Mental Wellness

Remembering Third-Person Pete

Many Second Chances Addiction, In Memory Of, Lessons from the past, mental health, Substance Abuse

(Trigger Warning: Suicide)

I had just completed  the necessary intake proceedings to begin  my third inpatient treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. 

Mark, the intake counselor at the place, was leading me up the stairs to what was to be my room for the foreseeable future.

“Pete doesn’t wash dishes!  Pete doesn’t do kitchens!” someone yelled  from what I could only guess must have been the kitchen area.

“Great,” I mumbled, as I dragged my duffle bag up the last few steps.

“Don’t worry about him,” Mark said, looking back toward me as we walked down the hall.  “He’s harmless.”

I nodded in reply to his reassurance as we arrived at my room.

“Pete will scrub toilets!” the voice from down stairs continued, becoming louder. 

“Pete will shovel shit,”  he continued, having reached the top of the stairs. 

“Pete will do anything but work in the kitchen!” he finished just in time to reach the doorway of my new residence.

“What’s up, Mark?” Pete asked, half out of breath from the combination of scaling steps and reading the riot act to some poor soul downstairs.

“Hey, Pete, this is your new roommate,” Mark said.

Pete raised an eye brow, shrugged his shoulders, and slid between us to enter our room.

“Welcome to rehab, this place sucks,” he said, flopping onto his bed.

I looked at Pete, gave the room a quick look, and turned to glare at Mark.

Mark smiled.  “You’ll get used to it.  Welcome.  If you need anything, I’m around,” he said as he turned and walked back down the hall.

“Great,” I mumbled as I entered our room.

Inpatient treatment isn’t so bad once a person comes to grips with the reality of it all. 

Leaving one’s life for 21 or 28 days, or for what would turn out to be almost 150 days in my case, is tough.  It’s a tall order to leave one’s life, no matter what that life is like, and by the time one agrees to inpatient treatment, life’s usually fairly crappy.  Leaving what one is used to, good or bad, is a shock to the system.  Completing a four or five day detox stay prior to that doesn’t seem to make things any easier.  It never did in my case, anyway.

This was to be my first experience in a residential inpatient setting, after having been a guest at two medically-based settings before hand.  The hospital-based treatment was just that.  It felt, looked and smelled like a hospital.  There was an around-the-clock staffed nurse, and they did their own medically-supervised detox on site.  They also offered outpatient services, like groups and individual counseling.  I entered detox there once again prior to moving on to the center to become Pete’s roommate.

“Why are you here?” Pete asked, arms folded behind his head and feet crossed on his twin bed.

“What do you mean?”  I asked as I bent down to unzip the duffle bag that lay on my new bed.

“You know. Drugs? Alcohol?”

“Both. You?”  I started to unpack.

“Pete’s here to make Mommy happy,” he said, with no hint of sarcasm.

“Good for you,” I said, continuing to unpack my stuff.

Pete sat up on his bed.  “You don’t believe me.  It’s the truth.”

“Look, I just want to unpack.  That’s great that you love your mom,” I said, not really interested in the banter.

“Actually, I was committed, by my mom,” Pete shared, laying down again on his bed.

I stopped putting my clothes in the little chest by my bed.  “So, you don’t love your mom?”

Pete started laughing. “You’re going to do alright here,” he said, rolling over to face the wall.  “Wake me up at five, it’s pizza night.”

“Great,” I mumbled, as I finished putting away my clothes.

Five minutes to dinner…

I woke Pete so he wouldn’t miss pizza, and we talked some more after he introduced me to the other people at the center.  As one might guess, the twelve of us represented quite a sample of age groups, professions, drugs-of-choice, and back stories. As they say, addiction doesn’t discriminate.

As time wore on, through days filled with groups and counseling sessions, urine tests and Twelve Step meetings, I got to know Pete a little more. 

After all, we were roommates, and, often purely due to familiarity and shared space, roommates tend to talk.  They talk when they wake, they talk before lights-out, they talk whenever.  I was always a little put off by his habit of referring to himself by name, but it just became a part of who Pete was.

Before arriving at rehab, Pete spent some time in what used to be called a psych ward, or what is known more today as a “secured behavioral health unit,” at a local hospital.  It was indeed true, that his mother had called emergency services, which set the whole process in motion.

Pete really only shared snap shots, a flash in group, a flash in the kitchen, a flash outside while shooting baskets, a flash before lights-out, and usually the story was told within the third-person framework, never in any order.

Pete was a 28 year old single male at the time.  He had moved back home to live with his mother in his childhood home after losing his apartment, after losing his girlfriend, after losing his job, after losing control of his alcohol use.  Pete’s father had passed away several months before it all happened, which may, or may not have been the catalyst for the chain of events that led him to treatment.

Pete never spoke of his mother negatively, but he never really spoke of her positively, either.  In fact, he spoke of her as if he had to, as if she were mentioned only because she was a necessary part of the tiny bits of the story he did share. The only time I remember him mentioning his father was to say that he had died.

