stuck? try this

Are you keeping an untold story in lock down? A painful chapter stored somewhere in your heart under lock and key? A tender memory moldering out of sight?

Why?

Have the voices been messing with you? The voices that insist you have nothing important to say? That you have no talent for this kind of thing? That no one wants to hear what you have to say anyway?

Perhaps your story is too painful to revisit. Too achingly sad to put into words. Too confusing to make sense of.

“You are so brave and quiet

I forget you are suffering.”

~Ernest Hemingway~

If this resonates with you, you MUST begin writing. Do it for the rest of us. Start with a grocery list, write a letter, or run out and get yourself a journal that strikes you as welcoming and forgiving. Go now! We’ll wait.

As Maya Angelou reminds us:

“There is no greater agony

than bearing an untold story inside you.”

~Maya Angelou~

Can’t do it? Try this. Ask yourself these three questions:

1.    What do I know?

Perhaps you lost a child. Maybe it happened because of a miscarriage no one saw coming. Perhaps someone convinced you to have an abortion when you were too young to understand what was happening…and now you can’t forgive yourself. Maybe you spent an inestimable number of sleepless nights at your child’s bedside fighting for his survival to no avail. You know everything there is to know about suffering.

2.   Who else needs to know it?

If you survived, someone else needs to know how you managed to pull it off. Someone, somewhere needs to know that survival is possible. It might be the father who suffers a disabling injury. Or the parent of a child with special needs. Or the woman who is hearing the word “cancer” for the first time.

The story of your journey maybe a wellspring of hope for others. Your strength may be the only thing that keeps them standing under the weight of their own burden. The expression of your anguish gives them permission to admit theirs.

3.    How will I tell them?

“Write hard and clear

about what hurts.”

~Ernest Hemingway~

One painful word at a time. One affirmation after another. Honestly. Openly. Courageously.

Still can’t do it? Try writing a poem or a letter. Perhaps instead you should run out for some new paints and a fresh white canvas. Or raise your voice in song. Or put on some music and dance.

There is more than one way to tell a story.

jan

 

 

the "social autopsy"

 

 

Last week I listened to a piece on NPR (http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/05/11/opioid-crisis-west-virginia) about the extraordinary number of deaths due to opioid overdose in West Virginia…the highest rate in the country. West Virginia Commissioner of Health, Dr. Rahul Gupta, presented the concept of the “social autopsy” whereby he examined the histories of all 887 persons who died of drug overdoses in the state in 2016. This was an effort to identify the factors that put people at risk. Theoretically, this information could help identify a population that could be targeted with preventative strategies and public health policies in order to reduce the death rate due to opioid addiction.

“Addiction will end your life.
Recovery will change your story.”
~www.identifyproject.org~

You may have heard the term “social autopsy” used in a different context. The term has been used to describe strategies for adult intervention with school children who are socially challenged and make significant social errors, for example children with autism. (https://www.autismclassroomresources.com/social-autopsy/)

It is also the title of a website that was launched in 2016 to identify and monitor cyberbullies and trolls on the internet (http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/04/how-social-autopsy-fell-for-gamergate-trutherism.html).

But this is different. Dr. Gupta’s social autopsies were actual postmortem investigations. They were designed to look beyond the medical aspects of opioid deaths, to examine more than just the blood levels, types of drugs, and the presence of contaminants that were responsible for the deaths. He looked at the victims and their demographics (age, gender, race, education, income, religion, and marital status). He explored the effect of proximity to and the availability of effective treatment facilities. He checked out the relationship of opioid deaths to health insurance and Medicaid, and the incidence of treatment refusals. He took into consideration the risk of injury in the workplace and the prescribing habits of physicians who treated patients with these injuries. He considered the influence of family structure, a history of previous incarceration, and evidence of other addictive tendencies (alcohol, gambling, sex). His goal was to create a profile of characteristics associated with death due to opioid addiction so as to establish strategies for effective public health planning and preventative interventions.

“You no longer have a secret.
You have a story.”
~unknown~

Dr. Gupta came up with 887 different stories, each one complete with a full cast of characters, detailed backstory, setting, and story arc. The problem is they all ended in the death of the main character. Had we known their stories earlier, perhaps some of these deaths could have been prevented.

Hopefully, the next chapter will end on a more positive note.

“At any given moment

you have the power to say:

this is not how the story is going to end.”

~Christine Mason Miller~

jan

 



when was your big moment?

 

Author Natalie Goldberg will be one of the presenters at the 3^rd Annual Conference on Narrative Medicine I’ll be attending at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in July. So... I’m re-reading all the books of hers I’ve collected over the years. Writing Down the Bones. Freeing the Writer Within. An Old Friend from Far Away. And, last night, The True Secret of Writing.

In it, she was talking about a specific writing prompt:

“Can you tell me about a moment that was big for you…

an instant when you saw things differently from then on?

Not a sensational moment—

you won ten-thousand dollars in the lottery,

 you were lost in the woods alone with no food—

but a quiet moment when your whole awareness shifted?”

~Natalie Goldberg~

Oh, I hope she uses this prompt in one of our workshops this summer because, oh, my…do I have a story for her.

True story:

When I was looking at colleges many years ago, I had insanely strict criteria about what I wanted in a school. It had to be in New England (I was a devoted skier), and the campus had to be beautiful. Period. That’s all.

In the end, I wound up at UVM (because it met all of my criteria…) where I majored in medical technology…because it was the only department other than math and chemistry that admitted many out-of-staters, and math and chemistry were not even thinkable for me. I figured, as a med tech, at least I would graduate with a degree in a field where I could expect to find a paying job.

Then somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that maybe I should think about medical school. Blood and urine and saliva samples were intriguing enough, but I was curious about the patients who submitted them…about the diseases they suffered, how their illnesses affected them, what was being done to treat them. But it was a lofty goal, and I didn’t believe I was brave enough, or smart enough, or strong enough to pursue that career path.

“We have to look at our own inertia,

insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth,

we have nothing valuable to say.

When Your writing blooms

out of the back of this garbage compost,

it is.”

~Natalie Goldberg~

I expected to settle for a career in research…

…until the night everything changed for me. On a blind date. To the annual medical school banquet and faculty roast. With a med student who apparently met all the requirements that qualified him to become a fine physician.

So, I went into this blind date in a state of paralyzing awe at this brilliant, handsome young man. How had I ended up on a date with him? I was shy back then. And, naïve. The dark side of medical humor (and isn’t most medical humor on the dark side?) did not tickle my funny bone. I felt like a total misfit…and that only served to reinforce my insecurity and reluctance to reach for med school…

…until we went back to Mr. Future Doctor’s apartment. I kid you not when I say garbage was piled in the middle of the kitchen floor. And I don’t mean the trash can was overflowing. It was just piled there…uneaten food from God knows when, cans and bottles, oozy things. And it covered the counters and table, too. Oh…and, of course, there was drinking and smoking and weed.

Which brings me to “The Moment”. The exact moment when I looked at this man and thought…no, I knew in my soul…if he could do it, I could do it!

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment

until it becomes a memory.”

~from Illionis Home

If it hadn’t been for that serendipitous date and “The Moment” my awareness shifted I would probably still be cross matching blood and culturing urine in a hospital lab somewhere…wondering who those patients really were. I wouldn't have a lifetime in medical practice to look back on, and I wouldn't have any of those stories to tell.

“If you miss the moment,

you miss your life.”

~David Daido Loori~

jan