Look, I am not really big on banging my head on this proverbial steel wall. I obviously think so differently that few people are willing to entertain that I could make sense on this topic at all. My experiences are vastly different as I have known people - supported them - cared for them - been one - and they died - frozen, beaten, vacant, defeated and of course, with CPTSD etched throughout their nervous system. Some of these people had been on the streets since they were teenagers.
That was a terminal situation long before they died. I know. I have been staring it down for over a decade.
What changed for me? How did my situation change and if it did doesn't that renew my faith that miracles happen? Absolutely not.
My situation changed for this reason alone. If any of you had known me in person, you would have seen that I was dying. I had lost almost completely my life force. I was
- frozen-
-beaten -
- vacant -
-defeated-
-CPTSD etched in my nervous system
It was the end of the summer and I wouldn't have survived another winter. My friends knew it. So it came down to a huge game of chicken. Those who couldn't live with themselves if I had died finally lifted a hand. And I was too far gone to care anymore. There is no question, they helped me not because they didn't want me to die, (being around me had gotten too painful) but because they couldn’t have lived with themselves if I had.
I needed resources. All of those years I had kept fighting and fighting for resources that were not available to me because I was being kept desperately poor. The more traumatized I got, the less capable I was of helping myself. Somehow nobody understood that. Because they thought trauma was bullshit; which is a stance only those with a solid nervous system are granted.
The following resources were granted to me which interrupted the chronic trauma cycle that was happening to me.
1. Enough money to supplement my housing for a year which allowed me a place to live for the first time in a decade. Our social disability system provides less than half of a realistic amount of money for market rent.
2. A prescription for Medical Marijuana (which eased my body out of the extreme freeze state I was in allowing me to break free to a degree of the chronic unbearable stress I had been in.
3. Training for peer support and a community to support me who actually knew what I had been through. This had made all the difference in the world.
4. A therapist who took a cup of tea from Timmy’s rather than the usual 320.00 fee per session, who would eventually help me navigate this system to finally get access to a government subsidy for housing so that I could remain housed.
It was a hand out so that I could actually help myself rather than keep spinning in trauma circles. All along I have attempted to help myself as society, the disability system, the shelter system, my friends, family all stood around mocking me for having been in the position I was in for so long – as if it was a failing of mine that every time I attempted to come back up for a9r, someone other entity would push my head back down again. Each of them attempting to convince me that I was too broken and mentally ill and stupid and deserving of the position I was in – because they couldn’t bare the pain of watching me. So they left me for dead.
The more I work with peers who are still immersed in this disgusting system, the more I recognize that they all have been facing the same challenges. A hopeless system that ties them up; throws them in lockdown; over drugs them; and teaches them that they aren’t allowed to even discuss their pain with others without serious repercussions.
And until those of my people who were brave enough to face their OWN fears about my almost certain demise by working through their own pain about my situation and asking me directly what I needed, I was just the clown in the featured ring at the local circus. Writhing in pain in front of everyone while they accused me of not 'trying hard enough'
We need to ask these people what they need. And until we start listening to them in a way that is meaningful, we are all part of the problem and not part of the solution. We have no right to impose our version of how much pain is too much upon them. The hopelessness isn't just about their pain but also their lack of resources; their inability to connect with society as a whole anymore due to the uniqueness of their experiences; their poverty induced isolation; and until we put the effort in to really truly hear what they need things won't change for them. Not ever. Until they die. And they know it.
As people who are being shunned or mocked or abused as they try to express their pain I don't blame them one little bit for falling into a state of hopelessness. They are traumatized; not stupid and they know the situation they are in is hopeless. They aren't wearing blinders, we are.
As responsible adults it is our duty to ask directly what these people need and try to provide it to them. It is not okay to tell them what they can have and mock them when it isn’t helpful to them because we have no idea what their experience is. Painful as that might be, it is our duty. We take resources away from these people, start calling them 'mentally ill' because they are reacting to it in a primal way because their very being is on constant attack because of our policies, attitudes and biases? And then say that because they are mentally ill they aren't qualified to determine their own chances of survival?
