Tag: mental illness

Time Brings Change

by 8hummingbirdway

When I visited my closest friend just after she gave birth, there was an incident in which her baby ejected projectile diarrhea on a wall 5 feet away. It was nothing I’d ever seen before – amazing! 100 years ago it would have been in bad taste to tell anyone about this, and I don’t think my grandmother would have appreciated it 50 years ago. In those days we had to be protected from this aspect of life. (Shameful bodily functions such as defecating!) And it wasn’t a normal baby poop event, hence …additionally shameful?

Bodily functions were definitely not discussed by my grandmother. I’m sure she contended with baby poop regularly, but it was the woman’s domain and my grandfather was protected from it. And yes, shame was part of this package of secrecy.

Over time it has become standard for both parents to contend with diaper changes. This familiarity and comfort helps to diffuse the impact of shame significantly.

You get the idea. Defecation and feces has been normalized over time. Today, you might not enjoy visualizing the event I described, but most people don’t give it another thought.

I’m hoping that in another 50 or 100 years we humans will be more comfortable with our bodies – maybe enough to discuss sex with ease. I know the younger generations have made strides forward in this arena.

Sexual abuse, other forms of abuse, and human trafficking also need to be brought into the light of awareness. Associated shame needs to be healed. Hopefully there will be no place for these harmful realities in our world in the next century.

I also hope we will be more knowledgeable about what is now called mental illness and addiction. The move to consider them not the fault of the person, and the recognition of heredity are positive movements toward the eradication of shame. I predict we will eventually be able to discuss all of these matters without shame coming into play within ourselves – or in the reactions of others. It will be as appropriate as poop.

Private sessions are offered in person and remotely by phone or video conference. Contact Annie to book a session, host a workshop, for sliding scale rates or to discuss barter arrangements.

About my recent story of Jerry

by 8hummingbirdway

The story of trauma I told in my last post is a story of deep harm and tragedy. My friend was taught to carry shame. However, I’m guessing that nobody has a problem with me telling this story. The greater public does not react with discomfort about me sharing this story. Yes horror. Yes sadness. Hopefully compassion. Perhaps judgement toward the father or towards gun-owners or toward hunters. But no personal shame exists fundamentally in this story. And I am not expected to keep silent.

I am, however, expected to keep silent about other, more sensitive topics that touch upon what we perceive to be shameful. Our culture treats abuse (especially sexual abuse), mental illness, and addiction as shameful topics. Shame for the “victim.” The perpetrator is often protected by the secrecy that results from the abused person’s shame, and the family is protected by their own silence (resulting from shame) regarding mental illness and addiction.

I’m certain there are other categories that carry this kind of shame and secrecy. Sex workers and homelessness come to mind – and there is overlap in all of these categories. But the circumstances of abuse, mental illness and addiction are the circumstances I am personally familiar with.

In telling about my friend’s birthday party or the birth of her son, I am not crossing the line of what is appropriate to share. If I tell about the accident she had or the time her house was broken into I am not crossing the line. If she is murdered I am not crossing the line. But if she is raped or tortured by her husband …it’s private and I am crossing the line of shame to mention it. If she takes a medication that causes a reaction, that’s ok to share, but not a mental reaction, or an addiction, because I am now calling shame upon her.

Are you starting to see what I mean by dirty little secrets and about my feeling concern about our silence – to keep everyone comfortable, and to sustain the status quo?

What is wrong with our sense of right and wrong?

The reality is that people are being hurt by their “loved ones” – both sexually and in other ways. People are diagnosed with mental illness or discover themselves (or their children/mates) to be addicts. And we are expected to keep it to ourselves – secret, hidden.

Would people think it was wrong of me to tell this story if Jerry was about my brother? They might. Some would worry about the impact on him and perhaps on my father, the hunter. The thought and belief is that I should be more protective about family members.

These same concerns exist if stories are told about family members who may have experienced addiction, family members who have been challenged with mental illness, or family members who perpetrated or experienced sexual abuse.

I do not agree with this keeping of dirty little secrets because we are family or because abuse, mental illness or addiction are shameful.

They aren’t shameful; they are conditions of harm. Those who suffer these versions of harm are many. These multitudes who walk among us every day need healing and compassion. However, the healing is not available when we keep these matters in the dark. And compassion does not result if silence is the order of the day.

I do understand about privacy. But the people I have been writing about do not share my last name, nor do they live in my community. I have not exposed them personally. But I am sharing the deep impact that their harm, hurt, and injury has had on me, on my soul, and on my life path.

