This is a short story I wrote for elementary school-aged children about a young man who lives alone on the edge of a small town. Soggysox Sam teaches children the strategies people might use to avoid or handle challenges, and how our thinking can influence their effects.
Soggysox Sam
Not long ago in a small town called Willow Springs, there lived a very practical young man named Sam. Sam lived a simple life alone in a cottage exactly one mile from town. Every day he got up and walked to work in the town library helping people to check out their books. At lunch time Sam walked home on Creek View Drive and ate his lunch, and then he walked back to the library for the afternoon. Sam liked working at the library and he enjoyed talking with all of the people who came to the library, especially Miss Melanie. She came in every week to return old books and check out new ones. She was very smart and loved to read.
At the end of every work day Sam walked home again. When Sam was 10 years old, his mother had allowed him to begin walking to school by himself. Ever since then, Sam had walked the straightest and most direct route to and from town so as not to waste time. There were no sidewalks on Creek View Drive, so he walked on the road--which was barely more than a dirt path, really. Since Sam’s cottage was the only house out his way, very few cars ever went by.
One year, when Sam was 23 years old, the spring rains were especially heavy, and many puddles formed on Creek View Drive. One puddle in particular was so large that it stretched across the whole road. Sam was vexed! He couldn’t walk around the puddle to the left because there was a steep hill. He couldn’t walk around it to the right, because there was a sharp drop-off and he might fall. His only option was to walk right through the puddle, so that’s what he did.
The puddle was wide, but not very deep, so only Sam’s feet got wet. But all day as he worked at the library his shoes made soft squishing sounds with every step he took. How embarrassing! And when lovely Miss Melanie came to sign out a book, Sam had to stay behind the check out counter so she wouldn’t see his wet shoes. He wanted so much to talk to her, but he just couldn’t.
This huge puddle became a real nuisance to Sam, because he had to walk through it four times a day, and every time he did, his feet dragged the water along so that the puddle actually seemed to be getting larger. Somehow, the more he walked through it, the bigger it got.
Soggysox Sam complained about his problem to the town elders who visited the library, and of course they wanted to help. One of the elders, Old Doctor Edwards, gave Sam four magic pebbles to throw in the puddle. He said they would make it dry up. That day when he walked home for lunch Sam threw the tiny gray pebbles into the puddle, and it instantly began roiling and churning.
The muddy, brown puddle water shifted back and forth, forming waves that for a few seconds made it look just like a miniature ocean. A miniature tidal wave formed and tossed a large splash of water up and out of the puddle, forming a second, and then a third, and a fourth puddle. Sam could easily hop across these four smaller puddles and keep his feet dry. Those pebbles really were magic!
But the magic pebbles’ effects only lasted for the rest of the day, and when Sam returned the next morning the four puddles had become one again. Sam had no more magic pebbles, so he was back to where he started.
Another town elder, Old Senora Avestruz, told Sam that if he concentrated hard enough to ignore it, and waited long enough, the puddle would eventually dry up and go away. Sam resolved that he would do this, and soon found himself thinking so hard about not thinking about the puddle that he got a headache to go along with his soggy feet.
Old Professor Brown suggested that Sam study the puddle so he could find a way to get rid of it. So Sam took out all of the books in the library he could find about water and earth and rain and walking and studied every moment of his free time. But he still had a puddle to walk through four times a day. He felt like that puddle was taking over his life!
After many days of soggy socks and frustration, Sam finally had a chance to talk to Old Mrs. McDowell, who spent most of her time gardening in the town park. “What can I do about this puddle? He asked her. “The more I walk through it, the bigger it gets. I’m so tired of having wet feet I could cry.”
Old Mrs. McDowell advised him, “Sam, I am 93 years old. I’ve known your family since your great grandfather was in short pants, and he was just as stubborn as you are. There is one simple answer to your problem, Sam. Just walk to town a different way, for Pete’s sake.” And she turned to her petunias and placed one gently into the hole she’d dug.
“But Creek View Drive is the shortest way, the straightest, and the one I have always taken,” he muttered. “My father walked to town this way, and his father before him. There must be a way to dry up that puddle!”
“Suit yourself Sam, if you’re happy. But if it were me, I’d walk right through this park to get to the library from your house. The sweet scent of honeysuckle would follow you all day, instead of the feeling of muddy water between your toes.”
Sam knew Old Mrs. McDowell was much wiser than he, and he thought maybe if he considered his problem in a completely different way, things could be different. It may sound simple, but Sam closed his eyes, and instead of focusing on his clammy, wet feet, he thought to himself, “The park is a good way to get to town and back. I’ll try it.”
That afternoon when the library closed, Sam was tired and cranky from a long day of working with soggy socks. He was not sure at all about changing the way he walked home. He liked to do things a certain way, and didn’t want to do them any differently. He was really tempted to step out of the library and walk toward Creek View Drive.
On the front steps of the library he stopped and thought of Mrs. McDowell, so content and wise in her old age. He knew she could be right, and he should give her advice a try. So he headed toward the park.
The first thing Sam noticed about the park was the canopy the trees made over his head. It was like stepping into another world, and he could feel the stress of the day fading with each step he took. As he kept walking, he felt pride in his ability to try something new, and he felt a sense of optimism that he could do this after all. He could adjust to the new route and have dry socks every day. It was a huge relief! Even though it took a little more time to take this new route, it was a lovely walk, and he arrived at work happy and with dry feet!
Because his feet were nice and dry and he was feeling so chipper, the next day he asked Miss Melanie to have a picnic with him in the park, and she accepted the invitation. As the weeks passed, and spring turned into summer, he forgot a little more each day what it had been like to walk through that muddy old puddle. And he knew that if something else happened and he couldn’t walk through the park anymore, he could adjust and find another way to town.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Things Lost and Lessons Learned
Every April 19th, I observe the birthday of my grandmother, who passed away in 1994. She was a very important part of my life, and there are days even nineteen years later that I feel her absence very sharply. It often takes me by surprise, triggered by a smell (fresh parsley!) or music, or someone who casually mentions something that reminds me of her. That’s the way grief works. The tide may recede gradually over time, but it still comes in waves.
To honor my grandmother’s memory, on her birthday I have several things I do—things we used to do together and that I know would make her happy. I cook foods we used to cook together, I look at her photos, I work in my garden. I usually post a photo on Facebook with a special note in her memory. This observance feels necessary and special to me; it’s a way of keeping her memory alive, and sharing the legacy of her kindness with my friends and family. These rituals are a way I honor her, and they also help me to feel close to her and cope with losing her. Sharing that grief on social media is a way of saying, “This may not be a day of significance to the rest of the world, but it is to me.” I have friends who do the same in memory of their loved ones.
There are other losses that I have experienced in life, that are as significant to me, that I don’t, or can’t observe in the same way. The loss of a major relationship, where the person I care very much about is still here on earth, but gone from my life. The losses of two pregnancies, one of which I had named, and had imagined as the child I thought it would one day be. Losses associated with traumatic events that happened years ago, but that still affect me in the present. The grief that one sometimes feels as the parent of a child with special needs, as you must let go of your idealized version of who you thought they could be, and embrace who they are.
There are many kinds of grief that we experience in life that are private, that we don’t or can’t share with those around us. You may be someone who prefers it that way: maybe you have private ways you deal with this grief and would rather not discuss it or share it. But maybe, like me, you are looking for a way to express the feelings that come up related to the different kinds of grief you experience. In many cases, the grief is related to a loss of control and the shame that one may feel as a survivor of abuse, abandonment, or other traumatic experiences.
