“These little earthquakes…here they go again.” -Tori Amos

Tags

being ALIVE, bravery, DBT, emotions, Intensity, journey, mental illness, recovery, thesamedifferent

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word recover.  We talk about recovery in terms of physical illness and injury; you can recover from cancer, a broken arm, a sunburn.  These all have fixed endpoints, clear indicators of when healing has occurred.

Then there is recovery in the sense that you regain something that you’ve lost, like recovering a document after your computer crashes.  This, too, is specific, tangible.

With mental illness, though, recovery seems murky, nebulous.  I keep hoping there is some plateau I will reach when everything will even out and things will feel firm and easy.  The more I search for that, however, the less I believe that it exists.

I’ve changed behaviors related to my illness, certainly, and I’ve not been in the hospital in months.  These are markers, I guess, of being in a different space.  But emotionally, I still feel the tremors of despair and sadness and anxiety.  Perhaps this is what recovering is? Responding to the big, painful feelings in a different way? Not being rid of them, but accepting that they will always be present, learning to allow room for them rather than running?

It’s not what I had initially hoped for.  When I made the choice, about a year ago, to shift my focus to living, I did it with the mindset that I might, someday, feel differently.  More and more, though, I believe that my life will always be a series of earthquakes, that seismic emotions will constantly brew under the surface.  I think I’ve just gotten better at functioning with them present-and am still constantly working at improving even more.

I’m not writing this to convey hopelessness, and it might be true for some people with mental illness that they reach a place which is entirely new, a state of “being recovered”.  But for me, this is a chronic part of my life, and though not who I am, very much connected to it.  And sometimes I wonder that, once you have almost died, once you have gone to such extremes, once you have felt dehumanized by a system and lost completely, if you ever totally come back.

It may just be where my head is at right now; exhausted, scared about the future, overwhelmed by a crush of different feelings.  I think there is a little sense of peace, though, in acknowledging that things might always be rocky for me.  In that imperfection there is space to stretch and grow, to make mistakes and learn from them, even if at times it’s painful and slow.

Recovered means I’m stagnant, a marble statue representing health and wholeness in a Psychiatric textbook.  Recovery means I get to keep living every day in my humanness, moving forwards and backwards as I try to figure out who I am, what I want, and how I can embrace my sensitivity and intensity.  It is living with the emotional earthquakes, not shutting down or self-destructing because of them-and maybe even, sometimes, causing the rest of the world to tremble too…for it’s the ground shifting beneath us that makes us stop to re-evaluate, try something new-pushes us to soar. 

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” -Rumi

Tags

change, dark, dialectics, Ghandi, light, Living, the bus, thesamedifferent

It’s the hardest of simple things, and the

heaviest of lite loads,

that all i have to do,

and all i can do,

is put one foot in front of the other,

with my eyes truly open,

and notice the gentle ways in which

i can shake the world,

walking out of my wounded Darkness

and into my own

Light.

“WHY you lost your paperclips?!?” -John John

Tags

change, children, emotions, human, Intensity, labels, Living, paperclips, skillz, thesamedifferent, vulnerability

I was a fabulous teacher. If you’re thinking it sounds self-centered for me to state that, don’t worry-I’m thinking that too, and saying it anyways. I was a fabulous teacher.  I was a fabulous teacher because I would have done the job for no money at all (and it’s a sad truth that many teachers would say the same and many make so little that it is virtually true). I was fabulous because many of the traits that make me Me are traits found in Fabulous Teachers I’ve worked with or had.  Fabulous Teaching traits, and traits that I have when I am in my Sarahness. They are are these: I listen, and I allow people to come as they are.  What makes it Truly Fabulous, though, is that those are two traits children naturally possess, in a way that is so beautifully raw because they aren’t aware that they possess them.

You might be thinking I’m crazy (and I don’t use that word lightly!); anyone who has taught preschool, or had a child, or known a 3 year-old, would have good evidence to say kids can’t listen to save their lives (and I don’t use that phrase lightly, either!).  You need only watch 1 minute of a typical circle time to have concrete behavioral examples of how challenging it can be for young children to listen to each other.  But what I know to be true is that it isn’t challenging at all, it just has to be worth it.

