried to keep the house the same way his wife did when she was alive. This was a struggle for him as he’s never been one for housework and some days it was hard to get out of bed. If he didn’t get hungry, he’s not sure he would. One week when he had the flu he stayed in bed. After five days, his barber called him wondering if he was o.k.
As he goes up the 12 steps to his bedroom, he stops on each step to rest and to glance at the pictures hanging on the walls. Second step he sees his wedding picture and remembers how beautiful Jody looked on this day. He closes his eyes and remembers the smell of his parents back yard, watching Jody walk down the aisle holding each of the boys hands. Their eyes meet and he held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity. The environment around them disappears for a few moments as she is the only thing that matters. Another step and he has to rest. He glances at Ethan’s picture. He was so small when he was younger. He remembers talking with him before he went into the Marines. He didn’t want Ethan to enlist but Ethan was raised to think for himself. As he got on the bus to leave for basic training, he wanted Ethan to know how proud he was that he chose to serve his country, he wanted the best for him. He started to open his mouth to tell him but couldn’t as he was fighting back tears. He never forgave himself for not saying this to Ethan. Ethan died in Iraq two years later fighting for our freedom. The letter I got from the government said he was a hero. Ethan was a hero in many ways. Another step, and rest. Landen, the star athlete, is a social worker working at a homeless shelter. His wife is an accountant. The last time he talked to Landen, he was telling him about one of his clients who didn’t have any money to feed his family. Landen gave him some money but the client bought drugs and eventually died of an overdose. Landen has always been a big teddy bear and he took this hard. Next step and rest. Kaylie made a lot of his hair first turn grey and then fall out. He regrets so many things he did and said to Kaylie. He always hoped she knew how much he loved her. Next step and rest. Then was Kendra, with her sparkly blue eyes and long blond hair. She was the spitting image of him, only in the female form. The two of them used to be two peas in a pod. Lastly he looks at Ivy’s picture. Sweet beautiful Ivy. His relationship with Ivy is what he has the most regrets about. She grew up hardly knowing her father as he was almost 45 when she was born and his heart had already started to turn to stone.
He usually didn’t rest much before the next step as it was a picture of Jody taken about three years before she died. Her hair had turned white and wrinkles had formed around her eyes and mouth. When he looks at the picture he doesn’t see these things. He sees the beautiful woman he married. “Shit I miss you honey. I love you. Good night. See you soon.”
That night he dreamed he was camping, a favorite pastime in his younger days. He was trying to pound the tent steaks into the ground and kept missing the steaks with the mallet. He becomes angry and frustrated as this is something he knows he can do.
He glances up towards the woods and sees Ethan walking towards him. In his dream, Ethan is 11 but is wearing his formal military uniform.
Ethan takes his hand and leads him into the forest. They say nothing to each other and eventually walk to a slow moving stream. He glances at the water and sees a large catfish swimming upstream. He imagines the catfish’s whiskers scrapping along the bottom looking for crawfish. He looks up and he sees Jody standing next to Ethan. Tears rolling down her face, looking as beautiful as ever. He held her gaze just as he did the day they got married.
His alarm startles him at 7 am and he almost falls out of bed. When he composes himself and realizes what he saw wasn’t heaven and was just a dream, he begins to cry and climbs back into bed. About a week later his barber called.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Adventures in Camping
Usually each summer, unfortunately it hasn’t happened the last few years, I go camping by Moorhead with two of my college roommates (Tom and Brian) from anywhere from 3 days to a week. This is a glimpse into some of the adventures we have had.
We camp at the same place each year and the old guy who owns the land usually camps with us. J.B. as he is known, tells the best stories. He is also one of the smartest people I have ever met. He has a rough looking exterior but is really a big softy. J.B. reminds me of santa clause, complete with the white beard and a belly that wiggles like a bowl of jelly. I told J.B. once that he should write a book and title it, “Everything you’ve always wanted to know about anything.” J.B. quickly responded with, “and still get nothing done.” Perfect. In the summer, J.B. puts his ice house on his land and spends three nights a week camping. He was showing us once how he put a mirror on the ceiling of his ice house. When we asked him why, he said replied, “so when I’m ice fishing I don’t have to climb out of bed to check my bobber, I just have to look at its reflection in the mirror.” Brilliant if you ask me.
