Re: Boundaries of pathology: Removing a crazy person
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 06:06:08 -0600 (MDT)
>  Groups really get
> A therapist cohouser once told me that seriously
> dysfunctional people leave behind them a trail of unhappiness which could be
> healed if people knew what was going on and how to deal with it.
> 
> I have heard of more than a dozen  situations in cohousing groups where
> extreme behaviors indicated a seriously dysfunctional person. In almost all
> of them, that person was eventually removed from the group.

The continuum between idiosyncratic and seriously dysfunctional is a long
one and every group takes its place in each section of the continuum. What
is dysfunctional in a student lounge is not the same as dysfunctional on a
corporate board (at least "it used to be").

In a living community, ideally each person's unique contribution can be used
effectively rather than allowed to disrupt or render inoperable systems that
they can't manage well. I find it of great benefit when I drop my notions of
all people being, acting, and treated as if they were equal. None of us are.
Equal is identical. We have equal opportunity, not equal interests or
abilities or means.

I saw one example of this in a small town in Idaho. The community was about
4 square blocks of town center with surrounding desert and mountain ranch
land. There was one young man who had been seriously retarded from birth and
not only lived happily in the community, coming and going as he pleased, but
also had a job. He mowed all the lawns, on a regular schedule, mowing as
much as he could get done in 3-4 hours a day. He received one dollar each
day and went to the drugstore to buy a coke. After dinner, he went to the
movies where he had popcorn and a soda and sat in the middle seat of the
front row. He lived with his brother's family, his parents having died.

Everyone knew him, they all treated him with grace and affection, he was not
expected to go to school where he would have learned nothing from being
mainstreamed or put in special education. And been teased for being odd. He
kept his money under his mattress. When it reached a crucial sum, his
brother put it in the bank, saving for a day when he needed more care than
the community could give him.

I know this is long, but a lovely story is that one day he suddenly started
charging one dollar and one nickel for lawn mowing. After much questioning,
it was discovered that he had figured out that if he used the nickel to buy
a coke at the drugstore, he wouldn't have to break a dollar.

Without the stress of being expected to attend meetings, serve on the board,
and learn more than he wanted to know, he functioned very nicely and was an
asset to the community.

Disruptive dysfunction can mean the need to remove someone from the
community but perhaps only some aspects of the community. Helping people
find their own unique place in the community may be much more beneficial.

Where do people go when they leave community? Do we just pass on the
problem? Understanding and adapting goes a long way toward fixing problems.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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