Walking away from hell

For people experiencing mental health issues, it can feel like a part of hell. The normal state is managing the day to day reality of the mental health just as a person with cancer, diabetes, disability must manage their reality each moment of each day. As I have noted in other posts, mental health often feels like it has no place of legitimacy in many sectors of society.

I recently listened to a lovely interview with American activist Parker Palmer in which he describes his personal experience with depression. It is lovely and rich with the reality that process of working through depression includes such things as getting up at 10 instead of 1030.

I have spoken with many people suffering from PTSD. One memory that really sticks with me is a former soldier who I knew many years ago. Without ever suggesting PTSD, he spoke of how every day he modified his life ensuring that nobody touched him to wake him up, even his wife in their matrimonial home. Another person I spoke with talked about daily reliving the horror of his deeds as a soldier. The images stayed in his mind day in and day out.

Others manage to avoid the PTSD but alter their lives as the person I just spoke of. A police sergeant who had been shot in the face in his rookie years spent his entire life in pain from the bullet fragments they could not take out. He found a meaning beyond the shooting, but the difference, at least for him, was that he had done nothing wrong - he had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, he spoke of how the event changed his policing - he became more gentle and understanding and recognized that people did things that came out of the horrors of their own lives. Interestingly, he told me that he had never used a gun in the line of duty in his 30 year career. He incorporated the lessons of the shooting into his belief system.

PTSD though, is the silent thief that creeps up from time to time in the lives of many sufferers. Things go along in life, coping is achieved and then the thief arrives. Depression hits and anxiety blossoms. For many with PTSD, it is an episodic disorder while others, like the soldier I noted about, live with the terror daily.

When the PTSD explodes, it is like entering the gates of hell where the images, memories, body sensations all combine to alert the emotions that safety has been lost. Getting out of PTSD is stepping slowly from the fire of hell.

In meditation, we find ways to observe the memory, the sensation, the images as opposed to becoming an actor in the play. As I have noted with other mental health issues, meditation is a piece of the therapeutic package but what I love about a meditation practice is the ability to engage it as sensations arrive rather than entering the doors of hell. We don't have to go down the rabbit hole.

Walking away from hell

Walking away from hell

was a journey unexpected 

It had not been the place of fire and brimstone 

But rather a place of ongoing pain

I had not birthed the pain

although I have nurtured it

I took ownership 

It had become mine

I fed it

I kept it alive 

I brought it up as though my child

We became attached

Walking away

Abandoning 

Deserting 

Can this child be left to wither and die?

Is living without the pain possible?

Walking away from hell

is walking towards freedom

So many have said it is this or is is that

It is not

In between 

are canyons to traverse

mountains to climb

Freedom is earned 

Leaving hell behind 

is to enter a journey of uncertainty 

The promises of a better life are false gods

There can be no promise

There is only hope

Walking away from hell

is not a U turn

It is standing at the edge and backing slowly away

To take the risk 

is to grasp hope and faith

not knowing

if they will walk with you

or will doubt and worry

take over

Walking away from hell

is an uncertainty

that is nothing but risk

Oh to go on this journey

is to be fed up with hell

so much

that doubt and uncertainty are better

To walk away from hell

is to give up the known 

to be scared

but not as frightened as of hell

Farewell to hell.

© Peter Choate, 2016

Can you see?

We live in a society where being over booked, over worked, over committed and stretched too far are seeing as the basis of accolades. Success has started to become defined more by how busy you are. How often have you heard a colleague talk about that and it's seen as a measure of success. It has almost come to the point where, if you are not having to work on the weekend, then there is something wrong. This appears to have become the norm in corporate and professional positions. The possibility of escape is destroyed by email, text messaging and the constant need for electronic connection.

Of course, not everyone is in this boat. Far too many are, for lots of complicated societal reasons that we need not dissect here. Meditation becomes a way to begin to pull back from that "over" syndrome. It is a way to create space in a day, even for just 10 minutes, that is devoted to being just with yourself. At first, it's tough - your mind wanders (as all minds do) and you have to resist the temptation to check on the latest email etc etc.

In my meditation today, along the edges of the Bow River here in Calgary, I reflected on this as I sat quietly with my eyes shut. Later, I focused on what was happening just before my eyes on the ground in front. Then I looked out at the river at a fixed point watching as things passed by - the water, the geese, a canoe, other birds. We don't need to attached to those things - they just are. It is a switch from I must do - to I don't need to do anything - the geese can do what the geese do; the canoe can go wherever the canoeist takes it; the water just passes. There is nothing I need to do which is the antidote to "over" syndrome.

Being Present - take some time to just look at the picture - go past the obvious and try to figure out what is actually in the photo. How do you react to it - what do you feel? What happens when you spend even a couple of minutes just looking at it - what changes within you?

Quiet

Sitting quietly by the river

A spot I walk past often

I can feel a breeze 

Come in from the right

Caressing my facing 

Wafting past to carry on its journey

The ants walk across my hand

I can hear footsteps on the pathway behind

In front is the gentle gurgle

of side streams taking wayward 

journeys from the river

The ground beneath is cool

It's fall so leaves lay around me

Some appear magically from the sky

Having said farewell to their host

There are scenes of the life around me

to which we are all connected

The spider goes across my leg

I just observe 

And off the spider goes

So often we fail to see

And when we do we jump to react

The spider wanted nothing from me

But to traverse the leg occupying space

Control, power and reaction 

offer nothing

It is about being present

What do you notice when you

just stay present

It is the world we live within

What happens when you come to know it

When you just sit and observe

The story within and without just happens

Moving on

There is no attachment

Just observation

Quiet and peace

© Peter Choate, 2016

   

Can we speak our truth

The helping professions continue to be faced with a major crisis arising from the trauma that members face. As I have suggested in previous post, Ode to Social Work, the impact of trauma is ongoing requiring that care be taken to look after the self. However, the trauma goes further when workers are unable to be honest with how they are feeling. First responders are increasingly aware of how trauma changes who they are, but there continues to be challenges talking openly about the emotional impacts.

