Compassion for the Incompassionate by Karlin Blog entry

Blog: Path of my Life
by Karlin

Compassion for the Incompassionate

Mental Illness might be your neighbor; be glad if it is not you.

Date: 11/19/2008 5:18:08 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 1717 times

An episode of a hammer attack, and mental illness:

It has become a major personal challenge for me to accept this situation I find myself in. These things come our way from time to time, and they help us grow and mature, I guess.... I hope.

but wow, arrrggg, and tear my hair out over this one. Oh ya, and add "get whacked by a hammer" to that list of frustrations for this particular growth opportunity!!

There was to be a small construction project going on beside me, one that would take any 'reasonable carpenter' just a few days, perhaps a week of short days. The noise includes hammering, power sawing of plywood, etc., so it would be disruptive to anyone.

For me, with my "sensory processing disorder", that kind of noise is something that I have to really work hard to cope with. At times I have to go fully into my meditation exersizes to keep from tensing up.

And then it went on and on. It has been SIX WEEKS, off and on, and it is not finished yet. There were a few days when no work was done during that period, but the threat of it is allways there, hovering over me. When will I be disturbed next?

Okay, to cut this "whine" short, I will get to the juicy part - twice when I had a bad headache I went to the person doing the work and asked, nicely at first, if he could knock off for the day, just a couple hours of light left anyhow, please? Pretty Please? I reminded him that "just last Saturday I had been a good enough sport about the whole thing to HELP him put the plywood sheathing up" - three sheets went up in 20 minutes whereas it had taken him over an hour to put the first one up [I did it mostly because I was so frustrated at how SLOWWWWWWWWWW he was/is].

Then, when asking him to quit for the day, I got a bit upset, because he just would not budge, and told me to buzz off. At one point, I pushed him back. I left then, almost shaking [I've never ever been in a fight or anything like that, this was the first physical aggression in all my 50+ years I've ever shown anyone, ever!!]

He just seemed to have NO wilingness to comprimise. No sense of being neighborly at all. Selfish, even.

On the second occasion when I asked him to please stop for the day, he was prepared I guess, and when I got loud he attacked me with a hammer. Vigorously swinging at me, frothing at the mouth kind of attack!! Two blows caught my right arm, and it was bruised and swollen, but I was/am surprised at how little it hurt.

The police were summoned by the landlord, who witnessed it all.

Ah ha, ok, so I got in his face, I know I lost my cool, and I do regret that. The police explained something else to me - my neighbor is a clinical case of Paranoid Schizophrenia.

I have to understand this:
He is INCAPABLE of compassion. He does not have the "neurological makeup" to be considerate of anyone else. If he does something good for someone, it is only because of what it might bring HIM.

That kind of selfishness has allways really bothered me, and now I was faced with someone who had no option but to be like that. I had to find a way to be compassionate to him.

One way is to remind myself that I am glad I am not him. Or like him.

Another is because we all have to live somewhere on this planet, and he ends up beside me, perhaps that is better than if he lived where things could be worse for everyone, including him.

Bottom line is that the landlord should never have given permission to someone like him to to a project that is a bit delicate where other's peace and quiet are concerned, since he does not have the ability to be considerate or to change his plans.

But thats life. And thats my path in life. I have to live with it, and although it may be unfair to all of the rest of us to listen to his painfully slow carpentry, I HAVE to find a way to accept it and to not bug him anymore. My only argument can be with the landlord...

Mostly, be glad [if] we are not like him. It cannot be easy.