Once I saw God's Face

Experiencing suffering that pushes humanity beyond its reasonable limits awakens the soul to reality. When humans experience this reality it's like seeing the face of God. No one really returns once they see the face of God. I know I didn't.  But I live, and because I live I have the opportunity (perhaps the responsibility) to know God. After all, I saw His face. He is a snowflake today, and the fur of my dog, and the kindnes of my husband when he brings me coffee. He is also the salt of my tears and the tremble in my hand. It is my right and it is my responsibility.... and it is my joy as well as my sadness to know Him in these things.

Angry Compassion

"Pain accompanies compassion" I said, and the sentence bounced around in my skull while a hot flash of anger surged through my body literally making my cheeks burn red. I needed to decelerate, but the concepts keep echoing so I also need to explore them.

I'm making a doll for L.A. It's an attempt at connecting with her and showing her some kindness. It's a compassionate act. It's not empathy, because I don't think I can handle feeling her pain. So how is compassion different from empathy? Empathy is feeling the suffering of others, and compassion is the active relative of empathy - it seeks to alleviate the suffering of others in a loving way. Ouch.

Compassion rises out of some very real and primal feelings. I have lacked compassion for myself, and in fact have startled myself on occasion with my callous disregard for my pain. For example, when watching a woman on tv fight off a would-be rapist, I felt disdain for her, thinking "why fuss so much? It's not like he's gonna kill you, it's just sex." Once (or many times) when feeling sad or frustrated because I am too tired to go out, I become outraged with myself for not having the strength to get beyond my petty issues like being forced to eat dog shit after swallowing cum as a toddler. Seriously. That's a distinct lack of compassion. And now suddenly I am faced with the possibility of having compassion upon myself and in fact cognitively recognize the importance of having compassion upon myself and I am outraged....I think because in order to feel the compassion and work to alleviate my own suffering I have to acknowledge the suffering and perhaps even feel it a little. Ouch.

But kicking myself in the ass and telling myself to get the fuck over it is simply ineffective.

Punishing myself for feeling is also ineffective.

Immersing myself in the pain in a muddled empathetic/pity laden decomposition of stability is also ineffective.

Compassion serves to alleviate suffering, and so there is an acknowledgement of suffering and thus I feel pain. The pain is so intense and so deep I ground myself with rage. I suppose this cycle will someday be ineffective, but for now it is the reality I have. My cheeks were burning in anger because I cannot yet feel the pain.

Revenge vs. Compassion

I watched a movie in which 4 teen boys were brutally sodomized. Two grew up thugs, 2 were relatively successful. They had a chance to exact revenge upon their perpetrators, and through an elaborate set up accomplished just that! At one point their plan hinged upon a priest who had befriended them in their youth lying under oath in a court of law. I adamantly expressed that I wanted him to. I felt strongly that he should. I was sure I would. Lying under oath is something that I didn't think I would ever do, but in the context of this movie I was sure, absolutely positive that I would. I figured God would WANT it for there to be true justice. And then I got angry, because I can never exact revenge upon my perpetrators. I felt rage because I am powerless. I have felt rage all my life, it seems. What do I get, when I cannot get revenge?

I thought of Mandela's quote, the thing about how he knew he had to leave the hatred and bitterness behind or he would remain in prison. Those boys in the movie, they succeeded in getting revenge but the thugs ended up dead shortly after and the other two led empty lives. The revenge did nothing to assuage the searing pain that is betrayal. I thought of my own betrayal, the little child with the searing emotional pain that was so intolerable she never walked through it to the other side. Would revenge mean anything to her?  For a moment I saw her - wrapped up in her pain - and I felt compassion. That is what I get in place of revenge, the opportunity to feel compassion. I don't hate the man who brutalized me, I feel more of a general hatred and if I try to push myself to find an object for that hate I become the object I hate. I have hated myself forever. I have been exacting revenge upon myself forever. I have never, ever forgiven that little child for not being able to stop the pain, for feeling that overwhelming betrayal, and for giving in to the terror. But today I felt compassion for her, because it became clear to me that a little child's capacity to cope with and make sense of astonishing betrayal is quite minimal. And this little child that was me did an amazing thing - she survived by dissociating. Furthermore, because of dissociation, I have crafted a life that gives me this opportunity - the opportunity to feel compassion.

