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A Journey With You

~ surviving schizophrenia

A Journey With You

Tag Archives: Humanity

Luck can be the Difference Between Homelessness and Help

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by A Journey With You in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

holidays, homeless, homelessness, Humanity, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, schizophrenia], shelter, streets, Treatment

Yesterday, my husband and I went to Starbucks. A young woman was sitting at the corner table writing in a notebook. I recognized her from a few months ago when the two of us sat at the same table, and we both shared that we have schizophrenia. Next to her, was a woman who was talking to her loudly. The woman talking looked like she was probably homeless. Her hair was matted, and her skin was dirty. I assumed, although I can’t be positive, that the homeless woman also has a mental illness.

In that small Starbucks that seats about eight people, there were three women with a mental illness (possibly schizophrenia). It was surprising that we were all in the coffee shop at the same time, but what struck me was how sad, eye-opening and heartbreaking the situation was. Neither the young woman writing in her notebook or I wanted to talk to the other woman.

My symptoms weren’t showing yesterday. I looked like an average middle-aged woman having a coffee with her husband (spouse, friend, boss, or whoever people assumed my husband was). The young woman writing looked like someone who was working hard, and busy with her own life and in her world. She wasn’t showing symptoms either. The homeless woman, on the other hand, was showing symptoms of a brain in overdrive – she was talking loudly, she was laughing nervously, and she was trying to engage strangers in conversation. The young woman, politely told her that she was enjoying her music and didn’t feel like talking at the time (she said it a little kinder than I just wrote, but the message was clear).

When the young woman tuned out to the music piped into her ears through earbuds, the homeless woman turned in the direction of my husband and I. I looked away so our eyes wouldn’t meet.

Normally, I will talk to anyone who wants to talk to me, homeless, mentally ill, etc. but there are times when I can’t bear the enormous weight I feel about mentally ill people living on the street. I know the kindest thing I can do is look them in the eye, listen to their story and treat them like a significant and valuable human being. Yesterday, I couldn’t do it though.

After just getting through the holiday season, after just talking with my husband about our hopes and dreams for 2018, I couldn’t carry the burden of our cruel and inadequate mental health system that leaves thousands upon thousands of men and women without care or shelter.

My husband and I give our time and money to an organization that feeds, delivers medical and dental care, provides social and legal services, and assists in securing housing for the homeless. In other words, we are trying to do something to alleviate the suffering of some of the people without adequate care, shelter or services. Of course, we also write to our representatives and vote in every election. And yet, the problem is massive, and the human toll is high. Things don’t seem to be getting better.

And I couldn’t look a fellow human being in the eye yesterday. A human being, who I believe suffers from the same brain disease I do. A human being who isn’t as lucky as I am. She has no protection, no treatment team; she may not have access to medication, she has no shelter, no shower, she may not know where her next meal is coming from, she may not have a change of clothes. And all she was asking for was attention that no one wanted to give.

Next time, no matter how difficult, heavy, how much it weighs down my heart, I am going to look at that homeless woman, and offer to buy her a hot coffee. I know one step left or one step right and I could be in the same shoes she is wearing just looking for some validation that I am still human.

I’m sorry that I’m not always strong enough to hold the enormity of mental illness, but next time, I’m going to heave the baggage off my shoulders and pull up a seat and have a long conversation.

I want to treat everyone as significant. We all deserve that and so much more. Much much more.

 

It’s About You

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in hope, writing

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

7 Billion Others, Art, compassion, creative nonfiction, culture, families, Humanity, inspiration, medical, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, poverty, psychiatry, schizophrenia, travel, war, world

There are times when I need to look out the window, see the man working in my neighbor’s garden, and wonder about his life. What is it like to work hard out in the hot sun all day? Does he make enough to feed his family, if he has a family? Does he have to work two jobs? Who is that man? What is important to him? What are his struggles? What gets him out of bed? What does he dream about? Is he happy, or does he want more? Once I have thought enough about him, I need to think about the other people I encounter. Only in this way do I keep from feeling sorry for myself, see the struggles of those around me, and get out of my mind long enough to care about the people who surround me. No matter how little we appear to have in common, no matter how good someone else has it, we are all aware of our limited days. We are all going to die, and that knowledge alone should bind us together to celebrate our every breath, our every heartbeat, our every step. The fact that we will all die, should break our hearts open with compassion. It’s hard to know there is a finish line and all of us will cross it.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the photography museum. There was an exhibit called 7 Billion Others. We listened to women talk about how they had no idea about nutrition and vaccines until Doctors Without Borders came to their villages. We listened to a woman from Rwanda talk about how her baby was thrown in the air and cut in half by a man wielding a machete. The same men that participated in the murder of her child (in front of her eyes) cut off her arm, and pierced her in her upper chest (a wound that went all the way through her body). They also jumped on her and stripped her naked. We listened to a miner (without any teeth) talk about how dangerous his job is, but that he does it every day to feed his eight children. We listened to stories about famine, wars, diseases like polio and malaria. We listened to the struggles of many people we share this planet with.

We also learned about people around the world and their fears (one man’s greatest fear was that God didn’t exist, another man’s great fear was that God does exist). We listened to hopes, dreams and what people think the meaning of life is. The people interviewed talked about love, and laughter, they talked about family.

It brought me out of myself.

I have clean running water. I am never truly thirsty or hungry. I have a refrigerator and air conditioning. I have a comfortable bed and access to laundry facilities. I rarely drive, but I do have a car, and I have the ability and means to take public transportation. I have Internet access. I have a cell phone. I have clean clothes. I have at least a dozen pairs of shoes. I have a roof over my head. I have access to medication and doctors.  This is a short list of all that I have.

I also have paranoid schizophrenia. I battle my symptoms every day. I deal with social isolation , a lack of motivation, social anxiety, panic attacks, paranoid thoughts, and long periods of inactivity. Even with all that, I live a privileged and easy life compared to many people on the planet. Even when you throw in psychosis, and the terrors and suicide attempts it doesn’t come close to what some people have experienced.

Today, I refuse to give space to me and my struggles. I will give space to you. I will think about you, wherever you are. I will think about how much you’ve seen, how hard you work, how you try to keep your child fed, healthy and alive. I will give you a place to be seen and heard in my heart and head.

May all of us find a way to help each other, to lighten the load, to lessen the fears, to increase  the laughter, to grow our hearts, and to share the gift of the life we have been born into so that when it comes time for us to pass away, we can know that maybe there were times when we were lonely, but we were never truly alone.  It’s our journey, let’s find every possible way to live it together.

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