So, I'm Going into Nursing...

This one is going to be a bit stream-of-conscious-y.  

It seems that I can't do things small.  When I get sick, I don't just get a cold--I get something that will knock my legs out from underneath me and linger in curious ways.  Our household has seemed to similarly stack our life transitions one on top of the other.  I know that past performance does not guarantee future results, but it is weird for, say, also buying our first house AND suddenly looking for a new car, such as the case was last year.  

So it only makes sense in the middle of a pandemic that I put in my two weeks notice for my job.

Okay, to be fair, I have been planning this for literal years.  With many things, I tend to make a decision and then proceed to focus my energy convincing myself to allow myself permission to follow through on that decision, for what sense that makes outside of my brain circuits.  

I've been contemplating going into nursing for some time, particularly to be a wound/ostomy care nurse.  To be in a place where I can so uniquely express that compassion by identification is singing a clarion call that I had been meeting at least in part through this blog and talking with individuals--this gives me a place to take it that one step further.  

And all of that is a highfalutin way of saying I'm ready to move toward a new career.  

SO MANY FEELINGS

I have been accepted to the Mennonite College of Nursing accelerated program at ISU.  It starts in the summer session.  I applied to this a year ago February and found out that I was offered a space in August, two weeks after I had signed all the paperwork for a manager position at Skyward--again, things line up in weird ways for our household.  

Truth be told, I had been offered a place the year before--I wanted to take the leap then, but Andy had just moved into different position at Skyward (once again, timing is weird in our household) and we crunched the numbers.  We ran and re-ran the math in a dozen and a half different ways:  what we found is that by my staying staying one more year and with some intentional pushing, we could be completely done with student loans prior to taking on any new ones, meaning a bit more stability within the uncertainties.  We did it.  We are Millennial Unicorns and grateful.  That we could even contemplate this situation is a privilege.  

It was a risk to turn it down that year--there was no guarantee I would be accepted the next year nor any means to defer that spot.  It would all be back to the strength of my application.  It hurt to turn it down that year, to willingly delay after all the decisions had been landed on, but in many ways we found the timing was right.  I also was able to steadily make my way through the remaining prerequisite courses one per semester rather than the alternative of forcing all four in a short time while also working full time.  So we knuckled down to a year of steadily eating the elephant of student debt one piece at a time, assessing and reassessing our budget for any places to cinch our belts in further (involving switching our student loan vendor for a lower rate and buying a house to at least lower our monthly housing cost), and otherwise squirreling away whatever we could manage to be as prepared as possible.  

My survival voices are VERY upset.  I am leaving a place of relative security so that we can go down to one income and incur more student debt in addition to opening myself to all kinds of new stress (good and bad, but unknown regardless).  The voices wail:  "How could you open up yourself to risk?  What the hell are you doing?"  The point of those voices is to protect me--they are reactive and they are LOUD--but there comes a point where they're no longer productive.  So I have to intentionally take time with those voices, to show the berating, awful din compassion or otherwise help them redirect to a more constructive vein.  It's tiring, at best.

I've played this whole transition close to the chest.  I've told individuals but hitherto made no mass announcement.  I've said before and will say again that preparation against as many plausible concerns as possible is part of how I cope with my medical anxiety and that definitely extends out into our financial situation; whether we can afford my medical needs is certainly a part of that figuring.  We've agonized and re-run the math for every different situation under the sun (unfortunately, we have some real experience with how a crisis can play out and how to safeguard as much as possible against it), and yet there comes a point where we just have to jump anyway.  My hope was just to make the jump from a lower ledge instead of the summit.  

I acknowledge that fear in the same breath I also acknowledge that I am fully confident this is the right next direction for me.  I'm sad to leave the people I work with and will miss them immensely.  I'm so grateful that there were people in my life that made this decision hard in the right ways.  I'm so grateful, too, have the support of those around me.  

And now that these parts are finally out in the open, I can even let myself begin to feel the weight of my own excitement.  There will be many hijinks ahead (and some I may need to catch you up on).  Stay tuned!

Just World Fallacy

I ran into a fascinating term the other day that put some thoughts into a new clarity and context that I didn't have prior to.  Naturally, I would like to share it with you.