Prior to leaving for the first camping trip I, at the last minute, threw my bb gun in the trunk of my car. I wasn’t exactly sure why as I really had outgrown shooting bb guns. The second year we camped, Brian purchased a better bb gun, equipped with a scope. This started the friendly competition of seeing who could bring out the coolest toys. I once brought these collapsible hot dog roasting sticks. Brian would not shut up about how cool and awesome they were. Finally I just gave them to him just to get him to stop talking about them. Brian totally played me as he later told me he did this on purpose.
Tom, who is a chiropractor, always gets grief from the three of us that he isn’t a real doctor (it’s all bells and whistles you know) usually brings his portable table and adjusts our backs. One night, after a few beverages I made a reference to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and called him Dr. Tom and his magic table.
Tom usually arrives a day or two after me and Brian. We take care of getting the groceries and present Tom with a bill for his portion. Generally, we triple the amount as a handling fee. After all, he’s a fake doctor, he can afford it.
We usually fish for catfish and use frogs for bait. One year we were going through frogs like crazy so we had to ‘hunt’ for more frogs. I used my bb gun and Brian used the flat side of an ax. Picture this, two almost 30 year olds walking through weeds as high as our waist, bent over hunting for frogs. After several hours and two frogs, we realized it was just easier to pick them up with our hands. I will say it was more fun using the gun and ax though. This is what I love about our camping trips, there is always an easier more efficient way to do things but we generally go for the fun factor, at first anyways.
I’ve never really known how to clean fish and Brian has tried to show me several times. I usually just act like I don’t understand how to do it. When I catch a fish I hang it up and leave it, knowing that Brian will eventually clean it, never complaining, never protesting. All the while I’m smiling to myself. As he cleans the fish and I usually say something like, “B, I think I got another fish and I bet it’s bigger then the one you are cleaning.” Brian will watch me reel in my line and when it’s almost to shore I say, “oh I guess the fish let go of the hook.”
We pride ourselves in the food that we cook. The most memorable meal was when we made beer can chicken. Simple recipe is you take a can of beer, have a good swig out of it and put the can up the back end of a whole chicken and cook it over an open fire. The beer boils and steams the chicken from the inside. Best chicken ever. The second time we tried this, Tom wasn’t able to camp so Brian and I EACH had an entire chicken to ourselves. Another time we wanted to fry some catfish but realized we didn’t have any flour. What we did have is Dorrito chips. So we tried breading the fish fillets in crushed Dorrito’s. Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out so good. We later found out that the oil we used to fry the fish in was rotten and had we eaten the fish we would have become sick. J.B. still laughs about this.
I pride myself in finding ways to torment both of my friends, especially Brian. I think it is because he is a great sport and takes it all so well. Once, when I saw Brian heading to the outhouse, I waited for him to sit and I then took my semi-automatic bb gun and fired 16 bb’s at the side of the outhouse, laughing the entire time. Brian’s only remark was that it was a good thing none of the bb’s went through the wood.
One year we were feeling more adventurous and thought we would canoe up the river and thought it would take maybe two hours. Eight hours later we arrived at J.B.’s. (One year Tom and Brian came, with Brian’s boat, to my house for the fishing opener. We were in the middle of the lake and the motor stopped working. Brian started to paddle us into shore as Tom and I sat and watched and commented on how great a job he was doing. After a while I tell Tom how romantic this is as it’s like we are in Sicily. Without missing a step, Brian begins to serenade us with an Italian song.)
There was a movie I watched a few years ago called, “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams, based on the book by Richard Matheson, and in the movie it talks about how when we die, in heaven, we create an environment to be as big or as small as we want and to look however we want. When I close my eyes and picture sitting by the fire, I see Tom and Brian laughing, I see the reflection of the fire on my wife’s face, my kids near by playing. I see the stars above the tree line, I listen to the river, I hear the tree tops swaying back and forth in the wind. We have good conversation, we eat great food, and I feel peace. This is my heaven.
We camp at the same place each year and the old guy who owns the land usually camps with us. J.B. as he is known, tells the best stories. He is also one of the smartest people I have ever met. He has a rough looking exterior but is really a big softy. J.B. reminds me of santa clause, complete with the white beard and a belly that wiggles like a bowl of jelly. I told J.B. once that he should write a book and title it, “Everything you’ve always wanted to know about anything.” J.B. quickly responded with, “and still get nothing done.” Perfect. In the summer, J.B. puts his ice house on his land and spends three nights a week camping. He was showing us once how he put a mirror on the ceiling of his ice house. When we asked him why, he said replied, “so when I’m ice fishing I don’t have to climb out of bed to check my bobber, I just have to look at its reflection in the mirror.” Brilliant if you ask me.
