Lake Wobegon Effect, a well-recognised social/psychology classification: an illusory superiority complex, the human tendency to overstate our abilities and accomplishments without the evidence to back it up. It was named after the American radio series, A Prairie Home Companion set in a fictitious small-town Lake Wobegon in Minnesota.
“Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days
Plucky is a word you would hear at Lake Wobegon’s Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery (“If you can’t find it at Ralph’s, you can probably get along without it.”). As an avid listener of A Prairie Home Companion, I aspire to have the same pluckiness as the residents in that fictitious town, Lake Wobegon. Sadly, nowadays, I know I would no longer be welcomed in that town by its uncomplaining plain-speaking Mid-Western American citizens. Not with my whining, my anxieties, my insecurities, my very confused brain and my post-stress disorder. At Lake Wobegon I would be considered ‘best to avoid’; they prefer their neighbours to keep their struggles where they belong – to themselves.
Ambivalence is also not part of the Lake Wobegon psyche. Bad luck for brain injury survivors hoping to move to that town, because ambivalence is the normal state of mind after an acquired brain injury where everything is up and down at the same time. It is also wired into the treatment in a lengthy hospitalisation and rehab. On the one hand, we are admired for our pluckiness during our treatment, to be courageous in the face of our fears to continue with often truly scary therapies. We are told to focus our recovery on one day at a time no matter what. This was always confusing, because on the other hand, we are urged to see our recovery as a long-term project, and so we must protect ourselves from harm so we can continue with our treatment. It is like having a Jewish mother in charge of our treatment – go outside and play with your friends in the fresh air because it is good for your health, but you must wear a bulky woolen jumper because you have to protect your health. A goal that cannot be reached because the goal is ambivalent.
Even worse, we are challenged to reach the recovery goals, but without the evidence to back up the alleged results. I know many who have abandoned treatment because the goals are not realistic and not evidenced in the real world. That is the Lake Wobegon Effect: to overstate the success for rehabilitation without the evidence to back it up. A brilliant writer, Daniel Gilbert, wrote about the impossible situation of the Lake Wobegon Effect:
How do we manage to think of ourselves as great drivers, talented lovers and brilliant chefs when the facts of our lives include a pathetic parade of dented cars, disappointed partners and deflated soufflés? The answer is simple: We cook the facts.
Living in Lake Wobegon where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” And when we find ourselves disappointed because we are living in a real disabled world, we realise the disability “experts” are cooking the results. Or as Daniel Gilbert noted, to get us through a disabled life, we need just the right amount of delusion to trick us to continue: “If we were to experience the world exactly as it is, we’d be too depressed to get out of bed in the morning.”
I do know people who are truly above average heroic after a brain injury, but remember, it is factually a statistical impossibility that all stroke victims are above average. Yes, I’ve progressed in my recovery, but not because I am above average – I did not suddenly become above average heroic after my stroke: I kept fighting because I had access to one or two useful lengthy therapies and access to support from my private insurance. I have astonishing support from my closest friends, generous in every way, and especially the help from my best friend who allowed me to work on my recovery and could see a future for me instead of worrying all the time about my future. I was clinically depressed for the two years after my stroke – nowadays I’m just sad; I live in various types of loneliness; add my social anxiety, my overwhelming uneasiness in my new world always accompanied by my generalised anxiety disorder. In other words, I am an average post-stroke survivor. And as Garrison Keillor wrote, “The rich can afford to be hopeful, but poor people have every reason to be afraid of the future.” Without access to what only money can buy, or just the luck to know generous friends, I certainly would have fallen into an abyss.
The Lake Wobegon motto written on the town seal is Sumus Quod Sumus (We Are What We Are). In the end, after my stroke, I realised the American radio series, A Prairie Home Companion, is what it is – tales from a fictitious small-town in Minnesota – where everybody is plucky.