”I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become” – C.G. Jung
This wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be the topic for my inaugural blog-post, but this is what came out. I’m not sure it’s ‘strategically’ wise to begin on this note, but then I’ve never been good at strategy. They say the Gods laugh at human plans – and in this case, as in many others, I think that’s often true. In writing this blog, unlike with the requirements of academic writing (once, my forte), I have intended to be personally honest, transparent and as ‘real’ as possible. After a night of candid conversation with a good friend and a lot of late-night singing, my throat-chakra is now well and truly activated, and this is the ‘topic’ that is coming up first.
Asking for help is one of those things I have always dreaded. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of pride or just an innate desire to make everything seem okay on the surface – maybe we all do this? Perhaps it’s just the way we are. I know I have always had a tenacious tendency to avoid at all costs the possibility of others knowing that ‘I’ (ego), cannot manage as an entirely self-sufficient, self-sustaining entity. The idea, when you look at it, seems fairly ludicrous. I still don’t know where it came from – society, family conditioning, or just a trait of my own devise. Either way, the veil’s been lifted now. There’s no more pretending so I’m not going to here either. A good dose of serious mental illness will help get this sorted out (not that I’m recommending it).
But, what I’ve been wondering is why is it so difficult to let people in? Why is it even a challenge to say to another human being (and we are, in essence, made of the same stuff), that here in the depths of my being, under these luminous and wonderful layers of skin, bones, organs and cells, I do not feel good. Something isn’t “okay”. There is something adrift, amiss, and quite frankly, muddled up. Why do we bother with this charade? And to what extent is it affecting the quality of our lives? It seems to me, that this inability, or resistance to admit perceived ‘weakness’ is at the heart of a great deal of our existential confusion, angst and that all-round fun-one, the staple of all Buddhist doctrine – SUFFERING.
In spite of all my own endeavours towards ‘self development’, admitting that I needed help has been one of, if not the hardest thing I’ve ever done. After years of yoga, reiki, meditation and exploration of many different methods of ‘self healing’, saying “I’m not okay” was truly torturous. Even when my entire facade was shattered, the illusion of ‘successful Shelley’ was all but a tattered ghost-like fantasy, and I could barely co-ordinate my brain and hands to orchestrate the exceedingly challenging task of making a cup of tea, still, I wanted to pretend to as many people as possible that I was ‘just fine’. And, as the cups of tea become yet again an almost automatic action performed swiftly and frequently (and it can be any kind of tea), still I wonder, how many others are in the position of being really ‘not okay’, and not being honest about it?
In my case this hasn’t been an isolated incident. I’ve been ‘not okay’ many times before, and for a dazzling array of reasons. A veritable cornucopia of ‘things’ that have made me feel, quite honestly, horrible. Some of the top ones in my ‘not okay’ list would include; the death of my mother at five years old, self-hatred – generally and sporadically expressed in the form of a stubborn and completely insane refusal to eat food, drug-use and abuse, relationship breakups, family problems, money problems, a smattering of anxiety and depression….it’s a decent list. Not, by any means, something to compare with many others, and mostly, not unique, but I’d still give my ‘Whinge List’ a pretty good rating – maybe a 6.5/10 for someone privileged enough to grow up in the ‘Western’ world. Either way, for one or a combination of these reasons, there has been many a time when I have felt the world as I thought I knew it, crumble, disintegrate, liquefy….leaving me with the impression of being alone, betrayed, unloved, unloveable, and ultimately, a total failure of a human being.
At this point in time we call “now”, it seems as though asking for help is getting more and more complex. It’s not just a matter of asking. If it were, then things would be simple. We could just walk up to that nice-looking lady at the cafe and say “Hi, I don’t feel great today, I’m wondering if it would be alright to sit with you and talk (or alternatively remain in total silence) until I feel better”. Said lady would reply, “Yes, of course it is, I have no problems of my own and all the time in the world to listen to yours”. You would then avoid the awkwardness of family dialogue, the potentially fraught and often biased-views of well-meaning friends, and the really scary one – ‘professional help’.
But, although these magical characters do exist they are not always there when we need them, and not always equipped to help, depending on how severe your level of ‘not okayness’ happens to be. So then the question becomes, who do we go to for this supposed ‘help’? And then beyond that, do these expert ‘help givers’ even know what it is we are asking for? And I’m not trying to be an ‘askhole’ but I have found myself with some big questions, that even the most apparently highly qualified professionals have had absolutely no answer for.