Here are some of the examples of lonely grief that friends have shared with me that can be difficult to process because they are usually experienced in private:
-The loss or termination of a pregnancy, stillbirth
-Loss associated with adoption, as the parent or the child
-Loss of a primary bond, such as a parent, sibling, spouse, close friendship, or a pet
-Loss of control or shame associated with being the survivor of violence, abuse, neglect, or abandonment
- Any loss or grief that has lasting emotional repercussions
While it is common to share the fact that we are observing the anniversary of the death of a loved one, many of these other anniversaries we pass in private. Maybe it’s because that’s truly what we prefer; after all, some of us prefer to keep things like that private anyway. As one friend put it, we all experience grief in different ways. But for some of us, the passing of these days that are so meaningful to us without acknowledgement from those around us can in a way compound the grief. It can be a lonely feeling.
So what can we do, on those days when what happened seems so close, even though it may have happened decades ago? What can we do to honor a bond we lost, or to feel supported, even though the world doesn’t know what or why we’re grieving? Though you may wish you could reach out for support or to honor the person you lost, you may feel that to do so would make others uncomfortable, make you feel too vulnerable, or make you feel like you are burdening others with your grief. Whatever your reason for keeping your grief private, if it feels lonely to you, it doesn’t have to. Here are some of the many ways friends have told me they observe their grief privately in a way that is comforting to them. Maybe some of these could help you, too.
1) Tell someone. Is there one someone you trust, to whom you could say, “Today has certain meaning for me, because…?” Quite often when we reach out to friends, we find they care a great deal, and may in turn ask us for support when they need it in the future. Being there for a friend in need, giving them the comfort that you have known loss, too, is one of the ways you can see a positive thing in your loss.
2) There are also Yahoo or Google groups for nearly every community you could think of—pregnancy loss, abuse survivors—there are thousands. You can set up a profile, join a group related to your experience, and post an introduction to yourself sharing why the day matters to you. You can do this at any time, and you may find many people who have been through the same thing. It can be as anonymous as you want it to be. Moderated groups are best because they are there to remind people of boundaries for online safety and to address hostile or inappropriate posts. Groups without moderators can be very unhealthy places.
3) Write a letter. A friend of mine writes a letter every year to the baby she lost to stillbirth. You could write a letter to a person who harmed you (without sending it). Keep the letters in a box and read them each year to see how your feelings about what happened have evolved. Letters to people who have done harm can also be thrown into the fireplace in a ritual of moving on. Get the feelings out on paper, and maybe you can put them away for a while.
4) If it is a relationship that you have lost, particularly if you still have a lot of anger or bitterness, it can be helpful to try some rituals of forgiveness. As they say, we must forgive to rid ourselves of the toxic effects that anger and bitterness have on our own hearts and healing. You can try many of the same rituals to grieve and forgive as we use in memory of a person who has died. Try a writing exercise or meditate on the positive qualities of that person. Reflect on what they brought to your life, and what you have learned as a result of having known them. This is not to say that you should invite them back into your life and your heart, especially if they did you serious harm. I’m simply suggesting that it can be healthy and therapeutic for to let go of the bitterness and grieve for what has passed.
5) How do you grieve and ask for support without going into the details, if you have the desire to do so? Some types of private/lonely grief already have observances. For example, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed by thousands of families every year on October 15th. You may have a date that is meaningful only to you: the birth date of a loved one, the specific date that something happened to you, or the date you last saw or spoke to someone you have lost. On that date, if you feel the need to, you can make a list of ways to observe the day’s significance in your own way, in ways that are comforting to you.
6) You can make a donation to a charity that is related to what you have lost. Plant a tree, or light a candle.
Finally, no matter what kind of grief you are experiencing, a qualified grief counselor can help you sort it out and get on the other side of it. There are details on the info page for how to find the right counselor. And this article, 6 Damaging Beliefs About Grief And What You Can Do, has some other good tips.
To honor my grandmother’s memory, on her birthday I have several things I do—things we used to do together and that I know would make her happy. I cook foods we used to cook together, I look at her photos, I work in my garden. I usually post a photo on Facebook with a special note in her memory. This observance feels necessary and special to me; it’s a way of keeping her memory alive, and sharing the legacy of her kindness with my friends and family. These rituals are a way I honor her, and they also help me to feel close to her and cope with losing her. Sharing that grief on social media is a way of saying, “This may not be a day of significance to the rest of the world, but it is to me.” I have friends who do the same in memory of their loved ones.
There are other losses that I have experienced in life, that are as significant to me, that I don’t, or can’t observe in the same way. The loss of a major relationship, where the person I care very much about is still here on earth, but gone from my life. The losses of two pregnancies, one of which I had named, and had imagined as the child I thought it would one day be. Losses associated with traumatic events that happened years ago, but that still affect me in the present. The grief that one sometimes feels as the parent of a child with special needs, as you must let go of your idealized version of who you thought they could be, and embrace who they are.
There are many kinds of grief that we experience in life that are private, that we don’t or can’t share with those around us. You may be someone who prefers it that way: maybe you have private ways you deal with this grief and would rather not discuss it or share it. But maybe, like me, you are looking for a way to express the feelings that come up related to the different kinds of grief you experience. In many cases, the grief is related to a loss of control and the shame that one may feel as a survivor of abuse, abandonment, or other traumatic experiences.
Here are some of the examples of lonely grief that friends have shared with me that can be difficult to process because they are usually experienced in private:
-The loss or termination of a pregnancy, stillbirth
-Loss associated with adoption, as the parent or the child
-Loss of a primary bond, such as a parent, sibling, spouse, close friendship, or a pet
-Loss of control or shame associated with being the survivor of violence, abuse, neglect, or abandonment
- Any loss or grief that has lasting emotional repercussions
While it is common to share the fact that we are observing the anniversary of the death of a loved one, many of these other anniversaries we pass in private. Maybe it’s because that’s truly what we prefer; after all, some of us prefer to keep things like that private anyway. As one friend put it, we all experience grief in different ways. But for some of us, the passing of these days that are so meaningful to us without acknowledgement from those around us can in a way compound the grief. It can be a lonely feeling.
So what can we do, on those days when what happened seems so close, even though it may have happened decades ago? What can we do to honor a bond we lost, or to feel supported, even though the world doesn’t know what or why we’re grieving? Though you may wish you could reach out for support or to honor the person you lost, you may feel that to do so would make others uncomfortable, make you feel too vulnerable, or make you feel like you are burdening others with your grief. Whatever your reason for keeping your grief private, if it feels lonely to you, it doesn’t have to. Here are some of the many ways friends have told me they observe their grief privately in a way that is comforting to them. Maybe some of these could help you, too.
1) Tell someone. Is there one someone you trust, to whom you could say, “Today has certain meaning for me, because…?” Quite often when we reach out to friends, we find they care a great deal, and may in turn ask us for support when they need it in the future. Being there for a friend in need, giving them the comfort that you have known loss, too, is one of the ways you can see a positive thing in your loss.
2) There are also Yahoo or Google groups for nearly every community you could think of—pregnancy loss, abuse survivors—there are thousands. You can set up a profile, join a group related to your experience, and post an introduction to yourself sharing why the day matters to you. You can do this at any time, and you may find many people who have been through the same thing. It can be as anonymous as you want it to be. Moderated groups are best because they are there to remind people of boundaries for online safety and to address hostile or inappropriate posts. Groups without moderators can be very unhealthy places.
3) Write a letter. A friend of mine writes a letter every year to the baby she lost to stillbirth. You could write a letter to a person who harmed you (without sending it). Keep the letters in a box and read them each year to see how your feelings about what happened have evolved. Letters to people who have done harm can also be thrown into the fireplace in a ritual of moving on. Get the feelings out on paper, and maybe you can put them away for a while.
