Future Medicine - Peace through Understanding

Years ago when my cancer was initially misdiagnosed by a doctor I briefly became a bit of a medical celebrity, discussed in conferences as a warning about the devastating consequences of dismissing someone out of turn because they don't fit a demographic. Better to do a test and be wrong than to dismiss and condemn.

Consequently, my next doctor couldn't do enough for me, so when I suggested that some psychotherapy would be beneficial she arranged it for me. Truth be told, I had enjoyed reading “The road less travelled” so much that I really wanted some psychotherapy but it had seemed way too expensive but now I could get it for free! Hurrah!

My doctor warned me that the psychotherapist was often seen as a bit brusque but to be honest that only strengthened the appeal! Imagine, someone who could look deep into my dark and twisty mind, spot the fundamental flaw and report it directly back to me so that I could sort it out, that sounded right up my alley!

And so off I went every week to explore my inner workings and for the most part I was really disappointed! One week he said to me “ You are always laughing, even when it is something serious, why do you do that?” and I replied “Duh, it's a defence, surely you know that!” and we spoke of it no more. I can't decide if I was equally disappointing to him!

Then the day arrived when my mouth delivered a deeper truth of my being, something that I had never heard myself utter before. I revealed those moments when on the turn of a coin I would spiral so rapidly into darkness that seemingly within seconds I'd be filled with such despair and hopelessness I would immediately search for an end to the overwhelming and interminable suffering to embrace the sweet solitude of death. In those moments of madness I would consider driving my car into a wall, slitting my wrists or taking pills. And I was frightened, so very frightened that one day one of those moments would endure for long enough or the circumstances would all come together and I would enact my final return home and kill myself to escape my torment.

I had shocked myself with my own truth, I was shocked at this deep fear but I knew it to be a real one, after all I knew how many times the black dog had almost bitten off my mind.

It was at this point that my therapist then wrapped up this and all of our sessions proclaiming me to be fine and not in need of further treatment. I was a bit shocked at the time as I thought we had just stepped through a gateway, and indeed I had but I believe my “totally suited to me for a reason” therapist had that innate knowing of my strength, he implicitly recognised that I had the strength to guide myself through the overgrown garden on the other side of the gateway, a garden that I had left untended for lifetimes.

I have always been blessed, always been protected, even when I didn't realise it. My first child was a unexpected gift out of the blue but I knew that she had come to save my life until I could save it for myself. My inner rules were very clear that one must never hurt another, unfortunately that rule had grown so one sided that I would direct all hurt back into myself, little wonder that I could spiral so easily in despair and wish for an easy release from my torment!

I knew that I would never kill myself and leave a child alone. Whether you believe in past lives or not I have a very strong experience of my world collapsing in a previous life as I failed to rouse my dead mother from her murdered body (interestingly my sister carries a whole world of guilt for being murdered and leaving her children abandoned in her one of her previous lives)

I believe that last summer a friend of mine killed himself in one of those moments. He was caught up in a very destructive relationship, he was the loveliest and most genuinely helpful man alive, he wanted to change his profession into an area that helped people, his special needs child had already shown him so much about true love.

We will never know what happened exactly, we will never know why his car drove into that lorry for no reason in what is unfortunately a typical Finnish happening.

All I know is that I wish our next dinner had been planned for 4 weeks earlier because maybe something I said could have changed something but it's useless to think like that.

All I know for certain is that I carry a lot of energy that is relevant to the awful subject of suicide and I don't want to just push it all away, I want to use it to help others. I want others to know that I can listen to them and have some depth of understanding of how they are feeling. I don't have answers but I can hold a hand, open my heart and listen. Sometimes just sitting with someone that can listen is enough.

There are many other places in society that are there for those feeling suicidal but they have a limited ability to penetrate through the darkness once we have slipped down that slope. If you know that you are prone to spiral and you know how dangerous that is you can mitigate somewhat and avoid triggers until such time as you have been able to process the deeper issues that create the black cloud in the first place.

I'd like to start the ball rolling on opening up our society to becoming a safer place for all. Here is my thought: The next time you see something written about......

The person who mistreats an animal

The person who lashes out at their spouse

Instead of running to update your facebook status to indicate your outrage or to declare yourself mystified by their actions why not do something useful and ask of yourself what might have happened/be happening to that person to cause them to behave like that. After all you have just caught a snapshot of their life and it is sitting within your own unique “framework” so it doesn't make sense to you but the so called abuser doesn't live in your “framework”, doesn't live in your world. Imagine how much pain that person must be in if that action is the best they can mitigate their life with.

It's way too easy to dismiss them as “bad” or “evil” but see how that only serves to perpetuates your world vision of a reality made up of random “good” and “bad”

How useful is that vision in creating peace on Earth?

Repressed shit will always ooze out eventually due to the intense pressure it is held under by the judgemental nature of our society. Where and how and by how much it explodes or oozes out depends on the underdeveloped or fragile areas of the person in question.

From what I've seen of the world both looking out and from within myself and my healing practice, that person has already exhausted and abused themselves in trying to contain it for so long. The mother who is frightened by her anger that lashes out at her children can't seek help when she knows that her children will be taken away and people will judge her, she has no safe place to expose herself and so she struggles on until either the inevitable tragedy occurs or some miracle intervenes. How about we be that miracle?

If you honestly can't find it within yourself to hold a loving or at least neutral space for an “abuser” then at least do them the courtesy of walking away and not adding to their burden. If you stick your fears and judgements onto them it's like you are piling extra rocks on them until eventually they will surely burst.

You may sit for a moment in smug and triumphant wisdom proclaiming “I told you, I said they were evil, I said they would do something bad” but that will not bring peace on Earth one iota closer to fulfillment.

It goes back to the old fashioned rule: If you can't say something nice, say nothing.