About two years ago I returned from overseas with what you might call a ‘fairly severe anxiety issue’ (recently renamed by a sympathetic healthcare practitioner, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). It’s a tricky one, because it sets in so quickly you don’t realise how utterly dysfunctional you are until you’ve already become that way. The reasons leading to this were multitudinous, and not the topic of this post, suffice to say right now – NEVER WAIT TO ASK FOR HELP if you feel ‘not okay’. Even if you think it’s ‘getting better’ or that you ‘can manage’ – get over your pride and ego and just go and tell someone quickly when your internal mechanisms start to get squeaky. Intuition exists for a reason, and you should (as I should have) always trust it.
In my case, it was a good thing I managed to admit I needed to come back to Australia. It was a good thing my family sent me the money for the fare, and it was a god-given blessing that I had beautiful and caring friends who collected my shattered frame from the airport and drove me to a safe, warm and love-filled home.
It was a great thing that my family let me deal with this ‘situation’ in my own way. Just living in a proper ‘house’ again was strange enough after having spent the previous three months living in a porous bamboo hut. But I made a few mistakes. Actually that’s an understatement, I made heaps of mistakes. But mistake number 1, was assuming that I would be able to get adequate ‘help’ from the people who are meant to ‘help’ with things like anxiety, mental health etc.
It took me three weeks to have the strength to get in my car and drive to a doctor’s clinic. Those three weeks had consisted of lying in bed basically catatonic for up to 18 hours a day, eating the food my friends cooked for me, shuffling to the toilet, sitting with my friends by the fire, cuddling the little dog that lived with us, and looking forward to the odd emails or text messages I received from the one or two people who knew of my predicament. Every day I lived through, blurred into the next.
Sometimes I would try to be brave and healthy and do the ‘right’ thing by getting some exercise, but then get scared walking in the nearby forest because my sense of self was so fragmented I thought I was going to be consumed by the trees and never find my way home.
I went to a local GP and I assumed this person would be able to see how unwell I was. I assumed this person would be able to diagnose me quickly and make appropriate recommendations. I assumed this person would be able to tell I was underweight, malnourished, traumatised, highly-dysfunctional and bordering on insane. I assumed this person would be compassionate and kind and realise that I needed help. Serious help. I assumed that even coming to this person, and saying the words from what was left of my barely-functioning vocal chords, “I need help”, would mean something.
I should have assumed nothing. It was made clear to me that in spite of my problems, I seemed to them to be well enough to be sent home with a diagnosis of ‘mild anxiety’, and prescribed anti-depressants to treat the issue…….enough said. I’m positive that in the ‘ideal world’, or perhaps, in a country where these kinds of systems actually function effectively, I should have been sent either straight to a hospital, or directly to a psychologists’ office. But neither of those things were suggested, offered, or even discussed. Instead, I wafted like a wraith from the clinic to the pharmacy and wobbled in the corner alone whilst waiting for my prescription of some apparently appropriate medicinal solution to my ‘minor problem’.
It became clear quite quickly after dealing with this doctor, then a succession of others, that very few indeed have any real understanding of mental illnesses. The third doctor in the line of many was, again, treating me for ‘depression’. On this particular day, I’d made it out of bed (well done). I’d eaten something. I had just enough money to put petrol in my run-down old Subaru to get there and back and maybe something to eat for lunch with my stipend from the Australian Government. I managed not to die on the trip through the winding roads. I parked the car and was able to walk into the surgery, sit down and stare at the floor without falling over. Probably the best day in a month.
Maybe today he would realise that I was not taking an ‘extended holiday’ by choice. Or that after having spent approximately ten years at university, I was not ‘choosing’ to rely on a Newstart allowance as some kind of entitled attitude. Maybe he would see that I had no capacity to express the requisite emotions (like crying) because my diaphragm was so badly frozen that I could barely look him straight in the eyes due to the relentless, painful, excruciating muscular spasms. It was like I was a stranger to him though – he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time (it was my 4th visit to this clinic) and said “So, why are you here today?”.