Betrayal becomes a dark shadow in a person's life - and revenge does nothing to kill the shadow because a shadow is inseparable from the flesh. If you have a body, you will at times have a shadow. No amount of sex, booze, or self-hatred will dispense of the body's shadow. I suppose I could have lived in darkness all my life and never have to see the shadow, but how is that different from being a shadow? Today I looked at my shadow and realized that it is something with me and will always be with me as long as I am flesh and blood on this planet. I am okay with that. Sometimes I won't have to see the shadow, sometimes it will seem like it's all I am. But I know revenge won't get rid of it.

That leaves me with compassion. I have some for the little child. I remain indifferent to the perpetrator, and ambivalent to the other main figure in my life. But I can entertain the idea of compassion for both. I won't push myself too hard on that front. I will, however, practice compassion for self. Self is temporary, as it is, and so with limited time on this planet I might as well give my self credit for the incredible feat of survival. And there really is no reason to be afraid of my shadow - it is an echo of pain and terror too great to bear as a little girl but maybe not for a grown woman (in bits and pieces, when well rested, with tea and warm bed available, and a chihuahua to pet...)

If I don't let go of the bitterness and hatred, I will remain imprisoned by my shadow. I'd rather walk with my shadow, and tell the girls inside that it's okay to step into the sun every now and then.

It's unusual for me to be up at 3 am. My mind is spinning with deep thoughts on our political system (an aristocracy, run by wealthy elites who cater to their constituency,  the businesses. Dem and Rep alike, party identificatiin is meaningless and only feeds the beast. There is no lesser evil, no way to not throw your vote away. Unless you vote your conscience you are voting to keep the corporate politicians in place and human dignity will continue to erode.) But politics isn't the only rider on the carousel tonight. My mind is holding up the images of the nice guys at work, people I want to be friends with, people who are nice to me. I don't know how to navigate friendships with men and I've been crying because there are interesting people I work with, people I'd like to hang with, but with narcolepsy, dissociation, and trauma related anxiety I don't have the time and energy and skill set to make friends. One of the guys made a cd for me. I'm up in the middle of the night blogging about it because it made me cry. I fucking hate friends. I want friends. But there's more. I found an awesome pattern for knit dolls and I am obsessed with making one. It's important to me, LA, and Rae. Maybe to Prowler, too. I imagine the process, the outcome, the feel of the yarn and I cry some more. But more... I can't stop thinking about the class I started at school specifically to deal with minority issues. I am passionate about social justice. But what if I do great things at work and make a difference in someone's life and then end up in the psych ward cutting rows of shame into my arm and babbling about knit dollies? How much more damage will that do to the cause? Am I worthy or making a difference in some kid's life? And more tears come because I know I already have and it terrifies me. My boss and I we developing a plan to deal with some social justice issues at work. At the end she said "when we're done here we're going to have to write books" meaning we both had a lot to say and because of our jobs we are required to be very careful with our words. I told her when I retired I would be on the lecture circuit, speaking frankly about a lot of things. She said she would be in the audience. That makes me cry, too, and I'm tired of crying.

The difference between mental illness and physical illness

Engaging in a stirring controversial argument on a forum is scary. I was doing that, and dropped out, as my feelings were getting hurt. Instead I’ll hide behind a fake fucking name on a blog where no one knows me except by my dirtiest little secrets. But I won’t shut up, because I have something to say.

Here’s the controversial questions: Is there a difference between physical and mental illness? Does the difference or lack of matter?

