During my professional career I have worked at three psychiatric facilities, two domestic violence centers, and in private counseling practice.
I have seen and felt:
---the fear of someone with paranoid hallucinations…
---the hopelessness and lethargy of clinical depression…
---the exhaustion of racing or confused thoughts in someone
with Schizophrenia or Dementia,
---and the emptiness of extended grief.
I’ve listened to:
---the undeserved shame of individuals who have experienced horrible
sexual and/or physical abuse,
---the chronic stress of people facing constant daily survival challenges,
---and the loneliness of those who feel abandoned and unloved.
Once, I worked with a young adult woman who had been locked in a closet most of
her life. I had to teach her how to smile.
I heard the first words spoken by someone who had been mute for over four years. They were, “I’m afraid of getting better.”
And one night I received a call from a client telling me, “Tomorrow when I go to work I’ll be alright because I can play a role and be someone else. It’s today when I have to be me that is hard.”
But, maybe what we have all felt at times in life was expressed by someone who said, “I feel as if I am a torn and tattered package or book that no one wants to pick up and open because there are brand new books or packages that look clean and attractive. So no one seems to take the time to really know me."
No matter what form mental or emotional illness takes, it is still humanity hurting.
No matter how disturbing or unusual the behavior might be, it is still people in pain.
Someone once said that we all stand in God’s breadline…we are all needy at some time. Maybe we simply need to remember that hearts and minds are capable of starving as well as bodies.
Question for reflection: Do you really know and believe that you are irreplaceable? And, do you handle yourself with care?
I have seen and felt:
---the fear of someone with paranoid hallucinations…
---the hopelessness and lethargy of clinical depression…
---the exhaustion of racing or confused thoughts in someone
with Schizophrenia or Dementia,
---and the emptiness of extended grief.
I’ve listened to:
---the undeserved shame of individuals who have experienced horrible
sexual and/or physical abuse,
---the chronic stress of people facing constant daily survival challenges,
---and the loneliness of those who feel abandoned and unloved.
Once, I worked with a young adult woman who had been locked in a closet most of
her life. I had to teach her how to smile.
I heard the first words spoken by someone who had been mute for over four years. They were, “I’m afraid of getting better.”
And one night I received a call from a client telling me, “Tomorrow when I go to work I’ll be alright because I can play a role and be someone else. It’s today when I have to be me that is hard.”
But, maybe what we have all felt at times in life was expressed by someone who said, “I feel as if I am a torn and tattered package or book that no one wants to pick up and open because there are brand new books or packages that look clean and attractive. So no one seems to take the time to really know me."
No matter what form mental or emotional illness takes, it is still humanity hurting.
No matter how disturbing or unusual the behavior might be, it is still people in pain.
Someone once said that we all stand in God’s breadline…we are all needy at some time. Maybe we simply need to remember that hearts and minds are capable of starving as well as bodies.
Question for reflection: Do you really know and believe that you are irreplaceable? And, do you handle yourself with care?
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