Private sessions are offered in person and remotely by phone or video conference. Contact Annie to book a session, host a workshop, for sliding scale rates or to discuss barter arrangements.

Deception

by 8hummingbirdway

Keeping Secrets makes us comfortable with deception.

It is a very short step from keeping secrets about abuse, mental illness or addiction … to lying.  

Often, others are afraid of association with someone who has these experiences, which supports keeping one’s silence. Or one feels judgement by others.

I was in my early 30’s before I realized that I could make a different choice. I was a liar. I lied in my childhood, my adolescence, and my early adulthood. When I had a memory of sexual abuse at the age of 34, a counselor advised me to believe myself and to speak my truth, not be silenced. There is a great deal more to this story, and probably mine are the stories I should be telling. For now I will say that one thing I learned pretty quickly is that lying existed in my family and I had picked up that pattern.

Most of us tend to follow the ways that have been shown to us in childhood.

The truth became a big deal to me. Once I embraced truth, I saw my children telling the truth more. I chose my friends by their honesty.

Without truth, one has no way to navigate one’s situation.

Without the truth, a person is missing pieces of the puzzle, and it is very difficult to be successful in one’s goals, or even to discern what those goals might be.

I chose to leave my first marriage because the truth had little meaning to my husband at the time, and eventually I developed the clarity and courage to choose a separate path.

Private sessions are offered in person and remotely by phone or video conference. Contact Annie to book a session, host a workshop, for sliding scale rates or to discuss barter arrangements.

Shamanic Healing of Schizophrenia?

by 8hummingbirdway

My sister, my beloved sweet sister who was born 2+1/2 years after me, was diagnosed as schizophrenic in her early teens – after some experimentation with psychedelic drugs. We had moved the summer before she entered 9th grade, and she fell in with the “wrong” crowd. I remember her acting a bit strange the following year, just before I took off for college. But I missed most of the trauma around all this.

Things I remember being told:

  • She asked our younger brother to cut her belly open and put a lamp inside her to help someone or something.
  • She was brought to the “best” institution in a nearby city when she became unmanageable. (There were 3 younger children in the family.)
  • I know she was medicated and raped while whe was at this place.

I’m not sure how long she was institutionalized. I believe it was months, not years.

I remember her having a job at a supermarket a few years later. She had returned home for a while, but then our parents had kicked her out. After a while she tried to kill herself by jumping off a 2nd story porch. She broke her leg.

At some point she became unwilling to take medication.

She spoke of having flashbacks when I spoke with her. I was scared of her and her condition. I missed my sister. I didn’t know what to say to this person. It was like my sister had vanished. My loss of her is one of the deepest losses I have experienced in this lifetime.

She was the one who saved birds and other small critters when we were young. She never hurt a soul.

Later she had a child who I ended up adopting. Story here.

After that my sister lived under bridges; I was told she sold her blood for food. She witnessed a person pushing her friend off a subway platform into the path of an ongoing train. She experienced a lot that I never want to experience. My father managed to stay in touch with her because she called him for financial assistance from time to time. He managed to get her a PO Box, then later, an apartment – with the help of social services.

She stayed away from family for a long long time, but Dad would send a letter to her PO Box and travel from the East Coast to the Phoenix, AZ – where she lived. He told her where and when to meet him, promising a meal, a swim in the hotel pool, a stay overnight if she wanted. He would plan a meeting at a certain place and time. Sometimes she showed up and sometimes she didn’t. This went on for years and years. Eventually she let him know where she lived and he was able to go there annually and pick her up for meals and some time together.

Eventually my youngest sister moved to Colorado. She visited our challenged sister sometimes. Eventually my challenged sister told my compassionate youngest sister that she’d like to be closer to family. This was after our parents had died. My youngest sister arranged for housing and brought her to live nearby. She is present in her life at least weekly.

I have seen my “mentally ill” sister several times since then – at her apartment, at our sister’s home, back East at my brother’s home and at my home. She has seen her daughter/my daughter maybe 4 years ago on her most recent trip East. She met her 2 grandsons once or twice when they were small (they were busy being teenagers and missed our last gathering).

At some point I learned that schizophrenia usually becomes evident in adulthood, not in the teen years.

During my shamanic training I learned that schizophrenia can be a result of being stuck in non-ordinary reality (like on a journey) after the use of LSD – and not knowing how to get back to ordinary reality. That made sense to me. It may have been an LSD experience that never ended.

I mentioned this to my sister, but she isn’t interested in exploring alternatives to the medication she has come to rely on. (The meds have improved over the years.) She has come to live a connected and reliable existence and she is sticking with it.

