Somewhere over the rainbow...

Humanism sees all the pieces of a being, and most importantly, all the potential and all the goodness.  Love can shine a light into the darkest corners and breathe in new life and new dreams, like glue to gather all of our broken pieces. PHOTO BY SHAZIA ISLAM

Today, I found out that someone I knew had lost his battle.  Today, I found out how much havoc our consciousness can wreak on us when the life we've been given ends up betraying us.  Exactly three weeks ago on Saturday, Feb. 15, my friend could no longer withstand his pain, and he took his life in the loneliest place in the world - inside his prison cell.

Today, I printed out the photo above to send to my friend to cheer him up, give him an opportunity to see another side of himself, not knowing that he was gone.  I had sent him an earlier photo before taken by another very good friend of mine of a rainbow poised in a graceful arc above a small idyllic town.  When my friend received this photo, he wrote to me and said it was the most beautiful thing ever, and that it was what he would look at during those dark days in solitary confinement.

I couldn't find the address information anymore of the correctional institute where he was being held.  We had been emailing earlier, but I had received a notice from the administration of the prison a few days ago that my friend was no longer on the email system.  So, I decided to send him another letter as I had done the first time we made contact last fall in 2013.  I would have included the photo of the shiny disco ball.  He would have seen parts of the park outside my office window.  He would have seen the light reflected from the ball in the shape of diamonds on the ledge.  Another rainbow effect with the idyllic scene in the background, and the shining presence of this beautiful ball of mirrors.  What would he have thought?

But when I looked his name up to locate the address, I discovered the news of his passing.  Nothing much was said about him that humanized him and his life.  His past actions had rendered him unworthy of any kindness from the press, and this, I do understand.  The people who had been tragically impacted by his actions also needed kindness.  But the press did not honour either side - the victims nor their perpetrators; the coverage was just one long gratuitous interlude of the violence that would continue to resound in press articles to come.  No critical analysis of or action against the horrific nature of war, and the debilitating effects of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and how young American men and women from lowly backgrounds are often recruited to be sent off across the oceans to fight and kill people who they have been brainwashed to hate - their learning devoid of any understanding of people's histories, livelihoods, and communities.  They maim and kill with the same ferocity that they blame "the terrorists" for showing, and justify their armed invasions all in defense of freedom.  Operation Desert Storm was nothing more but a replay of the age-old crusade of the West to divide, conquer, and destroy the brown-skinned Muslims.  And so the destruction continues, not just in Iraq.

My friend was one of those young recruits.  With already a troubled life, the officers paid no mind.  He was another body/boy to be shipped off to the killing fields.  Killing he witnessed, and killing he did.  When he was discharged, he was charged shortly after, and sentenced to life without parole.  From then on, everyday became work to pay his dues and right the wrongs he had committed.  But those memories stayed fresh in his mind, like a festering wound coagulating into daily terrors with other inmates who knew of his crime and gave him no peace.  People will ask if he deserved any peace.  I ask, how else can one heal if not out of a place of peace, and not misery?  But then people will say, he didn't deserve to heal.  I ask, why do we judge the wrongs of one being while turning a blind eye to the society that created him?

I know my friend committed atrocities, but I also know of his profound guilt and sorrow in the brief letters we exchanged before his death.  He was on a mission at that time, to procure some semblance of friendship and understanding in his life, with someone who represented the enemy he had been taught to hate.  That photo of the rainbow had caught him by surprise.  He never expected such a thing to happen, that someone from across these stolen and plundered landscapes would reach out to him to tell him that there were other dimensions of his spirit he could reach into to find that rainbow.

I hope my friend finds that rainbow in the life beyond, for it is always somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, where that land of lullabies offer glimmering sights and sounds of a once loving and playful child.

"Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raajioon"

I heard a rumour and it ain't pretty

Don't be like our friendly parrot and repeat everything you hear. PHOTO BY SHAZIA ISLAM

"Did you hear about so-and-so?"

"Did you hear what so-and-so did?"

"So-and-so should receive an asshole-of-the-year award for..."

"I can't stand so-and-so because..."

Do these intros sound familiar? They are the sound of gossip coming from the mouths of people all around us including you and me. Consider it an ancient form of bitching passed down the ages in order to safeguard our position among the lot in our communities, our workplaces, our schools, and now even in our social media worlds. Like Amy Toffelmire writes in her well-articulated and sensible article, "Gossip: good or bad?":

Researchers theorize that life in small tribal groups may have forced our ancestors to adapt and gain some pretty sophisticated social intelligence. Imagine living among a small group of people, competing for resources and for friends and allies. Sounds a little like high school, doesn't it? You'd have to figure out who you could trust and who would make a good partner. Among our ancestors, those who survived and thrived were those who could predict and influence the behaviour of the people around them. This took a bit of talking and a lot of listening and watching.

