Strategies for Survival

(Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age - Adlai Stevenson)

 

 

1.  What are survival strategies

We have Charles Darwin to thank for for the principle of natural selection propounded in The Origin of Species.  Evolution would depend on the strength of survival-favouring conditions.  Fight or flight was the order of the primitive day.  Indeed, it exists in one form or another to the present time.  What also undeniably persists are the many human traits and characteristics, physiological and emotional, that derive from earlier survival activities.  To this fight or flight syndrome one may add attachment, a survival strategy that involves bonding for the purpose of protection from predators, the teaching of survival skills, and the ability to satisfy basic needs.  The “father” of stress theory, Hans Selye, added the further stress responses of adaptation or surrender to overwhelming conditions. (1) 

Thus eight survival strategies may be identified as Rescue (rescuing others and being rescued by others): Attachment (bonding for mutual protection); Assertiveness (goal achievement); Adaptation (goal surrender), Fight (removal of danger); Flight (escape from danger); Competition (obtaining scarce essentials); and Cooperation (creating scarce essentials). (2)

 

(1)   Peace of Mind is a Piece of Cake by Michael Mallows and Joe Sinclair, 1998.

(2) Source:   From Survival to Fulfillment by Paul Valent, 1998.

 

2.  The corruption of survival strategy morality

     Surviving humiliation.

There has been a proliferation in recent years of TV programmes that attract audiences whose delight is at the expense of someone else's discomfort.  The programmes are all associated with what has come to be known as "reality television".  What distinguishes them mainly, from the "survival strategy morality" perspective is that they all achieve their effects from some form of public humiliation.  The saddest commentary on present day public taste is that the more humiliating the behaviour of participants, the more entertaining it appears to be.  That is, of course, when the entertainment factor is judged by audience ratings.

It is not, however, simply in game shows that this aspect of public taste is exhibited.  It is equally evident in "so-called" documentary style programmes.  Take, for example, the comments of Professor Jonathan Nichols-Pethick on the American MSNBC news programme about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.  ". . . it affords us a range of pleasures from the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing people humiliated and put in frightening situations."  He might have been speaking of the less horrifying situation (but nevertheless based on equally deplorable emotions) of participants in the Survivor, Apprentice, Weakest Link and Big Brother programmes.

Nichols-Pethick noted the recent statements of Private Lynndie England, an Army Reservist who was stationed at the prison and who is seen in one photo holding a leash attached to a detainee's neck.  She talks about the fact that it was just fun and they were having fun and pictures were taken. She talks about fooling around. She talks about also not going to extremes.   So for whom was it fun.  For the army personnel who were "fooling around"?  For the Iraqi prisoners with whom they were "fooling around"?  Or for the voyeurs who got so much fun out of watching the programme?

That was in the USA.  

Ahah, you might say, it couldn't happen in the UK.  

Think again.

The BBC website of February 27, 2005 featured a story which began: "The Iraqi abuse photos which led to the conviction of two British soldiers were an extreme example of what some believe to be a growing trend.  One picture showed Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, dressed only in boxer shorts and flip-flops, standing on top of a distressed Iraqi. Another showed an Iraqi suspended from the prongs of a forklift truck.  In another, two prisoners were forced to simulate a sex act, putting their thumbs up for the camera as they did so. All the pictures were taken at a British base in Basra two years ago.  Tony Blair said the photos were "shocking and appalling". But weren't they also strangely familiar?"

Is this not simply an extension of the reality TV programmes that thrive on humiliating both yourself and others in front of the camera?   "Dirty Sanchez on MTV is a show about three Welsh skateboarding slackers who do ever-more outrageous things for the titillation of their largely teenage audience - including smashing one another about the head with blocks of wood, stapling their hands to a table, and eating stinging nettles.  Their inspiration is Jackass, the hit US show that featured bored middle-class twenty-somethings abusing themselves, their friends and perfect strangers.  It is thought to have influenced a controversial American video Bumfights, in which middle class students paid homeless people to fight, and even defecate, for the cameras."

