November 24
I am sitting in a chair, a sturdy folding table before me. My hands are clenched; my eyes are fixed on them but do not really see. I feel every systole and diastole of my heart, and it feels like it is trying to move five gallons of blood this hour, not just five liters. My foot is jittering, bouncing my leg rapidly but wildly out of time with my heart; the contrast of rhythms is chaotic, but feels appropriate. My shoulders strain to meet my ears, through which blood is rushing, the sound of an ocean overtaken by storm. My whole body is tense, twitching disjointedly, but united in the thrumming urge: “not here, not here, anywhere but here: leave, flee or smash, scream or bellow, go go go, do!”
I do not.
I endure.
I doodle.
I twitch.
I scrape my scalp, and fist my hair.
When the words threaten to escape, burning, boiling up my throat like bile, I write them down, scratching my rage in paper with ink and metal, cutting through to mark the page below and the page below that as I underline “bullshit!” twice, thrice.
I am in a Pathology lecture at massage school, listening to my life described with words like “unbearable” and “debilitating”. Tonight the class is supposedly studying “Mental/Emotional Conditions”; I am studying endurance and ableism, the grain of the table, the depth of my cheek before I chew through to a vascular layer and taste the copper tang of blood.
The juxtaposition of an article whose subtitle calls depression “This Debilitating Condition” and whose first paragraph says “the stigma that this disorder once carried no longer stings” is almost unbearable. I am afraid to start laughing for fear I might not stop; I need to laugh, or else I’ll cry, I’ll rage, and I’ll prove them right.
This perhaps is the hardest part of this experience: if I give even an inkling of an idea how much I am bothered by it, how much it hurts me, how much it enrages me — if I give in to a single urge that tugs at my body, prompts me to go run flee fight — I will only confirm all the stereotypes being tossed around so casually, so painfully, about “those people”.
“Those people” are sitting right here. “Those people” are not abnormal specimens to be dissected and studied, not monstrosities to be tsked and pitied, not cases whose violence quotient needs to be queried. “Those people” are in this class, are working with you, are massage recipients and massage students and massage therapists and damn good ones at that.
According to this class, “one factor” in my depression is “passiveness”, which through a thousand previous exposures I readily decode as “you brought this on yourself; just think positive and be proactive and it will all go away”. According to this class, my generalized anxiety doesn’t affect my lifestyle, but my panic and agoraphobia do, and are likely to make me a shut in (when to the contrary, generalized anxiety has at times left me unable to function — in this ableist society –, and my panic attacks are for the most part transient and cope-with-able). According to this class, compulsive eaters eat to get fat to look like me to avoid love and intimacy, because who could ever desire someone who is fat like me?
There is more. There is so much more: name a stereotype on addiction or eating disorders or mood disorders, and it is in the notes before me, or in the mouths or minds of those around me. Or so it seems. So it feels.
I am not safe here. I am not safe. That is what my sympathetic nervous system is screaming at me. So many times before, I have outed myself as someone with bipolar, with depression, with anxiety and panic attacks. I have done it in this school: in private to my instructors, and in a different class before fifteen fellow students. Here, now? I am not safe. I am not safe enough to speak up, to speak out, to out myself or even risk such outing by countering the myths, deriding the misinformation — if I could even draw breath enough to do so.
This is what they think of those like me. We are not human. We are not persons. We are not whole. We do not laugh, we are not loveable, we lead lamentable lives, we are broken.
I am broken by their believed-compassion, their disdain so cloaked in concern they don’t know it for that themselves, wouldn’t believe me if proclaimed the truth of it, if I told of my pain from it. I am broken by the hate poured on me, and so I hide. I hide, and so the hate continues to pour.
These are the double binds of oppression. Say nothing, and allow kyriarchy to have its way; say something, and provoke the burn of white iron that brands one “crazy”, “bitch”, “angry” — mad, in all its meanings.
Later, I will say something. Later, I will gather my resources, tap my reserves, schedule a meeting and voice my complaints, calmly, clearly, collectedly. I will do this despite the pounding in my chest, to spite the terror that clenches my throat. I will do this because I can, because someone must, because the next student to be so assaulted might not be able to. I will be as calm as still deep waters, strong as a deep-rooted willow, proud as a cloud-touched mountain. I will bring better similes, and when I smile I will try to mean it. I will command respect, demand improvement.
Now, though: now is only to get through. Now the muscles pulling at my mouth form anything but a smile, though my lips pull up in mimicry of one. Now I focus on anything else; now I pull air into my lungs and feel my heart contract and listen to my blood bring nourishment to every cell. I am attacked, my being belittled, but I survive. I endure. Despite what they say, to spite what they say, I live.
