Existence versus Life

As I write this, my mind and heart is a jumble of myriad tangled feelings, thoughts, memories, and pain – each competing with the other and yet co-existing and draining my strength as they fight their constant battle. This battle? This war? This is grief. This is love when arms can no longer hold the loved one.

Less than 48 hours ago, my brother Ben passed away from septic shock combined with pneumonia that he developed from an infection in a tube-site for his gall bladder. The tube was initially inserted in February 2017 and his surgeon hesitated to remove both it and the gall bladder for fear of him experiencing a coronary on the table. He had atherosclerosis (with a total of 3 stents in various heart arteries, for which he was taking a blood-thinner since the last heart attack on February 14, 2019.)  He also had insulin-dependent diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, nephrolithiasis, and chronic renal failure, and he was on dialysis three times a week.

In fact, that’s how I found out that he was in trouble. His dialysis nurse called me and said he didn’t show up for his Monday morning appointment. After trying to reach him, thinking he had overslept, I called a relative and asked them to go check to see if he was at home. His car was, but he didn’t answer. After that, I called 911 who patched me through to the RCMP. They went to his house, saw him awake on his bed through his (main floor) bedroom window, and he was unable to get up. They broke the door down and called the EMT people. That would have been around 3 pm or so. The EMTs came and got an IV started. They took him to the local hospital who assessed him and intubated him as he was having difficulty breathing. Then they ambulanced him to the hospital where he normally did his dialysis. They got him there around 7 p.m.  Three hours after he got there, he took a turn for the worse, and went into septic shock. The nurse called me and asked me or someone to come to the hospital right now. They tried to revive him three times but to no avail. At 10:15 pm, he was pronounced dead.

And that is what the doctor told me ten minutes later, over the phone, as I was getting my coat on to make the two-and-a-half-hour trip to see him. Such pain I had not felt in over six years since my youngest daughter died at the age of 21.

My night-time trip was cancelled, of course. I made plans to pack up the next day, and go to the homestead to assess the damage and the mess. I might have slept four hours that night. The next night, with the help of some Melatonin, I slept for six hours, although there was one interruption at five a.m. when Ben’s alarms went off to remind him to get up for dialysis. Hopefully, tonight will be better.

During my waking hours, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the difference between existing and living. For most of his life, Ben just existed. He grew up thinking that he was a nuisance to his parents. He bore the inner scars of physical and psychological abuse by his mom and abandonment by his dad who never stopped her, and the bruises of an older brother who criticized everything he did and regularly pounded on him. He bore other scars too: a marriage that lasted only 14 years before it ended in divorce, alienation from his sons, rejection from an endless string of women, as well as being used by women who befriended him only for his bank account. His was a lonely life. He battled the loneliness with his art: he could draw landscapes, animals, and people just by looking at pictures of things. He composed so many songs and sang them with me and with that older brother when we were all so young (I was 16 at the time, so he was 22 and the other brother was 26) – gospel songs that were so beautiful you could hear a pin drop when we were done.

Yet he suffered. I remember him coming home from senior high school and sobbing as he begged me never EVER to judge a man just on his appearance. I never EVER forgot his words. 

Yes, most of his life he was a melancholy man. He existed; he created beautiful things and appreciated beauty in nature and in people, but his existence was spent waiting for the next good thing to happen, and being disappointed time after time after time. 

After his divorce in the early 1990s, he moved in with Mom and Dad. He was there for Mom after Dad passed away, and he made sure he was there to look after things for her. Others would come in and see him lazing around, as they called it. He rested because he couldn’t breathe if he got up and moved around. He had so many ailments: his lungs, his kidneys, his heart, his gall bladder, his pancreas,… people didn’t understand and he felt a lot of condemnation come from them. Nobody understood him, he told me, except me. And sometimes even that wasn’t enough to tame the monsters of hatred and bullying that he experienced – whether real or imagined – from others.

Once, he even tried to commit suicide. He had finally learned how to love unconditionally, and his girlfriend stole from him and used the money to get high. 

A few months later that girl died … and it took him months to make peace with that.

Photo "Eye" by graur codrin at www.freedigitalphotos.net

But by that time, he had learned to live. To REALLY LIVE.

