Love the Discarded
Two people peeved me off big time this week. The common thread being both laughed at those in pain with an added layer of me all my life helping such people who they considered unlikeable, in fact in their mind, darn strange.
The acute psych ward on the 10th floor was my first “real job” location. This followed my student out-training in the late 1980’s in New Zealand psychiatric institutions that were barbaric. Lock and key, white walls, electroconvulsive therapy, communal wardrobes and hose-downs. And back to ward 10 – no curtains in case someone attempted suicide, the top floor so no-one had to go past the “crazy patients” in the lift, and windows that deliberately couldn’t open so starving us all of well-needed fresh air.
Professionally, I felt very much out of my depth and out of place in these places as I didn’t relate to medicalisation or the dehumanisation I witnessed. And naïve and new to my role, the best I could do was listen, sometimes touch the arm of someone, look them in the eye, ask them how life was for them, and see them as souls in pain needing love. Facing a “team of professionals” in the initial interview must have been intimidating as it resembled a line-up and a firing squad ready to shoot them up on drugs. I aimed to make them feel welcome, noticed and valued by asking them a broader range of questions about their lives, their families, their purpose.
This week I attended a community conversation on the topic of eating disorders. When telling a local lady that I was heading there for my own self-interest, having suffered for years, and professionally with my take on grief underlying an eating disorder, she, who weighed at least 50kg over her best, made a laughter-filled scoff that I was heading to “over-eaters anonymous”. I felt insulted at her judgement. And I was ashamed of our system that chose stigma, medicalisation and mental-health labelling over addressing emotional and soul pain that comes from loss and grief which underpins eating issues.
And yesterday I had a random conversation with a stranger, but with commonalities. We both reminisced about the area where the acute hospital was located. She had worked in that neighbourhood and remembers the “loonies” that would arrive in her pharmacy, drugged to their eyeballs and “weird” in her words.
All my life I didn’t see the person in their external state, so much as their internal pain. Their search for love, acceptance, belonging and peace of mind. I was always one to see them, hear them and validate them – knowing they had a resource-kit of resilience inside that needed refinding.
Why have I always looked out for “the lost souls?” Because I’ve often felt weird and overlooked. And I’m someone who cares deeply about the soul. Each soul, not to be discarded.
How does loss and grief underpin what you’re experiencing in life? And does that grief need a voice? If so, consider Voice Up Challenge Fest. We’ll celebrate you having a voice and feeling heard - finally!
www.withme.so/BoldWomenSpeak - Voice Up Challenge Fest