For those of us who need some clarity, gossip is sharing and expressing information and judgments about others in a derogatory manner, "Did you hear that so-and-so got the award? What a joke! So-and-so didn't deserve it, a real cheater for sure!" It can be used in all kinds of ways to seriously damage the reputation and character of others, and prevent them from being promoted or finding work.

Gossip in most cases can't be helped because we are giving voice to our own internalized struggles, frustrations, and fears. When we speak ill of others, it is just as much a reflection of the battles we're having with our own demons, and the fear that we're losing our place in our communities. But it also serves as a distraction and escape from our own personal conflicts. In order to placate those negative energies and insecurities, we engage in rumour-mongering of others, and in so doing, we are able to tell ourselves that we're not as bad as "those people".

Toffelmire writes:

Gossip can actually be a kind of deterrent or a punishment against those who deviate from the norms and values of a group. It's tough to be the one being negatively gossiped about or the one excluded because of a nasty rumour, so the social pressure keeps us from veering too far away from the group. Positive gossip can also encourage cooperation among people in a group.

The frustration that often can be heard in our tone of voice when we gossip can also be a sign of our own inadequacy to deal with an interpersonal conflict. We might have been brought up to shun confrontation and honesty, and instead survive these difficult relationships through pretense. Putting on a mask with a fake smile is far better than revealing what we really feel underneath. But there is no fault in not feeling a warm sense of affection for certain people in our lives because some of it has to do with our bodies' chemistry, our instincts, how we were raised and what personalities we feel the closest to, or maybe it's just karmic narratives from past lifetimes if we believe in them. So, the problem is not that we dislike people. This can't be helped, as it's part of our social/cultural/human-specific realities. The problem is, the environments we are often in do not give us the language we need to express our frustrations with the people we dislike in healthy, non-toxic ways.

Toffelmire writes:

Too much pressure can, of course, be a bad thing, and gossip has great destructive powers. People use gossip for their own selfish interests at the expense of others. Subtle social cues can turn to hostility or manipulation and quickly trigger anger, shame, and resentment.

Resentment intensifies if we suspect that the people we share our personal information and concerns with are using that information to slam our reputations, attain loyalties for themselves from others, and lower other people's esteem of us. Retaliation is our first reaction to something based on suspicion or actual evidence of other people rumour-mongering at our expense. We make an attempt to turn the tables, and start our own gossip clubs, which might involve gossiping about the gossiping behaviour of others!

It's a vicious cycle.

However, in certain situations, gossip-mongering can really damage not only the reputation of its target, but also that of the gossip-mongerer. These situations involve the kinds of work some of us do where highly sensitive and private information is shared in confidence. People struggling with serious health-related issues, or legal issues might require support accessing proper care, services, and resources. Sharing their needs and concerns with service providers places them in a highly vulnerable position.

Doctors take the ceremonial Hippocratic Oath to commit to upholding a strong work ethic for their patients. People who provide counseling as psychologists and social workers abide by a code of ethics through membership in regulatory bodies like the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, Canadian Psychological Association, or Canadian Association of Social Workers. In any support role, whether as professional counselors or community support workers, we have a duty to keep the information given to us safe. This responsibility comes along with our choice to do this work in the first place. There is no room for compromise in this regard. If we are blabbermouths and gossip about other people's personal lives and struggles, then clearly, we do not belong on this career path, and need to find something else more suited to our tendencies.

That latter statement might seem a bit privileged and judgmental since many of us find ourselves in these positions as a result of our own identification with the communities we serve. In identifying with these communities, we sometimes get confused about our role, such as when we are positioning ourselves as "support worker/counselor" and when we are "peers".  In my mind, there can be no confusion. If our job is to provide support to our peers, then our peers are not our friends, they are our clients through and through, no matter what we might say to distinguish those two roles we play.

It is easy to get on the self-righteous bandwagon and wag my finger at others, but I am primarily writing from having experienced and learned from the challenges of being in a support capacity. When I started to work in this field, I was not totally conscious of the boundaries I needed to set up in order to protect the integrity of my relationships with my clients. I belong to a number of different communities, all of which encourage close interactions and friendships as models of peer support; part of my helping clients was getting to know them as part of friendship circles and families. Very different from the more Western models of interaction espoused in standards of practice for those in a counseling role.