4) If it is a relationship that you have lost, particularly if you still have a lot of anger or bitterness, it can be helpful to try some rituals of forgiveness. As they say, we must forgive to rid ourselves of the toxic effects that anger and bitterness have on our own hearts and healing. You can try many of the same rituals to grieve and forgive as we use in memory of a person who has died. Try a writing exercise or meditate on the positive qualities of that person. Reflect on what they brought to your life, and what you have learned as a result of having known them. This is not to say that you should invite them back into your life and your heart, especially if they did you serious harm. I’m simply suggesting that it can be healthy and therapeutic for to let go of the bitterness and grieve for what has passed.
5) How do you grieve and ask for support without going into the details, if you have the desire to do so? Some types of private/lonely grief already have observances. For example, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed by thousands of families every year on October 15th. You may have a date that is meaningful only to you: the birth date of a loved one, the specific date that something happened to you, or the date you last saw or spoke to someone you have lost. On that date, if you feel the need to, you can make a list of ways to observe the day’s significance in your own way, in ways that are comforting to you.
6) You can make a donation to a charity that is related to what you have lost. Plant a tree, or light a candle.
Finally, no matter what kind of grief you are experiencing, a qualified grief counselor can help you sort it out and get on the other side of it. There are details on the info page for how to find the right counselor. And this article, 6 Damaging Beliefs About Grief And What You Can Do, has some other good tips.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Where Do You Belong?
A lot of my work over the past few years has been focused on improving access to mental and behavioral health care for youth and families who need it. I deal with occasional depression and PTSD-related anxiety myself, so this has been a natural interest for me. I created my Facebook page, Positively Mental, during a period of agonizing professional transition when I felt that the people who most needed to understand this as a priority, do not. I knew that whatever the end result of this transition was, that I wanted to be more open and honest as a complex trauma survivor, to fight the stigma against mental illness and bring hope to more people who desperately need it.
I love to read and explore the internet in search of all things mental health. I want to learn and connect the dots in my own mind about some of the many gaps that exist between the popular understanding of the brain and behavior (which is really in its infancy), and the real life experience of someone living with a mental condition that presents obstacles to daily living and thriving. There is so much about the brain and behavior that we don’t understand, but in the meantime, millions of people must somehow cope with mental illness in order to function and belong in modern American society.
One of the many little gems I have come across in my quest for understanding is one of the RSAnimates, the videos that pair the audio of someone’s talk on a complex subject with concise illustrations that make it easier to visualize and process the content. This one, The Empathic Civilization, had one statement in particular that really struck me. “The first drive is the drive to actually belong.” It’s not that this is a new idea or one I hadn’t known before. We know, for example, that the drive to belong is a powerful factor in gang culture: young people without strong family and community ties are easy pickings for gang recruiters because they so long for that fundamental human need to belong.
However, I began thinking more about how the drive to belong affects many of the major issues that impact young people. Although most people feel a strong inner drive to belong and actively seek to do so, there are some who struggle with the interpersonal skills needed to connect with others, though they do want to. For some, the desire to belong, to connect with a group or community that welcomes them is powerful, yet their way of relating to the world is not consistent with what the world expects. They want to belong, but don’t know how. The world also hasn’t learned how to accept and relate to them; this, to me, seems to be the greater problem.
Our society actively sends the message that “social misfits”, people who don’t naturally know how to fit in and belong, are somehow defective, and to be ostracized.
I think ensuring that odd-seeming young people with awkward or abrasive interpersonal characteristics are assisted in their attempts to belong, and doing everything we can to ensure that they do, is one of the most important changes needed to prevent tragedy and pain for youth. Think of all of those young people, trying to find their place in the world, and finding no welcoming arms. What does it do to the psyche of the individual, to feel so different that there is no place for you? How does that affect the way you see yourself and how you value other people? How often do disconnected young people devalue others as a method of self-preservation?
There are many labels that we put on people who may not relate to others in the expected way, who may not easily connect to others emotionally: sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism and Asperger’s, and many others. Yet when we look deeper we often find that what we have interpreted as a disinterest in connection is actually a difference in how they attempt to connect. These people may not go about it in the typical way, but they do want to connect, they do want to belong. And if they no longer want to belong, it’s often because they became conditioned to believe at an early age that connection and belonging was impossible for them. The more we begin to understand this, the more we learn that people with a lot to give are in pain for the lack of belonging.
The ramifications of our failure to meet our young people halfway in their natural desire to belong are huge. In fact, I would make the case that most of the violence perpetrated by young people toward themselves or others can directly linked to a preventable lack of healthy connection and belonging. The gang violence I mentioned earlier is a complex issue with several causes, but the lure of the gang as a substitute family is known to be a powerful one. Young people who are vulnerable to suicide are often tipped over the edge by an episode of humiliation and ostracism by their peers: the polar opposite of belonging. And the growing problem of mass school violence by young males has a clear link to this breakdown: these are often severely troubled young men who have lost all sense of connection; they often have come to believe that it is their destiny to carry out this devastation. They have come to believe that their only place of belonging is in the brotherhood of destruction and infamy. Many of these young men were known by their therapists and counselors to be deeply troubled and disconnected, but the traditional therapeutic methods attempted were not effective. Some, like the Virginia Tech shooter, were rejected even by the educators they had come to for belonging.
Access to affordable, effective therapy is a crucial, unmet need in our country, but there is a difference between talking to a therapist who is there to clinically evaluate you, and connecting to a peer, family member, or safe adult who genuinely accepts and understands you. We have to do better on both.
Imagine a world where all children and young people who struggle with belonging have a mentor or a guide to help them forge the connections they need to gain that sense of acceptance? We all know people who cannot easily connect with others. Putting some thought and effort into what could help them truly belong to something good can make all the difference: for them, for you, and for the world.
I love to read and explore the internet in search of all things mental health. I want to learn and connect the dots in my own mind about some of the many gaps that exist between the popular understanding of the brain and behavior (which is really in its infancy), and the real life experience of someone living with a mental condition that presents obstacles to daily living and thriving. There is so much about the brain and behavior that we don’t understand, but in the meantime, millions of people must somehow cope with mental illness in order to function and belong in modern American society.
One of the many little gems I have come across in my quest for understanding is one of the RSAnimates, the videos that pair the audio of someone’s talk on a complex subject with concise illustrations that make it easier to visualize and process the content. This one, The Empathic Civilization, had one statement in particular that really struck me. “The first drive is the drive to actually belong.” It’s not that this is a new idea or one I hadn’t known before. We know, for example, that the drive to belong is a powerful factor in gang culture: young people without strong family and community ties are easy pickings for gang recruiters because they so long for that fundamental human need to belong.
However, I began thinking more about how the drive to belong affects many of the major issues that impact young people. Although most people feel a strong inner drive to belong and actively seek to do so, there are some who struggle with the interpersonal skills needed to connect with others, though they do want to. For some, the desire to belong, to connect with a group or community that welcomes them is powerful, yet their way of relating to the world is not consistent with what the world expects. They want to belong, but don’t know how. The world also hasn’t learned how to accept and relate to them; this, to me, seems to be the greater problem.
Our society actively sends the message that “social misfits”, people who don’t naturally know how to fit in and belong, are somehow defective, and to be ostracized.
I think ensuring that odd-seeming young people with awkward or abrasive interpersonal characteristics are assisted in their attempts to belong, and doing everything we can to ensure that they do, is one of the most important changes needed to prevent tragedy and pain for youth. Think of all of those young people, trying to find their place in the world, and finding no welcoming arms. What does it do to the psyche of the individual, to feel so different that there is no place for you? How does that affect the way you see yourself and how you value other people? How often do disconnected young people devalue others as a method of self-preservation?
