The need to feel heard

Posted on July 14, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

Last night I was reminded of this subject, as I visited a friend who was busily making dinner.   She bustles and putters and chops and spatters, doesn’t respond, and occasionally ‘shows interest’ by asking a ‘clarifying question’.  Or more like a “what was that?” question.   It’s hard to really hear, when you are focused on something else.  I was not being heard – and I felt unheard.

My partner, on the other hand, doesn’t really care if he was heard – doesn’t wonder if he was –just assumes of course he was.   That’s his ‘default’.  Mine is to wait for someone’s attention, as I assume I will not be interesting enough to be heard at the best of times, let alone when someone is not paying attention.

Funny, these lifelong perspectives and habits-of-feeling we develop.  At least these days I merely feel bored in this situation, and my mind wanders off to the world of ideas and dreams.  I have a very active imagination – well-honed after a lifetime of frequent use.

But for some people, the need to feel heard is deep and desperate.   It’s a straining, bursting-at-the-seams kind of need; an it’s-been-so-long-I-might-kill-myself kind of need.   And there are so many people out there with this need, one could almost become a fulltime “volunteer listener”.   I know there are some who just never stop talking – for whom the talking is probably an unconscious distancing of people – a barrier to intimacy.  But for most, the bursting need is to talk about something pressing – like a feeling of injustice or unfairness, the need to feel affirmed, appreciated, perhaps even understood.

Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” didn’t include the need to feel heard; but it would fit right in there among the more basic needs in life.   How about right after food, or sleep?

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Fear of so-called schizophrenia

Posted on July 14, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

Partly because of my friend “A”, and partly because of Mad Pride Week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of the label “schizophrenia”.  There’s been so much discussion about it in recent years, and people are only just beginning to catch up.

It’s a strange term, with an “iffy” history and meaning.  But a diagnosis can change a person’s life, employability, economic status and even result in brain damage – or suicide.   Not to mention the unspoken assumptions by friends and relatives.  Stigma bigtime.   As a community, it’s time to take a fearless look at ourselves.

But what is this thing that people fear?  As Dr Kwame McKenzie* says, ” …because we haven’t got the pathology, we can’t say what’s going on in the brain or the mind -or whatever, we try and find the symptoms and cluster symptoms together and we say ‘we’ve got this diagnosis or that diagnosis.  And ‘schizophrenia’ is a number of symptoms that have been put together to say that this is an illness…and that’s an idea: it’s not a thing.”   In other words, it’s not a discrete, easy to recognize, clearly definable disease that you either have, or don’t have.

McKenzie also points out that in identical twins, when one is diagnosed with schizophrenia, the other has only a less than 50% chance of getting a similar diagnosis.   This throws ‘genetic’ assumptions into a moving stream.

Dr Gordon Warme, a U of T professor of psychiatry, says “I don’t want anybody telling me that I’m biologically abnormal when I’m not.  I mean it’s the worst possible stigma you can put on somebody.” **

To me it’s a little like learning my neighbor has “cancer” – which tells me nothing about the kind of cancer they have, nor what can be done about it,  nor a prognosis.   The only similarity might be that I’d know my neighbor needs me to be a ‘good neighbor’ and supportive friend more than ever before.

But thanks to sensational newspaper headlines and dramatic TV news stories of extraordinarily rare events, people are afraid to have a “schizophrenic” neighbor.   They feel it puts them at risk.  Statistically, such a neighbor is more likely to be harmed than to harm others.   In fact,  more likely to harm himself – out of loneliness and fear.

Let’s celebrate Mad Pride Week by leaving  that irrational fear behind, and getting a little education.   In fact, make this the day you start to answer the question, “What change can I make?”

*head of CAMH’s schizophrenia unit.  Check video yourself: http://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/mars-project-jonathan-balazs-and-khari-conspiracy-stewart

**(www.indiegogo.com/marsprojectmovie?c=gallery)

Posted in causes, community, compassion, consciousness, education, fear, ignorance, Inclusion, personal growth, psychology, reflections, schizophrenia, values | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A moment, for mental illness…

Posted on July 13, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

Yesterday a friend emailed me  a beautiful Powerpoint presentation about long-suffering women and how essential and precious their struggles are, everywhere and always.

It was one of those things we’re asked to send on, and It would have been perfect to send to my friend A.   But she doesn’t use the internet.   She’s intimidated by it, maybe afraid of it,  as she is of so much in life.  She was diagnosed with “schizophrenia” 26 years ago, and lives in a prison composed of her fears and beliefs and pills.

Imagine someone who is never quite sure how to interpret everyday things around her, and add a large dose of extra sensitivity, and stronger feelings than most of us experience.