It's not a bad thing to have clients for friends, but if we are not wary or mindful of our primary role in the larger community, we could lose sight of those boundaries and divulge information haphazardly or maybe out of frustration or stress after a long day.

Alternatively, information might be disclosed to us via these channels and networks. The best thing is to stop it where it's at, and let the person sharing this information know that the story is none of our business and should not be talked about. Some people just leave the conversation abruptly because they don't want to be incriminated and targeted if news gets out that this information was shared. If it's gossip, then the gossip about this news being shared and who shared it will be shared. And we, as the listeners, might suffer an equal backlash for our role in spreading the offense.

These are not easy waves to surf. What others say about us can hurt in many significant ways:

• Mental Health - gossiping can drive us to paranoia when we are exposed to networks of people who use gossip to solidify loyalties and to exclude people they don't like; when we are exposed to malicious gossip, we start thinking that people are talking about us in the same way; the paranoia can lead to stress from having to constantly walk on eggshells to avoid being the target of other people's gossip.

• Physical Health - stress can have a destructive impact on our physical health, particularly for those of us who have various chronic illnesses to manage; our bodies often absorb the energy of unhealthy, toxic environments and situations; for those of us who are sensitive to the suffering of others, if we do not have strategies to release these energies, then our bodies will soon be saying NO in various, unpleasant ways.

• Emotional Health - because our bodies are reacting to the stress of "anti-us/them" campaigns, our emotions might be out of whack and we might have to take some time off for anger/stress management; our negative emotional responses can severely impact communication and interaction with others - our colleagues, our clients, our friends and families, other people in the community we do work with, which could then create more situations for others to gossip about, increasing our paranoia, our stress, and our negative emotional reactions, which could possibly get us fired or force us into handing in our resignation.

• Job Opportunities - criticism of the way people do their jobs without taking any action to assist them or give them support to improve their work ethic can seriously impinge on a person's chances of finding work if potential employers get word. Read Mary Abbajay's article on the damage gossip can do in the workplace.

We can't stop people, and even ourselves, from gossiping. We don't have to look in our papers to find examples of people defaming others. It's happening in our kitchens and in our offices as we speak. But for those of us who work in sectors that include a high number of people facing vulnerable situations and barriers, clients and colleagues, alike, putting a cork on the rumour-mongering bears a certain degree of salience when we realize we are actually putting our own reputations/survivalist needs on the line every time we open our mouths and ask, "Did you hear what so-and-so did?" 

2014: Another bright sandy beach stretches before us

A new year is about to begin for those of us following the Gregorian calendar. 2014 rolls off the mouth smoothly, unlike 2013, which required effort for some of us. Most of us appreciate the potential changes and transitions that might come in with the new year's tides. (I'm writing this as I listen to the sound of gentle waves greeting white sandy shores in tropical surroundings on YouTube.)

We sigh at the relief of being blessed with the opportunity to say goodbye to the past year and welcome the forward-moving motion of the coming year. Our sighs echo those gentle waves as they renew hope in our dreams. And our dreams are plenty if we can imagine each dream representing a tiny grain of sand. When we put all those dreams together, it's quite a beautiful landscape to behold - the watery blue sighs uniting with the bright sparkles of hope. No wonder we like to walk barefoot on sand or get buried in it.

The end of the year is always a time for reflection, a way of appreciating how we were able to fit the grandiosity of our resolutions within the realities of our everyday lives. Compromise and flexibility are required to meet the challenges posed by circumstances beyond our control. And this past year, if you read the news like I did, you'd know just how much hardship some people faced around the world, and in our own backyards. Sometimes shrugging our shoulders and accepting defeat is the best way forward. It doesn't mean we give up on our goals; instead, we can use the lessons to re-fashion these goals so we're running (or walking) at roughly the same pace as our daily agendas.

Part of keeping with our resolutions is to know how fast or how slow to work on our goals. Half the battle is in knowing how much we can handle, but also how much we're willing to adjust to make room for the unexpected. That might take a lifetime to figure out as we learn to nurture an appreciation for and understanding of our bodies and our capabilities, the unpredictability and moodiness of nature, and also for the people whose lives constantly affect our own.

Life doesn't have to be a competition. We can locate our own Start and Finish Lines, and not worry so much about the "win". Every self-help guru I know keeps saying it's what's in between those two poles that count. I agree. People who come to that knowing and are patient with the ebb and flow, in my mind, are the ones who can go on to accomplish great things in their lives, never losing hope for what they believe to be their intrinsic purpose.