I struggled with DID and depression and PTSD to the point of hospitalization. These are mental illnesses. I was trained to believe that since mental illness was “in my head” I could somehow get them out of my head. My theory was that if I could understand WHY  I was depressed, multiple, and freaked out then I could deal with the emotions related to that WHY and “let go” and get better. In the psych ward it was explained to me in a way I could finally understand that the reason I was multiple, sad, and had emotional reactions proportionately out of whack was because as a two year old I was sexually traumatized over a 6 week time period during which time my brain became hard-wired to do this shit. I’m not sure I have all the medical facts straight, but it has something to do with my hypothalamus getting too much adrenaline at a crucial developmental phase in its actual physical development and in a sense became physically brain damaged. Therefore, when I am undergoing periods of ‘normal’ stress, my brain reacts ‘abnormally’ and I freak out. One psychiatrist described it as my ‘hypothalamus throwing a big party.’ That’s a physical thing, folks. And it will never go away. The brain damage will never repair. Finally I WAS able to ‘let go’ of my old ideas of how to heal and I began to put into practice the cognitive behavioral therapy I was learning about – how to recognize when my body was over stimulated, how to breathe so that I could calm my physical self down so that my emotional self would follow, how to wait out a panic without contributing to it, how to change my life so that my stress levels could remain in a safe zone, and on and on. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness???? It seems pretty blurry to me. Especially considering I can take medicines that also help with these mental problems. If medicines help, which seems like a physical thing, how can the issues be simply mental? Is it dumb to even try to separate the two?

A dear friend once said that a physical illness comes from a physical cause and a mental illness comes from an emotional cause, hence my emotions caused my trauma and therefore I have a mental illness. I pointed out that schizophrenia has a physical origin, but is considered a mental illness. She said she considers schizophrenia a physical illness….so……

There’s these hypothetical twins. Genetically identical. Separated at birth. One twin grows up in a great home and starts smoking at 15 and gets cancer at 40. Physical illness, right? The other twin gets molested a few times by a neighbor, but otherwise grows up in a great home. His PTSD causes lots of anxiety, stress, and physical changes in his body and he has a compromised immune system because of it. All those factors cause this twin to also get cancer. But the twins live in a society that treats illnesses that are mental differently than they treat illnesses that are physical. And the society has determined that cancer from smoking is a physical illness and cancer from stress is a mental illness. The twin with the physical illness goes to one hospital where people treat him nicely, compassionately, and he gets cards from his co-workers that say “get well soon!” and “we miss you!” That twin gets a benefit that raises all sorts of money for his treatment because there is an outpouring of community support. Everyone on his street wears cancer awareness ribbons for a month while he heals. His strength and courage is noted in a touching news story. His wife talks about how hard it is and everyone listens and helps her out with daily living. People show they care.

But the other twin, the one with cancer because of mental stress, well, he doesn’t tell anyone what is wrong because he is afraid he might lose his job. Most people kind of know what’s wrong, but no one says anything openly. When he goes to the hospital for treatment even the staff, jaded and overworked, treat him as if he is to blame for his problems. No one except his mom visits him and he gets not one single get well card. His illness is pretty hush-hush, because mental illness has a stigma. People all SAY that it wasn’t his fault. People all SAY there is no stigma, but the fact remains that he didn’t get any get well cards and NO ONE wants to talk about his cancer. His isolation and lack of support drive him to a deep depression. His wife, working hard to be his sole support and take care of the house and do all the chores gets teased because her husband doesn’t contribute. She carries the burden silently, because there is no other option. No one shows they care openly, they only look upon her with pity once in awhile and in quiet voices occasionally ask how she’s doing, but it’s pretty obvious they don’t really want to know. Her husband’s guilt over what his sickness is doing to her does not help the cancer treatment. Which twin is more likely to heal? Or doesn’t that matter to you?

This hypothetical story is not over dramatized for effect. In fact, I toned it down because unless you have been to a psych ward, unless you have suffered a lifetime of mental illness, you wouldn’t believe how shitty the reality of social stigma is.