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My Personal Obstacles to Wellbeing

by 8hummingbirdway

I wrote recently about addiction and mental illness. My personal path has not been as profoundly marked with these specific challenges as others, although both have significantly impacted my life. I have had some experiences which bring me to a level of understanding of others’ paths.

We can be waylaid for a decades by something we perceive as an obstacle – to realize later in life that it can be sidestepped and become a teaching, a strength. This feels like my story, but I’m not even sure how to name the obstacle. There were various aspects to my obstacle – family disharmony, sexual abuse, physical abuse, patterns of deception + betrayal, lack of spiritual or ethical guidance, favoritism – they all resulted in “low  self-esteem”, “codependency”, and other catch-phrases of my generation that are true and yet don’t quite reach the core of what was at play in my psyche. 

I am ”fortunate” in having sugar be my addiction, along with patterns of behavior, misunderstandings, and fear. Cane sugar addiction has been the external substance that has been “enemy” in my life. Both of my parents were diabetic and I recognized the danger in my 20s, but did not fully conquer it until this current decade, my 60s. It seems so small compared to drug and alcohol addictions, and it is. However, it impaired my health, my clarity, my balance and my state of mind. It was an impactful substance to my wellbeing on multiple levels.

Unlike more impactful addictions, sugar didn’t stop me from having a stable family, being a loving parent, holding down a job, or coming to love myself.

The teaching, the strength that resulted in having these challenges, is still at play. I am still learning humility, service and forbearance. These are the answers for me. Stop focusing on self and focus outward. What can I do to be of help? It sounds preachy as I write it, but in truth is has been such a help to me to learn to focus less on self (woe is me!) and look for the proper tasks to do that move me forward and make me a contributing member of my household, my family, my community. This includes a focus on gratitude.

My spiritual search helped mitigate my imbalance and brought me eventually to greater wellbeing, for which I am eternally grateful. It is the basis of my love and generosity, which calls me to the blessed path of helping others.

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Addiction and Mental Illness

by 8hummingbirdway

Why does addiction have to exist? Why can’t we be protected from all harmful substances – from heroin to pesticides? Why can’t we be born into an environment of support, understanding, wisdom, love and harmony that would help us avoid the pitfall of addiction?

Addiction provides SO MANY challenges to block our way, pitfalls to get lost in, and falsities to misguide, weaken and frighten us.

I have watched a beloved member of my family fight addiction to drugs and alcohol for years and years. This is a kind, loving, funny, strong, loyal, helpful and delightful person of deep insight and perception. Addiction manifested early in this person’s life – with a group of experimenting friends, some of whom died young, some who did not succumb as fully, and some who are still figuring out how to be free of this burden. This soul-wrenching challenge brings them to their knees over and over again. I am grateful for AA, for the sponsors that show up repeatedly, and for the slow progress to stability, self-knowledge and personal wellbeing. (I know there are other pathways to recovery as well.) I am also grateful for family members that embrace and support our beloved one reliably, despite the pain we experience. We have had to learn to mitigate our disappointment and worry, to accept what is, what lines to draw and how to draw them in a way that is most helpful but does not harm us.

And then there’s mental illness. Two members of my immediate family were diagnosed as schizophrenic. More distant family members have been diagnosed as bipolar, “on the spectrum.” depressed, and borderline personality. I have to say I have my doubts about many of these diagnoses. Are the symptoms that allow categorization into these ever-newly created diagnoses simply responses to the emotional, spiritual, mental and physical environment we are born to? Are the medications simply to keep those with reactions to our culture “manageable?”

I feel I understand the reason for the existence of addiction and other obstacles to our wellbeing. I believe we choose them before stepping into life. I believe that we navigate multiple incarnations that include severe challenges of body, mind, and more – that result in increased wisdom as a result of encountering and rising up above these conditions – and sometimes wisdom gained by failing to overcome the challenges.

One of my tasks as a shamanic practitioner is to assist those who have died but have not come to terms with their lives. Often they have not been able to forgive themselves for the steps they took in their lives. Because of this (or for other reasons), they cannot move on or return to Source, to Spirit, to God. Engaging with and assisting these lost souls has taught me a great deal about the unfoldment of life, about forgiveness of self and others, and about how we gain knowledge.

Another task is to help those still living to heal their trauma. I am grateful for having landed in a place where I can help to mitigate the challenges, to show a way forward, call forth wellbeing and self love.

There are many who do not find their way to help, who are lost in the fog of addiction, mental illness and other obstacles to wellbeing. Some of them are people I love; some of them may be people you love. Our options are to either stand by or let go, hopefully in love.

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