Mental Health

I paid people to shoot lasers at my face over a year ago now.  ...which is a much more fun way to say that I got Lasik eye surgery.  Prior to that, I had had glasses since second grade.  Steadily, my eyesight was beyond bad, that I genuinely could not function without them, let alone read anything that wasn't two inches from my nose.  

Y'all:  I couldn't even read the big E.  

Every morning I would wake up and simply not be able to see my room clearly.  The first few moments whenever my alarm went off were usually spent groping for my glasses, knocking them down more times than I could count, leading to that oh-so-fun moment of "I need my glasses to find my glasses" to start of my day.  I couldn't wear a mask at Halloween without some creativity or contacts, they would fog up in cold weather or getting something out of the oven (NOT a good time to be half blind, holding something piping hot), they needed to be cleaned and fixed/replaced from time to time, and giving them to the nurse before surgery was the final, true moment of vulnerability.  It was a fact of life, an extra component that required specific care and maintenance.  

Then, once all the dust had settled from my surgery, I didn't have to worry about it anymore.  I could wear whatever sunglasses I wanted.  I didn't have to clean them in order to see the TV clearly.  I could walk in and out of the house without rain spots on my glasses or having them fog up.  

And it was nice.  

I had thought about it more than once, how odd it was to me that people could wake up and just be able to see everything immediately.  I think the same principle applies for a great number of things.  Specifically, as I start my mental health and psychiatric nursing class, I think about it in terms of depression and anxiety.  There are people who feel down from time to time or situationally, and there are people who have depression.  There are people who feel situational anxiety, and there are people that feel anxious even when it's not "appropriate."  There are people who wake up each morning and grumble that they have to get out of bed; and there are people who wake up each morning and struggle to find the will to survive.  One may exaggerate; one may feel that particular, impossible weight in their bones.  It doesn't mean that grumbler's feelings are invalid, but it's also not the same as the consistent depth of those in a spiral of chronic depression.  Both sides know their own world thoroughly.  The "normal" folks cannot fully understand; the "abnormal" folks cannot imagine a world where it isn't a key part of their life anymore, but doesn't it sound like a beautiful relief, even if it only feels like a dream?  

I've hit upon this before in the vein of chronic illness--and certainly my own experiences--but I feel that I've been remiss to not hammer home the mental health components all the more thoroughly, because of the stigma attached and the very real impediments it creates toward appropriate healing and treatment for those that need it.  Mental health and physical health are so interconnected, we cannot separate them from one another.  

If we want to split hairs, there are different degrees of weights and weights on top of weights and other ways that pieces and burdens pile on top of one another, creating a mess of infinite possibilities, temperaments, and confusion that it's a wonder we even can relate to each other at all.  And yet, that lack of understanding is oddly enough a very human place to be, a uniting bond of understanding of what it is to be human.  We all understand suffering; but that doesn't mean that we understand how that person is specifically experiencing their suffering.  

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially as we get into our mental health clinicals.  I want my script to be helpful, to not add to the individual's pain but acknowledge it and attempt to empathize without being a condescending ass.  I want to be genuine without taking over the conversation.  I want to be better.  

Example from the week:  it's not uncommon for patients to apologize, to say variants of "I'm sorry for being a burden."  What I had been doing to this point was immediately jumping in to reassure them that they weren't, that I was happy to help them (regardless of how unpleasant the task was or any of my other personal feelings in the moment).  It occurred to me that this can be dismissive.  So, I'm testing out a new script, had the chance to use it recently, actually:  "You feel what you need to feel, but know that I don't think of you that way."  

It's hard to go from being at least somewhat independent to being hospitalized--partially immobilized by IVs/sutures/dressings, to be away from all you know, to be faced with your own mortality, to feel the weight of the uncertainty, etc.  These feelings are valid and quite possibly a part of the apology, an expression of their helplessness and/or uncertainty.  My previous tactic was blowing them off--gently, yes, but still blowing them off.  This change acknowledges what they're feeling without telling them that they're "wrong."  It's a small change and I will refine the wording as I go, but I want to see what it does.