Within the last week, I experienced someone's mental health crisis. I would call her a friend, although many people said I should stay away, because she harbored romantic fantasies about me. She wasn't a best friend or a good friend, but in her state, I was probably her last friend. I helped her parents get her into treatment, and I hope she returns better able to manage her mental health. Although exhausted, I am proud of the role I played: I was the right person in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of concentrated time with the woman and with her parents. While she was manic and sometimes incoherent, she expressed resentment about her past and the control her parents had over her still. Conversely, I heard the parents talking about the struggles they had working through her learning disabilities, their pride that she earned an advanced degree, and their fear she would lose the ability to continue her career.
Where it struck the hardest was the mother saying, "She always felt different than other kids."
As I mull over my experiences, I am thinking a lot about Doctor Bashir, I Presume. The sense of being different. The struggle to keep up. The seemingly fruitless desire to help. The fear that it could all be lost.
Many people overlook this episode for the hard line it takes on genetic engineering and for the silly b-story. The strengths no only more than make up for it, it hit upon something real about family dynamics. Arguably, every family is a struggle between the father's ambitions, the mother's care, and the child's self-determination. The learning disability angle is more than a device to sharpen the dramatic tensions. It is a central worry, one that may make parents' dreams for their children seem unattainable. Bashir's father was obviously driven to make himself bigger than he was, including through his son. But he didn't have to be. The realism would still have been there.
Obviously, there is no mental health angle in the episode. Addressing all the experiences I had would take up half a season. That said, the episode shows how that baggage--what the parents want vs what the child wants--ends up being a hindrance to progress. Bashir and his father fighting over the past pushed dealing with the present into the background. And indeed, I had to tell the parents, this isn't about ten years ago, this is about now.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of concentrated time with the woman and with her parents. While she was manic and sometimes incoherent, she expressed resentment about her past and the control her parents had over her still. Conversely, I heard the parents talking about the struggles they had working through her learning disabilities, their pride that she earned an advanced degree, and their fear she would lose the ability to continue her career.
Where it struck the hardest was the mother saying, "She always felt different than other kids."
As I mull over my experiences, I am thinking a lot about Doctor Bashir, I Presume. The sense of being different. The struggle to keep up. The seemingly fruitless desire to help. The fear that it could all be lost.
Many people overlook this episode for the hard line it takes on genetic engineering and for the silly b-story. The strengths no only more than make up for it, it hit upon something real about family dynamics. Arguably, every family is a struggle between the father's ambitions, the mother's care, and the child's self-determination. The learning disability angle is more than a device to sharpen the dramatic tensions. It is a central worry, one that may make parents' dreams for their children seem unattainable. Bashir's father was obviously driven to make himself bigger than he was, including through his son. But he didn't have to be. The realism would still have been there.
Obviously, there is no mental health angle in the episode. Addressing all the experiences I had would take up half a season. That said, the episode shows how that baggage--what the parents want vs what the child wants--ends up being a hindrance to progress. Bashir and his father fighting over the past pushed dealing with the present into the background. And indeed, I had to tell the parents, this isn't about ten years ago, this is about now.