The best I’d ever able to put things together concerning how he had gotten to rehab via the psych ward, Pete had been literally out of his mind on alcohol and whatever else when he engaged in what became a heated argument with his mother, the subject of which he never mentioned.  After the argument escalated and spiraled out of control, Pete threatened to hang himself in the garage, going so far as to fashion a noose out of an old swing set chain.  Police arrived, an ambulance arrived, his mother cried, and they took him away because he was deemed a danger to himself and everyone else.

“My counselor’s full of shit and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

“I’m out of this damn place,” Pete said one afternoon, busting into the room after slamming the door open against the wall. 

“What happened?” I asked him.

Pete sat on his chair with a thud and threw his assignment folder at his night stand, knocking over the lamp that had been, up to that point, standing there peacefully.

“What’s going on?”

“That bitch doesn’t think I’m taking responsibility for my actions.  I’m here, ain’t I?” he said, opening his arms and gesturing to our room.  “This is bullshit.”

Pete leaned forward off the chair and crawled to his bed, reaching under it for his bags.

I closed the book I had been reading and sat up on my bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.  “You’re not going to leave.”

“The hell I’m not,” he replied.  “Pete’s had enough of this shit.”

“What did she say?”

“She said the same shit they said at the nut farm.  She said the same thing my mother said.  Bullshit.  All of it,” Pete said, dragging his bags from under the bed.

“You can’t go, I don’t want another roommate.  It’s taken me two weeks to get used to you,” I said, mixing humor with honesty.

“Look,” I said, “You can’t leave.  Just do what you have to do.”

Pete stood up and walked over to the lamp that was laying on the floor.  He picked it up, popped the dent out of the shade, and returned it to its place on the night stand.

“I don’t want to do what I have to do.  I don’t want to talk about it.  I don’t,” he said, collecting the sheets of paper that had scattered from his assignment folder when they collided with the lamp.

“Why not?” I asked, an answer I had been curious about for the entire two weeks I had been there.

“I just don’t.  Pete don’t.  Both of us, none of us.  I want to stop drinking.  I’ll do that.  They can kiss my ass about the rest of it,” he said, extending a middle finger in the general direction of the office area of the center.

I thought about it for a while, staring at the floor, as Pete continued to salute the counseling wing.

The autobiography is a staple of many an inpatient treatment center. 

It’s basically a rite of passage, an initiation, if you will.  One writes, as much as they choose, information about their family, their friends, their use and their part in it.  Then, they read, or present, it to the group. Some of them are really long, and some are fairly short, but length isn’t always a good indicator of quality.

Some people use their autobiographies to cast blame on others and other’s roles in why their lives are a mess.  Others use it as an opportunity to impress other residents by recalling some of their more outlandish and excessive history, including consumption, outlaw behavior and sexual exploits.  But in my experience, most autobiographies are just that; they are highlight stories of people’s lives.  For whatever  reason, Pete didn’t want to share much, if anything, about his life.

“Just do it, Pete,” I said, after weighing the pros and cons of the autobiography question.

“Hell no,” he said.

“Just skim it.  Don’t tell your deepest, darkest-“

“Stop it,” Pete warned, pointing at me.  “It’s not going to happen. You write your shit.  Tell them everything if you want to.  I don’t need to tell them anything.”

“I’ll do mine,” I told him.

“Yeah?  Well, Mister ‘I’ve been to treatment more than once,’ you know how to do it, don’t you?  At least you should, anyway, right?  What good did it ever do you?  We’re in the same fucking place, if you haven’t noticed,” Pete snapped, again throwing his folder, this time the folder and its contents coming to rest safely on his desk.

“You won’t leave.  They’ll take you back to the nut farm,”  I said as I left the room.

“Nut farm, Pete ain’t going back to no nut farm, and Pete ain’t writing his autobiography,  neither!” Pete yelled as I walked down the hall. He continued as I walked down the stairs.

“Great,” escaped a familiar mumble as I headed toward the group room.

A week later, after much begging and pleading from staff and peers, and after what could be interpreted as an ultimatum from his counselor, Pete was finally scheduled to give his autobiography one morning during group time.

We were all interested in hearing what Pete had made such a fuss about the entire time he’d been at the center. We had all shared at least some of the less than flattering events in our lives, and we, or at least I, wondered what could be that bad or sad or scary. He didn’t even want to talk about talking about it.

Then it happened. He took out handwritten papers from his folder and read.  And he read.  And read.  And then he read some more, without feeling and without hesitation.

As he read, the random fragments Pete had released at different times during treatment came together to make a clear picture, all in a third-person format, as if he were reading a story about someone else.

“And when Pete was seven,” he read. “Then, when Pete was around twelve,” he would continue. And on it went.

When he finished, we sat silently around our circle in the little room.

