THE WIDE GREY AREA
It is fascinating to meet people who think most answers in life are ‘black and white’. As many never consider, the situation in which we find ourselves plays a very important role in every choice we make or action we take. This is one of my most valuable takeaways from my years as a medical student that I consider key to a successful multifaceted life.
One of the many situations which ingrained this lesson in me is when I had to examine a number of mentally disordered patients to identify the causes of their illness. It is considered a difficult task due to the unpredictable behaviours of the patients. Some colleagues had been attacked or made to sing the national anthem, all in an effort to get the patients to answer their questions. Some patients simply walked away refusing to talk.
For this reason, I approached my patient with guns blazing. But she stopped me right away and asked me what I really wanted from her. She was rather nice. She told me she would give me whatever information I wanted to help me pass my exam. I went closer and explained what each question was for, what I wanted to find, and what I was concerned about. She opened up to me. She started revealing how, in her many years, she has seen and heard things that others could not. I tried to be as gentle as I could. As I carefully questioned her and made my diagnosis of schizophrenia, I was reminded that not every ‘mentally unstable’ person on the street is a victim of drug abuse as usually connotated.
Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that usually appears in late adolescence or early adulthood. Its impact on speech, thinking, emotions, and other areas of life can affect a person’s social interactions and everyday activities. It likely develops when specific genetic and environmental factors (such as trauma during birth, malnutrition before birth and viral infections) combine. The person may have delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence), grossly disorganized behavior and negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression).
The underlying problem is that life is complex, not simple. There are many reasons why things are the way they are. We do not live in isolation but are influenced by friends, family, religion and culture. This is not to say that every answer is complex. There could be simple answers to questions too.
This patient evoked the fact that it is hasty to classify someone as being normal or abnormal or to quickly jump to the conclusion that someone is on drugs. Life is not black and white. There is a wide grey area.
In almost every situation, there are different layers and different ways of looking at whatever you may be faced with. It's easy to get into that ‘black or white’ thinking because it comes so effortlessly to many of us. I know, dear reader, that we all have jobs to do and no time to waste. But it is worth thinking about people and giving them a chance to see what is truly happening, rather than accepting our own initial reaction.
Contributed by JabezInkoom
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