Words (and their impact on Recovery)

'The verb is 'to crown'!' As I write I am shouting at a journalist, supposedly an artful practitioner of our language, telling me that someone is on in the process of being 'coronated'! Grrrrr. I would not call myself a grammatical tyrant, but really folks, English is so difficult to learn as a foreign language, precisely because we can carefully choose the words we want to use in any given context. I used to liken grammar to a train. It makes sense if you label in a very specific way... anyway I'm not about to launch into a Year 7 parts of speech lesson, although I have had a hankering for teaching recently. Anyway, the main thrust for my imagery was to convey to the children that how we structure our words is vital to helping us become really good at communicating what is in our heads to the world around us.

Of course as we grow older we find that not only have we left the childish belief that 'words can never hurt me' behind us, but we realise there are certain words which not only convey an idea, but can be loaded with judgement. Words like, 'unemployed', 'mentally ill', 'immigrant'carry with them sometimes very dark judgements, mostly about people who have a different background or experience to us.

One thing I have noticed as I have continued on my recovery journey, is that I am now more sensitive to certain words and, as a result, they can have a devastating impact on my emotions, often triggering feelings of failure. Sometimes it's a single word, at others it's a well worn phrase, or a sentence. Here is a selection:

Relapse. When I was working with drug users in recovery there was much discussion around 'lapses' and 'relapses'. Our mantra was 'a lapse is not a relapse...' I have found that when I face struggles in recovery from my emotional issues everyone refers just to a 'relapse' which to me means failure, going back to square one, letting myself and everyone else down. One word, but so much weight of judgement. I have combatted this by dropping the 're' and saying to myself 'a lapse is not a relapse' A lapse means that I have been overwhelmed by a moment, it is a temporary setback, recoverable. I can reset myself from a lapse. To me, for a relapse to happen means I have needed more extensive outside help to recover from out of control emotions and/or I have reverted to using self defeating coping mechanisms. It may seem a small thing, but the addition of a prefix totally changes my reactions and/or actions to recover again.

Mental Illness/Condition/Issues: I could call what I battle with, 'bagel', that way I can totally avoid judgements being loaded on me by others who have interpreted what suffering from a Mental Health Condition means. The problem is that without giving you my history and context the word is out of place and therefore fails to convey the ideas I am seeking to communicate. Hence it is problematic if I launch into my story by telling you that 'I was diagnosed with 'bagel' in 2011'. Sometimes I have the choice to ignore other people's judgements and values applied to certain labels and choose to redefine them for myself. If I believe that mental health conditions are just the same as physical health conditions, then why wouldn't I be willing to use commonly used phrases which are basically descriptive. The best way to tackle stigma is to introduce the ignorant to human reality. It is powerful to stand in front of a room and be able to admit that I struggle with my emotions and sometimes my thinking becomes clouded as a result. Particularly in recovery this can be more productive for me than focusing on trying to change people's use of specific words - why not simply introduce them to the person they avoid behind the labels?

Vulnerable v Fragile. One thing I heard through the DBT (dialectical behaviour therapy) programme was that although I may be emotionally vulnerable at times, I am not fragile. There is a song by Julia Fordham called 'Porcelain' and it expresses that frustration women often have when treated as 'weak', needful of protection. I know there is a paradox here. It is nice to be looked after, to know that people care for our needs. I guess there is a line, maybe it's similar to the one some relationships cross when 'protective' becomes 'possessive'. There is a sense of smothering, of not being trusted to be an adult, a loss of independence. I think there is an element of seeing patients as 'fragile' which contributes to the environments in Mental Health services which create dependence and that thorny little issue of 'learned helplessness'. Granted there are times when it would lovely to have a white knight swoop me up into his strong arms while he whisks me away from my daily grind and struggles. Except, those moments are really meant to stay in my childhood stories and now, sometimes in the cinema. Most importantly, for my ongoing recovery, to see myself as having vulnerabilities without being 'fragile' is important to giving me a sense of control over my life and more especially, my emotions. My goodness, if my experiences in life have not shattered me, there must be a core of steel in there somewhere. I may be a product of my past experiences, but I am no longer their prisoner.

The issues around Mental Health Stigma are part of a wider demonising and marginalising of certain groups nationally and internationally. I do listen to Donald Trump and worry that he is so oblivious to the power of words, particularly when conveying vacuous and bigoted ideas. In the end no word is an empty vessel, I need not only to take heed of my internal judgements, but also the fact that those who hear my words carry their own history which affects their interpretation of what I am saying.

Perhaps, the conclusion to my reflections here is that I should remind myself to hear what is behind others' words, as much as I expect others to move beyond their own (narrow) definitions of mine. Maybe we all need to take time to get to know people as people, take the pre-judgement out of our interactions. I know, I am Canute and the waves of words flooding our public spaces is the sea coming in around my feet. Only place I can start is here.

Why Do we Struggle to Humanise Mental Illness?

