Care For a Therapeutic Lobotomy?
My husband called the hospital to make an appointment and in the voice tree of options available, the first option was what sounded like “therapeutic lobotomy.” Sounds a bit intriguing, right? Almost medieval.
When I casually researched this, I learned that therapeutic phlebotomy is the practice of removing red blood cells that may be overproducing in the body due to transfusions or other health complications. I’m relieved to know that there isn’t a new form of pseudo lobotomy being practiced, though a good head massage would surely relieve some of today’s work stress!
Lobotomies, or drilling holes in people’s heads in order to treat “insanity” was apparently popular in the early to mid 19th century alongside the practice of feeling the bumps of someone’s head in order to divine everything from personality to intelligence. Here is the background of the lobotomy:
So much of the world is explained in the body
So much of the body is explained in the world
According to vocabulary.com, “back in the days of Hippocrates, if the four humors of the body were out of whack, it affected your spirits. If you had too much bile, or gall [like this doctor’s name], then you’d be aggressive or depressed. It’s also a noun for “deep feeling of ill will.”
One subject that I’ve put a lot of time into these past few months is the Karen phenomenon — the middle aged white women who lose their minds in public making all sorts of demands and even threatening others’ safety. One of the infamous Karens was dubbed “Zombie” Karen when she slammed her head into the glass door of a neighborhood bar and then started licking it. Not a very sane thing to do for sure.
Can we pause for just a moment and imagine what set of circumstances it would take for any of us to be so emotionally dysregulated as to behave this way? It is beyond sad that millions of people are depressed to the point of lethargy and apathy. It is abominable that we are putting mental unwellness on display for social credit. This is a new frontier of colonialism.
Precious few of us make it through life sustaining — or even losing and regaining — the purity and grace we were born with. So why take cheap shots at another’s fall from Grace?
Winona LaDuke is an expert writer about colonialism. In her book, All My Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, she includes a quote from Octavio Mannoni which I will shorten further to make my point:
A colonial situation is created, so to speak, the very instant a [person] (the quotation includes “a white man”) [has] in his most secret self a feeling of his own superiority.
What a delicate balance it is to try to be helpful to another. If we think we know what someone else needs, especially if the communication of those needs is unclear or unable to be made, we can find ourselves in the gratifying position of being of service and just as quickly in the humbling position of assessing the situation incorrectly and making things worse for the person we’d wanted to help.
Even though the “primitive” practice of drilling holes in skulls or feeling their lumps in order to pigeonhole a person’s character or intelligence sounds ludicrous in 2020, one has to assume that there was at least some inkling of wanting to serve the greater good when these ideas first emerged. These pseudo sciences unfortunately led to dehumanizing and racist behaviors with extreme consequences. So we have to keep our desires to help others in check and make sure that we don’t feel that twinge of superiority in our motivation.
The quest for balance and harmony in any relationship is subtle. For example, in relation to family members I am learning how my desire to help can actually oppress those I love if I don’t understand their different pace for processing conversations or feelings. I need to constantly listen to others needs for space because giving myself enough space to breathe can be a real weakness of mine.
I don’t know anyone who can sustain balance and harmony all the time but we all try our best. I can also sit at a computer all day long knowing that the electromagnetic frequency it radiates at me is harming my joints and my brain health, because I have expectations of what I am capable of in a given day. Isn’t that a form of self colonization? How to understand and unpack the roots of why self-care is so difficult; how to stop this behavior, is a question I continue to ask.
Self colonization — I don’t even want to begin to tackle this massive subject other than to name it as just one more consideration for humanity to reflect on, in its quest to explore, understand, and more fully develop the multidimensional qualities of being alive. But…
If I’m not careful I can listen to news about things like COVID-19 vaccinations being stockpiled by “wealthy” nations at the expense of “poor” nations and get myself in an utter rage at the machine of capitalism that has colonized absolutely everything, or I can try to see that I am only able to form opinions about the extent to which I can see reality from my current vantage point. As the reality of this pandemic continues to come into clearer focus, I hope we all gain perspective, and together, make the best possible decisions for the highest and best good for all.
