World Mental Health Day... and the scary world we live in

Today is World Mental Health Day. A bunch of months ago I said I was going to write more. I lied. I always think about writing, especially in moments I'm really fired up or moved, but then I get stuck about how to share, especially because my work is so intense and confidential, I worry about what people want to hear and also if its worth it to put it all out there. The world is intense and scary right now, and the conversations I am having everyday feel so relevant it hurts and for that reason it scares me to share. There's a way that by not bringing the clients that I meet with to the public eye I can let people's hate and misunderstanding stay a little distant- but if I share real stories of real people and people STILL don't change how they act/treat each other/vote/see the world- that just feels painful.
But today feels like a ripe time to share some of the things that are moving through my heart, my office, our world, etc, etc. And writing this is good for my mental health too, so hopefully it's a win-win situation.

This morning I was listening to The Daily (my new favorite podcast done by the NYT that does a deep dive into relevant topics). The topic was the Kavanaugh confirmation, and the conversations that women are having about it across the country. First he sat with a group of high school girls and talked to them about their experience, then two women in the town in Mississippi where Trump mocked Dr. Blasey Ford and engaged all his familiar performative and incredibly unaware tactics that somehow engage his brand and tribalism that lead to people saying "I thought he was hilarious" and "I totally agree with what he is saying about her". It was an intense roller coaster of emotions for me. The high schoolers were so articulate, they shared about their own experiences of assault and intimidation by men, and how it felt for them that he was confirmed. They said that it felt like "men can do whatever they want" and the government "doesn't really care about our experiences". They also said that of course they and their peers should be held accountable to their high school behaviors. Then the Mississippi lady talked about how Dr. Blasey Ford cannot have PTSD and she's taking it too far and plenty of women experience sexual assault who "forgive and forget and move on with their lives". And that we should look at service men who "actually have PTSD".. can you feel my blood pressure rising?

Everyday I sit in this office with high schoolers. Is the goal of high school, of the student's teachers, coaches, therapists and parents, anything other than forming morally astute teenagers? Are we not telling them everyday to think about the consequences of their actions, treat others kindly, make good decisions and set themselves up for the rest of their lives. Do you see how damn confusing this must all be to high schoolers who are getting it drilled into their heads how important every action is and then see this dude just get away with assaulting a woman in part because "that was high school". I'm so very proud of the teens who sit in my office and try to make sense of their own history of trauma, their friendships, their hopes for the future and their desire to be the best version of themselves. So while our government tells highschoolers two things 1. teenage girls' experience (and all women for that matter) don't matter and 2. teenage boys can get away with whatever they want, I will keep sitting here trying to make sure they know otherwise. I really think it comes down to us all being in touch with our own dignity and humanity and that being the impetus to care for and respect ourselves and the people around us. Despite the world trying to strip it away in so many awful awful ways.

SO many of these teenagers I sit with have been sexually abused. And SO many of the women I sit with have been sexually abused. As they get older the percentage gets higher and higher. And to the lady in Mississippi who doesn't believe that Dr. Blasey Ford could have PTSD from this incident.. She absolutely can and very likely does. We are learning SO much about the brain and trauma, and we code these traumatic events in a different part of our brain that DOESN'T have a narrative memory but remembers snippets and sensorial things like roaring laughter, like the way the lights flashed, the smell of the perpetrator, so many different things that stick in our minds but cannot be processed because our narrative memory shut down in our fight/flight reaction. Then our brain spends years and years trying to make sense of it, getting triggered and re-traumatized and making life incredibly hard. I recently had someone tell me about an older man (a friend's grandpa) touching her inappropriately with her clothes on and kissing her on the mouth. And I simultaneously wanted to throw up imagining it and felt RELIEVED that it wasn't worse. Let that sink in a moment- sexual abuse is so common that I feel relieved when a teenage girl tells me all this creepy old man did was kiss her and not more. There is something wrong with the world when that is a relieving story to hear.

