Acceptance
My psychiatrist made a really skilled, deft maneuver today at my appointment, that helped me to release a lot of baggage and self-pressure, and left me feeling acceptance and peace. It’s counterintuitive, but he told me how serious, lifelong, and progressive my illness, schizophrenia, is. He’s told me this before: it’s very shocking and unsettling to hear such a dismal prognosis from your doctor. The first time he told me this, I very much resisted, but also broke down into tears. But, he is encouraging me to view my situation realistically. And strangely, although hearing this worst-case view of my illness makes me feel a great sadness for myself, there is also a release and acceptance that is able to happen in that space, where I can let go of the constant imperative of striving for healing, and release the pressure on myself to defeat this illness that comes along with that endeavor.
He compared me to the Tortoise and the Hare — in my case, I was the hare in the first part of my life, winning accolades, praise, achieving success in all areas of school and extracurriculars, and then getting into and graduating from Harvard. Unfortunately, at the same time that I finished school, my voices began, and ever since, I am the tortoise. I have to take it one day at a time, one task at a time nowadays. My cognitive abilities are impaired most of the time (I only write blogs when I have mental clarity and inner peace — not as often as I would wish), so I have restructured my life around meditative, sensory activities such as cooking, walking, knitting, and meditating. These are all practices that calm the thinking process (which is often for me these days confused, and which also elicits powerful stress responses), while allowing a more holistic and integrated experience of time and space and my body within them. For the blessing of these holistic practices to apply my energy and fill my time, I am thankful.
The other remaining major dissonance in my life comes in social situations, where the initiatory question is almost always a “So what do you do?”, a question I have developed as many unique responses to as times I have been called to account for myself in this way. My doctor helped me to accept the fact of my illness-derived limited capabilities, and so resolving the stigma of my reduced capabilities as a member of society (i.e. being on disability) must be possible, if I can just get hooked into a good response. He suggested that I share my spiritual path and practices — present myself as a spiritual seeker — and if I can find a way to present this, then perhaps I will have found an answer. namely, I feel, by finding a spiritual community to invest myself and my practice in, then perhaps I will have a deeper peace and tranquility than current social norms and individual judgments and stigma currently allows, and I will be safe, sheltered in the protective space and embrace of the sangha.
Thich Nhat Hanh, whose audiotapes and teachings have been my nectar-sustenance this summer and presently, exhorts the spiritual practitioner to find a sangha (spiritual community), or warns that otherwise her mindfulness practice will wither within three months. I’m not sure how to find, or start (a daunting prospect) a spiritual community, but the yearning is very much alive in me right now, and I hope I can find just this communion of spiritual family to nourish and sustain my practice.
I can’t help but comment. The obvious catch is that there’s such a fine line between “illness-derived limited capabilities” and unnecessary self-limitations (and other sequelae) that follow from receiving a “poor” prognosis. How does one distinguish between them? How do you know whether or not you’re really living up to your intellectual potential? (I’m genuinely curious; I struggle with this a lot myself.)
On the Buddhist meditation note, have you ever heard of Ed Knight? He’s a consumer-activist/PhD/researcher in Colorado who credits his recovery in large part to zen meditation. It’d be cool if you could interview him for your website or something and maybe get some more detailed info on what it’s like for someone with schizophrenia to get seriously involved in Buddhist practice and community.
Sophie,
I’m in process of reading through your blog, and am very excited and inspired and motivated by your keen perceptions and courage in facing your illness. I applaud all your efforts, and feel you are making all these points with gusto and acumen and are everything I could have ever hoped to be in my own struggle.
Your point about accepting my illness is well taken. I’ve struggled with this new acceptance all this week, namely, in being a snivelling, weepy mess around friends and family. The tragedy implicit in saying I have a severe, debilitating illness is almost too much to bear, and there must be a reasonable limit to its usefulness. The next move I’m anticipating — the poetic rising from the ashes, hasn’t happened, at least not just yet. My hope is that there’s a second part to this entry, the “We shall overcome” part where I pull it together and become my own hero despite the challenges. In the meantime, the grieving is cathartic, I am thinking, just so long as there is a bottom and an end to this dark abyss.
And you have a kindred spirit in the low self-esteem corner… I’m feeling abyssmal about myself and what a failure I am — from my own expectations of myself and from others’, according to my past achievements and aspirations… I’ve tried to stay positive in my blog, but sometimes it’s so hard just to get by.
Thanks Stephanie. I actually feel like I am not dealing with things especially courageously at all and feel considerable admiration for the positive and hopeful attitude you generally evince in your blog. My therapist (who must be the antithesis of your psychiatrist) is always reminding me of the various positive longitudinal statistics concerning lifetime recovery from schizophrenia and insists that I should categorically not abandon my old goals (viz. getting a PhD) but rather view my illness as a temporary roadblock or, as she sometimes puts it, “an added layer” of difficulty, on the way to PhD-land. I also admire your efforts to recast yourself as a spiritual seeker (again, I think part of my difficulty is that I already spent some three years in Japan training as a zen monk, and have actually felt pretty discouraged that my putative meditation and mindfulness skills have not helped me more).
Anyway, thanks for your comments–and your wonderful blog and website! I look forward to more dialogue. It’s always really reassuring to know that there are other people out there struggling with the same (or similar) problems and fears and self-doubt and so on.
I like George Castanza’s approach. One day you’re an architect,the next a marine biologist (in response to what do you do with your life).
Somebody I know agrees, it’s hard to find that spiritual family thing, and is hesitant to do that for fear of running in to some huckster guru who claims to be a reborn buddha, but they must be out there because I always see books, sites, by these people. When you find them, tell me, so I can tell them and we can all join.
An interesting viewpoint. One of the founders of the Esalon Insitute suffered a psychotic break and felt his illness was a correcting of a previous state. He said he was sick before, not after.
Somebody thinks it’s just good to embrace you…and the phases of you. Some say 2 of 5 schizophrenics recover, doesn’t matter though. It’s a reality (schizophrenia), not “thee” reality as “normal” people accept, but a reality, perhaps they are all an illusion, just a dream.
Love yourself, the things you go through…but I’ll love you even if you don’t, and I’ll try to do the same.
Signed-The madder hatter.