You see, in October 2016, Ben had been diagnosed with stage one colon cancer. And in January 2017, he underwent a six-hour procedure to remove the cancer along with a 5-inch section of bowel. And when he woke from that surgery, while he was still recovering in the hospital, he was listening to the radio and a singer Skip Ewing was singing, “How can he be a king? He’s just a kid.” And God spoke to him in his heart, and said, “Are you listening, son?”  And he responded, tears streaming down his face, “Yes, Father. I’m here. I hear You.”

From that moment on, Ben started to really LIVE. He had some setbacks and some heartaches (like the death of that girlfriend). And he was living on a very limited income, never knowing if he would need to starve in order to be warm, or to freeze in order to eat. It was hard. It was REALLY hard. But he was finally LIVING. We would talk on the phone – and I would let him listen to music that he liked – and he would cry tears of beauty and joy. He never forgot how God rescued him, miraculously let him live, and would look after his every need. Even if he misplaced his car keys. Or his needles. Or his wallet.

Last year, on Valentine’s Day 2019, he suffered a major heart attack. The paramedics found him and the emergency team had to put an intravenous shunt through his shin bone to give him liquids. He screamed in pain and then his heart went into atrial fibrillation. They had to use the paddles to get him back – and he was “gone” for a few seconds there.

He remembered those few seconds. He felt completely at peace. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew that he was loved, cared for, and safe. And from that time onward, he lost his fear of death. He lost his fear of living, too. And the living he had been doing up until then just intensified. He could not keep silent about God’s love for him. Anyone who knew him heard him talk about higher things, spiritual things, wonderful things like love and joy and peace and goodness. He touched so many people that way: people in dialysis, people in drug stores, people at church, in grocery store lineups, everywhere.

That’s not to say that he didn’t have questions. We would talk for hours at a time as he tried to understand some spiritual concept or other. We talked almost every day, for up to two or three hours at a time. (It’s a good thing I have such a good cell phone plan that includes free long distance!) But every time we talked, he would not hesitate to tell me what he had been learning, what God showed him or how He helped him find something he needed. Or met a need in his finances. Or let him talk to someone about his experiences in the Lord.

And now this week, I have been living in his house without him here. Memories galore. Yet it feels so surreal: not quite right, like he should be here laughing and joking with us, listening to YouTube videos, or talking about how wonderful Heaven is.

And yes, he could not let a conversation go by before he mentioned how deeply he longed to see his Master’s face, to walk the shores of Glory with Him, to hug Dad, and to jam with friends and family gone ahead.

And now he is there. And he is LIVING beyond his wildest imaginings – and he could imagine a LOT!!

Good night Ben. See you in the Morning. Keep a chair for me by the hearth, and say hi to Dad for me. I love you beyond measure. 

And … I will miss you. I’ll never forget what you taught me about how to live life in a positive way and not just exist expecting the worst.

Thank you. Thank you SO MUCH.

A Moving Target

Back in 2009 when I first got into therapy and I was learning a whole new (well, new to ME) way of living, I'm afraid I was a little arrogant about it. I thought that I had arrived. How very wrong I was. I had a LOT to learn!

And when my husband and I decided in 2015 to leave the organized church and seek relationships with God and others without the structure of a church family, again, I was pretty "my way or the highway" about it... at least for a while. One would think I would have learned by that time. But no.

Now that I'm in therapy again for something I thought was dealt with (aka buried), I'm not so cocky. Things I thought I knew, I am learning that I have only paid lip service to (plus there were some things that I was completely oblivious to!) And when it comes right down to it, when push comes to shove (so to speak), I revert to the old way of reacting to things that happen, and then I wonder why some people feel uncomfortable around me (or I feel uncomfortable around them). According to my therapist, that's common with people who have experienced trauma such as long-standing child abuse. (Huh. Who knew.)

I want to put that trauma in its proper place instead of being trapped in the patterns of behavior that the trauma has caused. I will need to not only address the abuse, but I will need to learn new skills, like (for example) how to behave in a normal social setting (!!) without appearing aloof, ungrateful, insecure, or not completely present. Old habits will have to die. New ones will have to form.

Clip-art free from http://clipart-library.com/clipart/8c6ozLEri.htm

But the "normal" I thought I was in 2009 and again in 2015 isn't the normal that I hope to be now. 

And more and more I am realizing that normal, as I used to tell my kids, is just a setting on the washing machine. The real "normal" is a moving target. It changes with the situation and with one's level of emotional maturity, which can be at different levels in different situations. Quite confusing! In many ways I feel like poor Wile E. Coyote, trying to catch the Road Runner. There's no catching him. He comes out of nowhere, disappears in a flash of flames, and leaves Wile E. Coyote slack-jawed (and usually injured.) Many times, I am bewildered and overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task ahead.