In an ideal community, her neighbours would  be sensitive to her, considerate and perhaps even comforting and supportive in whatever way is needed.  Instead, only one neighbor communicates with her, does paid cleaning for her weekly because A is not well enough to do it herself.   Sometimes she criticizes A’s ways and this of course hurts A terribly, with the pain of it lingering for days.  But no resolution is possible, because as she says “I don’t have many friends”.  As the saying goes, I think to myself, ‘with friends like that, who needs enemies?’

But A is, most of the time, imprisoned in her home because any outing is a major effort, which can only be accomplished with help; so dependence on the neighbor is a fact of life.  Yesterday the neighbour’s comment was – half under her breath, “You’ll never learn!”.   A was crushed, but controlled her emotions until later when she could call me.

When she did call, she was sobbing, and between the sobs, wailed “It’s so unfair!  Doesn’t she know it’s not fair?”  Of course it’s not fair.  And in my imaginary ideal community her neighbours would have some knowledge about her illness.  They would know something about being supportive to a person like A.  They would ignore her occasional outburst, with some sensitivity to the root of it.  They would sometimes even help her get through the night.

In such a world, there is every chance that she would be able to gradually leave behind her pharmaceutical nightmare and perhaps through one of the modern therapies like ‘Cognitive Behaviour Therapy’ (CBT), she could gradually change her relationship to the world around her and catch some happiness.  Imagine that!

Posted in community, compassion, consciousness, fear, Feelings, Inclusion, personal growth, psychology, Reflection, reflections, schizophrenia, values, volunteer | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Community vs ‘Ghettoization’

Posted on July 12, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

Community is the single most important social group in our lives.   It can take us a lifetime to figure that out, because we are diverted and distracted by other social groups: clubs, religious organizations, political groupings, schools, gangs and so on.

But sometimes these other human groupings – or the prejudices they transmit –  prevent us from really being a part of the community.   Sometimes forever.  In which case we  neither contribute to the community, nor benefit from it. An example would  be a religious group which believes that all non-members in the community are sinners with whom they should not spend time.   Or people in  a  ‘threatened’ cultural group who want their children to retain certain practices which would exclude others.   For such people, it could well feel like a huge sacrifice to become more bonded to the community.  They may live in segregated ‘ghettoes’, avoiding integration into the larger community.  Neighbourhoods that exclude such groups are being just as self-destructive or counter-productive.

Unfortunately many people spend a lifetime looking for a group of people  to which they can ‘belong’.  They think if they can just find the right formula-for-living, they will find others like themselves.

Ironically, the more our chosen social grouping is ‘like us’, the more we feel aware of our differences, which are often hidden.  Yet we persist.  Self-defeating, I call it.   And it weakens the treasure of community.  An alternative would be finding ways to integrate people around their commonalities, while treasuring and celebrating their differences.  Oh, would that be Toronto?  Sometimes…

Each of these other social groupings has relatively narrow commonalities: perhaps a set of  beliefs (church), or a set of behaviours (a fitness club), or an ethnicity (e.g. Polish Association).   What the broader community members have in common is their very humanity.   With humanness consisting of an incredible variety of characteristics, there is no limit to how those members may act together, potentially in very creative and mutually supportive ways.  The potential, as they say, is endless.

At the end of the day, it is not rituals or traditions that are most important.  Bad things happen to people.  What’s most important is that the community understands this, and pulls together to support any individual going through a rough time, in any way necessary.   Such a community will thrive, enriched and strengthened by the experience.

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Teach Internet Awareness

Posted on July 12, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

Are we missing the boat in education.   We are simply not keeping up with the changes in – let’s call it – “information transmission”.

Books are, bluntly, too slow; by the time an “expert” book is published, the information in it is old compared to the instant publishing on the internet.  TV is changing as we speak – being pre-recorded by people  who haven’t the patience for or interest in ads (the very people who can afford the advertised goods) so advertisers are more hesitant to sponsor a program.  Newspapers have been shutting down for years, with most shifting to online publication.

The world of information transmission is dramatically changing,  quickly, with more and more information accessed online – through everything from Google searches to downloading whole books into e-readers – at great savings to consumers, and with great speed.

We should be teaching  related skills – from the 3 Rs combined with touch-typing, to new critical-thinking skills – sufficient to resist the influence of everything from cults to sophisticated marketing that comes on like “information” (for example pharmaceuticals on “new” drugs),  to governments trying to sway our votes – or worse, control the internet.   A kind of Internet Awareness 101.

As it becomes easier for kids to avoid important knowledge about their world, and more enticing to merely seek entertainment, when I stop and think about it, incorporating these changes into education will be essential to the survival of democracy.