Prior to leaving for the first camping trip I, at the last minute, threw my bb gun in the trunk of my car. I wasn’t exactly sure why as I really had outgrown shooting bb guns. The second year we camped, Brian purchased a better bb gun, equipped with a scope. This started the friendly competition of seeing who could bring out the coolest toys. I once brought these collapsible hot dog roasting sticks. Brian would not shut up about how cool and awesome they were. Finally I just gave them to him just to get him to stop talking about them. Brian totally played me as he later told me he did this on purpose.
Tom, who is a chiropractor, always gets grief from the three of us that he isn’t a real doctor (it’s all bells and whistles you know) usually brings his portable table and adjusts our backs. One night, after a few beverages I made a reference to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and called him Dr. Tom and his magic table.
Tom usually arrives a day or two after me and Brian. We take care of getting the groceries and present Tom with a bill for his portion. Generally, we triple the amount as a handling fee. After all, he’s a fake doctor, he can afford it.
We usually fish for catfish and use frogs for bait. One year we were going through frogs like crazy so we had to ‘hunt’ for more frogs. I used my bb gun and Brian used the flat side of an ax. Picture this, two almost 30 year olds walking through weeds as high as our waist, bent over hunting for frogs. After several hours and two frogs, we realized it was just easier to pick them up with our hands. I will say it was more fun using the gun and ax though. This is what I love about our camping trips, there is always an easier more efficient way to do things but we generally go for the fun factor, at first anyways.
I’ve never really known how to clean fish and Brian has tried to show me several times. I usually just act like I don’t understand how to do it. When I catch a fish I hang it up and leave it, knowing that Brian will eventually clean it, never complaining, never protesting. All the while I’m smiling to myself. As he cleans the fish and I usually say something like, “B, I think I got another fish and I bet it’s bigger then the one you are cleaning.” Brian will watch me reel in my line and when it’s almost to shore I say, “oh I guess the fish let go of the hook.”
We pride ourselves in the food that we cook. The most memorable meal was when we made beer can chicken. Simple recipe is you take a can of beer, have a good swig out of it and put the can up the back end of a whole chicken and cook it over an open fire. The beer boils and steams the chicken from the inside. Best chicken ever. The second time we tried this, Tom wasn’t able to camp so Brian and I EACH had an entire chicken to ourselves. Another time we wanted to fry some catfish but realized we didn’t have any flour. What we did have is Dorrito chips. So we tried breading the fish fillets in crushed Dorrito’s. Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out so good. We later found out that the oil we used to fry the fish in was rotten and had we eaten the fish we would have become sick. J.B. still laughs about this.
I pride myself in finding ways to torment both of my friends, especially Brian. I think it is because he is a great sport and takes it all so well. Once, when I saw Brian heading to the outhouse, I waited for him to sit and I then took my semi-automatic bb gun and fired 16 bb’s at the side of the outhouse, laughing the entire time. Brian’s only remark was that it was a good thing none of the bb’s went through the wood.
One year we were feeling more adventurous and thought we would canoe up the river and thought it would take maybe two hours. Eight hours later we arrived at J.B.’s. (One year Tom and Brian came, with Brian’s boat, to my house for the fishing opener. We were in the middle of the lake and the motor stopped working. Brian started to paddle us into shore as Tom and I sat and watched and commented on how great a job he was doing. After a while I tell Tom how romantic this is as it’s like we are in Sicily. Without missing a step, Brian begins to serenade us with an Italian song.)
There was a movie I watched a few years ago called, “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams, based on the book by Richard Matheson, and in the movie it talks about how when we die, in heaven, we create an environment to be as big or as small as we want and to look however we want. When I close my eyes and picture sitting by the fire, I see Tom and Brian laughing, I see the reflection of the fire on my wife’s face, my kids near by playing. I see the stars above the tree line, I listen to the river, I hear the tree tops swaying back and forth in the wind. We have good conversation, we eat great food, and I feel peace. This is my heaven.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Conquering Fears
One thing I had always wanted to do in my life was to sky dive. As I sit here and type I wonder if it has something to do with wanting to fly like superman (see a previous blog entry). I did some research and found a place about 90 minutes from where I live.