And so to the latest, recently completed, offering on British TV.  Based on the American show hosted by Donald Trump, The Apprentice (Sir Alan Sugar as host) is by no means as "hard core" as the shows described above, but no less humiliating for many of the participants.  Sugar is also somewhat more "earthy" than Trump as his humble beginnings might suggest.  "I don't like bullshitters, schmoozers, liars or cheats," was how he greeted the Apprentice contestants.  He then set them tasks based on the type of marketing experience he apparently valued, such as buying £500-worth of flowers and selling them at a profit.  He divided the contestants (14 in number) into two teams; dividing them by gender.  What does this tell us?  At the end of the three months or so of programmes, one contestant being given marching orders each week with the (ultimately infamous) phrase: "You're fired!", he had found a new assistant who would earn in excess of £100,000.  Was it pure coincidence that both finalists were "ethnically visible"?

So a record audience squirmed and held its breath through the final desperate moments while Sir Alan was going through an apparent trauma of indecision and the finalists were doing their best not to be too panicked.  They had practised - all 14 of them - every strategy for survival they could conjure up, but only one survived.  So what did it prove?

Well it was a cut above Big Brother, I guess.  It was also less blatantly vindictive than the Weakest Link.  And it made what passes for good television (i.e. good audience ratings) for the TV company that produced it.

It doesn't pay to think about what it says of our deteriorating standards of morality.

 

3.  Surviving a destructive relationship

Domestic violence victims employ a variety of survival strategies.  Battered women are survivors. Asking them why they don’t leave an abusive relationship is somewhat simplistic: It ignores the complex set of factors battered women must weigh to decide how best to protect themselves and their children. Implying that it is the responsibility of the battered woman to end the violence blames her for the abuse and does not hold the batterer accountable for his crime.

BARRIERS TO LEAVING
Quite simply, a battered woman might be told she will be killed, or her children will be killed, if she leaves or refuses to return. Past violence has taught her that his threats often translate into action. Leaving also might harm her children if he gets custody or visitation. If she is still in the relationship, she can monitor his interactions with the children. Indeed, the decision to leave an abusive relationship is not as straightforward as it might seem.

BATTERED WOMEN LEAVE ALL THE TIME
It is important to remember that battered women do escape the violence in their lives. Friends, family and a network of service providers within a  supportive community can be instrumental for a battered woman who chooses to make the overwhelmingly difficult decision to uproot her life.

What at first might appear to an outsider to be “crazy” or self-defeating behaviour on the part of the victim, such as being afraid to seek the services of a battered women’s program or wanting to return to the abuser in spite of severe violence, in fact might be normal reactions to significantly frightening situations. A victim uses different strategies to cope with and resist abuse. These strategies might appear to be the result of passivity or submission, when in reality she has learned that these are sometimes successful temporary means of stopping the violence.

SURVIVAL STRATEGIES

Mutual support groups are a routine programme suggested to battered women by domestic violence agencies.  These groups provide a community of support.  They break through the isolation that battering has imposed on each battered woman, and contribute substantially to the safety planning and personal empowerment of each participant.

The philosophy behind these self-help services is that battered women can best help and support each other; that although they may be disempowered and controlled by the violence inflicted by their partners, they are not disabled or inadequate as persons; and that women can offer each other critical thinking and support in the development of survival strategies.

 

4.  Surviving a cancer diagnosis

(a)  Rosanne Kalick

It may be easier to survive a major ill-health concern than to cope with the well-intentioned, but totally inappropriate, efforts of friends and family to make light of your condition.

Rosanne Kalick is a cancer survivor.  In May 2005 her book entitled Cancer Etiquette (what to say, what to do, when someone you know or love has cancer) was published by Bookmasters in the USA.  ISBN: 0874604508

In an interview Ms Kalick described how, when she informed a close friend that she would need a double mastectomy, her friend responded: “Well at least you’ll be symmetrical”.