There are many labels that we put on people who may not relate to others in the expected way, who may not easily connect to others emotionally: sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism and Asperger’s, and many others. Yet when we look deeper we often find that what we have interpreted as a disinterest in connection is actually a difference in how they attempt to connect. These people may not go about it in the typical way, but they do want to connect, they do want to belong. And if they no longer want to belong, it’s often because they became conditioned to believe at an early age that connection and belonging was impossible for them. The more we begin to understand this, the more we learn that people with a lot to give are in pain for the lack of belonging.
The ramifications of our failure to meet our young people halfway in their natural desire to belong are huge. In fact, I would make the case that most of the violence perpetrated by young people toward themselves or others can directly linked to a preventable lack of healthy connection and belonging. The gang violence I mentioned earlier is a complex issue with several causes, but the lure of the gang as a substitute family is known to be a powerful one. Young people who are vulnerable to suicide are often tipped over the edge by an episode of humiliation and ostracism by their peers: the polar opposite of belonging. And the growing problem of mass school violence by young males has a clear link to this breakdown: these are often severely troubled young men who have lost all sense of connection; they often have come to believe that it is their destiny to carry out this devastation. They have come to believe that their only place of belonging is in the brotherhood of destruction and infamy. Many of these young men were known by their therapists and counselors to be deeply troubled and disconnected, but the traditional therapeutic methods attempted were not effective. Some, like the Virginia Tech shooter, were rejected even by the educators they had come to for belonging.
Access to affordable, effective therapy is a crucial, unmet need in our country, but there is a difference between talking to a therapist who is there to clinically evaluate you, and connecting to a peer, family member, or safe adult who genuinely accepts and understands you. We have to do better on both.
Imagine a world where all children and young people who struggle with belonging have a mentor or a guide to help them forge the connections they need to gain that sense of acceptance? We all know people who cannot easily connect with others. Putting some thought and effort into what could help them truly belong to something good can make all the difference: for them, for you, and for the world.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Your Life Shapes Your Brain and Your Brain Shapes Your Life
In September, 2013 I attended a community-wide meeting about the effects of domestic violence on youth. Since I have been in human services since 1998, I have been seeing these effects on youth and their families played out in hundreds of scenarios for many years. This meeting, however, inspired me to act in a way I hadn't before. There was a woman, Mrs. H, at the meeting who has been working with families in domestic relations court for thirty years. She was knowledgeable, articulate, and passionate in urging this group of people to see how ongoing trauma and turmoil affected these kids and their families long term, and to adopt more effective strategies for mitigating its effects.
As a survivor of childhood trauma related to witnessing domestic violence, I sat in that meeting trying to both participate, and to dissociate-- to remove myself emotionally and mentally from the environment. It was painful to engage emotionally with this topic. But something about Mrs. H, who had managed to stay present with her anger and frustration toward a system that was not meeting the needs of traumatized youth changed the way I saw myself that day.
I left that meeting thinking about how little progress I have seen: Families are in turmoil, and society punishes them for the effects of that turmoil, the violence, instability, and neglect the children unfortunately experience. Human services workers are often knowledgeable and understanding, but the criminal justice system, and society overall, usually are not. I knew that after fifteen years, it was time for me to make the very risky move of blending my personal self, as a trauma survivor, with my professional self as a youth advocate.
I immediately wrote the piece, Little Girl about my experience, which begins like this: Little girl is four years old, in the kitchen with Mommy and Boyfriend #1 who are arguing. The arguing gets louder and soon they are fighting too, with slaps and punches.
Little Girl watches frozen in the corner as Boyfriend #1 chokes Mommy on the floor until she shows him he has won this round.
Little girl's spirit begins to crack.
It was terrifying to put myself in this vulnerable position, but I was also beginning to have faith that this was the right thing to do. I called Mrs. H and asked her to read Little Girl publicly at an upcoming event. She agreed without hesitation, and read it with tremendous understanding and heart.
Let's talk about what I mean by trauma. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA, have created the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, which "reveals staggering proof of the health, social, and economic risks that result from childhood trauma." They have an instrument to be used to assess the level of adverse childhood experience of an individual (http://acestudy.org/ace_score).
Most people will score at least a point or two, as things like parental divorce and alcoholism are counted toward the total trauma load. Some of us score higher, and the idea is that the higher your score, the greater your level of childhood trauma. However, everyone is different in how trauma affects them. An individual could have a low score and still have lasting and significant effects. Or they can have a higher score, but through resilience and other factors they may not have significant long term effects as an adult.
Of course, people can experience trauma as adults as well. There can be single incidents of major trauma, like witnessing a murder, or living through a natural disaster, and there can be complex or chronic trauma, such as experiencing ongoing domestic or sexual abuse that occurs over many months or years.
Those who go on to experience disruptive effects from their trauma, be it from childhood or adulthood, may meet criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is most often associated with soldiers returning from a war zone, but they are just one of the groups of people who have PTSD.
Anyone who has experienced trauma, whether they meet criteria for PTSD or not, may experience lasting or permanent effects. Serious or chronic trauma can cause permanent changes to the brain that affect mood and behavior, with symptoms like anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, rage, flashbacks, sleep problems, attention problems, irritability, sensory issues (such as sensitivity to loud or sharp noise), and more.
Many people with a primary diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety or Major Depression may be able to trace these conditions back to trauma. In that same meeting that I attended in September, a colleague of mine who works with traumatized clients said that she no longer asks them, "What is going on with you?" She now asks, "What happened to you?" Helping people to understand how adverse experiences shape their brains and behavior is the first step in helping them learn to cope, and overcome.
As a survivor of childhood trauma related to witnessing domestic violence, I sat in that meeting trying to both participate, and to dissociate-- to remove myself emotionally and mentally from the environment. It was painful to engage emotionally with this topic. But something about Mrs. H, who had managed to stay present with her anger and frustration toward a system that was not meeting the needs of traumatized youth changed the way I saw myself that day.
I left that meeting thinking about how little progress I have seen: Families are in turmoil, and society punishes them for the effects of that turmoil, the violence, instability, and neglect the children unfortunately experience. Human services workers are often knowledgeable and understanding, but the criminal justice system, and society overall, usually are not. I knew that after fifteen years, it was time for me to make the very risky move of blending my personal self, as a trauma survivor, with my professional self as a youth advocate.
I immediately wrote the piece, Little Girl about my experience, which begins like this: Little girl is four years old, in the kitchen with Mommy and Boyfriend #1 who are arguing. The arguing gets louder and soon they are fighting too, with slaps and punches.
Little Girl watches frozen in the corner as Boyfriend #1 chokes Mommy on the floor until she shows him he has won this round.
Little girl's spirit begins to crack.
It was terrifying to put myself in this vulnerable position, but I was also beginning to have faith that this was the right thing to do. I called Mrs. H and asked her to read Little Girl publicly at an upcoming event. She agreed without hesitation, and read it with tremendous understanding and heart.
Let's talk about what I mean by trauma. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA, have created the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, which "reveals staggering proof of the health, social, and economic risks that result from childhood trauma." They have an instrument to be used to assess the level of adverse childhood experience of an individual (http://acestudy.org/ace_score).
Most people will score at least a point or two, as things like parental divorce and alcoholism are counted toward the total trauma load. Some of us score higher, and the idea is that the higher your score, the greater your level of childhood trauma. However, everyone is different in how trauma affects them. An individual could have a low score and still have lasting and significant effects. Or they can have a higher score, but through resilience and other factors they may not have significant long term effects as an adult.
Of course, people can experience trauma as adults as well. There can be single incidents of major trauma, like witnessing a murder, or living through a natural disaster, and there can be complex or chronic trauma, such as experiencing ongoing domestic or sexual abuse that occurs over many months or years.