So in the early part of May one year, I and two friends headed to this particular airport. Did I mention is that I am deathly afraid of heights? When I was in my teens, I was at the Metrodome for a Vikings game and each time I ventured towards the aisles, I would almost freeze and unable to move.
When we arrived to the airport, we went through the five minute orientation. We were each going to do a tandem jump (you are strapped to a dive instructor) and we told them that we wanted to video tape it. The instructor’s told us we could choose if to either video tape it or take a different plane and go almost twice as high (3 miles) and have a longer free fall. We obviously chose to have a longer free fall.
The flight pattern we took reminded me of a circular stair case. (I can remember looking out the window thinking, “holy crap, we must be about there.) The dive instructor shows me a gauge on his wrist and says we are about half way there. My heart sank to my feet.
I remember it was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky but it was a little cool for May. When the pilot announced we were high enough to jump this guy at the front of the plane throws open the hatch and ice crystals suddenly surrounded all of us. This same guy takes two steps back so he can lean against the wall on the opposite side of the hatch and takes off running and dives out the open door of the plane. Truthfully, even if I wasn’t going to jump, it was worth it to see this. My brain had a hard time registering that this person just willingly ran and jumped out of a plane. When I saw this happen, I was frozen and couldn’t move. All at once the people on the plane stood up and began pouring out of the plane like ants coming out of an ant hill. As we moved to the hatch, I don’t remember my feet moving at all (I was already strapped to my instructor) so I’m assuming he did all of the walking.
As I’m standing in the doorway of the plane, I was trying to remember the instructions, cross your arms, rock forward and back and count to three and then fall. I didn’t have a chance to remember this as my instructor was already rocking forward. I put my hand above the hatch so he would slow down to give me a chance to compose myself. He finally told me not to do that. I obliged and waited for him to basically push us out of the plane.
What I remember about the initial part of the free fall was that it was really cold and for the first few seconds it was difficult to get any oxygen. We fell for about a minute but it seemed like about six seconds.
When the chute opened I looked down and saw a tractor driving in a farmer’s field. My first thought was that some child must have left their toy tractor out in the yard. Again, it was hard for my brain to register that this was a full sized tractor, much larger then I. Then my instructor showed me that our chute had brakes and when he pulled them, I swear on everything that is good and holy that we hung in mid air.
At this point I couldn’t wait to get my feet on the ground. It is very odd watching the ground approaching you, our brains aren’t wired this way. Once we landed, I had to sit and compose myself for a few minutes.
Was I glad I did it, yes and I would do it again and enjoy it more this time. I am still afraid of heights but surprisingly, sky diving has helped to take the edge off in many situations. I think I would call this a pretty hard core version of exposure therapy.
The friends who I did this were telling me that they thought it was cool that I was trying to beat my fear. I didn’t see it this way.
Each of us has different fears (my other one is rats, if I see one, I will scream like my five year old daughter) that we can either avoid or conquer. Our clients each have fears of all varying degrees. Our jobs as staff of LBSA is to work on their client’s fears with them, to be their instructor guiding them on the free fall, pulling the chute at the appropriate time, pulling the brakes, and if they need to, taking them back up in the plane.
So in the early part of May one year, I and two friends headed to this particular airport. Did I mention is that I am deathly afraid of heights? When I was in my teens, I was at the Metrodome for a Vikings game and each time I ventured towards the aisles, I would almost freeze and unable to move.
When we arrived to the airport, we went through the five minute orientation. We were each going to do a tandem jump (you are strapped to a dive instructor) and we told them that we wanted to video tape it. The instructor’s told us we could choose if to either video tape it or take a different plane and go almost twice as high (3 miles) and have a longer free fall. We obviously chose to have a longer free fall.
The flight pattern we took reminded me of a circular stair case. (I can remember looking out the window thinking, “holy crap, we must be about there.) The dive instructor shows me a gauge on his wrist and says we are about half way there. My heart sank to my feet.
I remember it was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky but it was a little cool for May. When the pilot announced we were high enough to jump this guy at the front of the plane throws open the hatch and ice crystals suddenly surrounded all of us. This same guy takes two steps back so he can lean against the wall on the opposite side of the hatch and takes off running and dives out the open door of the plane. Truthfully, even if I wasn’t going to jump, it was worth it to see this. My brain had a hard time registering that this person just willingly ran and jumped out of a plane. When I saw this happen, I was frozen and couldn’t move. All at once the people on the plane stood up and began pouring out of the plane like ants coming out of an ant hill. As we moved to the hatch, I don’t remember my feet moving at all (I was already strapped to my instructor) so I’m assuming he did all of the walking.