This attempt at humour, probably a strategy deriving from shock or embarrassment, or a mistaken belief that making light of the situation would be of help if not comfort, was quite misguided.  It was particularly hurtful to Rosanne Kalick as she had previously endured treatment for a blood cancer and had presumed that her friends would know by now how best to react.

She discussed this episode with other cancer survivors and learned that her experience was far from unique.  It is apparently quite normal to have to endure insensitive comments and awkward gestures.  There must be some approved form of behaviour to cover this situation, she thought, but could find no information on the subject.

So she wrote the book, which contains stories from other survivors and practical advice about communication strategies for friends and family.  She gives examples of what is appropriate in the way of humour, what to say and what not to say, when religious comments may be unacceptable, and what sort of mental and physical changes occur with cancer sufferers.

One of her most telling comments is: "If you did not speak about an individual's sex life, breast size or baldness before the diagnosis, what makes you think it is appropriate to ask those questions now?"

Making the occasional gaffe is going to happen, even when the person's intentions are entirely innocent, Kalick says. In the long run, it's not the gaffes that matter; it's the connection between people. Seldom does someone want to endure cancer alone.

(b)  Deborah Hutton

Deborah Hutton died on July 15, 2005 at the age of 49, a victim of cancer.  She had been an author, journalist and editor specialising in preventive health, for the efficacy of which she regarded herself as being a prime example.

All the more shocking, therefore, in 2004 to learn that she had stage IV advanced lung cancer.  She noted, wryly, "there is no stage V".  Although she had been a smoker in her earlier years, she had not smoked for 23 years.  The blow to her pride in her excellent health and fitness (she once described herself as "never ill, never down, a runner of half-marathons, a yoga freak, and a nutrition nut") was enormous as she confessed in Vogue magazine (of which she was health editor): 

She also declared that she found the letters, flowers and telephone calls that came flooding in from concerned friends were, while uplifting, "bone-crushingly wearying".

So, with typical bravery, honesty and lack of self-pity such as had earlier in her life enabled her to face the challenge of her son Freddy's cerebral palsy, she set about producing a book that would benefit other cancer sufferers, determined that some good should derive from her personal tragedy.

Three weeks before her death, by one of those pieces of synchronicity that was the subject of the last issue of Nurturing Potential, Editor Joe Sinclair had inadvertently tuned in to part of the Richard and Judy Show on Channel 4 television - a programme he never watches.  He was astonished to discover that they were interviewing an author whose book on how to deal with cancer sufferers (What Can I Do to Help?) was about to be published.  His astonishment came from the fact that he had that very day received an e-mail message of approval for an article in the current issue of Nurturing Potential about an American survivor of cancer, Rosanne Kalick, who had published a book on a similar subject just one month earlier.  . 

 He immediately requested a review copy of Deborah Hutton's book from the publishers.  This arrived in the post on July 12.  One week later, wanting to check out a biographical datum for the review, Joe went to a search engine and learned that Deborah Hutton had succumbed to her cancer two days earlier.

What Can I Do To Help, published in aid of Macmillan Cancer Relief, is a practical guide for the friends and families of those given the same demoralising diagnosis,   It contains "75 practical ideas for family and friends from cancer's front line."

One of the ideas is described by Deborah Hutton in terms of what she calls "my colander girls". - a play on the Women's Institute notorious Calendar Girls.  This is what she has written about it:

Let me explain. Since last December, when I received the shocking diagnosis that I had inoperable lung cancer which had already spread around my body, a group of women - some of whom I knew quite well, some of whom hardly at all - have been cooking our family's evening meal. I call them "the Colander Girls", and they now number 18.

It began one Friday, when Demelza Short, a neighbour three doors down, called in. "Oh, by the way," she said, "we're going to start cooking for you." It wasn't said in a grand-gesture "aren't-I-marvellous?" way. It was simply a clear statement of intent.

Demelza is one of those super-organised types who's on every school committee and never fails to put her hand up when volunteers are called for. Before the week was out, she had organised a rota of about a dozen women living in our area.