Humans, little and big, young and old, make change only when they are personally invested.  The layers of that investment might be thick; someone’s reason to change might be that changing will ease the suffering of those they care about, thus easing their own suffering.  “I’m not going to binge today because I know that when I binge, people I love worry more, and it helps me when I help others not worry.” Or the layers might be thinner, more obvious: “I feel less physical discomfort when I eat one cookie instead of three, so I’m only going to eat one right now.”

We call children under a certain age “ego-centric” because they are; they can’t imagine that the way they experience the world isn’t the way everyone else does.  It’s something we try to teach out of them.  But, ultimately, all humans are ego-centric, regardless of age.  We all act only when it is worth it, on some level, to do so.  We all struggle to see outside our own lens of experience.  The problem is, we “adults” add layers of shame and guilt and fear onto this-we tell ourselves we should be able to step into someone else’s shoes, that acting for selfish reasons is selfish, and that selfish is bad.  But ultimately, we are all always acting for selfish reasons, no matter what.  Children just aren’t afraid to be blatantly selfish, until we show them that they should be.  We do this out of love and a desire to protect them, but what we really do is protect them from being their True Selves, give them the message that showing up as you are is not always okay, especially if “as you are” is Intensely Intense.

I stumbled upon this clip from an old Sesame Street show the other day, and I think it is brilliant.  It is brilliant because I remember watching it as a kid and seeing it as entertainment, and wanting to find some paperclips after the end of the episode.  And it is brilliant because when I watch it now, I see something totally different.  I see a little boy who is listening intently, and picking up cues, and becoming more and more confused because the experience he is having doesn’t match other experiences he’s had.  People don’t usually express Sadness, Anger, and Happiness all within a 1 minute, 25 second span (when they do, we label it disordered).  He, at the age of three, knows this, because he is unable to do what the puppet is asking him to do-show on his face what it looks like to be genuinely Sad or Angry or Happy.  Because he’s not any of those things, he’s totally, legitimately, confused.

 

John John does, in this brief clip, what I know kids to be innately capable of, when given the chance and motivated by their own desires: He listens, and he allows space for this puppet to come exactly as he is-Sad, Angry, Happy.  He does this naturally, despite his own confusion.  He teaches me more about emotion regulation and non-judgment than the adult human behind the puppet.

So, in my cyclical, long-threaded way, I’m back to this: I was a fabulous teacher. Because I didn’t teach at all.  Because I recognized, early on, that kids are the true teachers.  I got the privilege of observing them closely, of watching and listening and describing their journey as they made messes, literally and figuratively, and figured out entirely on their own how to clean them up.  And because I got to do that, I also got to listen to them, when they needed it, and to always make sure to tell them that it is okay to come as you are.  In telling them that, I was telling myself.  My human selfishness was that, in telling an intensely sad child that it is okay to cry and be intensely sad, I was telling myself that, too.  In writing these words I’m telling myself that right now.  And isn’t that what fabulous teaching is all about?

“I am thesamedifferent” -me

Tags

dialectics, Living, panicjoy, skillz, thesamedifferent, voice, vulnerability, words

I’ve written about thesamedifferent all my life, dancing around the concept by using Words like Change and Stagnation and Light and Dark.  A superhero and cherished friend of mine calls it “showing up differently” and “rising up” and using one’s authentic Voice.  Another superherofriend calls it using skills and Living Your Truth, based on an amazing book we both read.  Yet another superhero I’ve been lucky enough to know calls it “living my Sarahness.”

Today, in this moment, thesamedifferent means I am living in my Sarahness.  I’m also starting to recognize the smallest of ways I’ve been the true Sarah all along, shine the light a little through that darkness.  That’s where the different comes in.  I’m the same as I’ve always been, and entirely different all at once-thesamedifferent.

It’s thesamedifferent that I’m using my own Word to explain my current internal experience, not the words of anyone else.  It’s thesamedifferent that I’m using my own wild, trembling Voice to share this Word.  It’s thesamedifferent that last night, the night before my final Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills group, I chose not to use skills, and instead used old behaviors to cope with overwhelm and panicjoy.  It’s thesamedifferent because, instead of wallowing in the shame of my choice, I’m holding my choice up to the light, and telling myself it makes sense, that it’s okay, and that I can make the choice to never do it again.  And it’s thesamedifferent that now I’m able to speak those dialectics to myself.