I have narcolepsy, too. That’s a neurological disorder with a physical cause. It’s a physical illness. Do you know that because of narcolepsy, I don’t get deep sleep? I am chronically sleep deprived. It’s like how you might feel after staying awake for 2 nights in  a row, only I feel that way every day. I had psychologists tell me my tiredness was due to emotional factors. But I had one doctor who insisted I seek a physical cause, and I did. I currently take a medicine that knocks me the fuck out at night and I get deep sleep. My mental illnesses have subsided tremendously. Deep sleep has given me healing like no cognitive behavioral therapy could ever give me. My emotional symptoms have shrunk down to so minimal, I don’t think I’d qualify as mentally ill anymore. Treating a bona fide physical illness has made my mental illness completely manageable. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness in that scenario???? Does it matter? Maybe not to you, but it does to me. Because should I stop getting my medicine covered by insurance or should it stop working, I might go bat shit crazy again. Then, like the poor cancer twin who had to go to the mental illness hospital because his cancer was caused by emotional trauma, I will have to seek medical help from the mental health professionals that treat me differently than the physical health professionals. And they do. Believe me, they do. And so does society. And friends. And family. They all do. Because they maybe don’t get that the stigma really exists and really does matter. And it wouldn’t exist if people would realize that the line between physical and mental illness is non-existent. There’s no line, folks. There’s a really blurry gray zone if anything. As science progresses, that gray zone will probably disappear. When will the stigma?

So stop saying it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical illness or a mental illness. You’re perpetuating the myth that there are two separate and distinct kinds of illnesses, and as long as there is a distinction there will be stigma. And I fucking HATE going to the psych ward and not getting any get well cards. It fucking hurts.

The Price You Pay for Laughter

I had fun today. No students were in the building, staff were all burned out with their end of year tasks, and I had just finished having a conversation with my friend about poop in an effort to distract myself from the urge to cry at my desk all out there in public. I was walking down the hall to ask the technology guy about our email system and I saw the teacher from across the hall standing over what looked like a gurney or a surgical table or something. He was rolling it back and forth, asking the few of us out there in the hall what we thought it was. I voted for mobile surgical table.  So then he says "hey, someone jump on here. Let's take it for a ride." We all laughed and blew him off. But he said it again, and I thought "what the hell?" He stabilized it while I climbed on (not easy) and off we went down the hall with me screaming "I'm flying! I'm flying!" Teachers appeared in their doorways the length of the hallway. It was really fun.

My friend encouraged me to go out after work with everyone, but I declined. It is so much fun to gather with teachers at the end of the year. Teachers have a lot of steam to blow off, and drinks and summer are a lethal combination. I had to decline. I have been going home every day and crying or screaming myself to sleep for a week. I'm exhausted. I knew that going out, even for an hour, would wear me out like I had partied for 3 days straight, snorting coke and doing shots and dancing. Even if I didn't drink. I declined because my grandchildren are coming to visit tomorrow from the city and staying for 3 weeks. I declined because I still have work to do to end the school year and so I need to pace myself with taking care of grandkids, doing household chores, and taking time for naps. I declined because as fun as it is to listen to the teachers make witty comments about each other, the students, and the admin, it is a great lot of emotional and intellectual work to stay distant enough that I don't over share yet intimate enough to be a part of the group. I declined because I am fragile and raw, and if someone says something to me that I decide to take as a dagger to my soul, I might fly into a rage and loose the respect of those I work with.

I decided to go home, walk the chihuahuas for a few minutes, clean off the kitchen counter, and start a load of laundry. I cried a fair bit. I know it's bad when I do minor shit like blow my nose into my tshirt because getting off the chair seems undoable. Eventually  I rose up to get tissue, but my legs hurt like a mother fucker. I'm tired. This tiredness is a soul crushing, made worse by the fact I was carted down the hallway at top speeds laughing and screaming and having fun.

narcolepsy

I have been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists for 31 years. I have been seeing medical doctors for 46 years. Yesterday, for the first time ever, one of them said to me "you will never really feel good. Treatment for narcolepsy is an attempt to get you functional. You will spend a lot of time educating your friends and coworkers about narcolepsy and why you feel tired all the time. People won't understand."

You could easily substitute "depression" for "narcolepsy" but doctors never tell you that you will never get better from that. Nor do doctors ever tell you to educate your co-workers about your mental illness. Mental illness is to be hidden, overcome, coped with, and for God's sake not talked about at work. Neurological disorders, however, can be.

Here I have been suffering mostly silently for 31 years....and now because I have a label for my suffering that is recognized as neurological it is okay to educate my co-workers.  Fuck you society and fuck your mental health sigmas.