Sometimes, when I'm discussing politics or public needs in the world around us, there's an interesting gap that I have encountered, a place where empathy seems to disintegrate in ways that I have found infinitely frustrating.  But I have found at least a pattern to some of it.

Let's take, for example, a light subject:  poverty.  I reject the idea that persons who work certain jobs "deserve" to be poor and should just "find a better job" if they don't want to be poor.  Poverty is a cycle.  It's much more complex than the occasional piece of avocado toast, a latte, a haircut, or a manicure--sometimes a small treat is one nice thing to tide you over, and the complete abstention from all "unnecessaries" does NOT, in point of fact, magically pull people out of that cycle.  Spending twenty dollars on yourself when you've resigned to never paying off that medical debt or student debt that's in the triple digits, it's something that gets you through the day and isn't going to much impact some of those larger problems.

That's my side of the argument, at least.  However, more than once I find a retort already forming in the comments section about how these people got themselves into that situation and should "just pull themselves up by their bootstraps."  This ignores a lot of systemic issues, instead focusing the blame on the individual.  When assistance is proffered, it can often range toward that particular individual in some particular case--not dealing with the root of the problem in the world around us.  In short, there's this odd, prevailing idea that these persons deserve to be in the position that they're in.

An argument could be made in a small handful of cases, maybe, where poor decisions contributed to a current financial distress--they certainly exacerbate an existing concern--but the bulk of people are one bad day away from the same situation.  A cancer diagnosis, losing insurance after getting laid off at work, and no amount of bootstrap-pulling is going to magically make that go away overnight.

But we want to believe that poverty, homelessness, and illness only happen to those that deserve it.  Fairness is something that we want to believe is inherently present in all situations.  The tendency to believe that someone is suffering mostly or only because of their own evil/poor choices is called the Just World hypothesis or when used in an argument the Just World fallacy.  We want good people to succeed and bad people to be punished or at least not succeed.  Even animals have an inherent idea of fairness.  Whether you call it karma or divine justice or destiny or order, we tend to want it to be there and be real in all situations.  This can, in turn, affect how we see different situations--Bezos is a billionaire, so we want to assume he's a good person, particularly when he gives his equivalent of pocket change to a charity of his choice; similarly, assumptions are made that a homeless person on the street probably did something terrible to deserve to be in that position.  Maybe we don't have that exact conversation in our brain, but we as a collective can still act as though it's already assumed.  Ever heard someone say of someone that they "didn't deserve to die that way" or "he/she/they got what they deserved"?  The assumption is hanging out quietly in the background until we draw attention to it again.

If your response to a victim is "well, what did you do to deserve it?" in any rephrasing thereof, you're expressing the Just World fallacy.  Not only is this an erroneous stance to assume--because we know that "good" people fall and "bad" people rise in all kinds of practical examples around us--but it strips empathy out of the equation.  There's a difference between understanding the consequences of ones actions and assuming that everything that happens in this crazy world is a directly related consequence of their actions.  A natural disaster, a new diagnosis, systemic problems (poverty, racism, sexism, ableism, etc), or splash damage from someone else's decision making, these are primarily outside of individual control.  We can take onus as a society to change or prepare against the larger things--that would make the world more just for everyone, at least.  But we cannot ignore other factors to assume that everyone's misfortune clearly must be of their own making.

People want to believe in this kind of justice, I find, as a protection mechanism, that "I'm a good person, so I'll be fine" line of thinking that they hope to will into being.  Or it's a different kind of protection mechanism, one that seeks to absolve the observer from any obligation to become part of the solution--in other words, it's easy to say "not my problem" if we instead assume all situations are purely the fault of the victim/beneficiary.  We have agency.  We have the ability to make the most of our circumstances.  We also have to acknowledge both the chaos of the universe and systemic problems that are factors into extreme situations.  To live together is to also consider what effect we have on other people. 

If we want justice to be served, are we working toward a world it can be or assuming it's already here despite significant evidence to the contrary?  If we want to keep believing in a Just World hypothesis, they we need to create a world where it could be more possible.  Be the hands and feet and voice for those that cannot, for what is right.

