Control
Written by Tony Amberg and Buki Ogunseitan, Chaplan Resident
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Control Can Be Nice.
Medicine is all about control, isn't it? We believe somehow that if we can analyze the situation, we can find the problem and fix it. We can control the illness. We can restore health.
As providers, we have also believed that we have had control over our lives. Go to school, get good grades, go to nursing school, get a job. We believe that we can plot and control our path to a safe, stable and happy future.
Then Again, Control Can Break Down.
The last year has taught us that control can be an illusion. What we have today can burn tomorrow. Our health today, may be illness tomorrow. Our career, our industry may be suddenly shut down. Our neighborhoods and stores may suddenly be smashed and robbed. Our great medical system can suddenly face something for which it has no answers, and be overwhelmed when people refuse to take the most basic of precautions and put themselves in harm's way.
Part of what makes a disaster so traumatic is the breakdown of systems. Everything you thought you could rely on suddenly doesn't work. You can't control your work; at home, perhaps food is unreliable; maybe your health or that of your loved ones is damaged. Systems of healthcare, of law, of commerce may be non-functional and all the hard work you've done to bring your life to this great place feels like it may have been for nothing. Sound familiar?
So When Disaster Strikes, What Helps?
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
The way people survive disasters is to accept what is happening to them, and find ways to regain a sense of agency and mastery over their lives. They regain meaning. The great Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was sent to a concentration camp in the second World War and kept notes about who survived. Key to prisoners' survival, he postulated, was the ability to find meaning in one's life. He viewed this as the ultimate freedom, making meaning of one's life and choosing one's response to a situation was always an option.
For me, the experience of having COVID illustrated all these principles. I was deeply and completely out of control, and so were my providers. They had little to offer me and no promise that I would not get worse. I had been in the ICUs, I knew the terrible potential.
Yet, I chose gratitude for my healthcare, I chose optimism for healing. I found that I could not change much, but I could clean my home. Every day when I had strength, I attacked the dirt, dust, and dog hair. Each counter, each piece of furniture or floor that emerged cleaner was a victory, a way of bringing some order to my life. Setting myself the goal of walking a few blocks further every few days was a victory and a way of bringing meaning.
Over time, COVID stopped being a terrible thing that had happened to me and to my family. It brought all sorts of unexpected gifts. It brought a sense of strength to know I could go through this and be okay. It brought clarity and sweetness to my relationships with my wonderful family and friends. It brought joy to me to see our hospital as our patients experience it. (We really are lovely to our patients.)
Meaning. Agency. Mastery. These are choices. They are attitudes. They are actions, no matter how small. When we become purposeful about how we choose them in any situation, we survive and thrive.