These experiences of having your body invaded, your dignity and voice denied, your safety and sense of your self threatened stick with you forever. The power that men of all ages use to take advantage of women has daily and life long effects on us and the statement our country just made about that is really scary, really invalidating and will continue to have real impacts on people's mental health and behavior. Judith Herman, a brilliant psychiatrist who wrote the book Trauma and Recovery talks about how much we deny the existent of trauma and PTSD because its too hard for us to acknowledge how scary the world is- it seems to me that that is happening so intensely right now. Especially among women who want to deny what Dr. Blasey Ford experienced. It makes sense in some ways; we lose power and our sense of safety if we acknowledge how common these incidents are and how detrimental the effects are, but it's never going to change if we don't start calling it what it is. I am SO grateful for all the people in my life and in our country as a whole who are doing that, and overwhelmed about what to do with the huge number of people who are not. I recently read an article about how women often don't tell their dads about their experiences of assault because they are trying to keep them from feeling the pain of their daughters being hurt. The article talked about the ways we continue to protect men's feelings which leads to men not knowing the truth of whats happening in the world. We must keep speaking up, we must stop protecting men's feelings and we must acknowledge the lasting impact of trauma of all kinds.

So now Kavanaugh is confirmed. FOR LIFE. On the highest court in our country. This is a huge deal. I'm really worried about the outcome of him being there. I'm really worried about people's mental health. I'm worried about women like so many I've met who have SUCH extreme trauma, are so poorly cared for in this country, have fled their own country because of violence and fear and then because of the patriarchy and machismo end up pregnant with babies they know they can't care for with father's who they don't know well enough to trust that they will be there to help carry the burden. I am worried about how much more depressed women will be when they don't have options. I am worried about women taking their own lives because they are stuck. I met someone who was verging on this not long ago, and the option to chose what would happen with her own body saved her life. Gave her the chance she needed to get help and support and bring a baby into this world when she feels ready to love and care for it.

I could keep going and going. About the family I met who was separated from their mom for three months because of this administrations insane policies. Two of those girls were sexually abused when they were young. Their mom experienced years of domestic violence, then they get ripped away from her when coming to our country trying to get to a place that this man who has hurt all of them won't be able to get to them. How do you think their mental health is? Or about the kids who witnessed murders in their countries. And come here and live in fear of being sent back. Or barely get to see their parents because they have to work three jobs to make ends meet. There are so many stories, but the point is, our government, our policies, these people making decisions with so much power in their hands and all the trickle down of it have huge impacts on people's mental health. And despite what the world has taught us our mental health may be the very most important thing. It's SO important for those of us who are lucky enough to have good jobs, full fridges, roofs over our heads and supportive friends and it's even more important and life threatening to those who don't have all that. The woman in Mississippi who thought Trump mocking Dr. Blasey Ford was funny also said that we should just keep experiences of assault to ourselves, these are personal. This argument about keeping things to ourselves and keeping the personal and political seperate keeps survivors in silence for years, it keeps us from thinking about the very real ways that politics affect us, and frankly it's a load of bull shit that lets people in power feel ok about themselves.

I'm aware that I am overly inundated in the world of trauma and mental health, and figuring out how to hold that in a healthy way is an important part of my journey as a Social Worker. But it is the lens through which I see everything. Every time I hear more horrible news about how we are treating kids on the border, every time I see powerful white men deny the experience of women, every time another black person is killed by the police, all I can think about is mental health and trauma- both on an individual and collective level. Our government is causing trauma through their policies and then multiplying it by their complete lack of awareness.

So- today, on Mental Health Awareness day do me a couple favors.
1. Check in with yourself- how are you really doing when you let the noise and busy-ness of life settle, what do you need? When was the last time you went for a walk, had a meaningful conversation with a friend, or let yourself relax and watch your favorite show? Take care of yourself so that you can be a kind, intentional and engaged human being.
2. Check in with your friends and family- sometimes we think everything is ok because it looks that way on the outside but we each have a universe in side of us and every single one of us has moments/experiences/relationships that are deeply painful and we all could use a little extra TLC every now and then (or always).
3. Because you have done all that, and chosen to be a little more in touch with the hearts of the people pulsing around you, try to see the world this way. Think about the way the people feel who you hear about in the news. Think about all the things you don't know about them but all the ways you can connect with them- the things we all have in common like wanting to be safe, loving our family and children, needing moments to breathe deeply, etc, etc. And then lets live from our hearts, vote from our hearts, interact with the people around us from our hearts.

This past weekend I had a really challenging therapy session. I cried the whole way through. Then went home and cried on the phone with my best friend. And I noticed that evening and next day how open I felt to the world. How my friendships felt all the more important and the sweetness of life was even sweeter. Its not easy to let ourselves feel and share our pain but I truly believe it lets us feel all the goodness in the world even more. And I think when we feel, and we take care of ourselves and each other, we are all such better people.

