It's funny how when you are not complaining about things that you experience a sense of calm and collectedness. It's like you've reached enlightenment when all of your bitching and whining about everything and everyone around you has kind of died down and you feel like some of the anxiety toned down too. It's also less interesting!
When Pema Chodron talks about the phenomenon of being present and getting tired during meditation, I totally couldn't relate initially. Sitting with so much anxiety on a daily basis, I didn't understand how it was possible that you could actually get tired or bored during a meditation. However, when we are truly successful at being present and realizing that not all our demons followed us from the shit we put ourselves through and that our psycho 300 pound boss didn't follow us from the office into our apartments – sitting on our shoulders smiling smugly that she was successful in her efforts to destroy us. When you are not thinking about self-preservation and being on high alert all the time. When we are able to sit and be there with the moment, with the silence, the ridiculousness and the bodhichitta, things look empty and meaningless. There is a sense of calm in that space. Strangely enough, when we are able to realize that things really aren't that serious and that life is just a series of episodes of Cheers, things start to look on the up and up. There is a sense of power in knowing that we don't have control over anything and that life is simply emptiness and wide open.
However, these moments are to be cherished and held onto. It is important to practice these feelings and induce them at least once a day, because life has it's way of throwing shit at you left and right. The unexpected twists and turns that happen on a day to day basis are sometimes what triggers our 2 year old to come out and be reactive. It's sort of like Pacific Northwest weather. A tease that spring is here with a 90 degree day and then a hail storm the next day.
Recovery is sort of a process like this. When you have experienced something damaging or traumatic, it's a slow and long, gradual process. We are never sure that we are getting better until we start to notice some minor changes. We're not constantly in tense knots, we're not constantly on alert like we fear we will be attacked or we are exposing ourselves to something evil. I recently had a mentor tell me that anxiety is sort of like a friend that went overboard. Someone who is trying to protect you, but goes too far. This is totally true. Anxiety is a physical and emotional reaction to situations that we interpret as evil. If we spend too much time in evil situations without listening to our gut (especially when we are Geminis), we end up internalizing that evil and feeling we always need to be on alert. If you assume you spend 40 hours a week at work- a substantial amount of your waking hours. So, it takes a while for your body to turn off it's reactive process. It takes a good amount of time for our bodies to get back to normal and not be on alert all the time. It also takes some external events to reassure our bodies that they are right in assuming we are not in danger. And since we are human and we do “relapse”, sometimes our bodies jump back to reactive mode with the slightest touch. Things that might make us more likely to do so are 1. anything stressful that happens in life. The smallest trigger can make you feel like you went back to square one- like you disappointed yourself. However, these minor setbacks need to be considered for what they are. Minor setbacks, or just bumps in the road. Or, not even bumps. Maybe they can be just things that happen, just like things that make us happy. Not everything is a failure or success. Some things just are.
In some sense, I guess you could call drama in life and holding on to everything an addiction. If we become too driven by things that we can't do anything about, we lead a very exciting life. We have a lot to talk about with people and if we're really clever about it, we can make it funny. Some people become addicted to drama and recovery is the process of letting go of the drama and sometimes finding that calm.
I'm definitely not saying that a healthy attitude is not having any drama in your life. I think we are all human and we need to create some drama to keep things interesting. Hell, if I couldn't make fun of midgets with one leg, what would be the purpose of living? I'm simply talking about not getting so attached to things. I'll explain this better.
It's funny. Sometimes, I'll be reading In Touch magazine about Brad and Angelina's most recent public disagreement. Schadenfreude tells me to rejoice in their troubles because I hate Angelina. There are certain people who are just a personal offense to everyone in the world and all of humanity. She is one of those people. First of all, she is a walking contradiction. She was institutionalized three years ago for a suicide attempt (she is by the way classic borderline personality disorder), made out with her brother at the Oscars AND she's allowed not only to be a UN member or some sort of world leader (just because she thinks she has a British accent- when it's actually worse than Madonna's attempt at one), but she's allowed to buy children to add to her collection. Please, she actually collects children like she collects handbags. It's like those people who put themselves down on a handbag wait-list at Saks for like three years and if they can't say, “do you know who I am?” and get off the wait-list off their importance alone, by the time their name pops up on the wait-list, their handbag is out of fashion. Well, apparently it's easier to adopt children from third world countries. Then, everyone in Hollywood and the rest of the world totally admires her as if she did something good and she's such an “authentic” and “concerned” person. Please, just because she's not out creating her own perfume fragrance like J-Lo or coming out with a new album like Lindsay Lohan, she's the new Gandhi. What has she done that's been good? She hasn't made a good movie ever. She won an Oscar for Girls Behaving Badly (oh wait, that was Girls Interrupted), but that's because she played herself. Now, she goes to Afghanistan 9 months pregnant and sports a head wrap in Darfur and suddenly she's a world leader? That's some scary shit. How is she a fit mother? Last of all, the woman married Brad Pitt. I do not want to talk about her home-wrecking abilities because that's a whole other three pages.