Most of us stared either at the floor or shifted our focus from the counselor back to Pete. No one knew if they should, or how they would, break the silence that filled the room after Pete finished his autobiography.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Pete said, placing his papers back in the sleeve and closing the folder.

After what felt like hours of silence again after Pete’s comment, the counselor finally spoke.

“Pete,” she said, adjusting herself in her chair, “I admire the strength and courage it took you to share your story. However, it needs to be done in the first person. We can’t heal if we can’t own our lives.”

“Fuck you,” Pete said quietly, staring at nothing.  Pete stood up slowly and said, “I quit.”

Pete left the circle, opened the door, left the room and closed the door behind him.

What happened next, really, was a misdirected, all-out attack on that counselor by most of the participants of our group that day.

There were a lot of things we didn’t understand about Pete, at least until that 30 minutes in group, and for her to seemingly condemn him after forcing him to be vulnerable, was unacceptable at the time.  We didn’t understand why the third-person thing was such a big deal. Third-person, sixth-person, whatever. He told his story, all of it. The abuse, the trauma, the fear, the significance of the garage, the chain, the stool, everything. Then she just shit on him, or so we thought.

We made our way up to the room after our collective bashing of the counselor had concluded, and after her futile attempts to explain therapeutic protocol to a bunch of addicts who weren’t ready to hear it, only to find that Pete had already left. We couldn’t have been in there ten minutes after he left group, and he was gone.

I tried calling Pete at the number he gave me when I had phone time, the number apparently to his mom’s house.  All I ever got was an answering machine with a woman’s voice, and I never even learned what Pete’s mother’s name was.

I left a few messages, saying something like, “Hey, it’s your roommate. Call me back to let me know you’re alright.” I never heard back.  Other guys had tried to call, too.  Nothing.

A week or two after Pete left, I moved on at the center, from inpatient to more of what they used to call a “half-way house” setting. During that time, there were more opportunities to leave the center to do things.  It was a transitional period where people can do things like, look for work, attend outside meetings, and gain overnight passes, all with the safety net of returning to the center.

One afternoon, as I returned to the center, I was told by the lady at the desk that I was supposed to see my counselor after I checked back in.

On my way back to the offices, I heard chatter, sniffles and sobs from the Commons area of the center. I turned around and walked toward the sounds, more interested in them, rather than whatever my counselor wanted.

As I reached the Commons, there were people standing in a close group. 

“Pete’s dead,” said one of the other residents. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” is all I can remember saying. “It’s okay.”  It wasn’t okay.

I didn’t attend the visitation, because I didn’t know anyone.

I didn’t know his mother or any of his family or friends.  All I knew was that Pete’s mother was alive. That was it. I knew nothing about his family, his ex-girlfriend, his friends, or whether he even had any.

I do remember attending the funeral. The church itself was a beautiful place. The service was quiet and almost surreal. Afterward, I met Pete’s mother. She was gracious and even a little upbeat, which was the thing I remember most about that day. I’ve always guessed that either she was still in shock over her unfathomable loss, or it hadn’t all begun to sink in at that time.  I can still remember her face after all this time.  I remember her kind eyes and smile.  I remember her hand on my forearm, as if I were the one who needed comforting.  Her son had just died a sad, tragic death, and somehow she had the strength and grace to comfort someone she didn’t even know.  I could never quite wrap my head around that.

Not long after Pete’s funeral, I learned  that the reason I never received a return phone call was because no one was there. Pete’s mom had taken a trip to visit family, believing that her son was safe in a treatment center.

Pete didn’t answer the phone because he didn’t return to his mother’s house until the day he died.

After he left the center, he talked his ex-girlfriend into staying at her place in a sort of reconciliation attempt. It didn’t last long.

In the end, Pete couldn’t outrun his past, a past that included repeated childhood trauma and abuse at the hands of people who were supposed to protect and care for him. To get some relief, he turned to what was familiar, and starting drinking again.  Not long after, he engaged in an argument with his girlfriend. The argument spiraled out of control at whatever point things spiral out of control, and he left.

Not long after that argument, Pete returned to the garage of his childhood home. He grabbed the swing set chain he had been abused with as a child, secured one end to an overhead rafter, placed the other end around his neck, and stepped off the stool he was often punished on as a child. 

Later that afternoon, his girlfriend found him.

Sometimes, there is no good end to a story. 

Sometimes, obstacles are too much for the hero of a story to overcome.  Unaddressed trauma, in Pete’s story, was that obstacle. 

I believe that Pete tried everything he could to deal with his trauma the best way he knew how, even going so far as to use third-person narration in his own life. It’s not uncommon for victims of abuse to try to separate themselves from those events in a variety of healthy and unhealthy ways, in order to best cope with, and to try to make sense of events that are often impossible to make sense of. Maybe that was Pete’s way of trying to protect himself from that pain, and maybe we could have done a better job of trying to understand it.

All too often, those who suffer abuse are victimized twice. 

Once by their abuser, and then again by stigma and ignorance, or by family members or friends who don’t believe them (or want to keep the abuse quiet), and by the fear, guilt and shame the person who was victimized often carry with them.