As I’m standing in the doorway of the plane, I was trying to remember the instructions, cross your arms, rock forward and back and count to three and then fall. I didn’t have a chance to remember this as my instructor was already rocking forward. I put my hand above the hatch so he would slow down to give me a chance to compose myself. He finally told me not to do that. I obliged and waited for him to basically push us out of the plane.
What I remember about the initial part of the free fall was that it was really cold and for the first few seconds it was difficult to get any oxygen. We fell for about a minute but it seemed like about six seconds.
When the chute opened I looked down and saw a tractor driving in a farmer’s field. My first thought was that some child must have left their toy tractor out in the yard. Again, it was hard for my brain to register that this was a full sized tractor, much larger then I. Then my instructor showed me that our chute had brakes and when he pulled them, I swear on everything that is good and holy that we hung in mid air.
At this point I couldn’t wait to get my feet on the ground. It is very odd watching the ground approaching you, our brains aren’t wired this way. Once we landed, I had to sit and compose myself for a few minutes.
Was I glad I did it, yes and I would do it again and enjoy it more this time. I am still afraid of heights but surprisingly, sky diving has helped to take the edge off in many situations. I think I would call this a pretty hard core version of exposure therapy.
The friends who I did this were telling me that they thought it was cool that I was trying to beat my fear. I didn’t see it this way.
Each of us has different fears (my other one is rats, if I see one, I will scream like my five year old daughter) that we can either avoid or conquer. Our clients each have fears of all varying degrees. Our jobs as staff of LBSA is to work on their client’s fears with them, to be their instructor guiding them on the free fall, pulling the chute at the appropriate time, pulling the brakes, and if they need to, taking them back up in the plane.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Alone in the Wild
A few weeks ago I was watching a show on the National Geographic channel about feral children who had been raised by wild animals from a very young age.
All of these children, once rescued, failed to develop intelligible speech because no one taught them how during their brain’s development and by the time they were rescued, it was almost ‘too late’ for them to develop speech. Aside from the horrible conditions these kids had to live in, what’s interesting to me is how their brains re-wired themselves so they could learn how survive. These kids did whatever they had to in order to survive. I realize its comparing apples to oranges but adults, if placed in the same situation, wouldn’t have the brain flexibility to adapt in the same way. I know if I was forced into that situation, I wouldn’t adapt the way kids would.
Disassociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, occurs when a child has been the victim of serious emotional and physical abuse. The child’s brain creates the other personalities as protection from their true self. DID can only be diagnosed in children (or adults who suffered from abuse as kids). Again, as with the feral children, the brain adapts and re-wires as a survival mechanism.
I was watching another show on Discovery Channel called Alone the Wild. The premise of this show was a guy went into the Yukon all by himself for 90 days with no human contact. He was also to make a documentary and do all of the camera work himself.
When I first started watching the show, I thought to myself how much fun that would be. A three month camping vacation sounds like a good time. Then I thought about my family and wasn’t sure if I could do it.
Each week, the viewer could see further deterioration of his mental health. To the point where the final few episodes all he basically did is cry. His biggest struggles were missing people and not having enough food. He had a rifles to hunt and had the opportunity to shoot a moose but didn’t because it wasn’t moose season.
He also talked about the voices he would converse with. I first thought he was developing schizophrenia brought on by stress but later learned that this is common among people who don’t have any human contact for a period of time.
He lasted alone in the wild for 50 days and when he was ready for the experiment to be over he used a satellite phone to contact a producer. After seeing his state of mind when he made that phone call, I realized there is no way I would be able to do what he did. The last few minutes of the last episode showed him in a hotel room and he admitted it was great to be back in civilization, he already missed his campfire.
If he made any mistakes, which who am I to ‘judge’ that he made any, it was to shoot that darn moose. The other mistake he made was failing to adapt to his environment. Maybe he couldn’t because of his adult brain lacked the ability to be flexible? Maybe he was trying to retain some connection to society or people when there wasn’t any? While I’m not saying he should have started to behave like a wild animal, he was trying to hold on to a civilized life in a non-civilized environment. I think his adult brain adapted as best it could.