So, as you see by my previous rampage, I get really worked up about this. But every week at the grocery counter, I can't wait to bust open the latest version of In Touch or Life and Style (these are the best magazines because they are cheaper than US) to find out the latest celebrity drama. My partner gets really annoyed at me because I usually am so distracted by Angelina and Brad or worse yet, TomKat, that I forget to offer payment for the groceries or I get made fun of by the line of people behind me who can't understand why someone would be so caught up in this shit. It's pathetic isn't it. Sometimes I start throwing the magazine once I get in the car on the ride home. If I'm driving on the way home, I have my partner read me the trash in the car because god forbid I can't wait until I get home to find out about Britney's latest mental health disaster and Dr. Phil's opinion about it. Or Mary Kate and Ashley's latest bout with anorexia or Heath Ledger. Or how Mary Kate actually fit into her handbag last week.
My partner always says, “why do you get so worked up about that shit?”. He's like surprised about it, like I'm some Alien from the planet Xenu. I reply saying, “because Tom Cruise is a personal insult to all Americans. It is not okay that people like him are famous and become renowned philosophers and leaders. Dude, stick to acting and stay the fuck out of telling people what to do or standing for some moral issue”. While Tom Cruise really IS a personal affront to all Americans and mental health professionals for that matter, why is it that these issues cause me to be thrown into an episode of bipolar mania? Not to mention the rest of America? I also explain to my husband that while I might say that Tom Cruise is a personal insult, it's not like I'm really upset about this shit. I'm just expressing an opinion and sometimes that personal opinion becomes pretty intense and I can go on and on about something. Now, what he should be pissed about is when I'm actually getting worked up over something that I have no control over and that really IS personal to me.
First off, I'm not bipolar and grandiose; I don't believe that Tom Cruise is actually behaving the way he does just to offend me. I know that his behavior is just a problem in general. However, when things happen in life, it's important to recognize that there are some events that are really like celebrity news (not personal in any way but fun to get “worked up” about), and there are some events that are personal like your friends doing shit that seems related to you or your boss really trying to do something personal to you. The trick is to know how to interpret these events without over-investing yourself- like with celebrity news. There is some research that states that people who are happier actually externalize and have less self awareness than people who experience depression and anxiety. In fact, people who experience depression and anxiety might be more accurate in interpreting events, however, they take too much personally and therefore allow their heads to run rampant with thoughts of what if it really about me. What if my friend really doesn't like me because she had to have dinner with her family? What if my friend doesn't like me because she chooses to ditch me for her stupid boyfriend that just causes her problems? What if Tom Cruise actually looked up my name on a google search and found out I said he was gay and is making out with his robotic wife Katie just to piss me off? Ha. So, we must figure out how to be sensitive and self aware without getting too far into our heads and we must figure out how to be confident enough that we don't become Tom Cruise- hypocritical without self awareness.
I think that the trick is to look at most situations like celebrity news. Just recently, one of my best friends came into town for a week. Every time she comes to town, she stays with her dad and stepmom (her stepmom is seriously psycho). In the past, she would actually tell her parents she would be arriving later and stay with me for a couple days so she would be released from prison long enough to see her friends or god forbid have a drink. She also has a tendency to try and please everyone and avoid conflict. So, it's really annoying when you have plans with her and she ends up dissing you yet again because her parents are “weird” about her or think she is “taking them for granted” or some other bullshit drama. As a result, I have started asking her in advance what her plans with her parents are so that I know what time we will have to hang. I have also addressed the fact that it is really frustrating when she switches plans or bails because her stepmom is having another hissy (she is by the way a mental health professional- ha). Well, the last time she came to town, I let go and said, this will happen. I've addressed it, can't do anything to change it and I won't expect anything. While that's kind of sad, I didn't get worked up about it. Instead, I was able to talk about it like an episode of the Hills rather than anything personal. I also realize that it has nothing to do with me whether she can't come out. It's just her own inability to stand up for herself or set boundaries with her parents. Once again, my frustration with people who don't take care of themselves. She is after all, 31 years old for Christ's Sake. My parents aren't even that bad. So, in this case, it's okay to fold em- because it's not about you.