Those who go on to experience disruptive effects from their trauma, be it from childhood or adulthood, may meet criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is most often associated with soldiers returning from a war zone, but they are just one of the groups of people who have PTSD.
Anyone who has experienced trauma, whether they meet criteria for PTSD or not, may experience lasting or permanent effects. Serious or chronic trauma can cause permanent changes to the brain that affect mood and behavior, with symptoms like anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, rage, flashbacks, sleep problems, attention problems, irritability, sensory issues (such as sensitivity to loud or sharp noise), and more.
Many people with a primary diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety or Major Depression may be able to trace these conditions back to trauma. In that same meeting that I attended in September, a colleague of mine who works with traumatized clients said that she no longer asks them, "What is going on with you?" She now asks, "What happened to you?" Helping people to understand how adverse experiences shape their brains and behavior is the first step in helping them learn to cope, and overcome.
Friday, January 4, 2013
You're Blocking My Whole Crosswalk
It hasn’t been a great week…or month, come to think of it.
Last night I was at the emergency room with my son, who had slammed his pinky in
his bedroom door after a particularly rough dinner time. My husband, Sean, has been sick for
a month, and I was sick for the past week with a cold. We’re run down. We need
respite, but it’s not gonna happen.
So today I arrive at the kiss & ride pick up my daughter after school, and I’m a little early. As I’m pondering last night’s visit to the E.R. and how much I want to minimize future visits to the E.R., I pull too far forward so that I’m partially blocking the crosswalk. It was that, or block the intersection, so that’s where I end up. I’m too stressed to put a lot of thought into it.
Next thing I know, the crossing guard, a woman about my age, is standing next to my car, gesturing sarcastically that I am, indeed, blocking “her crosswalk”. She is pretty pissed off. The car behind me has pulled all the way up, so I can’t back up even if I want to. I attempt a guilty, “sorry, I’m a doofus” gesture in the crossing guard’s direction, but she isn’t satisfied, and motions for me to roll down my window.
Now let me say here, I have quite a lot of back-sass in me in general, and at this point I feel that her attitude is way over the mark of appropriate. But I am not going to make a scene in the kiss & ride line at my kid’s school, and I actually do appreciate that the crossing guard takes her job very, VERY seriously. So I roll down my window, and I say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pull up so far. I didn’t realize so many people would be coming through here before school let out.”
“Well you’re blocking my whole crosswalk. People have been doing it all week, and it’s RIDICULOUS,” she sputters.
“I think people are probably very frazzled,” I say.
Her exasperated expression softens. “WELL…it’s ok,” she mutters, and walks away.
What is it about a word of understanding that releases the flood gates? Have you ever been fighting back tears, until someone says “It’s ok…” and then it’s all over? Well that, plus the effort of putting on my big-girl pants and not telling the crossing guard she isn’t “the boss of me” pushed me over the edge. Reach for the sunglasses because here come the waterworks.
And then I’m thinking about The Feelings. The feelings without proper thoughts to support them, that people act on.
Another example:
A few weeks ago, I had been at stuck at home for two days for a 48-hour EEG. I had 21 electrodes glued to my head to monitor my brain waves. To get them removed, I had to go back to the neurologist’s office. Sean was driving me there through a construction zone, looking pretty pathetic, when we found we needed to merge into the left-turn lane to get to where we needed to go. The guy who needed to let us in didn’t want to, so Sean pulled some of his New York City driving moves and nosed our van into the lane.
We ended up very lightly bumping the car in front of us. The guy had to get out and make sure his car was ok, indignant looks were exchanged, etc, all while I sit there with electrodes sticking to my head, attached to a battery pack at my waist. I considered hopping out of the car looking like a mental science experiment to let them all stare and consider whether they had used their best manners that day. I didn’t.
So today I arrive at the kiss & ride pick up my daughter after school, and I’m a little early. As I’m pondering last night’s visit to the E.R. and how much I want to minimize future visits to the E.R., I pull too far forward so that I’m partially blocking the crosswalk. It was that, or block the intersection, so that’s where I end up. I’m too stressed to put a lot of thought into it.
Next thing I know, the crossing guard, a woman about my age, is standing next to my car, gesturing sarcastically that I am, indeed, blocking “her crosswalk”. She is pretty pissed off. The car behind me has pulled all the way up, so I can’t back up even if I want to. I attempt a guilty, “sorry, I’m a doofus” gesture in the crossing guard’s direction, but she isn’t satisfied, and motions for me to roll down my window.
Now let me say here, I have quite a lot of back-sass in me in general, and at this point I feel that her attitude is way over the mark of appropriate. But I am not going to make a scene in the kiss & ride line at my kid’s school, and I actually do appreciate that the crossing guard takes her job very, VERY seriously. So I roll down my window, and I say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pull up so far. I didn’t realize so many people would be coming through here before school let out.”
“Well you’re blocking my whole crosswalk. People have been doing it all week, and it’s RIDICULOUS,” she sputters.
“I think people are probably very frazzled,” I say.
Her exasperated expression softens. “WELL…it’s ok,” she mutters, and walks away.
What is it about a word of understanding that releases the flood gates? Have you ever been fighting back tears, until someone says “It’s ok…” and then it’s all over? Well that, plus the effort of putting on my big-girl pants and not telling the crossing guard she isn’t “the boss of me” pushed me over the edge. Reach for the sunglasses because here come the waterworks.
And then I’m thinking about The Feelings. The feelings without proper thoughts to support them, that people act on.
Another example:
A few weeks ago, I had been at stuck at home for two days for a 48-hour EEG. I had 21 electrodes glued to my head to monitor my brain waves. To get them removed, I had to go back to the neurologist’s office. Sean was driving me there through a construction zone, looking pretty pathetic, when we found we needed to merge into the left-turn lane to get to where we needed to go. The guy who needed to let us in didn’t want to, so Sean pulled some of his New York City driving moves and nosed our van into the lane.
We ended up very lightly bumping the car in front of us. The guy had to get out and make sure his car was ok, indignant looks were exchanged, etc, all while I sit there with electrodes sticking to my head, attached to a battery pack at my waist. I considered hopping out of the car looking like a mental science experiment to let them all stare and consider whether they had used their best manners that day. I didn’t.
Now I’m not one of those people who believe that everything
is getting worse, that people are more selfish, that kids today are more rotten,
that humanity is going down the tubes. There’s lots of evidence to the
contrary, if you’re looking for it. And I am aware that I can be very
self-centered…after all, what’s more self-centered than a blog?
I do think, however, that we are all so busy and so stressed with our modern, over-scheduled lives, that we tend to think our own problems are the most profound and the most challenging, and we give ourselves license to hold our neighbor accountable while we find reasons to justify our own reactive, petty behavior. I wish that people would give me the benefit of the doubt when I slip up and lose my cool. I’ll try to do the same for them.
I do think, however, that we are all so busy and so stressed with our modern, over-scheduled lives, that we tend to think our own problems are the most profound and the most challenging, and we give ourselves license to hold our neighbor accountable while we find reasons to justify our own reactive, petty behavior. I wish that people would give me the benefit of the doubt when I slip up and lose my cool. I’ll try to do the same for them.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Mildly Abnormal
I am a
married, working mother of two young children, in the first and third grade. I
am very lucky…I have a happy, healthy family, and a nearly full-time job, with
a flexible schedule that allows me to have a career, but still be at my kids’
track meets and parent-teacher conferences. I can do it all.
That’s the
myth, anyway, because I don’t know anyone who can do it all…not well, at least.
I am a part of a silent minority. We’re the people who, for the most part, can function professionally (or academically, during the school years), but we struggle privately with dysfunction that affects our personal and professional lives in ways we must hide. Maybe it’s alcoholism. Maybe it’s high-functioning autism, or anxiety, or manic-depressive thoughts and behaviors, or obsessions and compulsions. We can just barely toe the line that allows us to work and maintain a façade a normalcy, and this daily “covering” requires a tremendous amount of effort. Our families sometimes pay the price as the tension spills out at home.
