“All or Nothing:” Living with Crises

Several therapists talked about survivors as frequently showing opposing patterns at the same time. For example, they spoke about women moving between taking complete control and abdicating control; complete trust and no trust at all; a defended self and no boundaries or self-protection at all. They spoke of women switching between extremes and having enormous difficulty with ambiguity. They suggested that it would be healing for women to learn to find middle ground. One therapist stressed that if one pattern is present you could expect to see the opposite also there.

Another aspect of “all or nothing” that therapists spoke about was a tendency for survivors to make enormous, “heroic” effort, but to be less likely to carry out daily ongoing work. I was told that the idea of daily effort gradually leading to change was often unusual to survivors. Those who grew up in violent and chaotic homes may have had little experience of seeing regular effort lead to results. As children, such learners are unlikely to have been given the support or space to work at learning something regularly, or to do homework regularly and see the results of their own persistence. One therapist said survivors are often amazed that what they need to do is consistent daily activity. She said they are aghast that it is something so boring and routine that is required. When I asked literacy workers whether this resonated with how they saw the experience of learners, many said it was extremely familiar. Several instructors who work in full-time community college programs said that the description reminded them of many of their students who come in at the beginning of the year ready to make an enormous effort, convinced that this time they will just “do it.” They all described their sinking feeling when they meet such students, because they expect them to drop out soon after, when they are not doing brilliantly. Several learners also described their own experience in ways that fit this description. Instructors are often frustrated, wondering how to help the students stay in for the long haul. Students are also frustrated, because they thought it would be different - this time they were going to work really hard. The insight that such students may not have had practice with the concept of daily work leading to change, or have knowledge of “middle-ground,” suggests new ways to think about approaches to help them stay in a program and learn successfully.

Some people spoke of another dimension, of the “all or nothing” concept as “totalizing” which explained a tendency to move instantly from experiencing one example to concluding “it is always this way.” For example, one mistake means “I always make mistakes, I am stupid and nothing will change it.” Or, “You let me down once I can never rely on you, you always let me down, I will never trust you again over anything.” Small failures are complete failures. Clearly this could be very problematic for literacy learning, undermining any possibility of seeing mistakes as part of learning and of continuing to practice writing or reading regularly.

Curriculum which could help to make “middle-ground” visible, and included more exploration of what leads to successful learning, would be useful to all learners. One literacy worker suggested that another way of characterizing and making “middle-ground” visible, is to think in terms of ‘‘good enough.’’ Perhaps a variety of modes of helping learners to see their gradual progress would be useful. Portfolios of work, for example, could be used to help learners see the shifts in their own work for themselves. Mentors and role models might also be able to support learners, by describing times when they continued in the face of frustration and failures, revealing that although daily work may be boring, it is part of the process of reaching a goal.

All or nothing ways of relating to the world can mean that trauma survivors live with regular crises. Instructors talked a lot about the crises in learners' lives and the energy they consume. One literacy worker said “they are too busy being upset to learn.” Therapists and the therapeutic literature talk about how scary it can be for someone who is used to living in a state of crisis to live without crises. The tension of waiting for the next crisis creates a state of continual expectation, so that for some women it may be easier to provoke the crisis than live waiting for it. A group of workers described crises as a way of “putting off success and change.” One learner said that after living with crisis all her life she had no sense of who she would be if she were not in crisis.