As usual, powerful writing. I’m sorry you have to go through this. People who don’t think they know other people with various conditions build up ideas from the most extreme of what they see on TV, etc. I suppose that’s why outing oneself is necessary; so that other people will know that they do know someone with that condition and can temper the extremist view.
Oh gods. I feel for you.
It’s not safe to be out as someone with mental health problems in so many places. So not safe. Because it’s either “that’s not a real problem, you’re making it up” or this … pity-object stuff.
Normally I am out anyway, partly because I usually can “get away with it” (where it would be really detrimental to others) thanks to the other various aspects of privilege I have (white and class privilege especially). I do this in part as a sort of public service (as JohannaMM was saying), but mostly because being “out” and upfront and outspoken about it is really important for my mental health. One of the things that the crazy thrives on is secrecy and shame — if I’m out, and refuse to be ashamed of it, then it cannot thrive.
Which is part of why it was so disturbing to feel so very not safe in a location I’d otherwise consider one of “my” places (my own school).
“I will be as calm as still deep waters, strong as a deep-rooted willow, proud as a cloud-touched mountain.” This is one of the many things I love about you, friend. You ARE these things even in the midst of this chaos for other people. Now you are (still, again) being so for yourself as well – to educate, to rage against the “machine”, to stand up and say “this is NOT all right. This is spreading lies and it hurts people.”
<3 Thank you.
Wish I could express how stupidly harmful that stuff you rail against is as well as you do.
I do not know the numbers but people with our disease are surprisingly common. Everybody knows one, though few people are aware they do.
Im lucky. Always have been. Being male, white and large Though never really strong) only physical threats really bother me. Though I am often called defensive when accused of error.
Remember: it aint what group you fit in that matters, it is what you do.
Hope you can get the opportunity to refute them. Come out iff you want. Out me iff that helps your argument
Thank you for stating this so beautifully and powerfully.
Important truths, beautifully stated. Thank you!
(here from FWD)
Powerful stuff. I have alot I want to say, but not enough time to say it! :)
My first question, though, is how would you like to see this subject taught? I mean, it has to be addressed somehow, right? Maybe statements more like, “Here is a list of symptoms some people *might* have, but it is variable and manifested differently in each person”? Or is that not the right nuance of what bothers you?
Then there is this whole subject I would love to hear your thoughts on, but not even sure how to explain it! Awhile ago, I was at a meeting where we did a focus topic on Compassion I think it was, or maybe Empathy, but it was about the negative aspects. I really need to write the woman and see if I can get the opening quote, because it blew my mind. I spent alot of time after that thinking about the words compassion vs empathy vs sympathy vs pity. I wanted to write something up on my blog, but did I ever take the time to do it? No. :/
I wish I had the time to more fully explain how I struggle with these words, but maybe you will run with it a bit and figure it out for me lol!
Thank you for expressing this so well. I do this ALL THE TIME in classes… particularly religion class. My book is full of angry comments in the margins, mostly around the sections on homosexuality. Instructors really need to realize that not all their students fit within the boundaries of societally-dictated “normalcy.” I’m sorry that you feel unsafe, and I can completely relate to that feeling. I know it too well.
I can so relate, from so many times over the years. I have lived my life being very honest about some parts of myself like being a sexual abuse survivor. It’s given me an opportunity to help so many people over the years who had been silent and opened up to me because I talked about it. Other parts, though, I no longer trust with almost anybody. They are too ignorant and when they hear the labels they change completely in how they view me, how they talk to me. I got too tired of trusting them and being disappointed so they don’t get to know that part of me. I hate that, like it’s something I’m hiding. I don’t hide these things because I have any shame about them or regret being “broken” in these ways but because too many people have let me down after I let them know and people don’t get to know these things about me any more.
So now I listen to the talk about these things that I am, that people think only exist in books and in people locked up somewhere, and it’s so lonely. I want to tell them how it is to be these things and that it’s not a terrible thing to be fixed. These things helped me survive things that were otherwise unbearable and give me strength in situations that would shatter other people. These things make me unique and amazing. As long as they’re hidden, I can’t tell them, but every time I’ve tried they don’t hear anyway.
Maybe someday.
Wonderful writing. I have been following you on Twitter but this is my first time on your blog. Powerful stuff. I’m off to look around some more.
~Alicia
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This post brought tears to my eyes. The pain I felt reflected in your words I often see in my daughter’s eyes and my heart ached. Raising a child with bipolar disorder has made me so much more aware of what others are dealing with. If I can do nothing else I am sending love and light your way. (And BTW I am so proud of how you handled this, I know how hard it was)