Pete’s fight ended nearly thirty years ago, as I write this. Yet, he is a kind of consistent companion as I walk along my path. I’ve come to realize that there are some things there will never be a good enough answer for, and this will always be one of those things.

In memory of my old roommate, “Pete.”

Mornings with my Demons and Aaron Beck

Many Second Chances Mental Wellness , ,
Good morning, demons…

It usually begins an instant after the generic alarm on my phone signals the dawn of a new day, and I am rarely disappointed.

“This is stupid. I hate this,” comes a grumble from one corner, scratchy and raw due to the excessive yelling from the day before. “Turn that damn thing off.”

“I am not equipped for this,” a whisper comes from another corner, still covered in darkness.

From yet another corner, “Well, this is just super.  There’s nothing more breathtaking than the beginning of another wildly mediocre day in this freak show.”

Here they come.  Anger, Fear, Resentment, AND…

“Act normal.  It’s really not a problem.”

…Denial. 

“Just don’t encourage them.  No one has to know.  No one will ever understand,” says a stern voice, as morning overcomes the night.

Time to start another day, I think to myself and smile as I turn off the alarm and get out of bed.

It hasn’t always been this way.  I mean, it hasn’t always been the case that I could begin a morning this way and smile.  In fact, anxiety, depression and addiction were fueled for years by the unrelenting onslaught of negative thoughts in my head, while the issues I had were, in turn, fueled by my constant, toxic supply of negative thoughts.

The idea of the critical inner voice isn’t a new one.  A quick Google search will show results for articles and papers that suggest that we can have anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, and anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of those thoughts can be negative.  According to research, the overwhelming majority of those negative thoughts are usually the same negative thoughts we had yesterday, and the day before.  There is also the popular belief that negative self-talk or critical inner voice, or monologue, has increased sharply in recent years, in large part due to the cumulative effects of the pandemic, social and political division, and the abundance of (and easy access to) critical material on social media. 

That seems to make sense. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to be exposed to negative people, places or things for any length of time without absorbing at least some of that negativity.  Complicating matters internally, new negative messages are combined with existing material to create a larger sample for the brain to cycle through, apparently over and over again.

So, why smile?  After years of research, trial and error, wounds and scars, a little bit of hard work and some luck, here are five reasons I’ve learned to welcome my critical inner voice each morning with a smile.

CBT.  Dr. Aaron Beck is known as the father of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Broken down into terms simple enough so I can use them, CBT focuses on the idea that thoughts influence feelings, feelings influence beliefs, and beliefs influence behavior.  The way we perceive or think about something influences how we feel about it.  A simple way of using CBT is to be aware of negative or distressing thoughts and examine how accurate or realistic they are.  Identify and evaluate the thought “distortion,” or, if you like, the validity of the thought, in order to think more realistically, which can positively influence the emotion attached to that thought or perception.  There is a lot of great, easy to use information on CBT and Dr. Beck on the internet, if you’re interested.

Resilience.  I’ve been blessed with the gift of longevity, considering the path I’ve travelled. I’ve been given many years and many opportunities to finally arrive at a point where I’ve developed and practiced my own battle plan, and I’m grateful that I get to work on it each day.  Lots of people with similar mental health and addiction issues aren’t given the chances I have been given, and I never forget that. Bouncing back from some adversity or a setback becomes a little easier when I look through that lens. Good day, bad day, whatever.  I’ll be back, and I’ll get to work.

Defiance.  Wait a minute, defiance is a bad thing, right?  Remember the four critics we met at the beginning of this post?  Their goal is to win. Mine has to be, too. I understand what the stakes are in my walk through life with these guys, and I will use any weapon at my disposal.  Mr. Webster defines defiance as “open resistance; bold disobedience,” and I can’t think of a better stance to take against them.  For years, I “struggled with” or “suffered from,” and in some circles, I was even considered to be some sort of “victim of” addiction and mental health issues. 

Defiance has helped to usher in a new perspective, and with that, a change in the way I approach the same old, chronic issues in my life.  I do not struggle with them today.  Likewise, I respect what they can do, but I do not fear them. I do not suffer from anything, and I’m not a victim.  I don’t sit around waiting to defend the castle, wondering what or who will appear on the horizon or attack under the cover of darkness.  I used to.  Today, I go looking for them, and I let them know they should pack a lunch.  I don’t accept their demands, and I do not bow down to them.  Besides, as a depressive, anxiety-prone, recovering addict with rampant ADD, resistance and disobedience have always kind of been second nature, anyway.  With a different perspective, I am able to use familiar weapons in different ways.  Always go with your best pitch.

Gratitude.  It’s probably not what you were expecting after defiance, I suppose.  The funny thing about gratitude is, it’s so easy to carry.  Entitlement gets to be so heavy, and there really isn’t a good way to carry it.  It’s just not a good look.  I kept hearing about gratitude through treatments and rehabs and counseling and all that.  Can’t you just be grateful? 