The world is hard to engage right now. We gotta take care of ourselves and each other. And the first step is acknowledging that we have beating hearts that feel pain and are affected by the world. And so does everyone around us.

Recuerdos del Pueblo Salvadoreño

Seven years ago I went to El Salvador for the first time bright eyed and bushy tailed and absolutely clueless as to what would come from my time there. At some point I changed the title of this blog to Abre Mi Corazon, something I was reminded of by a photo book my sister in law made for me with the same title. This week I had the chance to go back yet again, but this time to celebrate and commemorate the end of the program that brought me there in the first place and back again for an entire year. And this week I was reminded exactly why that phrase, that petition asking El Salvador to open my heart, was so poignant then, and is still just as poignant today.

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation about my work. I find that sometimes I get wrapped up in the high paced, busy, and even medical model of my clinic and my work becomes "just a job". When truly, for me, this work is so much more. It is a vocation. It is a calling that is rooted so deeply in the ways El Salvador has opened me, changed me, and propelled me into a life committed to something more. In this conversation I reflected back on the ways I felt so open hearted, so present, and so deeply connected to the people of El Salvador. I remembered sitting in plastic chairs in the homes of people I had never met, conversations while we helped cook and over lunch with the people who became like family, and then an entire year of this way of being with the staff, with my students, and in the multiple communities who had welcomed me in. I felt so full of life after every conversation, even when there was so much tragedy and so much of what we talked about was painful. There was a texture to my presence, to those relationships and moments that was so sacred and moved me into this work. Yet too often I feel distant from that. In a glimpse of momentary wisdom in this conversation a few weeks ago, I reflected "I think I doubt my ability to open my heart in that way again and again, day after day"

I paused, surprised at the truth in that statement. When I see 5 sometimes 10 clients in a day I doubt my ability to be present and open with every single one of them. But when I allow myself to be fully present, to let down some walls, and not think about all the other things I need to do, there is a palpable difference in our conversations.

Then this week I went to El Salvador. I walked off of the plane into the shocking humidity, the smell of burning trash, surrounded by people asking me if I wanted a taxi. And right away I felt different in my entire being. Again and again I spoke with other people about the same feeling, there were 85 alums of the Casa program gathered to celebrate its nearly 20 years of presence in El Salvador, and every single person I talked to noted this "special thing" about being in that country. I automatically feel my heart expand, no longer doubting my ability to be open, present, vulnerable and loving with every single person I encounter. The Salvadorans model this openness and invite me into it. I walk right into conversations and instead of performance and fake smiles and trying to be something people say things like "things are really bad, I wish I could say they are good but they are really hard" and tears stream freely from peoples eyes as we acknowledge situations that are not what anyone would hope for, yet are only inviting greater resilience and strength. As I am surrounded by people who live with their hearts wide open, mine simultaneously follows suite. I feel everything deeper: sadness, joy, fear, frustration, excitement. And most importantly, I feel so much more deeply myself, which allows me to love more fully, dream bigger, and walk through the world with a completely different posture.

Part of me feels frustrated and sad that feeling and living in that way in my daily life is so challenging. Yet another part of me completely understands why and was acutely aware of the ways individualism, capitalism, and all sorts of values and stories of this country work on me, making it hard to live out the values that come so naturally in  El Salvador. But mostly, I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude for the reminder. There have been many times when I go to El Salvador and all I want is to move back, feeling like that is the only way to live in the unique and amazing way the country allows me to live. And that was absolutely still present in my mind, dreaming of ways that could be possible, wondering if that is actually the call. But I don't think it is, I think the call is to be here, to keep working hard to live those values, to feel that openness and authenticity more present and to do so with the support of people right here.

I came back feeling so inspired. So very reminded of the goodness of the Casa program, el pueblo Salvadoreno and totally clear how my year there led me to where I am now, and full of desires and dreams about how to keep being the bridge.

One of those ways is to write more. As a practice of attention, self care, spiritual reflection, and prayer. Yet also as a way to share stories of pain, trauma, and injustice that I have the privilege of hearing while uplifting the values I so deeply admire that rise above the pain and suffering.  My Salvadoran family reminded me yet again how important it is to be in touch with the reality around us. So- with the inspiration of this past week, some encouragement from a dear friend, and something that has been nagging at me for a while, I am hoping to get back to this being a regular practice. In the meantime I am dreaming up some big ideas for more concrete, real life ways to bring some of what the Casa has taught me home. Stay tuned.