The thing that most makes me furious around how Hedgehog is being treated and taken care of is how he is being disempowered by the best efforts of the workplace to try and fix him.
Hedgehog is entitled to better support less PANIC, and more effort to understand. Can’t he decide whether to work or not?
Let him decide his own course of treatment and action – trust him to make good choices…
I know how fear can drive reactions when someone confides an inner distress. Hero once told me he had lived enough. After Mottsu, the statement brought me to my knees, my legs just melted with the fear of loss… I panicked. I’m ashamed to say that my reaction that should have been about him was all about me.
I wasn’t very supportive with my overriding desire to help.
Downright unhelpful.
I like to think I would react differently now, and do what I should have done then, extend my hand – now that’s a gesture of support.
I rallied against a recent report that most people feel uncomfortable around people suffering depression. I also wrote about how to offer help to a troubled colleague. This week, in a workplace, I witnessed a situation that confirmed the first and showed why the second is good in theory but not how it may play out in reality.
In the workplace there is a busy hedgehog who is in a fog, hedgehog knows he is suffering anxiety and being in the fog he is not sure how to alleviate it. He has mentioned his stress and his struggle to contain it, to a number of people in the firm.
Some of his colleagues have panicked – and I mean PANICKED. Hedgehog is being pathologised (pathologise: transitive verb view as psychologically abnormal). There has been a slightly hysterical response to his admission of depression. He has been ordered home, banished from work, so much for his wishes should he wish to maintain any sense of normalcy. Hedgehog is being treated like an ailing child and pushed to do what others deem best for him. He’s now an invalid not an equal, no hand of support has been extended.
In this somewhat dysfunctional workplace hedgehog has become the identified patient. He is proof of how well others are coping, hedgehog is unwell and others are just ducky – thanks very much.
Take care, take care, use caution depressed and anxious employees as the people in your workplace may not be as ready for you as I would wish them to be.
Hedgehog gets lost in the fog, a bit like Mottsu got lost in a fog of depression
Hedgehog falls into the river, Mottsu stepped into the river
They’re different and the same…
This is how it went for hedgehog;
“I’m in the river. Let the water carry me along decided the hedgehog”
(Oh dear Hedgehog – that’s a bit close to home for me )
“He sighed deeply and began to float down with the current”
(Hedgehog! Mottsu!)
“I’m totally soaked I’ll drown soon”
…and this is where it played out differently for hedgehog than Mottsu; Suddenly someone touched his paw “Excuse me,” someone said quietly ” Who are you and how did you get here?”
“I’m a hedgehog I fell in the river”
“Then get on my back, I’ll carry you to shore”
“Thankyou”
“Don’t mention it” said that Someone
(Don’t mention it? I am so touched by the generosity of ‘don’t mention it’ that I am left with nothing to say)
This is such a wonderful little film about all sorts of things and particularly about someone who touches your paw just when you need them the most.
…and it is so easy, so natural that it is covered by ‘don’t mention it’
*sigh*
Thank you to my Estonian friend who shared this magical film on Facebook that’s where I discovered it. When we meet in person we talk about owls, pussycats, boats and sailing and next time we will include conversation about journeys through the fog – wishing her success in her exams and looking forward to tea and jam together xxx
Offering help to a troubled colleague can be tricky territory. I hope that won’t hold you back from enquiring about the well-being of a colleague and being ready to extend your support.
The link above points to a recent article from the NY Times that provides some simple and practical advice. A couple of of points that resonated with me:
– you should explain that you’re offering support, rather than judging or blaming
– keep in mind that you’re speaking as a concerned colleague not a therapist
Some will not want to talk about it (whatever ‘it’ is), still you can extend a friendly hand, lend an ear, or suggest other avenues of support.
I know you don’t know what to say.
No-one knows what to say.
Try something, say something, pick-up any feedback and adjust approach…
I use the term therapy and you could call it counselling, or seeing psychologist, whatever term is familiar, you will know what I mean. I want to recommend therapy for lots of reasons.
Firstly it’s a relationship that offers sanctuary. When I sit with my therapist anything can be aired and explored. I say sit as some may have images of reclining on couches, however I’ve never laid down on a couch, I sit.
Then there is the unconditional acceptance of whatever I feel whatever I think and whatever I say. That’s unconditional support and acceptance of me. It’s potent. That’s therapy.
I feel empowered to stand on my own and I feel brave beyond what my innate super-powers would normally allow. I doubt I would be writing here if my therapist hadn’t encouraged me to start a little writing project.