I always thought that gratitude was somehow for other people, people who didn’t have to carry the stuff  I was carrying.  I often felt empty inside, aside from the never-ending, always loud, everyone-yapping-at-the-same-time, critical, negative, destructive messages in my head.  I didn’t think I had room for gratitude.  I didn’t know where to put it, and I didn’t know how to start, until one day, I just tried it.  I think it went something like this: This is bullshit, but it’s not completely bullshit.  Okay, it’s mostly bullshit.  But, within the piles of bullshit, there is undoubtedly some good stuff.  One teeny, tiny little thing. That one thing is what I will be grateful for today. 

Even in dark times, there is something to be grateful for.  For me, the key has always been that I need to be in the position to be willing, and on days where I’m not willing, I am at least in the position to be willing to be willing.  I am a work in progress. There are still days like that, days where I think I am owed something or I should be further along than I am, or where I get hung up on comparing myself or parts of me to other parts of other things (one of the many places CBT comes in handy).

It’s still the same old crap I’ve been fighting for ages, but I am more in tune with the gratitude side of life today. I don’t have to fight this crap, I get to fight this crap, and I’m grateful for another day to be able to do it. 

Some days I even get out of bed excited about it, right from the start, like a kid staring through the window of a candy store.  I have so many things to be grateful for that it’s kind of embarrassing that I didn’t come around sooner.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say.

“What are you so excited about on a Tuesday morning?”  I’m going to chase down my demons and rub their noses in it today!  Honey, should I wear my plaid shirt or would the striped one be more awesome for demon terrorizing?

Hope.  In my experience, hope is where it all starts.  It has to. All I needed was a spark, and that’s all I got.  There were no angels singing while the gates of heaven opened up.  There was no choir, no cheering from spectators, nothing. It was one spark, and it saved my life.

At one point in my life, I was within roughly 30 minutes, give or take, of completing an action that would have been irreversible.  It would have been final, and at the time, it seemed completely logical.  All the evidence at that moment, distorted as it may have been, clearly showed that it would have been a reasonable, rational thing to do. 

For me, hope came in the form of a “What If?” in the face of all the evidence against it. And that was that.  Quick.  Quiet.  I almost didn’t even notice it.  I’m forever grateful that I noticed hope that day.  Since then, I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and I’m grateful that I get the opportunity to do it again each day.  With that one little spark, some nineteen years later, hope has become the foundation of whatever it is that I am today. 

If you’re kind of iffy on whether or not Hope is beneficial, Google something like, “What does science say about the power of hope?”  You may just be surprised.

I’m no expert on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  I’m no self-improvement guru.  I’m not a mental health expert.  I’m not even an expert on myself, but I keep learning.  Maybe some of this stuff isn’t for you.  Maybe none of it is.  But, if you, or someone you know deals with mental health issues or addiction, my hope is that you find that spark today. If you’re struggling, reach out. If you’re able, be the person others reach out to. You’re worth it, you’re loved, and you matter. We need you. We’re all in this together.

The File Cabinets and Chalkboards in my Head

Many Second Chances mental health, Mental Wellness , , , , , ,

Imagine walking into a room of file cabinets. Upon crossing the threshold, you notice an order and cleanliness about the place. There is no door, only a doorway to this room. The file cabinets are all the same color, size and shape. Even the little labels on each drawer match, with bold printing in a simple font. There are just as many cabinets on one wall as there are on another. The lighting appears to be more than sufficient to remove, replace or read files without causing eye strain or headache. The paint is a neutral color, not boring and not brash. The carpet looks and feels new, and it compliments the paint, cabinets and furniture. There is a soundtrack playing from an unseen speaker that you find neither too loud nor too soft, and it seems to be noticeable only when you want it to be. There is a solid table and padded chairs for reviewing the files that wait to be placed into or pulled out of the cabinets. On the table sits a small stack of writing paper and an old coffee mug full of sharpened pencils, quality pens and yellow highlighters. On one wall hangs a large whiteboard or chalkboard for big ideas or collaborations for times when a mere pen and paper just won’t do. There is some communication equipment neatly arranged and accessible in one corner. While the room is neither perfect nor imperfect, it appears to be fully functional and organized enough to complete whatever tasks the room is set up for. It seems like a pleasant place to spend some time.

Let’s say purely for point of reference, that the file room I just described is a typical human mind and what I’d like to do, completely against better judgment, is to invite you to my file room.

Since you’re a guest, let’s take the direct route today, a route that not many people get to travel. The public route to my room is like an obstacle course without a finish line. Picture the people at the mall who use the “You Are Here” maps. But in this case the maps don’t make any sense and are designed to take whoever on a complicated trip that ultimately leads them back to the same map. Truth to tell, some people never make it farther than the lobby.