What is so confusing is the idea that in order to move on, I must "integrate" my experience of abuse into me, make it a part of me, but not be overcome or overwhelmed by it. It seems impossible. All those hurtful words and blows ... well, they are not going to go away. But somehow I need to make meaning (to use a psychotherapy term) out of those experiences and use them and the lessons learned from them to not only get some closure, but also to be able to use them to help others to heal. And that is my goal in this process.

And even though I know a lot about therapy as a grad student studying counseling, I find that as a client, I am just as vulnerable and just as fearful as any client would be about that process. Going through this really gives me an appreciation of how there absolutely needs to be an atmosphere of trust between client and therapist before progress can happen. This is private stuff ... and if I don't feel totally accepted, there is no way I can open up the starting gate and get into specifics. 

But my therapist is doing all the right things to create that atmosphere, to help me look after myself, and to help me find ways to ground myself when I'm stressed. And the next time I see her, she tells me, we will start opening that gate. It won't be for another couple of weeks... but that's okay. Slow and steady is the best way. Which makes me think that if just I sit still and accept what comes, maybe the Road Runner will stop running so fast and come pay me a visit.

Do not pass go

I had an experience on Wednesday of last week (October 17, 2018) and it has taken me quite some time to be able to put that experience - and my feelings about it - into words.

Those of you who know me well, know that for the last few years I have been working toward becoming a counsellor. In the last year, I struggled to find a practicum site in my own province and found nothing that was available, which would accept my university's requirement to have me videotaped while I was in session with a client (so my distance-education professors could see me in action). I ended up looking in a neighbouring province and found a placement there. I therefore moved to that city and leased an apartment, essentially doubling my monthly expenses (and more) with my salary reduced by half so I had sufficient time to spend on my clinical hours.  The practicum, I told people, would last for 8 months, followed by my part-time employment with the agency for another year at least. The plan was set - I was living alone for the first time in my life, and managing. But I was quite homesick, and it took a lot of energy to just function.

Without going into the gory details, of which there are many, the placement didn't work out for quite a number of reasons, and I was "let go" (read: raked over the coals and told to leave and not come back) a little over a week ago. The ordeal took about four and a half hours from start to finish; it was very traumatic and hurtful, and struck to the very core of who I am. I had thought that things were improving after a rough start, so this development blindsided me and left me in shock for days. 

Photo "Sad Woman Sitting Alone In Room" courtesy of
FrameAngel at www.freedigitalphotos.net

I have been pinging around in the stages of grief ever since that day. At the moment, I am bouncing between anger and depression. I know that it will pass, eventually, but going through it is no picnic. The whole experience made me realize that I have never fully addressed my traumatic childhood and its ripple effects in my current life (hypersensitivity, insecurity, fear, suspicion, etc.) If the experience highlighted anything for me, it was that until I can put these issues to rest, I will not be able to fully be present for any future clients I might have. Any hope of resuming my graduate program rests, therefore, on my own mental health, which at the moment is quite frail.

I have spoken with my doctor to ask him to refer me to a psychologist, which he has done. Fortunately, my health care insurance company will pay for 80% of the cost of any sessions I have (up to a certain ceiling amount) - and knowing the depth of my issues, I foresee needing long-term therapy to delve into some of these very difficult traumas from my past as well as their fall-out in my daily life. 

In a major way, I feel like I've gotten a "Go To Jail" card in the Monopoly game of my life (Go Directly To Jail - do not pass Go, do not collect $200). I cannot proceed until I receive my "Get Out Of Jail" card. Until then, I will keep rolling the dice while others progress on their own paths.

I have had a lot of reactions to what happened, some healthy, some not so much. In a sense, I am somewhat grateful that this surfaced before I screwed up with a client or something. 

In another sense, I want the ground to open up and swallow me. Shame is my constant companion. Grief (from losing my future career, quite possibly) crashes over me and I sometimes cannot even breathe, it is so intense. The circumstances of my loss fill my nightmares, attack my character, condemn me for my naivete. Basically, I am keenly aware that I mortgaged my future and locked myself into a planned early retirement to do this, only to fail. True that my supervisor was the worst possible fit for my personality, but that takes none of the pain away.