I come from a family full of smart, intense people with emotional and neurological differences. Major depression, sensitivities, self-destructive behaviors, and autism characteristics…these are all part of my genetics, just like the dimple in my chin, and my left-handedness. As a child I also experienced traumatic events, which can have serious, permanent emotional and neurochemical effects. But I am a mother, a wife, and a worker, and year after year I put one foot in front of the other, because the alternative…to give up…isn’t an option. My family depends on me, and the commitment to do my best, however faulty my best may be, is one I take very seriously.
I am a part of a silent minority. We’re the people who, for the most part, can function professionally (or academically, during the school years), but we struggle privately with dysfunction that affects our personal and professional lives in ways we must hide. Maybe it’s alcoholism. Maybe it’s high-functioning autism, or anxiety, or manic-depressive thoughts and behaviors, or obsessions and compulsions. We can just barely toe the line that allows us to work and maintain a façade a normalcy, and this daily “covering” requires a tremendous amount of effort. Our families sometimes pay the price as the tension spills out at home.
I come from a family full of smart, intense people with emotional and neurological differences. Major depression, sensitivities, self-destructive behaviors, and autism characteristics…these are all part of my genetics, just like the dimple in my chin, and my left-handedness. As a child I also experienced traumatic events, which can have serious, permanent emotional and neurochemical effects. But I am a mother, a wife, and a worker, and year after year I put one foot in front of the other, because the alternative…to give up…isn’t an option. My family depends on me, and the commitment to do my best, however faulty my best may be, is one I take very seriously.
I have been
moderately successful in my career. I have worked consistently, held positions
in management, and been promoted every few years. I am currently the Director
of a small non-profit agency, a job I find alternately rewarding and extremely
stressful—particularly when there is public speaking, conflict, or a deadline
involved, which is frequently. In fact, in the 20 years since I got my first
job, I’ve done everything from waitressing and building sets for college
theater, to facilitating training sessions and doing TV interviews. I have
experienced a high level of stress in almost every job, excluding the ones that
didn’t involve other people, and their expectations. Sometimes I long for the
days when I was paid to sort slides in the art department for hours at a time.
Such a peaceful job.
The past several years, balancing incredible pressure to keep a positive forward momentum for a small non-profit agency, raising high-need children, and keeping a household from falling into total chaos, have been extremely difficult. I think that would be the case for anyone. Though I have strengths and abilities that have allowed me to compensate for my challenges, this isn’t always possible. I struggle with severe anxiety and overwhelming emotion, or problems with what psychologists call “emotional regulation”. You might say I can be a drama queen…at times, my intense feelings get out of control and the person I become is unrecognizable to those who haven’t seen it. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it is my reality, and it’s not a choice. I hide all of this from my children as much as possible. But I know it still affects them, and that guilt…the knowledge that I am sometimes unable to be the nurturing person I would like to be for them, can sometimes be crippling.
The past several years, balancing incredible pressure to keep a positive forward momentum for a small non-profit agency, raising high-need children, and keeping a household from falling into total chaos, have been extremely difficult. I think that would be the case for anyone. Though I have strengths and abilities that have allowed me to compensate for my challenges, this isn’t always possible. I struggle with severe anxiety and overwhelming emotion, or problems with what psychologists call “emotional regulation”. You might say I can be a drama queen…at times, my intense feelings get out of control and the person I become is unrecognizable to those who haven’t seen it. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it is my reality, and it’s not a choice. I hide all of this from my children as much as possible. But I know it still affects them, and that guilt…the knowledge that I am sometimes unable to be the nurturing person I would like to be for them, can sometimes be crippling.
I have tried
three different antidepressants, which didn’t help much, and had significant
side effects. The last one led to an emergency room visit after the second dose.
I have had a full psychological evaluation and have been in therapy with a very
experienced counselor, for years. So far, I have made moderate improvement. I
can function, and for the most part, keep myself contained in the box my life
requires, but it is a daily struggle. There is a constant stuffing down of my
true offbeat self…every day I must hold it in, subdue it, and not let people
see who I really am. I must “pass” for normal. But that’s no way to live. The
real me may be abrasive and unpredictable at times, but it is ME. I have value
and I deserve to live an authentic life. Everyone does.
But how can
I truly live in a world that sees people like me as defective? If we are not
calm and rational at all times, how can we be trusted with positions of
responsibility? Yet people like me—significantly flawed, but with meaningful
abilities—are already at work all around us. They, too, are hiding their authentic
selves, and playing along with the myth that the professional world is only for
the people who have it all together.
They’re hiding the drinking and drug use they use to numb their pain and
get through the day. They’re hiding the anorexic bodies or scars from
self-injury that they use to gain a sense of control in their chaotic lives, under
their business suits and tasteful dresses. They’re pretending to work 70-hour
weeks, when a lot of that time at the computer is spent on other, self-soothing,
self-medicating activities: web surfing, compulsive shopping, gambling, porn.
They’re filling themselves with pills, something, anything, that might work,
that might “fix” them.
I don’t need
to be fixed, so much as understood and accommodated. I have good days and I
have bad days. On good days I am everything the world thinks I should be: efficient,
focused, rational, and creative. On bad days I am scattered, irritable, and
anxious, and so far, I haven’t found a pill or a correction in my thought
process that will change that, any more than my height could be changed with
medication, therapy, or positive thinking. This is who I AM.
So what
should society do with people like me? Should I be forced to pretend I am
“normal”, falling further into despair with each failed attempt, and making
myself sick trying to be someone I’m not? Should I quit working, and force my
husband to bear the full burden of supporting our family in a part of the
country where a single income is rarely enough? I have family members who have
done this: they have dropped out of the work world, relying on others to
support them, or living on a very limited income and doing without medical care
and other “luxuries” as a trade-off. This isn’t an option for me. I want my
children to have everything they need, including a mother who isn’t stretched
to the breaking point. And I want and need meaningful work.
Should I ask
for accommodations like people who have other, more obvious challenges? Maybe. I
have always believed that we can do more harm than good by trying to hide our flaws.
That’s why I would even go so far as to post such private thoughts as these on the
internet. Being open lets others with similar problems know they are not alone.
Admitting that I have these significant challenges does leave me vulnerable to
the people who cannot, or will not understand me, because of the limits of
their own experience, their need to pass judgment, or their inability to
empathize. There will always be people who think my main flaw is laziness, an
unwillingness to buckle down and try harder. But let me tell you, if you
measure my accomplishments by the amount of effort it takes for me to achieve
them--effort to do things that may be easy for other people--I am far from lazy.
I also know that my continuing difficulties, and all of the painful things I
have lived through have not made me
stronger, but they have made me keenly aware of the struggles of others.
Feeling like an outsider for more than three decades has given me insight into
the plights of all kinds of marginalized groups. They matter to me, and I fight
for them, because I know what it feels like to not matter, to feel like you
have to fit into someone else’s ideal to have access to the comfort and
security that “regular” people take for granted. That's the value I've taken away from the path I've walked. It inspires me to embrace my differentness, whatever the cause.
A few weeks ago, after a night out with friends, I had an unconscious episode
in the car while Sean was driving us home. It was scary. Our family doctor sent
me for an EEG. Nine days after the episode I walked into the neurology office
and underwent an in-office EEG to test for seizure activity. It was a fascinating experience. Having spent the week before reading up on seizure
disorders I was interested to find at the EEG that the stimuli intended to
induce a seizure did cause me to feel a bit twitchy and odd, although those
kinds of responses were “normal” to me. A week later I learned the results of
the EEG: Mildly to moderately abnormal. An appointment with a neurologist, and
eventually a more in-depth EEG were scheduled. I am undergoing the 48-hour EEG as I write
this, with 21 electrodes pasted to my forehead and scalp. Do I have a mild
seizure disorder? I might. Simple partial seizures affect only a small region
of the brain, can be unnoticeable to the observer, and even to the sufferer.
