The Things People Say

People say weird things. Here are some of the comments I heard in the last few weeks:

1. "I can't believe the secretary was complaining about my time sheet. I mean, if she wants something to complain about I could really give her something. Like police brutality to some inmates here. Yeah, I could beat up a few of those assholes" -Unknown Deputy who works at the Dane Co. Jail.

2. "If you want to do humanitarian work and truly help poor people, become powerful. You cannot be poor and help the poor" - Ayurvedic Practioner at seminar I went to.

3. "You could do a pretty good WWII" -JV referring Lia almost being able to put her hair in a ponytail, but she actually meant to say a "George Washington"

4. This joke that Justin Ver Halen told me last night, but I cannot repeat it. It was that horrifying. If you see me in person ask, I'll probably tell you, but I cannot type it. It was that shocking. And I'm not shocked by much.

I thought there were more, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. So, that's all I got. Some of them were disturbing, some were very funny. Just like life, disturbing and hilarious all at once.

Mental Health, The American Dream, and Family

The topic of choice has come up many times in recent conversations I've had with friends and, unfortuntely, family. There is one specific circumstance where a person said to me, "I really believe that a persons life comes down to the choices they make". I cannot disagree more with such a statement.

I must admit it's a nice thought; the idea that no matter what our background or current environment may be, we can simply make a choice, a good choice, and we can shrug off those self-imposed limitations and have a better life. It sounds good doesn't it? I wonder if this is the basis of what people like to call "The American Dream". Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, kid. If one person can do, we call can, right?

The problem with this mentality first and foremost is that it's elitist. It's all very pie-in-the-sky and doesn't at all address or consider the real, and sometimes very long lasting, emotional effects (shame being #1 in my opinion) of physical and/or sexual abuse or simply being poor. It's well documented that physical and sexual abuse can affect the emotional lives of people for long periods of time, often for their entire lives.

Our bodies have memory, even if we cannot literally recall a specific event, our bodies can remember it and respond to this memory. The mind/body connection is so active in us, and to me seems obvious, that is why it is so maddening when people disregard physical manifestations of emotions as something that is just in your head. Well, that's just the thing, isn't it? It IS in your head, therefore, it's in your body. It's very simple: sometimes when people are scared or nervous, they shake = physical manifestation of emotions. Or, ever hear of people getting sick because they've been stressed out at work? Yes, that happens too. Anyway, I digress...

My point is, is that abuse or exposure to violent situations (like war) can bring on PTSD and various other mental health issues that many folks simply don't have control over. They never know when a situaition or a person might remind them of the traumatic event and quickly they are back in that space again. How is it then that these people just "make good choices" and get on with it? I'm sure many war veterans would love to hear that.

I am not saying that some people can't move on with their lives after a traumatic event and function in a way that works for them, but I think it's important to consider the person also. No two people have the same response to traumatic situations, so it's absurd to expect that if one person deals with it in one way, that the other will do the same.

A family member said to me, "yes, but don't you know people who have Borderline Personality Disorder who actually take reponsibility for themselves and have "regular" lives?"

I told her no. Not because I believe that people with BPD will not have "regular" lives, but because usually the reason someone is even diagnosed with such a thing is because it is the way that the world makes sense to them. They also usually developed it as a coping mechanism, a protective measure in response to a traumatic experience. The way I see it: their behavior is an attempt to get their needs met, which were often not met at some point in their life.

The funny thing about such converstations with people, specifically this particular family member, is that outside of their lives, outside of their families, it is easy for them to make these connections.

Having compassion for people is very important, I think, because there is always something going on underneath. There is always something more, always more than the fragment of ourselves that we choose to show each other.

My people, My place

I am currently in Dekalb, Illinois, my hometown.  The place where I grew up or, better yet, the place that grew me up. 

It's a place where my family is and where all the things that I love and hate about myself exist. But, the fact that this place (figuratively and literally) exists for me at all, and still, humbles me. It is a place where people drive me crazy.  Where family has expectations of me and I constantly try to free myself of them.  That urge has softened in me a bit in the last year and though I have little tolerance at times for the ways of my family, I cannot deny the purity and simplicity of their love for me.  I drive them crazy too, after all. 

My grandmother, Alice, grew me up quite literally.  We lived with her much of the time growing up.  She is a quiet woman who resists and resents direction from most anyone, but mostly from men.  Her mother died tragically when she was  5 or 6 and then she lived a while in an orphanage until extended family took her in.  I cannot imagine what her life has been like. She is 84 now and reminds me everytime I see her, "I'm really old now, Peanut. I forget things all the time" to which I always respond "That is a lot of years to remember things, who wouldn't forget things at 84"?  and then she laughs.  

My grandmother often wishes that I would move back so that I would live in the same town with her.  She never understands people leaving, but she will counter it by telling me she knows I have a good job and that is really important. She tells me that if she wins the lottery she wants us to open up a little corner grocery store with me because we're both so good with people. She has always had this dream of owning her own little grocery with me. 

Driving here in the summer is so freeing for me.  I can only liken it to being somewhere it is natural for you to be, even if it isn't the place you fit in most naturally.  The back country roads I drive to get here are flat and uneventful for most, but to me they are a connection with the land; the people. The fields, the waves of tall grasses in between cornfields responding to the wind, the sweet stench of cow shit.  The dilapitated farmhouses or barns with beat-up cars, hoods popped, in the front yards.  Grubby looking men wiping their hands on their pants. 

And although Dekalb is changing drastically and generally isn't at all like what I've been describing, parts of it are still like this.  My family is still like this. 

We all have things to learn from each other, and they will be hard, I promise.  But, I have to remember to take a deep breath, look out at those fields and remember what it is in me that is natural.