Posted in consciousness, education, ignorance, inteernet, Internet, modern life, reflections | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Great!

Posted on July 3, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

My latest “Aha!” moment arrived the other morning when I passed a neighbor/friend in the street.   If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed his body language: definitely down.   As we passed each other, he asked how I was, and I smiled and said “Great!”.   We moved on.  And suddenly it hit me,  like the proverbial ton of bricks, how insensitive and unconscious I had been – and have been on countless similar occasions.

In my mind’s eye, and in my psyche, I re-experienced what I hadn’t noticed in that moment.   Why that moment?   I suppose it could have been that the contrast between us gave me a little jolt  – and I’ve always been a bit slow to absorb a sudden idea – as if my brain needs to slow it down first, roll it around, look at it from all sides, before I really take it in.

When I ‘fearlessly analyzed’ this idea, I realized that it had been trying to get in for awhile.   Knocking at the door, so to speak.

The memory of this tiny event kept coming back – through other conversations, chores, outings, so I had to actually look this one square in the eye.  I had been insensitive and unconscious – definitely not ‘in the moment’.   When I passed him this morning, I stopped, looked and listened – to his voice, his body language, and his words.  It felt as if we really saw each other – a  ‘connect’.

It wasn’t time-consuming, or energy-zapping; in fact it was probably somewhat enriching, in some small way.  And I suspect these automated greetings are often the by-product of an excessively cerebral type such as myself.  We can be so pre-occupied with our ‘thinking and dreaming’ that we fail to experience the here-and-now.  The place where reality happens.

Posted in communication, consciousness, Feelings, friendship, psychology, Reflection, reflections | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Note to a friend #2

Posted on July 1, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

You act.  Act like a totally confident expert.  Act like someone who isn’t afraid of anything or anyone.  Act like someone who has no vulnerabilities.

If this is the way you want to be, then what you need is an audience, not a friend.  An audience will give you the attention, the applause.

But a friend needs to know your weaknesses, your flaws, your vulnerabilities.  For those are the invitation he/she needs, to be real.   This is how he truly knows you.  A friend who knows your flaws will not love you less, for they also know your strengths, and they accept the fascinating work of art they know you are.

Posted in communication, consciousness, fear, Feelings, friendship, personal growth, personal power, psychology, Reflection, reflections | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Note to a friend #1

Posted on July 1, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

I get the sense that – like me – you are triggered to feel like an embarrassed child when someone is giving you information – as if you feel somehow that you “should already know” it, so you feel inadequate,  lectured or judged, etc… damn shit our parents inflict on us.  I recognize it because it’s also been one of my own triggers.   A conditioned response.  In my case it was father – but now I recognize that my mother in turn, because of her conditioning, deferred to, enabled, and reinforced that critical-judgmental behavior.  And the cycle continues unless we work at it, our kids work at it, and so on, until it hopefully fades into oblivion, and we live in a perfect society.  (Dream on….)

But in a way, feeling completely equal to, and unthreatened by, the person who is ‘instructing’ us  (sharing?) is what I think of as a learnable response – something worth playing with, trying on, practising… I practise it regularly myself by vividly imagining a person talking to me in a variety of ways that make me feel put down.  I imagine his/her communication, while being aware of my physical/emotional tension, and making myself feel relaxed and unthreatened while he talks.  I imagine his hostile or aggressive tone and body language.  I make my shoulders relax, my breathing deepen, and let it be entirely ‘his’ thing.   This little exercise, with all the things that typically caused my defences to rise, has helped tremendously.  And when I forget, and react, it now takes me a very short time to get over it, and go back to a positive feeling toward the person.

I remember a sad day when I felt judged and criticized by my own brother, and didn’t speak to him for almost a year.  He and I will never get that year back.  If I had been able to analyze what he had said – without the conditioned defence – how different it would have been.  And I have to admit that was not the only time I’ve had that kind of emotional reaction that needn’t have happened but for a lifetime of reinforced feelings of inferiority.

When I am suddenly feeling defensive, the first and most important thing I have to do is remember to pause.  That pause is what gives me the time to relax, think objectively, and ‘un-trigger’ myself.  The magic flows from there, and good stuff happens…

Posted in consciousness, criticism, Feelings, friendship, judgment, personal growth, personal power, reflections | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Crying vs Power

Posted on June 29, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

A friend was talking to me over lunch yesterday, essentially about insensitive mis-treatment of someone by a government agent.   Suddenly I realized I was about to cry.  For some reason my whole being said “stop” to that feeling, and I said out loud, “No I’m not!”

Everything about my first tearing up response seemed to represent powerlessness, and I could see that getting in touch with anger, and letting it be energy to fuel action, was a healthier response.