Everything is an effort, and there is much to do. I have been trying to extricate myself from the life I have built away from my home - putting my apartment on the market again (hopefully sooner than later), cancelling my flight to Alberta that I booked for school, cancelling an order for furniture for my home office, etc. - and coming to terms with having to go back home in disgrace.

One of my close friends in the grad program asked me to tell her what she could do to support me. While her question is a valid (and sweet) one, I honestly don't know what to tell her. I cannot say when (or if) I will resume my graduate program. I told my professor it would be next September; I hope so, but I cannot be sure of that. This experience has shaken me to my roots. It has demolished the core of who I am and made me question everything I thought I was. It is by far the worst thing I have ever had to endure, and that includes losing my daughter five years ago. For that admission, I feel guilty as well, but I have also learned that trauma is cumulative ... which means that the more unresolved trauma you have, the worse it affects you every. single. time. 

I know that a lot of people will judge me for my failure, and for my reaction to it. They will judge me for my choices. They will judge me for my feelings. But I also know that those people do not know what it is like to be me, because they have never lived my life. What I need most from the people who are in my life is understanding, and support, and empathy. I need them to build me up, not kick me when I'm down. I had enough of that - in the last little while - to last six lifetimes. 

I tell you this, my readers, so that if I talk about my journey, whatever form that takes, you will recognize that this is just one more layer of Getting Unwrapped. This is one more (painful as it is) phase in my growing process. And hopefully, someone somewhere will find my raw musings to be helpful. 

I have also learned, over the years, that most people don't want to hear about tough stuff unless someone has already gone through the tough parts and came through to the other side, and can inspire them. I'll be rigorously honest. Right now, I cannot do that. Right now, my spirit is bleeding, and tender, and disfigured. Right now, I am not fit company to be around because I am super-sensitive to what people say ... and especially to what they think about me. I am not able to "bounce back" from this kind of devastation without help. I cannot put on a happy face when everything I am is pulverized, when everything I have built my self-perception on is in question. 

What I can be is genuine. What I can be is open and willing to do what is necessary to rid myself of the things in me that hurt others. What I can be is what I am: broken. In my brokenness, in my vulnerability, I have asked for help from those who are trained to help. I do not expect my friends and family to "fix" me ... but I hope that they will be gracious and understand that I am doing what I can to heal. 

Pariahs in Pain

Watching someone day in and day out who is in chronic pain (like my daughter is - fibromyalgia, stage III osteoarthritis, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, asthma, and chronic cluster vertebrobasilar migraines) can make a person question the purpose of pain and wish that pain didn't exist. 

However, as unpleasant as pain is, it serves an important purpose. Pain is the body's way of signaling the brain that there is a problem and that it needs attention. Without the ability to feel pain, one might get burnt (severely) without knowing it, or ignore a serious - perhaps life-threatening - condition (such as a heart problem or a severe infection in the body that could cause respiratory failure!)

Pain is intended to be an early-warning system that tells us that something needs our immediate attention. When we heed that warning, we can get help before a problem becomes worse, even fatal. When we ignore it, the pain continues and the problem can become much more serious. When pain is chronic, not only does the body suffer, but the mind does as well. Scientists have linked chronic pain to a host of mental illness, most notably depression (see this link to the Mayo Clinic).

When the cause of the pain is obvious, sufferers frequently receive empathy and understanding from those in the medical profession and among their friends and acquaintances. When the pain is hard to pinpoint, or there seems to be no physical reason for it, the empathy tends to fizzle, and judgment begins.  A prior physician firmly believed that our daughter's pain was a clear-cut case of malingering ... which means that he thought she was faking her pain to get benefits. Having lived with her all her life, we knew differently, but unfortunately, this is the reaction some people have to face things that they cannot explain away with pat answers or banish with pills. People want to be around beautiful, healthy people with no problems. They don't want to hear about the daily struggle of having to get out of bed and do things that they take for granted. They ask how you are, but they don't really want to know the truth; it's just a polite noise people make. Rare is the person who will stop and really want to know how you are. It's human nature to want to avoid unpleasant things. The sad side-effect of this is that those who suffer chronic pain or disease (especially if the disability is 'invisible') become the ones nobody wants to associate with, or pariahs. A pariah - for those who don't know - is an outcast, a non-person ... a social leper.

In the same way, those who suffer from chronic emotional pain can also end up becoming pariahs. Emotional pain is like physical pain. Its purpose is to alert us that something is wrong and needs attention. But our society is so performance-oriented and perfectionistic that often, these early warning signs get ignored and the pain goes underground ... only to resurface in areas we weren't expecting.  

Photo "Lonely Woman On
The Beach" by Sira Anamwong
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Nobody wants to be around someone who is sad or angry, and so we sufferers put on a mask, pretend, and ignore the pain. If folks were more accepting, and more approachable, we might feel more free about being honest about how we feel. But we've learned that the reaction of a great many people is one of condemnation. Sadly, folks seem to only want to know about our pain AFTER it is done and we have dealt with it and moved on, or overcome it. Perhaps if we had just dealt with it and discovered why we were in emotional pain and start to look after ourselves in those areas, the pain might not be there or be as intense. 

Yet by the time it becomes chronic, ignoring those early messages of emotional pain has made us numb to them. The saddest part is that the numbing also numbs the happier, more pleasant emotions as well; our emotional centre can't tell the difference between "good" and "bad" emotions - they're just emotions. So to protect itself, it shuts them ALL down.  The only ones that tend to get through now are the stronger, more violent emotions - like anger, fear, and sadness. Peace and joy and love get suppressed, or worse yet, warped by being filtered through the anger, fear and sadness.

Enter chronic depression, anxiety, and/or post-traumatic stress, depending on the circumstances that led to our pain. Wow. Talk about being a pariah? NOW we're in for it. As intolerant a some folks can be of unexplained physical pain, they seem to be doubly intolerant of emotional pain. This attitude of intolerance is toxic to us. So we withdraw. We isolate. And that just cements their opinion that we aren't worth the effort. They move on to more pleasant encounters. And we get left behind. 

I identify with those in pain because I am in pain. My disabilities are invisible - and sometimes I feel like I am invisible too. All of society seems hell-bent on criticizing and condemning things about me that I consider strengths: my introversion, my sensitivity, my empathy, and the list goes on. I've battled these prejudices all of my life.  And now, because of my invisible ailments like multiple chemical sensitivities, degenerative disc disease, and the like, I find that I am just another pariah in pain. I feel as though I have to explain over and over again why I can't go to events that "everyone" is going to. People assume that I'm antisocial, when truth be told, I just don't want to have to battle invisible clouds that mean nothing to people who aren't affected by artificial scent. Or, I don't want to stand on cement floors and ache for the next three days.  Little matter the reasons. It's part and parcel of the kind of "if you are not like us in every way, then you are not one of us" reasoning. (Don't get me started on that one.)

What am I saying? 

It's okay to hurt, if you hurt. Pain is not a bad thing. It's unpleasant, to be sure, but it is not bad in and of itself.  It is a signal that something is amiss somewhere, and the sooner we pay attention to that, and get help, the better off we are. But just because someone suffers (physical or emotional) pain on a regular basis, that doesn't make them evil or to be avoided or judged.  It makes them in need of understanding, compassion, and acceptance.

Acceptance is key. I wish we all were better at it, but it's not something that comes naturally; we have to work at it. But I figure, until more people are willing to come forward, like I just did, and talk about it, we'll just keep on being pariahs in pain.

The right to take up space

Some time ago, I was watching a comedian on television do his routine.  Comedians are sometimes the only people who can get away with telling truth because they tell it in a funny way (they hope). This comedian's name was Greg Rogell, and the line I remember most is when he started talking about golf and golf caddies. "Golf is the only sport that comes with a slave." He then started to demonstrate. He held his microphone like it was a golf club, made the classic golf swing with it, and then dropped the mike on the floor and walked away.

While that was funny, Mr. Rogell was also highlighting an attitude that exists not only in golf, but in everyday life.  Some people, for reasons that still mystify me, have a really hard time with the simple concepts of saying Please and Thank you.  If someone puts themselves out to help them, especially if that putting out is physically or psychologically hard for them, you'd think that "thank you" might be on the list of things to say.  Treating people with courtesy, respecting their personhood, would seem to be a basic skill.

But no. Instead, such people are more likely to find fault with something else that same person is NOT doing, but which they never said they expected. Since different people have different priorities, it is impossible to read minds; expectations need to be stated at the outset, even if it might seem like a no-brainer.  For example, I'm more of a sit-and-visit kind of person; the housework can wait.  For others, housework is this huge thing and they can't sit and visit until it's out of the way. So my sitting and visiting is like laziness to them, perhaps even inconsideration. Yet their refusal to sit and visit until the housework is done tells me that things and appearances are more important to them than friendship and spending time with people. Dishes don't have feelings. People do.  