She uses a Process Work orientation. The best. When she holds the mirror I like what I see. It’s a very special relationship that’s all about me and how I am in the world.
I know myself better, I am not as afraid of the world that Mottsu couldn’t live in… not as afraid as I used to be. I’m making my own way, maybe not boldly (and maybe bold is coming) but certainly with more awareness of a whole raft of things.
Yep I really ♥ therapy.
I would be here without therapy, that much it true, and I would be duller less me sort of me. Less true to myself.
Robertson rang on Saturday morning to say our regular coffee at the market would be in the ‘new place’, rather our usual coffee spot.
“Sorry” I said, “I won’t make it to coffee today. I have a therapy session at 10:30…”
Phew. I had said it. I had admitted to my ongoing and ad-hoc therapy. I was pleased with myself for having mentioned it casually to a friend. An edge crossed, even if it was not as easy to ‘fess up to as I would have liked.
Robertson, to his credit, didn’t skip a beat and suggested a catch up over brunch the next day.
When we met he asked how my massage had been. Massage? For a moment we were both puzzled and muddled. He thought I had gone for a beauty treatment or a therapeutic massage.
The relief I had felt thinking that Robertson, a good friend, had simply accepted my use of therapy, turned to dismay, as I realised I had been misunderstood. Haha…. I sort of nervously laughed it away.
Therapy. I would love talking about therapy to be easier, more everyday. Therapy is one of the things that has helped me through grief, it is one of the ways I have looked after myself.
I must have bats in my belfry for shrugging off something so important, and something I should talk about and explain more. After all, where is the stigma? Only in my mind? I know I perceive some reproach from the world at large, and there’s no specific criticism. It could be just me…
During next week’s coffee with Robertson I’ll tell him more.
You get to the edge of who you are and there’s no going back you have to cross.
Cross with care or cross with abandon.
My experiences shape who I am, and recent experiences, the ones I write about, have certainly taken me beyond what I had imagined was me and what I would have regarded as my limits. I have crossed edges, boundaries, and borders.
I could label my experiences as personal development but that makes travelling my course sound self directed. I’ve wandered without a destination in mind, and although I would like to boast otherwise, I must quietly admit that I’ve presented my id or passport, with trepidation more often than boldly.
It’s also true that I could never quite have cracked up and quit, not even when I sat listening to the fridge. I did what I was able to and gently pushed at the edges, redefining me as I went. It’s ongoing work.
Somewhat paradoxically, there is less control and more abandon in who I am now. I’m not without fear, any solo traveller will appreciate there are inevitable moments of self doubt and cross and I grow.
I live a beautiful life, I know that when I can smile to myself on a morning tram packed with commuters, and I swear not much smiling happens on those journeys. Then there’s the almost boundless joy of taking a deep breath of dog, or those moments when I clumsily hug someone who’s not expecting to be hugged, I make it all up as I go along.
I don’t know how it all happened, how I got to where I am. I am thankful to have crossed me and kept on growing. I lost Mottsu and I managed to find the best of me.
I don’t know how that happened.
A body washed up on the beach this morning and a police spokeswoman was quoted as saying “… it’s not clear at this stage if the death is suspicious.”
To say a death is not suspicious is police and media-speak for the-dead-person-killed-themselves, either intentionally or accidentally. The reporting body advises the readers with jargon that no other party was involved.
There is an investigation, the police do what they can to establish there were no suspicious circumstances. I spent hours at a police station, after Mottsu’s body was found in the river, recounting my tearful story before it was established that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death by suicide.
Distressing, and I imagine less distressing for me than he.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported “…less than half the population feeling comfortable around people suffering depression“.
Less than half of us?
Is it any wonder that people with depression don’t talk about it very much?
I am saddened that community attitudes towards mental illness are so negative that people with anxiety or depression can feel ashamed to admit how they feel. That needs to change. There is too much stigma around depression, lets talk about it more.
The newspaper states that a recent survey in Australia found “that during their lives 77 per cent of people… would experience, or be personally affected by someone who suffered from, a mental illness. More than a quarter of respondents claimed to be suffering some form of mental health problem, with depression and anxiety the most common conditions.”
Do more or less than 77% of people have freckles? Is depression more frequent than freckles? I claimed that depression was as normal as freckles, that’s why I talk about it here.
Depression is present and most of us are affected at some time.
The thing that most makes me furious around how Hedgehog is being treated and taken care of is how he is being disempowered by the best efforts of the workplace to try and fix him.