Happy New Year to my family, friends, colleagues, and the few stray readers of this blog. Thank you for giving me a wonderful 2013. No new dreams for me in 2014, only a renewed commitment to the ones I already have, the ones I will re-explore like a bright-eyed child grasping the sparkly sand as it cascades through her fingers.

Happy Hearty and Safe Halloween

I found a lovely stock photo that encapsulated some of the magical qualities of Halloween for me.  It's not a scary illustration, but one that shows the warmth, radiance, and mystery of this time of year.  Who lives in that lonely house on the hill?  Will kids be able to go there for trick-or-treating?  Are those fairies flying off into the night sky to shine a bright path that will lead Halloween night owls to the house's door?  

One more day before my favourite day of the year!  It's Halloween everybody and instead of feeling frightened, my feet are restless in anticipation of a walk through my neighbourhood to see all the kiddies dressed up as miniature ghouls and storybook characters.  It's always lovely to watch the little tykes dragging their already full pillow cases of candy up the stairs of homes with gleaming jack-o-lanterns and dollar-store decor!  Even better when the doors open and I can take a peek into the warm light of a family home that's alive with laughter, music, and colourful bowls filled with the Mars bar series, and other assorted goodies.

I remember having had only ONE opportunity to go trick-or-treating.  I was in the 8th grade, and my best friend and I decided to dress up in Elizabethan dress for men.  We wore tights underneath these heavy, but very fancy, velvet with gold trimming tunics.  All we needed was the Henry VIII facial hair - well I already had some of that being a brown girl and all!  It was a cold night, as to be expected, but we were warm underneath our royal refinery.  We had pillow cases, too.  It was like a dream come true for me!  I remember years before when my sister and I used to pray that we'd be allowed to go trick-or-treating someday!  When our mom overheard us, she was dismayed by our desire to participate in such a superstitious Western custom, and told us it was rather sinful of us as Muslims to pay homage to ghosts and witches.  We weren't thinking of that, of course, we just wanted candy!  So, finally, I got my chance.  My mom had eased up a bit on her puritanism, and my dad wasn't around to keep me tethered on a leash.  I was actually FREE for the night and ready to roam!

When Jenn - my best gal friend at the time (she was awesome! and still is!) - met up, we went all around the Cole Harbour and Eastern Passage area of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  I got a chance to see the long-haired red-head dude I was so obsessed with.  He even recognized me in my get-up but yawned when he saw me and then got into his gray camaro.  My eyes sprang out of their sockets when I saw him, and if it weren't for Jenn to pull me back to the mission at hand, namely to score as much kiddie sugar as possible, I would have spent the entire night chasing after my luscious-locks Romeo as he drove that 80s motor machine at his usual slow n' steady speed so he could check out all the "action" on his block.

Well, back to the present...

Since I live in an apartment, I can't really welcome any kids and give them treats, but I think this year, I'm going to step out for a moment to take in all the excitement, listen to the laughter all across the streets, and the screams too when scarecrows on porches suddenly become alive!  I'm going to walk through the smaller, cozy streets, see the candle flames dancing in the frame of small stained-glass windows, hear the creaks of heavy doors opening, and smell the sweet, beckoning fragrance of freshly-baked apple pie.  Maybe some folks might be enjoying a glass of wine as they sit on their porches, wrapped in woolen shawls, waiting for their neighbours' kids to come by, or maybe waiting for their own kids to come back!

I guess the best part is when the kids do come back and nearly rip those pillow cases to shreds as they pick through the loot to select those one or two delectable pieces that would be permitted as a snack before it's time to vigorously brush those candy-crusted teeth and get to bed.  School the next day would bring even more excitement as the kiddies think about what treats they could exchange, share with, or even just give as gifties to their classmates.  There needs to be more giving and sharing, I think :)

Halloween always rounds up so nicely, every year, and maybe one year, I'll spend it with my niece back in Vancouver as we explore her neighbourhood, collect some good treats and some not-so-good-seriously-unhealthy treats, and maybe create some sparkling, fairy-dust adventures along the way.  Here's wishing all of you, your families, and the kiddies in your lives a Happy Hearty and Safe Halloween!