And yet, who is it that apologizes when the topic comes up? Typically it has been me - because no matter which way you slice it, for whatever reason, I usually end up looking like the one in the wrong... and I have been cow-towing to guilt trips my whole life.

All of my life, I have been fighting for the right - taken for granted by most - to take up space in the world, to be appreciated, and to own my own feelings and opinions without being told (verbally or non-verbally) that they are insignificant. Or wrong.  Or whatever other negative adjective you might want to use.  I'm uncomfortable with confrontation, and my natural response is to withdraw or feel bad for friction existing between people - even if I'm not one of those people. The fact that it exists makes me feel and act guilty.  I lose sleep. I get far more upset for far longer than I need to. Often, I feel like if I screamed at the top of my lungs to be heard, nobody would listen anyway; even if I have something important to say, a large part of me doesn't believe anyone will pay attention to it. 

Photo "Businesswoman Asking To Stop" by imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Maybe (and I know that this is a rather big logical jump for some) maybe a big part of it has to do with the fact that I'm under five feet tall. Not being taken seriously because of my height, not having my short legs taken into consideration when doing tasks that take an average-sized person about half the number of steps it takes me, and being twitted (or laughed at) for something over which I have no control, is one of those sore spots with me, because I've had to put up with it all of my life.  

People do it without thinking of the consequences, and they think that by doing so they are funny, or somehow superior.  As if it is by some accomplishment of theirs that things are easier for them (when it is simply a fluke of DNA), they criticize (or laugh) and tell me to keep up. (By the way, these are the people who treat me like a slave without saying thank you...)  Or they laugh and tell me to stand up (when I'm already standing.) Or they worry out loud (like someone did once), when I drop a few pounds, that I'll "disappear."  One person even looked past me and asked where I was ... pretended he couldn't see me.

Ouch!  That behavior and those kinds of statements convey dismissal of my existence and (knowingly or not) they are an attack on my worth.  They reduce all that I am down to what I look like on the outside, and they fail to acknowledge accomplishments that a regular-sized person would be proud of and never would expect to have called into question. Yet it happens to me all the time! Because of that patronizing "I'm better than you, and you don't even have the right to exist" mentality, this kind of belittlement (no pun intended) really hurts. 

In the past, I wouldn't say anything when people treated me this way (or worse yet, I would try to laugh it off), but all that succeeded in doing was (a) send the message that I was okay with it, and (b) make my resentment grow and grow so that finally, I would explode - and not in a nice way.  Someone would invariably get hurt.  And then I would end up looking like the bad guy.  After all, they were "only having fun." Or worse yet, they considered their fun-loving nature (read here: cruelty) to be part of their personality, and took my affront to their unthinking behavior as a personal attack against them.  Suddenly they were the injured party.

Wow. What is worse, I would beat myself up for weeks, months, sometimes even years, for something that at the source, had more to do with someone else's thoughtlessness and insecurity than it did about my reaction to it. It's what kept me in abusive relationships with some people for far too long.

So I'm looking at things a little differently now.  I am telling myself that I have a right to take up space, that my feelings and opinions matter and are valid, and that I have the right to tell someone who is behaving like a jerk toward me that they're behaving like a jerk.  I have the right to expect an apology from them, (not the other way around) and I have the right to require them to be accountable for their actions, to realize that they can't just say any old thing they want to and to blazes with the consequences.  I have the right to be angry when that happens, to work through that anger and to take the time that I need to do that fully before moving past it and on with my life, with - or without - them.  

Maybe someday soon, I might even act on those new ways of thinking. 

Stranger things have happened.

Acceptance - the royal road

I learned a new word this week: "microagressions." These are tiny, almost subconscious ways in which aggressors mistreat those they target, based on a belief that the other person is 'wrong', 'misguided', 'stupid', 'lazy', 'over-sensitive', or whatever. This is usually the case when aggressors have prejudged someone on the basis of his or her race, religious belief, lifestyle, appearance, gender identity, etc. These microaggressions can come out in the workplace as increased scrutiny (careful examination) of the quality of someone's work (over and above what would be done to another person in the same job), a dismissive attitude of what someone says or contributes, or even just a raised eyebrow (indicating the aggressor doesn't believe what the person is saying). 

Those who feel subjugated as a result of microaggressions lose motivation (they're going to find fault with what I do anyway, so why even try?) and may even succumb to physical illness more frequently as a result of significantly increased stress.

