I think that every young person in this world needs to grow up to remember the name Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I think every adult in this world needs to know her name. Now, several of you have already rolled your eyes and decided to scroll down on your screen because you are so over hearing about this. I would strongly urge you to read on. Yes, I am long winded. Yes, you won’t get these 5 minutes back in your life. And Yes, Dr. Marr will leave you with something to think about that makes you maybe even want to know more. “Sure Doc” (insert sarcastic vocal tone here).
So here it is folks. Those who know me well know that I have strong opinions on these things and I am fun to banter with about it. Others of you may be reading things I’ve written for the first time, because some Facebook friend of yours decided to repost this. Doesn’t matter to me why you are reading it. I am just happy you are.
“Why Doc? Why do we need to remember this name (Dr. Christine Blasey Ford)?” Well my peeps, courage of this magnitude only comes along once in a great while and should be respected just because of that. Think of a time when you really got scared. Like when you forgot to wear your pants to work (oh wait, that’s dream analysis). Try again. Like when you had to do something hard for the very first time and thought you might get hurt and didn’t know what the outcome would be. Ok…you got it. Yes I’m serious, I want you to call up a time when you were really really scared…. waiting….waiting….do we all have the image. Good.
So, take this image of yourself being scared (do you feel the butterflies in your stomach, because that’s when you know you got a really good image) and put that scared version of yourself in a room full of politicians and media. Got that. No, no. Don’t stop reading now. I’m a psychologist, this is what I do for a living…make people feel. And yes, it is extremely inconvenient to have to feel scared while your reading a post from this quack Doc on the interwebs but do it any way. Seriously you’ve gotta already be a couple minutes in. What’s a few more going to hurt?
Ok…so you’re in your image of a scary moment in your life and now you are also on public display in front of a world audience. Right? Get what I am doing here (of course you do, even my three-year-old has to do this because she has a quack Doc for a mom and has no problems doing it).
And now think of the most humiliating thing you’ve ever experienced. You know, that thing that you’ve buried deep deep down and have so much shame about that you have told no one…. literally no one about…. EVER. Yup, get that deep dark secret out, put it in the mouth of the image of you feeling scared and now tell that story to this panel of politicians, while on camera, and with all of the world tweeting, snapchatting, Facebooking (yeah…that one isn’t a verb is it?) all about what you are saying and then putting their own two cents in on what they think of your most humiliating story being told from your scared self, while in front of the COMMITTEE.
So, if you went on this journey with me and didn’t just read this to roll your eyes, what are you feeling (and there it is Doc…the quintessential therapist question)? But seriously…. what are you feeling? I’ll tell you how I felt while I was typing this. It got the adrenaline pumping through me and my fingers literally are shaking. If this didn’t happen for you, you just didn’t put enough effort into it. The biology of our fight or flight system is easily activated even by our thoughts, so go back to paragraph three and repeat. Yes, I mean it. Go back. We’ll wait…. still waiting….yup we are still here in paragraph seven….we won’t go on until you are here…done? So…. what was it like (which is another way therapists ask how you’re feeling, because we just love that question)?
I hope you enjoyed this uncomfortable exercise. I use humor to ground you through it, because really we can harm ourselves going back in our minds to scary times of our lives without the right skills to deal with it. Our minds are that powerful. It’s so dang cool. It’s also dangerous, so don’t do this without the assistance of your favorite therapist (and I am dead cold serious on that me peeps…dead cold!)
And there is the answer to your question, “Why doc? Why should we remember Dr. Christine Blasey Ford?” Because, courage of this caliber is not often seen outside its captivity of the deep internal reaches of our souls. No matter the content, no matter the subject, no matter the outcome, when someone stands up in the face of that much adversity in what I can only imagine was a horribly awful emotional and physical state and despite all that was thrown at her, stayed standing until the end…well that my friends is what we call a hero. She will certainly always be one of mine. I have trouble telling the dude at the phone store, “No I don’t want to get that upgrade and let you syphon more money out of my dwindling checking account”, so I have no earthly idea how much courage that took her yesterday, but it is genuinely at heroic levels. Truly awe inspiring. Sacrifice like that my friends, is genuinely something we should all revere. For the sake of all of us. And make no mistake it’s about us. There is no us and them. There never was a them. “Them” is a made-up construct to create a false dichotomy of either/or, because our brains try to simplify things (and sometimes a little too much).
Now…as for the subject matter of what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did yesterday (keep repeating it…learn that name folks), I have plenty of thoughts on that too and because I am the quack Doc that I am, I absolutely know they aren’t what you would think they’d be. I’m so unpredictable like that. Stay tuned…more on that later (see how I did that…just shaved several minutes off your life and now you’re going to have to keep scrolling next week to find part two in this tantalizing read…. yup, that’s what I did).
Be well my friends.