Even if you have friends who you realize have limitations in terms of trustworthiness or just when the frustrate you, it's important to sometimes treat this like celebrity gossip and fold em. Put in your two cents and fold em. You're not going to change whether your friend likes to tell everyone else what to do but won't follow her own advice or turn the mirror on herself. But she's also not doing these things personally to you. She does this to everyone, it just feels like it's only to you. Or maybe you're just more sensitive to it like I am.
Now, the problems arise when you are actually involved in a situation where someone really is out to get you. I'm not talking about some random person on the street, because then you just avoid the situation. You don't try to make it okay with some psycho running after you with a knife social workers, you just run. You don't feel sorry for them and try to put yourself in their shoes or talk them down. It's not your responsibility. If the NASW actually tells you that it's your responsibility to save others when you put yourself in danger just because you are a social worker and mandatory reporter- fuck that yo. I remember living in an apartment in NYC with a family next to us who was always screaming at each other in Haitian and throwing shit at each other. You could hear everything from the hallway-noises of things being thrown against the wall reverberated in the hallway. Moreover, it was common knowledge that their ten year old son was a crack dealer. Once, I had a social work friend come over who asked why I hadn't called the cops. Dude, I'm not getting involved. That's none of my fucking business. Hell, for all we knew this could have been a case of cultural differences. Haitians tend to talk louder in general and we had no idea what they were actually saying to each other. They could have been talking about the weather, or having wild sex. Or they could have been throwing their 10 year old son against the wall. None of my business. Just because I'm a social worker does not give me the right to make moral judgments on other peoples' behavior- unless they are my clients. But those aren't moral judgments- unless the person is acting like Tom Cruise. Moreover, if there really was some serious domestic disturbance, I'm not going to be the stupid white girl intervening with Child Services in an all black building. Who the fuck do you think it was who reported the noise? The other crack dealers in the building or the white girl student in the corner apartment. People aren't stupid and I'm not putting myself in danger for other people's well being. Who the fuck determines well being anyway? What am I God? Apparently, NASW seems to think so. So if keeping myself safe means that I'm an unethical social worker, I will accept that. I don't wanna be a social worker anyway. Also, if we intervene to the expense of our own selves or lives, what fucking good can we do if we're dead or out of commission as a social worker? None. So thanks NASW!
This is the problem with social workers. We seem to think that everything is our responsibility, when it really has nothing to do with us at all! So, here we are taking on all the woes of the world. And what do we get for it? A slap in the face for fucking in other peoples' busin-ass. So, this may be why the more driven ones don't necessarily take a slap in the face as serious enough. In other words, social work makes us ignore cues of danger. If we feel that we are in danger, we ignore it because it's our job to be in danger. To ignore our bodies' cues or signals. This is totally bullshit and it makes us very sick people. I am living proof. As a result of my understanding (subconscious or not) that I was to be helping other people, I ignored signals of danger (being threatened by clients and supervisor) for a means to a greater good- to get my LCSW. This succeeded in absolutely nothing. I did not achieve my goal and I only succeeded in killing myself emotionally. The psyche can only take so much abuse. While I may have more common sense than most social workers who may be stupid enough to intervene in some street fight, I sacrificed my emotional wellbeing trying to overinvest in something that was not to be changed. In other words, I didn't know when to fold em.
Now, I'm not saying to stay out of our clients lives. I have had to report client's behavior to community partners plenty of times. Sometimes, we have to play hardball and law enforcement. That's some fun shit. Sending someone to jail because they didn't come to group- again. I get some sick pleasure out of reporting, “Brad was absent, again. He's not calling in and here are all his contacts in the past month”. Power trip- probably. Our clients lives are our business. That's why it's so important to have a strong agency backing you- team support, so that you can blame your report on the agency. This way the client doesn't just want to kill you, they want to kill everyone in the agency. This is much better because then you don't have a hitman on your door. How hard do you really think it is for a client to stalk you if they wanted. This is why I like working with people with DD. For the most part, a lot of them can't read and might be in a wheelchair. They might take lift to try and find you, but it's easy to run away from a wheelchair, even the electric ones. You just hit some stairs. I'm totally kidding, but not entirely. Think about it. Antisocial substance abuse clients see you in private practice and are definitely smart enough to stalk you if they wanted. I've seen enough Lifetime movies starring Alan Thicke to know that!
So, the moral of the story today is that not everything in life is like celebrity gossip. Some things are, and some things are more serious. And it's important to recognize when to pull back from those things and stay away from certain situations in efforts to self-preserve (when the things are more serious). I will explore this more tomorrow. However Listen to your body and mind. Otherwise, you are just takin' a hit for the team kids. Do you really want to be the reason for another joke about a social worker that risked their own life or mental health for the good of others? To no avail for either party? Is this really our job?
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