Please take the time to read this article and ask how often do we ask about 'them' and 'their' experiences and don't consider that we are all the same under the skin. I am no less human because of my mental health struggles than I am when I have the 'flu or have a broken bone.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/05/mental-health-lack-of-empathy-fear-ignorance?CMP=share_btn_fb

Why does my struggle with depression or Personality Disorder warrant less understanding than when I have a bout of the common cold. I get so much sympathy and compassion when I am snuffling, and no one tells me 'You know what you need to do....?'. No, when I am physically ill people consider me as one of 'them' - they will tell me 'this, or that helped me' or they ask me about my symptoms AND they listen to my response with understanding. When anyone dares to talk to me about my mental health, there is often silence when I am honest, followed by a minimisation such as 'Yes I get down sometimes too', or 'You should just shake it off and get out and about.'

The minute our differences start to dehumanise us is the moment when we are given permission to abuse others, just for being 'different' and as history tells us, that is the root of so many atrocities. Tackling stigma of all kinds is so much more than protecting special interest groups, simply because we consider 'them' weak, it is to acknowledge we have a shared humanity. If we are able to recognise our shared humanity then maybe societal scourges such as child abuse, elder abuse, attacks on the disabled and every religiously or ideologically motivated conflict will begin to be eradicated.

God be in my Head

I grew up in Northern Ireland which meant that I was familiar from an early age with the writings and prayers of Saint Patrick. Patrick’s Breastplate intrigued me. How could God be before me, behind me, above me etc? In particular I was bothered when Patrick prayed that God be in his head. How could all of God, my child’s brain reasoned, be inside my head?

For the Christian who struggles with mental illness this fact of faith presents challenges which need to be worked out on a daily basis. I became a Christian as a child, yet for most of my life I have suffered from chronic mental illness. This has been challenged by well meaning Christian leaders who have sought to explain my ongoing struggles in light of one of three options 1) I never fully committed my life to Christ and therefore remain outside his Grace, or 2) I have shown insufficient faith in God’s ability to heal me from my affliction or 3) I have never learned the true meaning of being forgiven by God and therefore, by extension I am unable to forgive anyone around me, which, they reason must be at the root of my emotional and mental struggles.
I am thankful that God has shown me over and over again that He has walked with me every step of my journey. I am also grateful to the many saints who appear in the Bible, both New and Old Testaments, who are shown to struggle with the blackest of moods, with real emotional anguish.

Is it inconceivable that Elijah was suffering from emotional and mental exhaustion in 1 Kings 19? And how did God respond to those needs? Did He condemn him for not triumphing in the victory over the Priests of Baal? Did He admonish him from not trusting his Lord enough? Did He see Elijah’s anguish as a sign of breaking the relationship with himself? No, God brought Elijah to the brook Cherith and there he commanded nature, in the form of Ravens, to feed him. He drank from the brook and he slept.
‘Sleep is the season of the soul.’ As Shakespeare reminded us in Hamlet. It is not by accident that his most famous speech links the ultimate anguish of the soul with lack of sleep and the loss of reason and balance in mood and mind, as portrayed through Hamlet’s descent towards suicidal thoughts following his father’s death. For Elijah, God provided physical and emotional needs in order to restore him to his right thinking. Often, depression or other mental illnesses are exacerbated by basic lack of sleep or food, or other daily needs.

We are told in the New Testament that Jesus himself suffered intense emotional anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he faced the road to the Cross. As a Man he was crushed by the burden of facing the greatest Spiritual battle of all time and eternity, as God He knew there was no option if God’s plan of Salvation was to be fulfilled ‘Not my Will, but yours be done.’ The Bible tells us that He was tempted and tried in every way as a man. As God, we know, He overcame every frailty, including mental anguish and the darkest of nights, when he was separated from his Father in Heaven as God poured his wrath on Him on the Cross. This was so he ‘who knew no sin, became sin for us’ (me).

I thank God that I don’t have to carry the burden of being a ‘failed’ Christian in addition to battling my own thoughts and moods. Instead I can learn to see my own mental illness as God telling me that he has not finished with me yet, that I still have much to learn of his Grace and love towards me and through me. One of my childhood heroes, Corrie Ten Boom was reminded by her frail and dying sister, when they were imprisoned in a Nazi Concentration Camp, that ‘There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.’ My soul is secure because of Christ’s sacrifice and promise. In every dark night he has promised ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ If even the ‘winds and the waves obey him’ how much more will he be able to not only comfort us through the storms of our mind and emotions, but he is more than capable to calm them completely, if that is His will. My question to God needs to stop being ‘Why me?’ or ‘Why not me?’ and become ‘What now, Lord?’

When your Christian friend tells you they are struggling with mental or emotional anguish, please do not add to their distress by condemning them for being ‘less than’ as Christians, but help them to listen and wait for God to reveal his purposes through this time. Above all, help them to remember that they cannot do anything to change his love for them, ‘There is nothing I can do to make him love me more, there is nothing I can do to make Him love me less.’ And remind them to be kind to themselves. Would you allow your friend with a heart condition or cancer to constantly berate themselves for failing as a human being, or, as a Christian? No, all suffering is a symptom of our world as it is. For the Christian there is the promise that one day ‘he will wipe away every tear’ from our eyes.’