So every weekday at 6pm our doorbell would ring, and there would be a procession of women and children bearing trays - sometimes with artistically written menus, sometimes with goodies such as brownies, fairy cakes or bowls full of strawberries.

Little did we know then that the supper rota would still be going strong seven months later - nor that it would inspire my anthology of practical ideas, What Can I Do To Help?, which I have written to give friends and family a "toolkit" to use in the wake of a cancer diagnosis.

The idea of throwing a lifeline to friends and families who feel desperately saddened by the news that loved ones have cancer - but who don't want to intrude and are at a loss to know what to do - was the genesis of the book. As I started talking to hundreds of people who, like me, were living with cancer, I found that a paralysing sense of helplessness is very common among our nearest and dearest.

As a result, those of us who are newly diagnosed, and reeling under the biggest shock of our lives, tend to be inundated by vague, rather useless offers - of the "You will let me know if there's anything I can do?" variety - which leave us with one more thing to do at a time when our own energy reserves have never been lower.

The truth is that appropriate help needs to be specific, dependable, not reliant on thank yous or even - perish the thought - on some unspoken expectation of reciprocation. People living with cancer often need helping out big time and long term. Yes, small, one-off things make a difference - being picked up and taken to clinic or chemo appointments and returned home is hugely supportive - but even more meaningful are those ongoing practical offers that can be counted on for weeks or even months.

Most of us have such ludicrously busy lives that the amount of time we have at our disposal is very limited. In the first flush of enthusiasm, it is all too easy to get carried away and over-commit. The consequence is that support dribbles away. Let me tell you, from hard experience, there is nothing more demoralising than being let down - it makes you much less likely to feel you can depend on the next offer, never mind stick your neck out and ask.

So it seems more practical to get a group of well-intentioned people together, each committing to do a little bit. Such little bits quickly add up to an enormous lightening of the load. What's more, people like to feel part of a collective effort - so much so that after seven months we have new people begging to join the supper rota every month - and the Colander Girls are already creating their menus for September.

"It's been a brilliant idea," says Betsy Tobin, the newest arrival on the street, bringing round a casserole of barbecued chicken wings and rice. "We're going to be cooking anyway so we're just upping the numbers. And it's been a good way of bringing people together. I now know more people after living here for a year than I did after a decade at our old address.

"In addition, it helps us to help. I know someone with cancer who won't let anyone support her and that's proving to be much harder on her close friends who feel very excluded."

Like so much else on my personal "cancer journey", the supper rota has been something of a learning experience. The first lesson was that when people cook for another family, they generally over-cater, which means one meal will often stretch to two.

To begin with, we found ourselves stockpiling meals and even throwing food away - which I hate doing, but seems an especial crime when it has been so lovingly prepared. So we cut the meals down to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and we cook for ourselves at weekends. That means everyone's turn comes around about once every six weeks.

There have been other instructive moments. There was, for example, the memorable evening when we opened a casserole dish to be faced with a collection of unidentifiable knobbly bones in an unfamiliar greyish gravy. "Mmm, yum, osso bucco," we said encouragingly, as the children looked aghast.

It was sophisticated dinner-party fare many adults might have had difficulty savouring. And the irony was that the only person who appreciated it - me - was utterly without appetite and following a meat-free, acid-free, sugar-free anticancer diet.

So, lovely as it was that our friends were going to such lengths, we had to let them know that these were pearlsbefore-swine efforts. We sent a tactful e-mail listing the children's likes, including roast chicken, spaghetti bolognese, fishcakes, pasta, bangers and mash, simple fish pies, barbecued chicken drumsticks, shepherd's pie, ice-cream, apple crumble and so on. Now, everything gets wolfed down.

We also learned that it became alarmingly easy to stockpile plates and dishes and be unable to remember whose was whose. Then another of the Colander Girls, Mary Robey, suggested everybody bring their offerings in disposable tin-foil-type containers. Yet another problem solved.  

Thank you, Deborah Hutton, for sharing that with us.  You may have died, but your strategies and your memory will survive..

[Click here for the book review and publication details]