It hasn’t always been like this; over the years I have worked on it quite a bit, little by little. There is usually so much confusion and distraction that by the time anyone gets anywhere close to my file room, they are so exhausted and frustrated or confused that sooner or later they stop trying to find it. That is the point, after all……

There is a lot at play here, and I’ve always been on guard about letting people see my files, for lots of reasons. I realize, too, that what I do isn’t what you would call “typical.” There are a lot of people I know who consider hindering anyone’s access to their rooms a huge mistake. They want people to see their room, to sit at their table, to take notes, and to even go through some of the cabinets. Some people actually welcome people in. Nonsense.

As we walk, I’ll share some of the how’s and why’s of keeping people out of, and away from, my file room. You’re going to know once we get there, anyway.

First, and probably easiest to explain, I am an introvert. No, no, no, not just an “introvert.” I am an IN-TRO-VERT. I’m just built that way. The fact that we are talking about it now, or to write or share any of this stuff usually carves chasms in the very room I try to protect. I religiously dislike attention, and a quick “aww shucks” deflection is usually the first sign of that. If it continues, I’ll usually change the subject. I’m not trying to be rude, I’ve just never been comfortable telling people I’m uncomfortable. On the flip side, I am completely comfortable telling others what a great job they did at something, and to be sincere about it… It’s a one-way street. The guy must be weird in the head, right? And that’s just one of the symptoms of introvertitis. Introvertism? Anyway…

I’ve tried, over and over (by all kinds of unhealthy means) to make myself an extrovert, or at least a little less of an introvert. For years I left a wake of confused and hurting people in my past because my inner conflicts seeped out past the walls of my file room, and I never really knew how to deal with it. However, after years of disastrous trial and error, I have made one discovery and that is: I really hate crowds. I would rather spend a month in our storage shed in the backyard than go to a social event. Ten times out of ten. I just can’t have tons of people in my room because there isn’t enough space for everyone at one time. I think you’ll understand better when we get there.

A second barrier to my room is a bit more complicated and has sometimes been messy. This barrier is almost impenetrable. It’s barbed wire and land mines and lazers and all the gadgets one would expect to see in an action movie, it just isn’t anywhere near as glamorous. Really, it’s this meat grinder-mix of shyness, introversion, depression, anxiety, ADD and the remnants of addiction, all glued together by shame. My addiction story is for a visit on another day. And shame is a destructive, toxic, evil force that kills. For the record, shame is not guilt. Guilt can be useful and constructive. Shame has no redeeming qualities.

I’ll give you a quick thumbnail since we don’t have all day… the opposite of depression is vitality. The opposite of anxiety is serenity. The opposite of order is Attention Deficit Disorder. And, holy crap, the ADD….. Let’s just say that a typical grocery list looks like this: bread, milk, butter, eggs. My grocery list tends to look something like this: Bread, car keys, you are my sunshine, ants are so cool, where the f*** did I put the grocery list?

I know what you’re thinking. Medications, right? Therapy. You’re paying attention and I know where you’re going with this. But, I can’t do medications. I’d very likely abuse the benzodiazapines and stimulants because, well….. because they are benzodiazapines and stimulants. I am an addict after all, whether I’m using or have been clean for a week or a hundred years. Just can’t do it. But, therapy is good. Support groups are good. I have no problem with either and I’ve been that route more than once in years passed.

Careful, we’re getting close now………Watch your step.

The final roadblock to my file room is actually fairly subtle. It is the societal norms, taboos and subjects that simply just aren’t fun to talk about. Not only are they not fun, often they are quite painful and come to the forefront only out of necessity or emergency. Stigma…… Misinformation…….. Ignorance……… We don’t talk about depression at the dinner table. We don’t talk about suicide on a night out. We don’t talk about anxiety while at a game. We don’t talk about addiction when family visits………….Unless we have to.

Extroverts are often seen as confident, successful and even preferred, while introverts appear to be less than or different from the “norm.” Men don’t cry, and they shouldn’t show feelings. That’s been a long-held standard. We still live in a world where depression and anxiety are widely viewed as weaknesses and addiction is seen as a lack of will power. An ADD diagnosis is brushed off as a lack of discipline and laziness, “If you would just concentrate!” These types of issues are usually other people’s problems…… until they hit home. When and IF people do concede that these conditions exist, often they are given tags to lessen or separate them from other, more “Valid” conditions. One of my favorite labels is “invisible illness.” Because there isn’t a bone sticking through the skin or surgical scars, that means that somehow it must be qualified another way. Marginalized. Set aside. Stigma and bias are still alive and well regarding mental health issues and addiction, regardless of the progress that has been made. Both sadly and conveniently, it serves as steadfast justification for keeping people out of my files….. But don’t kid yourself. There isn’t much about any of these conditions that is “invisible.”

That’s it…….just ahead. After all I’ve told you, you can’t possibly be surprised by the door. And you can’t possibly be surprised by what you see, now that we are here.