The Fear is Worse than the Danger

It's fun to me to take a conversation and try to track the course of how the group went from point A to point B, how we got from the weather to vampires or wherever else we land.  Similarly, I enjoy dissecting whom has instigated what phrase to the rest of the family or friend group.  For example, "I feel rotund" is all me after a meal, but Andy has said it so many times that reality has blurred to some degree, there.

Whelp, we have a phrase we use in this household that I know originated with my brother Mike:  "the fear is worse than the danger."  This is a slight rephrasing of a quote from somewhere (we were trying to find where as I was contemplating this blog post, leaning toward Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and basically what it means is that often the dread leading up to an event is worse than the actual performance or participation in the event itself.  There have been times I've needed to have a tough conversation with someone, something that was hard to articulate or by expressing my pain or frustration I risked their embarrassment or possibly even a violently defensive response.  In the bulk of these, the anxiety I had prior to the actual discussion was far worse than the actual confrontation.

I definitely have shower conversations.  By which, I mean that I will replay an argument or drum up a hypothetical situation in my mind and decide exactly how I would win said argument or situation.  I practice parts of these tough conversations and work through what my words ought to be, in order to be succinct but as impactful as possible.  Not every conversation gets this treatment--sometimes moments just happen organically, only to be dissected later--but anything that I've at least tossed around as "is it worth it to bring up X?" or an interview or presentations and recordings I have made for work, all of these have a similar rehearsal element.

There's a point where these are helpful, where I can use them to discharge frustration about a situation enough to meet the emotional need. There's also a point where it becomes obsessive and unhelpful.  I have shut myself in a room to pace and talk a something out to myself more than once long and enough to where my Fitbit recognized it as a walk, funnily enough.  In one recently, that small buzz on my Fitbit was an important reminder that maybe I ought to put that conversation down for a moment and find a different means to channel that energy out.  Hence, blog post.

The fear is worse than the danger.

I use that to ground myself.  It reminds me that my feelings of dread are still valid, and simultaneously that I need to assess what the real danger is.  I have some choice in how much dread I carry in those moments.  I can deescalate part of the churning process.  It gives me an out, to keep out of the obsession territory.

Part of my anxiety stemming from my medical trauma manifests as extreme preparedness, meaning that I find some comfort as a coping mechanism to be as prepared as possible for different situations.  Sometimes, this means planning out how I would extract myself from X situation if I have an issue with my ostomy bag.  Sometimes it means ensuring that I have emergency supplies at the ready for four different hypothetical situations.  Again, there is a line between when these behaviors are helpful/generate comfort and when they become destructive.  I have planned for some weird scenarios that have happened; I have planned for many more that did not, yet was still glad to know that they would be covered if the need arose.  There is a point when I have expended more energy planning and packing than I do enjoying the ride--it's about finding that right balance.  Not enough preparedness means that I will not be able to focus on the present; too much means similarly that I cannot focus on the present.

So I ground myself as needed:  "the fear is worse than the danger."  I trust myself, that I'll be able to problem-solve in the moment.  I still give myself to tools to be successful therein.  I've gotten worlds better at assessing how much repetition and planning is actually helpful to me.  I can find peace.  I can rein components of that fear in, once I learned how to recognize what was happening.

We live in these unstated elements of fear right now, fear that's been there all along but is now more stark and real to a lot of people.  The fear of the unknown, fear of loss (of freedom, of loved ones, of security, etc) are very loud at the moment.  Is the fear itself worse than the actual danger?  It's kind of tough to say when those are the fears in question.  But we can slow the churning, calm the cycle from making them any worse than they need to be.

Picking a Battle

I've been thinking a lot lately about anticipatory grief and how applicable it is to our current situation.  The concept of the general discomfort of the unknown, the loss of that security of the future; it's a particular kind of grief that is hard to label as grief and results in its own brand of anxiety.  

I can't do too much about our global situation right now except stay put.  And it can be surprisingly exhausting, once we factor in the emotional labor of that situation.  So I've picked another place to focus that "wanting to fix" energy.  

I'm still trying to learn how to ride a bike.  I know, I started this journey a while ago now, but with how hectic my job is in the summer time coupled with buying a new house last year, I hadn't made much progress.  

