Trigger points

It was nothing much, my poorly worded email prompted a stroppy response from a stressed person. But despite my gracious (I hope) reply the effect on me was huge.   First was batting away the tears, then came the anger, and boy did that come.  The long drive passed quickly though as the emotions pulsed through my whole body.

Of course the depth of emotion was nothing to do with the minor matter that triggered it, it was like digging it the garden and hitting a huge oil geyser that shoots up to the skies.  It was tapping into some old wounds that have been stirred up by looking back to a difficult time a few years ago. Anger that had no outlet to those who had caused the wounds, so it bubbles up against those I can react to.

Realising the roots of the big emotions I felt anger at myself for still having that vulnerability, yet does that mark my humanity? That I am still capable of caring enough to hurt. Sunday was Mothering Sunday - a tricky day to preach, either we get over sentimental and risk ignoring those for whom it is a difficult day, or brush over and dodge the topic.  I spoke on the 1 Cor 13 passage about love  - an image of perfect love. Then I talked about how we mess up our attempts of love, and others mess up in loving us before offering my own version -

'Love is messy, love is raw, it does not come with a guide book, it does not control. It is vulnerable, it is tough, it keeps no record of ‘the answers’ because they change with every person. It holds safe and it lets go. It always hurts, it always struggles, but mostly love simply is.'

Life is messy when vulnerable to triggers, and especially when it overlaps and not all that person's fault, but I would rather risk hurt to know love and all the messiness of human relationships than let the hurts make me shut myself away from it all.

Lies, Lies, Dying from the lies

I am Angry!!

Angry at the lies we tell, the lies we have told in the past, and the way they still apply today. Which lies? Well admittedly there may be a whole range of them and I am not attempting to take on them all, but the lies that have got me angry are those that get in the way of our mental wellbeing.

As a child I was told, or absorbed somehow, I can’t remember not knowing it, the great lie of childhood bullying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me’. It may have been intended as a putdown to bullies, a ‘you can’t get me’ claim, but for me it became a reason why my suffering, the fact I cannot remember school before the name calling that continued until I left at 18, was not worth making a fuss about. Why I should be grateful that it was names not physical wounding – yet the words seep in the cracks of who you are, they leak into the roots of your emerging identity, and can wound deep and for longer.

As a girl and now a woman I was saved from the other insidious, deathly lie – ‘Big boys don’t cry’.  Women are the majority among those receiving treatment for depression and other mental health issues, but men are the most likely to take their own lives.  Why? Because ‘big boys don’t cry’ – women can admit to their emotions but generations of men have been brought up to face it all with a stiff upper lip, and the shame of seeking help is greater so they bottle it up until the risk of it exploding in one lethal moment is huge.

Why is my anger riled today particularly? Well I am returning to counselling for support about the long shadows in my life. But mostly because today we farewelled and  buried someone who lived in anguish for decades after the death of the two men in her life, her brother and her father, due to suicidal depression. In an era when the pain wasn’t acknowledged, when men weren’t encouraged to seek support, when ‘big boys don’t cry’ wounds were left unbound, open sores to get infected with terminal depression.  Could things have been different? Could the life story, the family story we remembered today have been different?

How many lives have been lost to the lies, to the stigma?  And how many lives left behind have been torn apart because of the lies our society tells about emotional wounds, about so called weakness.

That is why campaigns such as Time to change are so important, that is why next Friday I will be taking the opportunity to speak to 100 14/15yr olds about the lies, and why talking about mental health is important. We wouldn’t ignore a heart attack, so why should we fear asking for help with a broken heart or spirit?