First of all, I apologize for any distraction caused by the speaker. It goes on and off, sometimes just random clips of things, sometimes it’ll play the same damn thing over and over and over. Sometimes it’s just static. It’s weird, but I’ve gotten used to it.

I tried to tell you about the grocery list. Papers all over the place. Drawers open, chalkboard filled with scribbles and gibberish, folders on the floor, the table piled with stacks upon stacks of files. Posters and maps on the walls. Pictures of people no longer with us. Framed photos of teams I was lucky enough to be a part of. Articles cut out and strewn everywhere. Paper clips sparkle here and there. Post It notes throughout the room in a pattern that may suggest that one of my grand daughters may have walked through and stuck them on whatever she wanted to, and that’s quite possible.

HOW CAN YOU FIND ANYTHING IN HERE???

You should maybe sit down, once I find a chair for you. Look, I tried to keep everything in here organized. I tried all the way through school, into adulthood and for a long time after that. I would clean my locker, only for it to be a disaster again in a few days. I would attempt to organize my thoughts to try to explain why my thought process was so jumbled and fragmented. But when I tried to speak, it often fell apart on the way out of my mouth.

To many, my room looks like a disaster. It may look like someone ransacked the place, and sometimes that is what I do to find stuff. In my own little office at home, for instance, I actually have an old chalkboard that I scribble on. I have files and piles of dead trees that make sense to only me. I have an old wooden bowl that holds notes I have scribbled on whatever paper I could find. Grocery items on the same piece as ideas and goals. It’s a controlled chaos, more than anything, I just don’t fight it anymore.

After years of trying to be “typical,” I’ve come to accept that I am whatever it is that I am. I don’t think it’s a matter of better or worse. Maybe it’s more of a style, a unique style, like handwriting. And we adapt. We just do.

Please bear with me while I continue to rummage through my file room and attempt to sort through the mess in my head so I can try to get my thoughts out in print……..my original intent was to tell my story the best I could, in hopes to help someone else……….but I am starting to notice that just maybe the person I might be helping the most is…me. I’m no writer, for sure. But writing has become a neat way to take scattered thoughts and fragments of ideas from the wood chipper my mind can sometimes be and cut and paste them into something fairly coherent.

This has been a different kind of post, and I appreciate the fact that you stayed through to the end. Thank you for reading, liking and/or sharing my posts. It means a lot to me, and I hope something in them can be of help to you or someone you know. Thank you.

What do you do? Is your file room similar to the one in the beginning, neat and orderly? Is it more like mine, some sort of paper bomb epicenter? Have you had to do things to adapt the way your mind works due to circumstances in your life? Do you let people in? Do you keep people out? Introvert or extrovert?

Whatever you are, be you. The longer you’re not, the harder it will be for you, or anyone else, to find their way to your room.

Standing on the Shoulders of the Littlest Giant

Many Second Chances In Memory Of, Lessons from the past, Short story , ,

It seemed as though he had been on the edge of that board forever. During that forever, he had changed from shivering to vibrating and his lips had turned the shade of purple that we had all become accustomed to seeing during that change. The breeze that day was cool, and considering his lack of any body fat of any kind, it may as well have been January. During the occasional day like that at the pool, sometimes the rest of us would offer up our towels for him to use as blankets so he could warm up and so his lips could inevitably return to their natural color. But this day was different. This was a day of reckoning….that is, as much as a ten year old boy would probably dream there was to reckon.

He stood there looking down at the water, which was exactly one meter below the toes he had curled over the edge of the big, old diving board. It just looks so much higher the first time you get up there and stand on the edge. Surrounding the water he was staring into was six or seven of the older kids who had been treading water since before he had inched his way out to the end of the board, and who were patiently trying to reassure him that, despite being terrified and half frozen, he was about to do the single greatest thing in his life thus far. And those of us who had already leapt from the death-defying one meter mountain top knew exactly the pure joy that awaited our friend whenever he finally got tired of vibrating.

Years ago, the swimming pool in town was the place to be on a summer day, any summer day, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. There was a time when a kid would actually have to plan to get there early to claim a spot big enough for a beach towel on the huge cement landscape that surrounded that beautiful, crystal clear oasis. And the sounds… The radio that sat in the check in/lifeguard/clothes storage booth window that could be heard across the lake in town as it played one of the local radio stations during open hours. The smacking sound a lifeguard’s flip flops would make as they walked on the cement. The old diving board could be heard clear on the other side of town, too, with its familiar, “ka-klunk, ka-klunk,” which signaled that another kid had just been launched into the air and would soon be splashing down in ten feet of perfect, chemically-balanced paradise. The pool was an ideal, coconut oil-scented melting pot of sorts, and it was a daily fifty cent adventure we were always excited to take at that age. Big kids, little kids, young adults, old adults, boys and girls, and with each neighborhood in town represented and recognized. This melting pot was pretty efficiently managed by sun glasses-wearing, whistle string-spinning, sun screen-nosed lifeguards. They were, more often than not, pretty lenient with most of our adventures, and usually pretty forgiving of our pranks.