Honestly, I'm still pushing off about as wobbly as this fellow

It seems silly, to not have the emotional energy to figure this out.  Somewhere along the way, it registered that the fear response I had to trying to sort out my balance wasn't the normal amount of fear and anxiety.  My body wasn't anxious--it was certain it was dying.  I was entirely back in my trauma space.  It was time to take a step back, to name the cliff and ask my body intently and openly what was happening, assessing first what I was experiencing and then, if possible, to sort out where it was coming from.  I've said before and I'll say it again:  the body has a way of experiencing emotions before they register to your mind, particularly the big ones that we might be used to tamping down.  

Once I put together what was happening, it was a process, then, to figure out what might be the best way to continue.  Logically, there are a lot of very real risks to riding a bike--I could have a rather horrific crash even if I do everything correctly, since I cannot account for road conditions and other persons I might be sharing the road with, coupled with random equipment failure.  The risk is real.  My reaction was still a bit too much even factoring those pieces in.  Perceived danger to my body puts me back emotionally and mentally in places where I was very much in danger of dying; it still takes time to allow myself to either discharge that energy or ease myself down.  

So, I've been working toward exposure therapy of my own pacing, setting realistic goals and what kinds of securities might help mitigate even a tiny portion of the overall fear.  In other words, I'm taking small, controlled doses of the fear of getting hurt while riding a bike by practicing riding a bike.  The goals have included going twice around the block, going to a particular marker on the constitution trail, trying a short patch on the bike lane along Jersey Rd., and venturing toward the trail when there were more people on it.  The security tools have been having Andy come with me, wearing a backpack (empty but still "protecting" my back), and eventually going around the block by myself, keeping a tighter radius to home on that first push out.  

I also give myself the freedom to turn back home whenever I need to and hopefully to have already turned back that direction before reaching that point.  I intentionally keep the time short, managing chewable doses--there is a level of discomfort that is okay and a level of discomfort that is unsafe.  This takes a lot of back-and-forth with my body, checking in and taking more frequent breaks in order to do so.  I have officially graduated, now, to occasionally being able to check in with myself while still on the bike, meaning that the fight-or-flight is down enough to at least allow some degree of rational thought compared to the previous silent roar in my ears.  

All told, I went for at least a small ride four out of five workdays last week.  And when I pushed too hard, my fears were realized:  I had a pretty epic wipeout the other day.  The Constitution Trail was pretty busy--it was a beautiful day to shelter in place--and I was coming up to a narrower part of the path, where there was a wall on both sides for a moment and a couple taking up the bulk of it coming toward me.  I need more space right now:  I'm not great holding a clean, straight line yet.  I panicked trying to slow down and hit the grass right before the wall pretty hard.  The couple immediately checked in on me, offered to help me up which I refused for two reasons:  1) umm, social distancing, folks, and 2) I needed to stay there on the ground for a moment and run a systems check.  

We're inclined in our culture to get back up immediately, walk it off as a way of regaining the lost pride unless you're immediately and seriously injured.  Folks who get in a car accident will sometimes "walk it off" and end up in the ER later that week.  Some of my worst fears had been realized and publicly--I needed a moment to be still and check in with my body to assess the damage as well as just to be with myself and what I was feeling.  Andy fixed the chain on my bike that had come off while I stood up at my own pace--I did manage to bike the rest of the short distance home before heading to the bathroom to allow myself to discharge the emotion by a few minutes of needed tears.  Then, I went to the couch to have some ice cream, tend to my forming bruises, and sulk for the rest of the night.  

They're already fading to yellow; I can't remember the last time

I really skinned my knee.

I did go out the next day.  On the one hand, I was definitely sore; on the other, the worst had already happened, which is oddly freeing.  This week, I'm focusing on remembering that I have TWO brakes and trying to better stop myself, to save the ungraceful dismounts at least--reasonable goals, one piece at a time.

I'm finding that this is a place where I can control what fear I feel about a situation by working toward building security and skill in this place, at twenty minutes a day.  And it has most certainly helped to be able to focus on something I can tangibly improve, to be able to mitigate some of the analogous feelings of dread and uncertainty.  On the whole, I've been feeling much better about life and all else.