Microagressions are particularly problematic in the helping professions, where there is an inherent imbalance of power. Counsellors, pastors, doctors, and nurses (among others) are held to a higher ethical standard and yet ... abuses occur every day. Patients are not believed, their legitimate symptoms "gas-lighted". People in pain because of a specific problem are turned away (or worse yet, turned into a personal project to "convert") when they reveal a totally unrelated lifestyle not considered acceptable by the helper. It happens every day!

The more I study counselling, the more I realize that the key to becoming a good counsellor - indeed, the key to becoming a better person - is acceptance of other people, regardless of how different they are from me, my thoughts, and my beliefs.  This is much more than just "love the sinner, hate the sin." It goes WAY beyond that fallacy.  It involves a deep-seated belief that every single person has the right to be who they are and feel what they feel. That belief is HARD to cultivate... but it is crucial.  If it is not there, I could turn into (or perhaps continue to be) a microaggressor. 

People who habitually commit microaggressions rarely see their behaviour as aggressive or prejudicial.  They usually consider themselves to be wonderful, caring people ... and they may be in some contexts ... but there is this huge blind spot that obstructs their ability to accept that the other person has just as much right to be there as they do.

I have been the target of microaggressions.  The perpetrators were simply acting on their core beliefs, based on their own chosen lifestyles, that (for example) all short people never become adults and should not be taken seriously, that all fat people are lazy, ugly and stupid, that all Christians are crazy bigoted right-wingnuts, that all depressed people are suicidal, that all civilians (or non-professionals) are ignorant, and so forth. It's probably not obvious to anyone watching, and certainly not to those who have acted on those beliefs, because they cover it up with a veneer of civility and respectability.  Yet ... it exists.

Photo "Conflict In The Office" courtesy of
franky242 at  www.freedigitalphotos.net

I've also watched people commit microaggressions against others without them even realizing it, and I have seen the results in their victims ... who feel as though they have just been bullied, but can't quite put their finger on how.   All they know is that they feel belittled, condescended to / patronized, and made to feel powerless .... like the person who makes a mistake at work (due to a misunderstanding) and is not called into the supervisor's office to chat one-on-one, but is confronted about the mistake in front of his or her co-workers.  The co-workers (not being the ones under attack) can easily identify the conversation as one that should have been conducted in private. Why wasn't it?  The microaggressor (for whatever reason) believes that the person in question does not merit that kind of consideration ... whether that belief is on a conscious or subconscious level.  Often the victim's feelings don't happen during the encounter but afterward, after the shock of the (usually verbal) assault wears off.  This is how bullies get away with bullying.  Talk about feeling ambushed!  Not to mention vulnerable, helpless, trapped, and a whole host of other unpleasant things. 

Those feelings (though unpleasant) are VALUABLE because they are the brain's early warning system: danger, danger, danger!  They can lead you and me to recognize when such things are happening and to speak out against them, so as to do something to stop them from happening again.  Nobody has the right to be treated like a disposable person, a worthless piece of junk.  NOBODY. 

And truly, acceptance (valuing the other person as a person, with the same rights as anyone else) is the key.  It is the royal road to creating a safe place where non-judgmental, non-aggressive conversations can happen.  It is much easier to create that safe place when two people are on a par with each other, where one does not hold power over another, where one is not more qualified than another.  However, it becomes far more difficult (yet still equally as important, if not more so) when there is an imbalance of power. 

Raising awareness is only the first step in addressing this problem.  I've used the example here of a co-worker with a supervisor, but this could apply to pretty much every arena where there is a perceived difference in the level of power two people hold.  People in positions of power or influence MUST learn that the fact that they hold more power makes them more accountable for the way they treat those who have less ... or none.

FEEL what you feel

2016.  Wow. 

As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make.  Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me.  However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel. 

It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it?  But I am serious!  

I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently.  It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth.  Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!

The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time.  The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes.  But they are not the culprit.  We are.

The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it.  But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.  

Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.  

The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations!  Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.  

I look at it this way.  Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul.  We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not).  When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not.  Just so with our feelings.  Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not.  Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.  

Photo "Silhouette Of A Man On The Rocks At Sunset" 
courtesy of satit_srihin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion.  And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so.  What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?  

A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.

Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed.  It's how we are built.  It's what we do.  And it's how we can really live. 

Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it!  If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song:  "... I just wanna live while I'm alive."  (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).