The Note That Was Left Behind

PHOTO BY SI

Suicide notes.  They give loved ones an idea of what might have gone through the suicide victims' minds in their final hours.  Some of them are filled with sad goodbyes to all the people who brought them variations of joy and pleasure or recollections of happier times from a dream-like distant past.  But others are written with a heavy angry heart pointing fingers at all the individuals who made their lives miserable: the bullies who sought their demise, and succeeded.  Then there are the ones that are filled with regret over what could have been.  These notes are portals, a way inside the soul's distress, a way to understand the profound isolation a person living with severe mental health challenges, such as depressive mood disorder, is forced to suffer through, or someone who has experienced insurmountable bullying and alienation from their peers.  In their reality, there is no longer any trust in their thoughts, as their thoughts keep pushing them towards self-destruction.

The overall societal reaction to people who take their own lives is often revulsion, without any understanding of the mental, physical and emotional distress of the victims, because well-adjusted folks who neatly fit and succumb to the systematized matrix of modern society are supposed to be the norm. Do we even have a 'norm'?

People who commit suicide are called cowards, self-obsessed or narcissistic because they were selfish and did not consider the effects of their decision on their loved ones.  Another criticism is that the victims' suffering was not as bad as they thought because there are so many people out there who have gone through "far worse".  Therefore, these victims should have appreciated what they had in their lives instead of complaining about and focusing on what was not working.  Well, it's never as simplistic as that.  One person's response to their life circumstances is always different from another's.  The constant comparison of our lives makes an assumption that somehow we're all the same, similar temperaments and brain development, similar childhood histories and environments, and so, we should all be able to keep our chins up, march forward with hope and confidence. Yeah, right. 

The uniqueness of human suffering is exposed in all the different ways our spirits react to tragic life events.  It is no fault of someone who reacts in ways that bring her greater vulnerability and harm.  It is the body's chemistry, its millions of interactions among cells, and the external forces that complicate its nature that contribute to the soul's demise.  Even current scientific research can not completely explain the phenomenon of suicide and what goes on in the brain that might initiate self-destruction.  And certainly, my blog post here does not have all the answers as well.

In the book Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, Kay Redfield Jamison shares many case histories of clients whose mental health challenges became too unbearable that not even the treatment concoctions that Big Pharma mixed in its laboratories could prevent these people from taking their lives.  Redfield espouses a more compassionate approach to understanding suicide, and has struggled with suicidal tendencies throughout her professional life as a professor of psychiatry.  Staying alive is an everyday struggle for people who are "living with suicide", and normality is when the mind is only filled with thoughts of just self-harm like cutting or mixing booze and drugs rather than planning and visualizing their death with their own hands.

Of course, so many people who have gone through similar struggles do survive, but our biological affinities can not protect us from the sui generis of human behaviour and intellect.  Precisely why we need to nurture compassion for the ones we've lost and the ones we might lose.

Mental illness can comprise a broad spectrum of disorders with some of us possibly being at the cusp of a potential mental health issue, while others are already enmeshed in some of the more serious conditions that can precipitate self-harming behaviour.  Dealing with people who manifest some of their challenges in public spaces or at social gatherings can engender a confused range of emotions among family, friends, and colleagues.  Many of us do not have the patience to support someone who is experiencing a breakdown.  Instead, the tendency is to stand back, watch, and judge due to our ignorance of the person's issues.  Then some of us might explode ourselves at the person, which will aggravate the situation and add fuel to the rapidly spreading flames.  Without understanding the complexity of the human mind and its vulnerabilities, we question why this person is being so "problematic" and why they can't seem to just "suck it up" like the rest of us.  It is that very attitude that creates so much of the stigma around mental illness, and prevents people from seeking help. Alas! we are back full circle.

So next time we hear of someone who took their life - whether it be a celebrity or your neighbour or the community activist you rubbed shoulders with at a recent demonstration - let's show them compassion instead of berating them for making such a painful departure.  If we knew the impact of psychosis, we would be aware that it was not really a choice, but an act of compulsion and desperation to escape the ongoing thought cycles in their heads or the threats and oppression they faced from our societies that are bent on upholding restrictive and exclusionary norms and standards.  Please, let's honour their struggles, celebrate their achievements, value their goals and talents, and finally listen to their voices and the things they've been saying all along, things no one really paid much attention to while they were alive.

I dedicate this blog to a friend who lost his life to suicide.  May he rest in peace, and may the memory of his compassion, commitment, and care to the people who loved him serve as an example of leadership and resilience to all of us, and may his spirit live forever in the work we each do to lift others.

May we all develop the knowledge, insight, and compassion needed to help save lives from suicide. For more information on suicide prevention training and workshops, please contact the Canadian Mental Health Association at 416-789-9079 or visit their website.