NYAPRS Note: We are thrilled to be welcoming Leah Harris—an inspiring activist and creatively brilliant voice in our movement—as a keynote speaker at the 2014 NYAPRS Annual Conference September 17-19. Below, Leah details her personal experiences in transitioning out of a “wellness bubble” of self care, and into communities of caring that she hopes can be a paradigm for transforming the isolation of both illness and wellness.
From Self Care to Collective Caring
Mad in America; Leah Harris, 6/16/2014
As a trauma survivor growing up in various adolescent mental health systems, I was taught that my current coping skills (self-injury, suicidal behavior, illicit drug use) were unacceptable, but not given any ideas as to what to replace them with. No one seemed to want to know much about the early childhood traumas that were driving these behaviors. Instead, I collected an assortment of diagnoses. I was told that I would be forever dependent on mediated relationships with professionals, and an ever-changing combination of pills. The message was that my troubles were chemical in nature and largely beyond my control.
It took many years for me to overthrow that painful legacy, and come to learn that I could take responsibility for my own well-being. After escaping from the mental health system at 25, I attempted to “prove my worth” through overwork and nonstop activism to change the system. In my late twenties, I was headed for a heavy dose of burnout. I couldn’t get out of bed. I was wracked with physical pain and I was deeply depressed. I felt myself heading into a crisis. Overwork was no longer working.
For some reason, I picked up an audiobook by Thich Nhat Hahn called Creating True Peace. That was what got me on a path of mindfulness. I toned down my activist work, and threw myself into wellness instead – signing up for every retreat and every class. I was on a mission to heal myself, reading every book I could find about meditation and holistic health. I signed up for acupuncture, because thankfully I had insurance and it would cover it. I took my acupuncturist’s advice and changed my diet to be in accordance with my blood type. I was doing all my wellness practices. And I sometimes felt guilty and self-indulgent for needing so very much care just to function.
Then I had a baby, and soon thereafter became a single parent. I tried my best to keep up with my wellness practices, but they went out the window when I was faced with the demands of raising a baby all alone, as well as being on the verge of losing my house. Self care became a luxury that I could in no way afford. I was exhorted to “meditate for 5 minutes,” but even that felt out of my reach. I had no family nearby to help, and my friends were all themselves single parents just struggling to get through each day. Again, crisis loomed.
I instinctively knew that what I needed was not another self-care practice, but another person. I reached out to a friend, who also happens to be a gifted healer. She came right over to my house and asked me what I needed in that moment. It was such a relief, to have some practical help, someone in my corner. I fell into the comfort of her supportive presence. She helped me to tend to my immediate needs for sleep and help with childcare, and I was able to move past the crushing emotional distress into a place of being able to function again, parent my kid, and hang on to our home.
Today, the “balance” that we are all supposed to achieve still eludes me. I believe we can and should all find a unique mix of tools to care for ourselves, but I can’t, in good conscience, retreat into a “wellness bubble.” I can’t meditate or chant away the stories of oppression in mental health systems that people email to me every day. I have come to realize that the best form of self-care for me is to engage, not to retreat. I fit in meditation where I can, and wellness practices where I can. But I don’t feel at all guilty any more for consistently falling short in my personal wellness or taking less than stellar care of myself.
“The importance of prioritizing reciprocal care becomes even clearer when we understand that our stresses and traumas are a common plight and not individual pathologies. As human animals, we are living in environments that cause emotional and physiological incoherence. While we may not be able to eradicate the systems that imprison us immediately, we stand a far better chance if we don’t get tricked into thinking our struggles or the solutions to them are individual. The more ways we find to act in honesty with each other, whether in sorrow or in excitement, the stronger and more resilient we become—individually and collectively.” –Self as Other: Reflections on Self-Care
The problem with both the illness and the wellness paradigms are that they are deeply rooted in individualism. That the disease is rooted in the individual, and the individual is the one who needs to figure out how to function in society. While all along the status quo changes little.
In America, illness and wellness are almost always depoliticized and decontextualized. Depression ceases to be an understandable reaction to our dehumanizing way of life, and instead becomes a brain disease. People of privilege feel guilty for being depressed when they “have it all,” but miss the point that regardless of privilege, none of us are immune to the distress caused by our increasingly isolated and self-centered modes of being. None of us are immune to violence, abuse, and crushing hopelessness. This is why people who were said to have “had it all” still kill themselves in alarming numbers.
In society, we have a dichotomized response to distress. Suck it up and adjust to what is, or be put somewhere where you will be made to adjust. It is possible to be so focused on individual wellness that we forget the equally important need to work for collective wellness and social justice. In an ideal world, we are taking care of ourselves, one other, and working collectively to change the way things are. The Buddha himself was a social justice activist; he didn’t see any distinction between individual evolution and social change. Today, what most interests me much more than myself is changing the nature of our culture. Focusing on a vision for social change gives me energy and hope to go on.
I have been thinking about alternative conceptions of what it means to care. These would be based on seeing that we as individuals are inextricably connected with the whole. The “burden of healing” would be spread around, rather than placed squarely on each of our individual shoulders. This supposition would prioritize “co-caring” for and with one another, while simultaneously trying to change the dehumanizing aspects of our world. We would see that we are all much more alike than we are different: all wearing masks, all trying so desperately hard to hide our vulnerability and soldier on.
For several years, I have been part of a single moms’ support network. This has nothing to do with “mental health,” (though many of the moms have struggled with deep distress at times) and everything to do with reciprocal care. We do everything from sharing words of encouragement in tough times; to sharing childcare; to having clothing swaps; to providing information and community resources; to having community potlucks; to bringing meals during illness or tragedy; to lending suits for job interviews; to organizing Moms’ Nights Out (MNOs) so we can let off some steam without the kids around. Levels of activity rise and fall according to the collective need. All are welcome. We are a family of sorts, created out of necessity. This costs no money, and it’s a huge benefit for us all.
These kinds of support networks could be beneficial for other groups as well. Students could form them on campuses to help with the stresses of campus life. Teachers could form them to deal with the challenges of being educators. Neighbors could form them in their neighborhoods to provide practical support and address community needs. All it takes is a few people who want to break down the isolation, loneliness, and overwhelm they see all around them. I know there are many pockets of communities like this scattered around the country, but we are in need so much more.
I want people everywhere to have access to the kind of support that doesn’t require a diagnosis or insurance or an appointment. I believe if we knew how much power we, everyday people, had to care with each other, many of these oppressive systems we have set up to care for us, would crumble. We wouldn’t have to resort to them anymore, because we would have what we need, close to home.
For too long we as a society have outsourced “care,” and it hasn’t worked all that well. Everyone admits the systems are broken. It’s time to re-imagine what care means in an uncaring world. Our current way of life is not sustainable. It’s up to us to make a different kind of world real.
* Thanks to Agustina Vidal of The Icarus Project for getting me thinking about this subject of “self-care.”
http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/06/self-care-collective-caring/