Saturday, August 23, 2014
I think three of the most dreaded words for people new to the experience of parenting (who also are not very mechanically inclined) must be "Some Assembly Required". I found myself reflecting on those words because it seems what I have been doing the last year could be described as the opposite of that: Some DisAssembly Required.
It's an overcast humid morning here in Madison, Wisconsin...and I am having some flashbacks to the summer I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana. I lived there for a summer to work for the National Weather Service during my breaks from my undergraduate studies. You may wonder why I am talking about Louisiana while I visit Madison, Wisconsin. Let's just say the hotel I am staying in this weekend reminds me a bit of the single room occupancy hotel I lived in that summer in Shreveport. The hotel I am staying in is cleaner than the place I called home many years ago. And yet somehow something about my accommodation is reminding me of that time in my life. And I have been simply remembering the fact that I was carrying around a lot of sadness within me that summer. I have carried far too much sadness around in my life.
Some disassembly required! In this last year I have been appreciating how it takes some time to disassemble the unhealthy habits and ways of thinking that have marked too much of my life. It's my (fairly informed) conclusion that you don't heal deep trauma in a short period of time. And I believe it is true what physician Lenore Terr concluded about what typically happens when trauma that occurs in childhood goes untreated. The longer you wait to get treatment the more arduous the healing process is often going to be. Lenore Terr is a child psychiatrist known for her work specifically focused on trauma. Click here for an excellent video of Terr speaking about PTSD and the trajectory of lives marked by it.
I wish I had been more proactive earlier in my life regarding my health. In my own mind I thought I was being sufficiently proactive. I have been physically active for much of my life. I also have wanted to believe I am a fairly mindful person. And I actually am. But the trauma induced sadness I carried around with me was never truly exorcised. And so now I have the task of doing it now.
It is also clear to me that I cannot keep reliving the past, blaming myself for not doing better than I did and so on. Eventually, as I noted just yesterday, the darkness must recede and new life will come. Not only will new life come but it must come otherwise we can find ourselves in a terrible limbo in which we live only in the past and future and never really in the present.
My grief can well up especially deeply and nearly feel overwhelming at times. One particular milieu in which I notice this happen not infrequently is when I attend events in which I am surrounded by a large number of gay men. I came to Madison this weekend for the 2015 Mr. Wisconsin Leather contest. I could feel my grief inside me last night while socializing in a crowd of men who had traveled from places near and not so near to be here this weekend. Gay culture can be exceedingly harsh and unforgiving when it comes to the attitudes about body image and self-worth that are incessantly directed at us by those attempting to market any number of products and services. We may have achieved some sort of (beginning of) gay liberation with Stonewall back near the year 1970 but I think we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to how we treat one another.
Sitting and acknowledging the sadness that will inevitably mark all of our lives (like when we lose people we deeply treasure) at one time or another is not an easy activity. But to be an authentic, whole, healthy person it is something that we must be willing to do...or at least try.
I am excited by the possibilities opening up to me in my future life. I only wish I could sit with my own sadness more easily. It is not a task for the faint of heart.
Courage and steadfastness are amazing qualities to possess. How do courage and steadfastness inform your own life journey?
I think three of the most dreaded words for people new to the experience of parenting (who also are not very mechanically inclined) must be "Some Assembly Required". I found myself reflecting on those words because it seems what I have been doing the last year could be described as the opposite of that: Some DisAssembly Required.
It's an overcast humid morning here in Madison, Wisconsin...and I am having some flashbacks to the summer I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana. I lived there for a summer to work for the National Weather Service during my breaks from my undergraduate studies. You may wonder why I am talking about Louisiana while I visit Madison, Wisconsin. Let's just say the hotel I am staying in this weekend reminds me a bit of the single room occupancy hotel I lived in that summer in Shreveport. The hotel I am staying in is cleaner than the place I called home many years ago. And yet somehow something about my accommodation is reminding me of that time in my life. And I have been simply remembering the fact that I was carrying around a lot of sadness within me that summer. I have carried far too much sadness around in my life.
Some disassembly required! In this last year I have been appreciating how it takes some time to disassemble the unhealthy habits and ways of thinking that have marked too much of my life. It's my (fairly informed) conclusion that you don't heal deep trauma in a short period of time. And I believe it is true what physician Lenore Terr concluded about what typically happens when trauma that occurs in childhood goes untreated. The longer you wait to get treatment the more arduous the healing process is often going to be. Lenore Terr is a child psychiatrist known for her work specifically focused on trauma. Click here for an excellent video of Terr speaking about PTSD and the trajectory of lives marked by it.
I wish I had been more proactive earlier in my life regarding my health. In my own mind I thought I was being sufficiently proactive. I have been physically active for much of my life. I also have wanted to believe I am a fairly mindful person. And I actually am. But the trauma induced sadness I carried around with me was never truly exorcised. And so now I have the task of doing it now.
It is also clear to me that I cannot keep reliving the past, blaming myself for not doing better than I did and so on. Eventually, as I noted just yesterday, the darkness must recede and new life will come. Not only will new life come but it must come otherwise we can find ourselves in a terrible limbo in which we live only in the past and future and never really in the present.
My grief can well up especially deeply and nearly feel overwhelming at times. One particular milieu in which I notice this happen not infrequently is when I attend events in which I am surrounded by a large number of gay men. I came to Madison this weekend for the 2015 Mr. Wisconsin Leather contest. I could feel my grief inside me last night while socializing in a crowd of men who had traveled from places near and not so near to be here this weekend. Gay culture can be exceedingly harsh and unforgiving when it comes to the attitudes about body image and self-worth that are incessantly directed at us by those attempting to market any number of products and services. We may have achieved some sort of (beginning of) gay liberation with Stonewall back near the year 1970 but I think we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to how we treat one another.
Sitting and acknowledging the sadness that will inevitably mark all of our lives (like when we lose people we deeply treasure) at one time or another is not an easy activity. But to be an authentic, whole, healthy person it is something that we must be willing to do...or at least try.
I am excited by the possibilities opening up to me in my future life. I only wish I could sit with my own sadness more easily. It is not a task for the faint of heart.
Courage and steadfastness are amazing qualities to possess. How do courage and steadfastness inform your own life journey?
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