He talked quite often to the camera and I wonder if there was point he was expecting the camera to talk back to him. On his website he says that the psychologist didn’t realize how draining it would be to talk to the camera.
I wonder what kind of training he went through prior to doing this. He was obviously trained on how to survive in the physical sense but I wonder if he was trained for the psychological aspects of it. If I had to guess, I would say not based on his rapid mental decline.
From his web site, the star Ed Wardle says, “The isolation was the most difficult element of this adventure. With no contact I immediately began to lose direction and reason. Without food I lost concentration and the ability to think straight. I worked hard from week one to keep myself motivated and keep going and by the end I was spending hours every day just convincing myself to carry on one day at a time. When I was traveling or doing something physically hard I had a military voice superimposed on my thoughts keeping me going and getting me organized, other times I had a female voice that would tell me to be sensible, breathe and take it easy on myself. They helped and I could feel them getting stronger and more necessary as time went on.”
Interesting that he referred to the voices as ‘they’ as if they were real people.
All of these children, once rescued, failed to develop intelligible speech because no one taught them how during their brain’s development and by the time they were rescued, it was almost ‘too late’ for them to develop speech. Aside from the horrible conditions these kids had to live in, what’s interesting to me is how their brains re-wired themselves so they could learn how survive. These kids did whatever they had to in order to survive. I realize its comparing apples to oranges but adults, if placed in the same situation, wouldn’t have the brain flexibility to adapt in the same way. I know if I was forced into that situation, I wouldn’t adapt the way kids would.
Disassociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, occurs when a child has been the victim of serious emotional and physical abuse. The child’s brain creates the other personalities as protection from their true self. DID can only be diagnosed in children (or adults who suffered from abuse as kids). Again, as with the feral children, the brain adapts and re-wires as a survival mechanism.
I was watching another show on Discovery Channel called Alone the Wild. The premise of this show was a guy went into the Yukon all by himself for 90 days with no human contact. He was also to make a documentary and do all of the camera work himself.
When I first started watching the show, I thought to myself how much fun that would be. A three month camping vacation sounds like a good time. Then I thought about my family and wasn’t sure if I could do it.
Each week, the viewer could see further deterioration of his mental health. To the point where the final few episodes all he basically did is cry. His biggest struggles were missing people and not having enough food. He had a rifles to hunt and had the opportunity to shoot a moose but didn’t because it wasn’t moose season.
He also talked about the voices he would converse with. I first thought he was developing schizophrenia brought on by stress but later learned that this is common among people who don’t have any human contact for a period of time.
He lasted alone in the wild for 50 days and when he was ready for the experiment to be over he used a satellite phone to contact a producer. After seeing his state of mind when he made that phone call, I realized there is no way I would be able to do what he did. The last few minutes of the last episode showed him in a hotel room and he admitted it was great to be back in civilization, he already missed his campfire.
If he made any mistakes, which who am I to ‘judge’ that he made any, it was to shoot that darn moose. The other mistake he made was failing to adapt to his environment. Maybe he couldn’t because of his adult brain lacked the ability to be flexible? Maybe he was trying to retain some connection to society or people when there wasn’t any? While I’m not saying he should have started to behave like a wild animal, he was trying to hold on to a civilized life in a non-civilized environment. I think his adult brain adapted as best it could.
He talked quite often to the camera and I wonder if there was point he was expecting the camera to talk back to him. On his website he says that the psychologist didn’t realize how draining it would be to talk to the camera.
I wonder what kind of training he went through prior to doing this. He was obviously trained on how to survive in the physical sense but I wonder if he was trained for the psychological aspects of it. If I had to guess, I would say not based on his rapid mental decline.
From his web site, the star Ed Wardle says, “The isolation was the most difficult element of this adventure. With no contact I immediately began to lose direction and reason. Without food I lost concentration and the ability to think straight. I worked hard from week one to keep myself motivated and keep going and by the end I was spending hours every day just convincing myself to carry on one day at a time. When I was traveling or doing something physically hard I had a military voice superimposed on my thoughts keeping me going and getting me organized, other times I had a female voice that would tell me to be sensible, breathe and take it easy on myself. They helped and I could feel them getting stronger and more necessary as time went on.”
Interesting that he referred to the voices as ‘they’ as if they were real people.
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