This is, of course, part of the much larger problem in society surrounding the stigma of mental illness.  Even those working in mental health settings, may find challenges talking about their own challenges. There are the divides - the professional on one side and the patient or client on the other side. How does the professional successfully manage being on the patient side?

There have been some communities where this is somewhat easier. In addictions work, it is common to see those with longer term recovery working in the clinics and treatment centres. They often openly talk about their journey through recovery. But social workers and other mental health workers are typically taught that it is not very professional to offer any significant self disclosure to clients. There are good reasons for that but it is a subtle way to also indicate barriers to talking about your own mental health. How do we allow the conversation to safely come out of the darkness.

Working with traumatized people creates a burden that can only be carried for so long. If it is not shared, it becomes the internal toxicity that corrodes from inside. The quest is to create more conversations amongst us to ensure that our colleagues can be supported in getting good mental health treatment but also be allowed to openly speak about the impact carrying trauma has had upon them. It is about allowing truth to be spoken.

In meditation, we come to know our own emotions and learn about them. We can begin to see the triggers and how they can set us off. By doing so, we can reduce, manage and alter our response to the triggers. These become powerful tools. We also need to share that so that we affirm our place in the world and the work we do to manage effectively. 

Truth

Depression

Anxiety

Walking with and away from trauma

This is my truth

Ah society

Will you let me tell my truth

Or will you shame me

Will I allow the truth

Will I give it voice

Speaking not for sympathy

Not for approval

But to have a place

That is with the truth

Do we honour truth

Or do we honour image

Is truth only allowed

When its good and comfortable

Or can it happen

When its raw and disturbing

Truth and pain

They can be told

When society says the story matters

Because they approve of the cause

What is to be done

When the story hurts the listener

Is it to be told

Or is it to be shunned

When is the story about strength

And not weakness

When can we stand proudly 

And tell all

Is it only in recovery

Or can we be heard in defeat

I scream my pain

I yell out loud begging for an ear

I pierce the darkness

In the hope of finding light

I crawl through the mud

In prayer of a river

To be heard

There must be a listener

One who just hears

Please don't try to fix me

I implore that you be with my painful self

I struggle to accept me

Join me in that struggle

Walk with me in my truth

Then

May we listen together

© Peter Choate, 2016

Love lost

As a human, love is one of the most essential emotions. We crave it even if we don't always succeed with it. It is the stuff of literature and music, although lately we seem to have love and sex rather confused. Love exists on many levels with the close intimacy of a partner and a deep connection to our children. We love siblings and close friends and there is even an argument that we love our pets. Certainly we see people truly grieving the loss of a pet.

In our current western society, we seem to have a sense of some types of love are lost or transitory. Divorce rates seem to suggest that we can fall into and out of love - some people seem to do it serially.

How we love as an adult is reflected in our childhood experiences of love. Solid healthy and reciprocal relationships with parents make it easier for us to do that as an adult. Chaotic childhood patterns tend to replicate in adulthood.

How do we cope with love lost, particularly when it is a loss we did not see coming. A child or partner dies suddenly? Disability hits? We become estranged from a loved one? These are all significant losses. Death losses create a loss that has a known conclusion. Disability, illness or estrangement create ongoing loss with no sense of how the story is going to end.

Loss and grief do not go away. Those that are ongoing require a daily adjustment. This is really so for those situations where we must face the loss constantly. Think of the caregiver looking after a disabled partner or the person who has become disabled and can no longer do the things that used to bring joy or even a sense of personal competence. Consider the family who has become estranged from a loved one - the daily wonder about how they are doing and whether there will ever be hope of meaningful reconnection.

The role of meditation is to be with the loss, not deny it, but know it within yourself. In an odd sort of way, it is about becoming friends with the emotion that will stay with you. This accepts the reality of it, its presence and opens up to the lessons that come from the pain. Through this, you can also enhance other parts of your life so that the story of loss does not become your only story. Having your life become a single story is a lonely place which is really terrifying.

Love

The place where my heart warms

It is where I find connection

A sense of meaning for being alive

Love

The emotion that reciprocates 

Those that receive it

Offer it back to me

Love

It is where my humaness is most alive

Where I can tell that I have connection

And place in this world that matters to another

Love

It is also a place of pain

How can I love

When the other has walked away

Love

Where do I put you in my heart

When I long to be with you

But the other still alive no longer receives

Love

You confuse me

You offer such joy

Yet also offer such pain

Love

You are an emotion of

extreme

There is no holy way with you

It is one or the other

Love

You are unpredictable

You are essential

Without you there is nothing

Love

I can find you within me

It is not only the other

It can also be with myself

Love

I need the two

The other

And the self

Love

Who will join me at the table

It is for me to find

But not all holes can be filled 

Love

There are some that sit

With only me tending

Accepting what is

© Peter Choate, 2016