If I’d had the capacity to speak louder than a dull whisper I would have screamed at him, “Why the f**k do you think?”. Instead I spoke the words. The dreadful, scary, honest, terrifying, truthful words. Words that meant I was not in control. Words that meant I had never really had cause for complaint before. Words that meant I was at the mercy of other people. Words that meant I NEEDED those other people to be good at their jobs, to care, to notice, and to ACT appropriately.
And so the words came out again….. “I’m here because….I need help”.
And his response?
“Well, I think you look good today”……
Look good. LOOK. GOOD. I’m not sure if this man was from a different planet or trying to make a joke, but when I saw the sincerity in his eyes, I knew it was not my mistake. He felt that telling me I looked good was some kind of help? That ‘looking okay’ meant I was okay? That the external indication of a decent level of health, matching clothing (as matching as I can muster anyway), some make-up and not smelling like I’d crawled from the gutter, meant that I was effectively ‘all better’. I have forgiven this man, as he is fallible, as are we all. But still, that failure to realise, or even to try to realise where I was within myself at that time, was heartbreaking.
Two years later I have found ‘help’, and my faith in modern medicine (in combination with many holistic approaches) has been restored ever-so-slightly, but it still astonishes me that this problem exists in this day and age. In an era with more dialogue and awareness of mental health issues that ever before, it’s still as if we are all tip-toeing around hoping that no one will say anything about it in case you ‘catch it’ by talking about it.
It also seems that there is a failure in this apparent ‘system’ whereby many who really do need help are being missed. Had I not known people who were prepared to talk honestly to me about my ‘not okayness’, I would have been quite frankly, up the proverbial creek sans paddle. Had I not daily made the choice to survive, no matter how long it took to get better, things could have been very different and this blog might never have been written. And it makes me shudder to think of those who don’t have that support, or, who aren’t appropriately treated when they seek it, and really question why this issue exists?
The reasons for this, I assume, are varied and complex. Part of it, I think, is a system of medical treatment that has had the proverbial cut out of its ‘mental healthcare’ facilities. Another part, obviously, is the current push from pharmaceutical companies to sign up anyone and everyone to get on the ‘anti-depressant bandwagon’ whether you need to or not. An additional aspect is the idea that in this ‘New Age’ of love, light and positivity (and believe me, I’m not at all against these things….quite the opposite), we have created a discourse that seeks to deny completely the existence of the negative, the dark, or the unknown. We put mental health ‘problems’ in a category of ‘not okayness’, of ‘less than perfect’ and assign to those ‘diagnosed’ a largely unsympathetic response.
We are, in general, SCARED of people being ‘not okay’. It opens up all sorts of existential problems for us….like, ‘If they’re not okay, does that mean I’m not okay?’, or ‘If I know someone who’s a bit crazy, then, am I crazy too?’, or ‘If they’ve gone crazy, is it my fault?’. The list could go on. We are scared of dealing with other people’s pain because it forces us, through the very nature of human empathy, to question and perhaps, heaven-forbid, deal with our OWN PAIN TOO. But that is the very essence of why these things exist. Individual, or collective, we are all in some sort of pain, and the essence of it has to at least be acknowledged, made-way-for and brought into the light so that we can really be able to get the help we need – from others, and, most importantly from our very selves.
What is my point? This blog has started on a longer-than-intended note and I would like to make it clear that I’m not at all against all GP’s. BUT in the current situation, where we are seeing domestic violence rise drastically, methamphetamine use spiral out of control, and a whole host of new environmental pollutants contribute to our overall LACK of wellbeing, it is more important than ever to open up healthy, healing, caring, dialogue about feeling ‘not okay’. To completely TEAR DOWN the notion that our appearance says anything at all about how we are on the inside. To make it 100% okay to be not okay. Obviously with the aim of getting back to being ‘okay’, or maybe being ‘okay’ for the first time ever. Either way, the stigma needs to go. And, when needed, or even just because you want to, to, to be able to say to your friends, family, lover, doctor and maybe one day, that lady at the cafe, “Hi there, honestly, I need help”, and they will all say “That’s fine, what can I do?”. And one day in the future, when you are feeling better and you know through your own lived experience of what it’s like to feel ‘not okay’, you’ll be there to do exactly the same for someone else.
Peace, blessings and love to you all.
x S x
