"Even in sleep, disability keeps its tyrannical hold over the mind." -Frank Murphy, The Damaged Self
I know everyone has thought about it before. About what it would be like to be paralyzed, or to loose use of a limb. You wonder what it would do to your relationships with others. "Would my boyfriend/girlfriend still love me?" "Would my friends have problems being around me?" "Would my parents treat me differently?"
I guess I never wondered what this type of permanent physical damage could do to a person’s sense of self. Additionally, there'd be no way to escape this new you. You're paralyzed. You can't change that. It's part of who you are now. Although some might argue, and in many respects I am one of those people, that God could completely heal this affliction if you simply prayed, believed, and lived a life by God's will. But, so few people do believe and follow that, so for their sake, I say that the paralysis can never be changed.
I think what struck me the most about reading this article by Murphy, who is in fact paralyzed, was that even in the imagination a person is damaged. Murphy would dream the same dream more or less every night. He would be walking around somewhere and then all of a sudden his subconscious mind would remind his imaginary image that he could not in fact walk. He'd then fall and wake up. I guess, for me, the imagination is a place where you can be and do anything you want to do. Most of my dreams consist of simple everyday conversation with my friends, so I never really dream about anything significant. But what if I was paralyzed? Would these simple dreams change? All I'm doing in my dream is walking towards a friend to go talk to him. And then...I realize that I can't walk. What does that do to the kind of dreams that I have now?
Murphy really opens your eyes to what it's like living a life of "the damaged self." I'm glad I've been exposed to this story, because it presented to me many things I had never even considered. But where there's this anxiety and physical angst, there's a way out of it.
"Give praise to the Lord, O my soul; let everything in me give praise to his holy name. Give praise to the Lord, O my soul; let not all his blessings go from your memory. He has forgiveness for all your sins; he takes away all your diseases; He keeps back your life from destruction, crowning you with mercy and grace. He makes your mouth full of good things, so that your strength is made new again like the eagle's." -Psalm 103:1-5
Wednesday, September 03, 2003 What do you look like?
2:35 PM
Has anyone ever asked you that online? "What do you look like?" Due to my Sociology class, I was forced to think about this question. How do I respond to this when someone asks me this question.
That's the usual answer. But if you think about it, so much of what you look like and of who you are is in your FACE. When you're in a relationship with someone, they aren't mostly attracted to your height, or your skin color, or your weight. They're mostly attracted to your face. That's where you wear your emotion. Your smiles, your frowns, everything that expresses yourself and who you are at any given moment. You can't tell who I am by my height or my weight or by what color eyes I have. That tells you nothing. People should describe their faces when asked what they look like.
"My head is sort of heart-shaped. I have a thin face. My cheekbones show fairly well, but they don't jut out too much. I have rosy cheeks all the time and my face gets especially red when I am embarrassed or something simply when I am the center of attention. Sometimes my hair gets in my face because it's short and I can't tuck it behind my ears. My chin is pretty small. I have a small scar on it from when a boy fell on me in kindergarten and I had to get stitches. My teeth are pretty straight because I had braces for four years. I haven't been completely faithful with my retainers though, so since my wisdom teeth have come in one of my bottom front teeth juts up a little more than the other and my top front teeth overlap slightly. When I smile I get wrinkles by the outside corner of my eyes and I have an extra dimple on the left side of my face. I do have blue eyes, sort of gray-blue really, and my eyelashes are of no significant length. My eyebrows are pretty small and I don't pluck them very much; only towards the center of my forehead where they can sometimes get a little out of control. Every now and then I get a few blemishes on my face, especially around the mouth and on my hairline. My nose isn't that big but sometimes it seems a little big for my face. It's sort of a ski-slopey nose. I'm very prone to getting sunburn and sometimes my face can peel because of that."
On that note, I had my first day of work today. I was in the car more than I was at my job site really, but that's okay. I went to Greenville High School to install some software on four Macintosh computers. Really easy. Only one froze up on my so it was all done in about an hour; since I had to restart the comp after each installation. Either way, I got back in time to finish some homework I had forgotten for my morning class and to study for my Italian quiz today. Languages are pretty easy to learn. I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble because we're moving so fast in this class, but when I made my flashcards today I knew most of the words going through the cards the first time. So, I suppose I'm picking up more than I thought.
Craig and I are continuing our daily prayer and bible study together. We're going to be getting through the entire New Testament this semester. This study really opens my eyes to what I need to do and to change in my life in order to better follow the Lord. Certain things that I take part in or say or think need to stop. And you know, it feels great to stop these things. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. In fact, I feel more and more fulfilled with each new sacrifice I make for the sake of following God.
(I apologize for the long delay. I was on vacation)
There seems little doubt that the stigmatization secondary to James' unusual face coupled with a dissociation of emotion from its expression to others and to himself, led to profound effects on his sense of self. His choice of the ministry for a profession may have been, in part, to gain a ready identity as 'a man of cloth.' Recently he has left work as a parish priest as he began to explore himself as a person and, in particular, as a person with a face. 'People, they are their faces. I think now I know I would like to be my face.' I asked if he felt he had lost a sense of self, or was trying to recover it, by leaving active ministry.
"Had I ever had it? I was losing me as a priest but trying desperately to recover just me, James. Yes, this is a new thought. Perhaps I had spent my life as someone else in order not to be me. Me is something I see in the mirror. I have always had a difficulty with mirrors and photographs. I don't like being confronted by me.
'But the "me" you see is not the "me" that you are.'
"No. That's true. But even in a mirror it's an image, a partial image. I don't want to but I have to look in a mirror, and apart from shaving I never do. I may have turned my back on my face. I hadn't thought of it but I certainly may have done, much more than I had ever realized or supposed. This idea I mentioned earlier of attempting to live behind it may well be an escape from something I found intolerable. But I now realize that some things which may have been due to the condition I felt were just down to me. Rather than saying that the condition has made life difficult I have been saying I have made life difficult. It was my fault. I have failed."
I suggested that to become a whole person he had to look into the mirror and say, 'This is my face but I am not this: I exist behind and yet beyond it.'
"Yes, I think you're right. One of the things I think that's happening now is that I have a sense of becoming freer. Freer in the sense of becoming more myself, not playing a role. I certainly wanted to try and explore me behind the mask of priesthood. If you where does 'me' now reside, I think I am slowly coming out of my head a bit. I am not sure I can locate where I am but I don't think I am entirely in my head or even my mind. I have an expression of living 'a life of the mind,' but I do accept that the mind is not easily able to communicate its thoughts or even its feelings. I think I was out of touch with my feelings, or I suppressed a lot of them."
It was clear from talking with a number of people living with Mobius that the loss of facial movement had led them to a range of experience beyond the imagination of most of us. Their loss of facial expression had reduced their emotional experience and control, and distanced themselves not just from others, but also from their own experienced embodiment. Their facial stigma, and their inability to coordinate gaze, meant they were further disadvantaged in not observing others frequently. They had been led, or forced, to live in their heads. Yet if this was a purely intellectual existence it was not that of the balanced enquiring philosopher, but a measured attempt at self preservation.