They can cause a variety of mild symptoms that I experience regularly,
including mood and attention changes.
Imagine if there were an treatable underlying brain condition that has been causing my anxiety and sleep problems. Imagine all of the people who go through their lives, feeling guilty that they lack the “will power” to change fixed aspects of their brains and personalities. Imagine the productivity and creativity lost to all of the hiding and stuffing down of guilt and shame, especially in our society that values achievement and power over most everything else. If reading this lifts that burden for just one person, it’s worth writing it and sharing it.
Imagine if there were an treatable underlying brain condition that has been causing my anxiety and sleep problems. Imagine all of the people who go through their lives, feeling guilty that they lack the “will power” to change fixed aspects of their brains and personalities. Imagine the productivity and creativity lost to all of the hiding and stuffing down of guilt and shame, especially in our society that values achievement and power over most everything else. If reading this lifts that burden for just one person, it’s worth writing it and sharing it.
These days, all I dream of is a happy childhood for my
children, and freedom from the pressure to do and be something that’s beyond my
reach. I just want to be me.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
What Are We Fighting About?
I was 11 years old the first time I held a gun. My mother, raising my sister and me alone, kept a handgun in the house for protection. One day she took the gun down out of her closet, showed me how to switch the safety lever off, how to hold the gun, and how to aim it. She talked to me about circumstances where it would be appropriate for me to use it. I was taught to never touch the gun unless there was a life-threatening reason to do so. I never did.
That summer, mom’s boyfriend taught me to shoot a 22 rifle. We went out in the woods and tacked targets to trees, and practiced shooting from various distances with my mom. Everyone was surprised, especially me, when I had the highest accuracy of the three of us. For some reason, I have very good aim. I have gone target shooting a few other times since then. I really enjoy it. Having worked in a Renaissance Faire gaming area, I can shoot a bow, a knife, and an axe with some accuracy. I have never aimed at an animal, or considered it. I’m not a hunter.
I have friends and family members who are avid gun users and collectors. They have a passion for guns. I don’t share this passion, but I do understand it. I have lots of collections. Let’s take paint brushes: each one has a specific use, can perform in a different way. One might be better to draw whiskers on a tiger, one might be better to paint the sweeping strokes of a sky. I have trusty paint brushes I use for many purposes, and some that only get used once in a while. I appreciate that gun enthusiasts might feel the same way. Each gun might have a story, or a specific function.
In college, I had a teacher who had a very different perspective on guns than I had been used to. When she had been a child, her seven-year-old brother had been at a friend’s house. The two boys were snooping through the parents’ bedroom, and came across a handgun in a drawer. My teacher’s brother had died instantly when his friend shot him in the face accidentally. Each semester she made a point of telling each new group of students her brother’s story, to humanize the reality of the need for gun safety for them. I paid attention.
I have never owned a gun, but I have sometimes wondered how I would protect my family if an intruder entered our home. The idea of having a gun and successfully disabling someone seems far-fetched to me. I think the calm, steady head and hand that an accurate shot requires could elude me in that situation. But I do have an 18-inch hardwood club under my bed, and I can easily imagine using it if anyone came between me and my children. My family members and my dog are the only things in my house I would protect with deadly force. Yet there are other people, many of them, who seem excited by the idea of confronting a criminal and legally disabling them in the protection of property. I think of the overzealous neighborhood watch member, George Zimmerman. Armed with a deadly weapon, and patrolling the streets on the lookout for suspicious activity, he seems to have glamorized his role in local law enforcement. His gun gave him a sense of security and power to pursue what he thought was a suspicious individual. Regardless of what you think happened in the ensuing confrontation, it is unlikely that anyone would have died that day if George Zimmerman hadn’t been carrying a gun.
When Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, I started to wonder how we can keep guns out of the hands of unstable people. People who have that passion for guns bristle at the idea that the guns are the problem, that people like Cho, or the Columbine killers, or now, James Holmes, represent the average gun owner. They surely don’t. Perhaps it is the combination of the way we glamorize, almost idolize guns and violence, and our inability to keep them out of the hands of unstable people that leads us into this horrific situation, again and again.
According to Science Daily, “many scientific studies have established the connection between exposure to media violence and aggression and violence in children. For example, playing video games can lead to changes in attitudes and behavior as well as desensitization to actual violence.” As a society, we have to consider why we are creating such violent entertainment to begin with. What purpose does it serve? What effect is it having on our young people, whose brains do not fully develop their capacity for understanding cause and effect until their mid-twenties?
Every time there is an incident like the shooting at the Aurora movie theater, anti-gun people demand tougher laws for gun control, and those who care strongly about the right to bear arms counter-attack. Yet most people can probably agree, the right to bear arms is a fundamental American freedom, and few people are saying that all guns be outlawed. There must be some middle ground, where reasonable people can agree on strategies to keep guns out of the hands of these men who use them to massacre innocent people. If guns are meant for protection, why aren’t we protecting our citizens against their illegal and devastating use? And what are we doing to reduce the amount of violent and desensitizing imagery our young people are exposed to?
If we hunger for violent entertainment, what is the cause, and what is the effect?
That summer, mom’s boyfriend taught me to shoot a 22 rifle. We went out in the woods and tacked targets to trees, and practiced shooting from various distances with my mom. Everyone was surprised, especially me, when I had the highest accuracy of the three of us. For some reason, I have very good aim. I have gone target shooting a few other times since then. I really enjoy it. Having worked in a Renaissance Faire gaming area, I can shoot a bow, a knife, and an axe with some accuracy. I have never aimed at an animal, or considered it. I’m not a hunter.
I have friends and family members who are avid gun users and collectors. They have a passion for guns. I don’t share this passion, but I do understand it. I have lots of collections. Let’s take paint brushes: each one has a specific use, can perform in a different way. One might be better to draw whiskers on a tiger, one might be better to paint the sweeping strokes of a sky. I have trusty paint brushes I use for many purposes, and some that only get used once in a while. I appreciate that gun enthusiasts might feel the same way. Each gun might have a story, or a specific function.
In college, I had a teacher who had a very different perspective on guns than I had been used to. When she had been a child, her seven-year-old brother had been at a friend’s house. The two boys were snooping through the parents’ bedroom, and came across a handgun in a drawer. My teacher’s brother had died instantly when his friend shot him in the face accidentally. Each semester she made a point of telling each new group of students her brother’s story, to humanize the reality of the need for gun safety for them. I paid attention.
I have never owned a gun, but I have sometimes wondered how I would protect my family if an intruder entered our home. The idea of having a gun and successfully disabling someone seems far-fetched to me. I think the calm, steady head and hand that an accurate shot requires could elude me in that situation. But I do have an 18-inch hardwood club under my bed, and I can easily imagine using it if anyone came between me and my children. My family members and my dog are the only things in my house I would protect with deadly force. Yet there are other people, many of them, who seem excited by the idea of confronting a criminal and legally disabling them in the protection of property. I think of the overzealous neighborhood watch member, George Zimmerman. Armed with a deadly weapon, and patrolling the streets on the lookout for suspicious activity, he seems to have glamorized his role in local law enforcement. His gun gave him a sense of security and power to pursue what he thought was a suspicious individual. Regardless of what you think happened in the ensuing confrontation, it is unlikely that anyone would have died that day if George Zimmerman hadn’t been carrying a gun.
When Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, I started to wonder how we can keep guns out of the hands of unstable people. People who have that passion for guns bristle at the idea that the guns are the problem, that people like Cho, or the Columbine killers, or now, James Holmes, represent the average gun owner. They surely don’t. Perhaps it is the combination of the way we glamorize, almost idolize guns and violence, and our inability to keep them out of the hands of unstable people that leads us into this horrific situation, again and again.
According to Science Daily, “many scientific studies have established the connection between exposure to media violence and aggression and violence in children. For example, playing video games can lead to changes in attitudes and behavior as well as desensitization to actual violence.” As a society, we have to consider why we are creating such violent entertainment to begin with. What purpose does it serve? What effect is it having on our young people, whose brains do not fully develop their capacity for understanding cause and effect until their mid-twenties?
Every time there is an incident like the shooting at the Aurora movie theater, anti-gun people demand tougher laws for gun control, and those who care strongly about the right to bear arms counter-attack. Yet most people can probably agree, the right to bear arms is a fundamental American freedom, and few people are saying that all guns be outlawed. There must be some middle ground, where reasonable people can agree on strategies to keep guns out of the hands of these men who use them to massacre innocent people. If guns are meant for protection, why aren’t we protecting our citizens against their illegal and devastating use? And what are we doing to reduce the amount of violent and desensitizing imagery our young people are exposed to?
If we hunger for violent entertainment, what is the cause, and what is the effect?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Guest Blogger From 54 Years Ago
This Bread Which We Bless Daily
From the West Green Tree Church of the Brethren Newsletter
May 21, 1955
by Floy Royer Eshleman
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
Back of the flour the mill,
Back of the mill the wheat, the sower—
The sun and our Father’s will.
-Maltbie Babcock
About 10 years ago, while living in the home of a university professor in a central Illinois town, I learned the art of baking bread. I learned it, not in a home economics kitchen nor from the professor’s wife, but from an aged grandmother in a home whose homey philosophy and zest for living were contagious. I was a young bride then and probably felt that baking our bread was a contribution for the family budget. The experience of taking fresh, crusty loaves of bread from the oven soon became far more than an economic matter; it symbolized for me the fulfillment of my own life in creative activity and became a medium through which I could share the love of God in my life with others. Since that time hundreds of loaves of bread have come from my oven and have become a part of the way of living in our family.
The processes of baking bread and cultivating human life are similar in many ways. A loaf of bread must have wholesome ingredients, must be kneaded, left to rise, punched down, shaped into loaves and left to rise again. It is then ready to be placed in the over. Life is created and transformed in the slow, unseen, but sure processes as yeast working in the dough and the heat of the oven on the loaf. And the warm loaf from the oven must be consumed to fulfill the purpose of its creation. This creation becomes strength and nourishment for my family and produces satisfaction for me which can not be realized in the spectator role of life.
My heart is always warmed when my family joins hands in our family circle to sing: “Back of the loaf is the snowy flour.” I have had a part in bringing this fuller realization of God to my family through this bread that we bless daily.
An aged sister visiting in our home remarked that one thing she would do differently if she had her life to live over again would be to spend more time with her children. One of the most effective ways we can do this is in shared work experiences .The little hands and the little eyes follow each step of the way. And by these living experiences we transmit unconsciously our Christian faith to our children.
The preparing and serving of food can be more than the mechanical process of fixing it. As we are mindful of the ingredients of a loaf of bread, so should we bear in mind the content and beauty of each food we serve. Is it nutritious and attractive? Will it help develop strong bodies and clear minds? Will it bring all who eat into a fuller relationship with God? In the service of baking the communion bread at West Green Tree the ministers’ and deacons’ wives prepare their own lives in worship and consecration to God. This spirit permeates the afternoon’s activity and has followed me to my home in the baking of bread in my kitchen. It is an important part of the blessing of the bread, the breaking and the giving.
Attitudes of worship and temperance find expression in many ways in the kitchen; in devotion of self to Christ, in avoidance of overwork, in effective household management and in the combinations and amounts of foods served to avoid waste. Some of the groaning tables of yesterday (or today?) would not have pleased our Master if he had dropped in unexpectedly as a guest. If Christ is the unseen Guest at each meal should we not then be conscious of the type of meal we set before him?
Every kitchen can be a workshop for the growing and unfolding of God’s kingdom in our daily lives. Traditionally, the Brethren love feast and communion service have renewed and strengthened in a beautiful manner our relationship to God and his people. This service symbolizes a daily devotion in family and community living. Jesus was known in the blessing and breaking and giving of bread. He is still known in the family where the bread is baked and blessed, broken ad shared daily in his name!
From the West Green Tree Church of the Brethren Newsletter
May 21, 1955
by Floy Royer Eshleman
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
Back of the flour the mill,
Back of the mill the wheat, the sower—
The sun and our Father’s will.
-Maltbie Babcock
About 10 years ago, while living in the home of a university professor in a central Illinois town, I learned the art of baking bread. I learned it, not in a home economics kitchen nor from the professor’s wife, but from an aged grandmother in a home whose homey philosophy and zest for living were contagious. I was a young bride then and probably felt that baking our bread was a contribution for the family budget. The experience of taking fresh, crusty loaves of bread from the oven soon became far more than an economic matter; it symbolized for me the fulfillment of my own life in creative activity and became a medium through which I could share the love of God in my life with others. Since that time hundreds of loaves of bread have come from my oven and have become a part of the way of living in our family.
The processes of baking bread and cultivating human life are similar in many ways. A loaf of bread must have wholesome ingredients, must be kneaded, left to rise, punched down, shaped into loaves and left to rise again. It is then ready to be placed in the over. Life is created and transformed in the slow, unseen, but sure processes as yeast working in the dough and the heat of the oven on the loaf. And the warm loaf from the oven must be consumed to fulfill the purpose of its creation. This creation becomes strength and nourishment for my family and produces satisfaction for me which can not be realized in the spectator role of life.
My heart is always warmed when my family joins hands in our family circle to sing: “Back of the loaf is the snowy flour.” I have had a part in bringing this fuller realization of God to my family through this bread that we bless daily.
An aged sister visiting in our home remarked that one thing she would do differently if she had her life to live over again would be to spend more time with her children. One of the most effective ways we can do this is in shared work experiences .The little hands and the little eyes follow each step of the way. And by these living experiences we transmit unconsciously our Christian faith to our children.
The preparing and serving of food can be more than the mechanical process of fixing it. As we are mindful of the ingredients of a loaf of bread, so should we bear in mind the content and beauty of each food we serve. Is it nutritious and attractive? Will it help develop strong bodies and clear minds? Will it bring all who eat into a fuller relationship with God? In the service of baking the communion bread at West Green Tree the ministers’ and deacons’ wives prepare their own lives in worship and consecration to God. This spirit permeates the afternoon’s activity and has followed me to my home in the baking of bread in my kitchen. It is an important part of the blessing of the bread, the breaking and the giving.
Attitudes of worship and temperance find expression in many ways in the kitchen; in devotion of self to Christ, in avoidance of overwork, in effective household management and in the combinations and amounts of foods served to avoid waste. Some of the groaning tables of yesterday (or today?) would not have pleased our Master if he had dropped in unexpectedly as a guest. If Christ is the unseen Guest at each meal should we not then be conscious of the type of meal we set before him?
Every kitchen can be a workshop for the growing and unfolding of God’s kingdom in our daily lives. Traditionally, the Brethren love feast and communion service have renewed and strengthened in a beautiful manner our relationship to God and his people. This service symbolizes a daily devotion in family and community living. Jesus was known in the blessing and breaking and giving of bread. He is still known in the family where the bread is baked and blessed, broken ad shared daily in his name!
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