Back on the board, lips ever purple and his whole being still vibrating, our friend was listening to one of the bigger kids who was in the circle of water treaders. He was trying to convince our friend how safe it actually was to step off the board and toward the water, surrounded by strong swimmers who cared about him, as well as the handful of others of us who were either standing on the pool’s edge or resting on the side in the water. His toes relaxed and his arms came unwrapped. Then, in a flash, his arms jerked back up around each other and his toes re-curled around the edge of the board. This went on for what seemed like days, and I am sure it seemed a lot longer than that for our friend.

Our friend was smaller than most of us were at the time, and I guess it had always been that way. Smart, funny as the day was long, and adventurous as any of us were, even at the age when it seemed we were always exploring something. But he always had the heart of a lion. He always pushed through things that could have been made more difficult due to his size, things that the rest of us made look easy or took for granted. I guess the board thing was no exception.

But he had passed his test, along with the rest of us. The test, which consisted of swimming across the pool and back without touching the bottom and then treading water for a minute, was easy for him. He swam effortlessly and could hold his breath like no one else I’d ever seen, which was weird considering he was asthmatic. In fact, I’m sure that he took the test more than once, while helping and guiding other aspiring big kids to achieve their own utopias. Almost every little kid dreamed of a few seconds of weightlessness thanks to the spring of the board, and the following entry into the world below the water’s surface. We idolized the big kids and their flips and spins and defiance of gravity. This is why we took the test, after all, so we could leave the shallow water behind and plant our flags on the diving board like big kids. It was our destiny, and it was Destiny Day.

“What if I don’t come up?,” I remember him asking.

“That’s not possible, I bet your head won’t even get wet,” one of the big kids replied, still calmly and patiently treading water with the others, while the rest of us continued to watch on around him. All this after what seemed like three or four days of watching our frozen friend ever so slightly bob up and down on the end of the board while fighting off a rare case of mid-July hypothermia.

A line had begun to form behind our friend by the steps of the board by this time, but no one said anything or acted like they were in much of a hurry. In fact, it seemed that at that time, the only thing the entire pool was interested in was whether or not another little kid would graduate to big kid status. The excitement was genuine due to the fact that if it were to happen, it would surely be a case of one of the smaller little kids becoming what would have been the littlest big kid in the history of the whole diving board area.

And then it happened. For those who were at the pool that day all those years ago, they will probably tell you that it happened in slow motion. First, the unfolding of the arms and the one after another uncurling of toes. A slight bend the knees. A deep breath, deep enough where he could have spent three hours at the bottom of the pool and still not run out of air. Purple lips pressed tightly together, and for a second or two, the vibrating and teeth chattering stopped. Pause, and then he did it. He stepped off the board.

He hung in the air for what seemed like a lifetime. All of the big kids in the circle reached up in unison like some precursor to synchronized swimming. As our friend fell closer to the water, they were reaching up to the sky to meet him. He finally splashed down and things sped back up to real time. As I remember, his head barely went under water and then he popped immediately back up to the surface, both under his own half-frozen, destiny-driven, adrenaline-fueled power and from help with the big kids who were making sure he was safe, just as they had promised they would.

As the last water drops returned to the pool from the splash heard ’round the world, a chorus of whistling, clapping and cheering broke out at the pool, only to be drowned out by our friend’s flopping and splashing wildly as the big kids , still surrounding him, tried help him stay afloat in the middle of the deep end of the pool. Why all the distress after such an amazing accomplishment? He was trying to swim as fast as he could to the ladder so he could get out of the pool…….So he could do it all again.

***************

A thousand lifetimes and millions of miles have passed since the day that Arni Anderson made his jump. I could have shared instead the story of how he contracted chicken pox and I didn’t, and went through it smiling the whole way. Or when one of the bigger kids in the old neighborhood helped him ride the big red two-wheeled bike that all the other little kids were scared of. Or the day he climbed the huge pine tree across the street from my house until he was so high we could hardly see him.

Issac Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The idea that we are farther along because of those who have come before us goes back to the time when people first recorded history. Those who made an impact on us in some way, although they are no longer here, can also serve as the shoulders we stand on.

I could have also shared a long story of his passing at such an early age, and how the town literally shut down the day of his funeral. School was closed and businesses stopped. His church was packed full, shoulder to shoulder, front to back. Upstairs, downstairs, hallways, stairways, aisles. Or that his friends and the community as a whole was rocked by his loss, for sure, but that we will never know the depths of loss his family felt. Or that no one really knew at that point how to move on. We just did. Sadly, that was more years ago than I care to remember but his memory always remains close within me.

Sometimes I go through the park when I’m back home to visit. I’ll stop by the pool and watch for a minute or two. It never takes long to be transported back to the old sounds and smells, and to the day that some forty years earlier, the littlest giant let me begin to stand on his shoulders.

In memory of a dear childhood friend,

Arnold “Arni” Anderson