That is such a f*cked up double bind it is beyond words. But keep preaching how they need to 'hang in there' because if we actually SEE them die it makes us uncomfortable.
Whatever.
Namaste.
That was a terminal situation long before they died. I know. I have been staring it down for over a decade.
What changed for me? How did my situation change and if it did doesn't that renew my faith that miracles happen? Absolutely not.
My situation changed for this reason alone. If any of you had known me in person, you would have seen that I was dying. I had lost almost completely my life force. I was
- frozen-
-beaten -
- vacant -
-defeated-
-CPTSD etched in my nervous system
It was the end of the summer and I wouldn't have survived another winter. My friends knew it. So it came down to a huge game of chicken. Those who couldn't live with themselves if I had died finally lifted a hand. And I was too far gone to care anymore. There is no question, they helped me not because they didn't want me to die, (being around me had gotten too painful) but because they couldn’t have lived with themselves if I had.
I needed resources. All of those years I had kept fighting and fighting for resources that were not available to me because I was being kept desperately poor. The more traumatized I got, the less capable I was of helping myself. Somehow nobody understood that. Because they thought trauma was bullshit; which is a stance only those with a solid nervous system are granted.
The following resources were granted to me which interrupted the chronic trauma cycle that was happening to me.
1. Enough money to supplement my housing for a year which allowed me a place to live for the first time in a decade. Our social disability system provides less than half of a realistic amount of money for market rent.
2. A prescription for Medical Marijuana (which eased my body out of the extreme freeze state I was in allowing me to break free to a degree of the chronic unbearable stress I had been in.
3. Training for peer support and a community to support me who actually knew what I had been through. This had made all the difference in the world.
4. A therapist who took a cup of tea from Timmy’s rather than the usual 320.00 fee per session, who would eventually help me navigate this system to finally get access to a government subsidy for housing so that I could remain housed.
It was a hand out so that I could actually help myself rather than keep spinning in trauma circles. All along I have attempted to help myself as society, the disability system, the shelter system, my friends, family all stood around mocking me for having been in the position I was in for so long – as if it was a failing of mine that every time I attempted to come back up for a9r, someone other entity would push my head back down again. Each of them attempting to convince me that I was too broken and mentally ill and stupid and deserving of the position I was in – because they couldn’t bare the pain of watching me. So they left me for dead.
The more I work with peers who are still immersed in this disgusting system, the more I recognize that they all have been facing the same challenges. A hopeless system that ties them up; throws them in lockdown; over drugs them; and teaches them that they aren’t allowed to even discuss their pain with others without serious repercussions.
And until those of my people who were brave enough to face their OWN fears about my almost certain demise by working through their own pain about my situation and asking me directly what I needed, I was just the clown in the featured ring at the local circus. Writhing in pain in front of everyone while they accused me of not 'trying hard enough'
We need to ask these people what they need. And until we start listening to them in a way that is meaningful, we are all part of the problem and not part of the solution. We have no right to impose our version of how much pain is too much upon them. The hopelessness isn't just about their pain but also their lack of resources; their inability to connect with society as a whole anymore due to the uniqueness of their experiences; their poverty induced isolation; and until we put the effort in to really truly hear what they need things won't change for them. Not ever. Until they die. And they know it.
As people who are being shunned or mocked or abused as they try to express their pain I don't blame them one little bit for falling into a state of hopelessness. They are traumatized; not stupid and they know the situation they are in is hopeless. They aren't wearing blinders, we are.
As responsible adults it is our duty to ask directly what these people need and try to provide it to them. It is not okay to tell them what they can have and mock them when it isn’t helpful to them because we have no idea what their experience is. Painful as that might be, it is our duty. We take resources away from these people, start calling them 'mentally ill' because they are reacting to it in a primal way because their very being is on constant attack because of our policies, attitudes and biases? And then say that because they are mentally ill they aren't qualified to determine their own chances of survival?
That is such a f*cked up double bind it is beyond words. But keep preaching how they need to 'hang in there' because if we actually SEE them die it makes us uncomfortable.
Whatever.
Namaste.