Yet another superherofriend of mine was fabulous at shining the light on my natural ability to understand dialectics at a time when I wasn’t able to.  He gave me many gifts, in the form of True Words, as have all the superherofriends I’ve mentioned.  What unites those superherofriends, in my mind, in this moment, is that they live thesamedifferently in their various ways every. single. day.  They use the very skills they teach, though not all of them would call them skills or DBT, and they show up as their authentic selves even when it fills them with panicjoy.  It’s thesamedifferent that I can thank them, and the various providers and group members I’ve been lucky enough to share a little of this journey with, without giving up any of my Sarahness.  Because, in this moment, I am thesamedifferent.

“The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tags

change, Intensity, labels, mindfulness, ocean, panicjoy, storytelling, suicide, thesamedifferent, voice, war, words

Alert: this post may contain material that is triggering for some. If you find yourself in crisis, you can call 1-800-273-8255, or visit www.crisischat.org for support.

The “turning of the tide” is an idiom that has threaded itself through my journey; I give the Words themselves ownership because it is only today that I’m beginning to remember, and connect, the ways the phrase has surfaced and dove, dolphin-like, over the course of my Story.  It brings the Words War, and Ocean, and Change to my mind, allows them to shake off salt water drips and float in the air so I can look at them in new ways, brings up memories that my Brain has stored for, perhaps, just these moments.

I remember reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin in high school English and discussing Stigma and Sterotypes and slavery, writhing in my new attempt to understanding the suffering of others, of our country, of a people who were dehumanized in the most horrifying of ways and yet refused to be, who rose above their Labels through Song and Words and Community.

The author of the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe, is an imperfect (thank goodness, for aren’t we all??) model of a female writer who used Words to turn the tide, to impact and in some ways reverse public opinion, raised her Voice to shine a light on something inhumane, something difficult and scary to talk about.  It is a complicated, flawed, many-layered Story to think of a white woman writer telling the tale of black slavery, and the Messiness of it is the Beauty.

Looking back, reading that Story I was also peeling back some layers of my own, uncovering some Light and Resiliency and Hope.  Now I’m able to connect my story to theirs in some ways, for Stories are all thesamedifferent.  It is one small instance when my tide began to turn.  It is self-empowerment, as I start to stick my toes back in, shock my Brain Cells by dipping into my Memory Ocean, and dive in to the ways I have been answering my own Big Questions all along.

I also remember watching war documentaries with my father-Ken Burns’ Civil War series with the hauntingly Alive Ashokan Farewell (I had to stop and find this song in my iTunes library before I could continue typing-I’m listening to it as I write these Words-and in the spirit of imperfection, I found I had Labeled it “Alaskan Farewell.”), and a show telling some of the story of the Vietnam War protests that I remember only through memory flashes of tear gas and police barricades.  While I’m not certain that the exact phrase “turning of the tide” was used in either of these, I am confidant that, even as a small girl, the notion that the smallest of events can alter the course of history resonated in a deep, mysterious, rumbling way.

Because my Story, all along, has been about warfare, messy and thick with blood and bile.  Battles large and small have been lost and won.  Until very recently, the casualties were Voice and Trust, relationships and freedoms and jobs and Growth.  The fight was raging internally, showing up externally only though razor-clean cuts or bones visible through pale skin, crumpled candy wrappers in the bathroom garbage can, a bottle in a drawer.  These were all evidence of daily carnage, the wake left behind as I struggled against myself to save myself.  And though I couldn’t see it at the time, each was a separate turning of the tide, a “low ebb” that, when rolled up together, culminated in the motion of Change and Growth that is happening as I type these Words.

For now that I’m writing again, and Memory Diving, the tide is turning in Big, Beautiful, Terrifying ways.  And when I say Big, I mean large for me, grand in the sense of my own Story.  Because I’ve found a way to turn the internal battle outwards, to shine a little light on ways it is challenging for me to be me in this world.  The warfare is different now.  I’m speaking my Truth instead of smothering myself in shame.  I can bleed safely, release some of my Intense Intensity in ways that free me rather than harm me, ways that are less scary and confusing for those around me.

I’m wildly in awe with it all, in this moment, filled to the brim with panicjoy.  Panicjoy is a full-body physical response to Emotions.  It is tearful, nauseating, and trembling even as it is grinning straight from the eyes.  It is realizing that I’m Alive on this morning, drinking black coffee and in need of a shower, to write these Words.  It is an awareness that I get to continue this warfare of Words, that I am Blessed, by Whomever or Whatever does the Blessing, to be in this world, Living and starting to notice when my tide ebbs and flows.