So, is crying an act of powerlessness?    We begin at birth with crying,  to communicate needs.  Very slowly we move from crying to words, until we use words most of the time.  From then on, we cry mainly in emotional reactions to life events.

Jodi DeLuca, PhD, a neuropsychologist at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, says ”When you cry, it’s a signal you need to address something.” Among other things, it may mean you are frustrated, overwhelmed or even just trying to get someone’s attention, (http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/why-we-cry-the-truth-about-tearing-up)

Gender differences are interesting too:

“Women who report anxiety, as well as those who are extroverted and empathetic, are more likely to say they feel comfortable crying, ”according to a 2008 study published in Personality and Individual Differences.

Personally, I think a lot of tears are related to powerlessness, which I suspect is one of the reasons women cry more easily than men.  Often men express the wish that they were “able” to cry, but I find this ironic, because in many cases I suspect crying is a substitute for action.  And I would also say that women used to cry more – when they were more powerless – and likewise probably cry less now, as their power and assertiveness increase.

If all of this is true then I should find myself becoming increasingly active, and crying less often.  In fact, this is what has been happening.

But on the other hand, I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions….

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The feel of love…

Posted on June 19, 2012 by fearlessanalyst

I have  kept the lace jacket for almost 50 years now.  It was made by my mother’s hand, to go with the peau de soie wedding dress she also made for me.

I knew she was doing it partly to save money, but  when I see  it now, it triggers the memory of her unconditional love.   I believe it was her way of expressing the love that was otherwise unspoken in our family culture.  No one ever said “I love you” the way we do with our children.  The word ‘love’ seemed as embarrassing as “breast” or “menstruation” (we called them ‘chest’ and ‘monthlies’).

Dad once said to me, his voice dripping with  disgust, “Do you have to talk about feelings all the time!?”   Once my father did say “I love you all”.    That was the best he could do, and it was only because he had drunk enough alcohol to throw up.  It was always clear that feelings were meant to be hidden.

I had the good luck to learn this had not always been my mother’s way.   During the last few days before my wedding, one day I brought my boss, Ed, in to meet them when he drove me home.   He would be coming to the wedding too.    To my shock, Mom and Ed flew into each other’s arms hugging, with Mom squealing “Ed!” and Ed shouting  “Edie!?”.  Mom’s sister Mabel  was there, and they went through the same affectionate greetings.  It turned out he was a long-lost friend from their growing-up years in Saskatchewan, and when he learned that some of Mom’s other siblings would also be there soon, he was thrilled.  Throughout the evening, one after another arrived – to attend the wedding of their sister’s first-child  – and all were greeted with hugs, tears of joy, and laughter.

It was the completely spontaneous affection that was so startling.  At 22, I had never seen this in my home.   I was fascinated by it, if not comfortable.  And now, as I finger the lace jacket, all that affection comes back and I feel the wonder all over again.

In the months leading up to the wedding, Mom and I shopped for a pattern, chose materials and then she set to work.   I merely showed up from time to time, to inspect or ‘try-on’.   Because she was a modest, self-sacrificing person, and because I was self-centered,  I didn’t realize  how hard she was working —  organizing the details of my wedding, making the dress.   She even made a traditional 3-tiered wedding cake, which took months because, like a Christmas cake, it had to be ‘aged’ before it was decorated.

She developed painful eczema on her hands  and still she sewed on.   My wedding anxieties caused me to lose enough weight that she even had to alter the dress.   By the wedding day I was down to 112 pounds – which both concerned and exasperated her.  But she soldiered on, organizing out-of-town guests, accommodating everyone involved.

After the wedding, I got to leave it all behind for a honeymoon in Florida, while she was left in its wake, cleaning up after the storm.    I breezed back into town with husband in tow, full of my trip, still not thinking about her tremendous feat, still taking it for granted.

Two years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  And about four years after that, she was gone.

As I moved through life – out of that marriage, from home to home, into another marriage, and then into another city, I carried that wedding outfit with me, regardless of the space it took, regardless of how damaged it became.  And I think it gradually raised my awareness over the years, each time I came across it.  The longer I lived with it, the more I understood the work – and love – that had gone into it, and into so much of my life.

It has changed the way I think and feel about much in life: about self-sacrifice, about unconditional love, about ways we communicate, and about how I may be impacting my daughters’ lives, which is more than you can say about most clothing.

The peau de soie is yellowed and stained with age and is no use to anyone but me now.  The delicate lace jacket can be rolled into a very small ball and no doubt will always be with me.   I have only to touch them, to feel wrapped in her love all over again.

Posted in consciousness, Insight, loss, love, Memories, mother, personal growth, Reflection, reflections, relationships | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment