Understanding and Empathy

As mentioned in the introduction of this blog, I strongly believe understanding and empathy are some of the keys to dealing with mental and physical health struggles. But before I go any further I want to briefly clarify what I mean by understanding and empathy. To me they are both strongly linked to what I discussed in the previous post about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and asking yourself how you would feel if you had various limitations of health struggles. If a person has even a little bit of understanding and empathy then it will help them treat somebody else with kindness and respect. If a person can’t do this then they tend to judge them harshly and criticise before trying to find the reasons for any set behaviour. I know that’s a small look into what understanding and empathy is, but I think it's sufficient for setting up this discussion.

   Another brief point to hit on, is to think about why it’s important to have understanding and empathy. Personally, I think it comes back to happiness and positivity, as this is the only way people will be strengthened and supported during the dark times. As mentioned in other posts it also allows for people not to feel so alone. It also gives them a feeling of being valued, and we all deserve to be valued, especially as, to me, no one person is more important than another. Yes, we have family and friends who take priority over other people, but from a broader perspective I do believe every life has equal value and worth (this will be discussed more shortly).  

Okay, now it’s time to get on with the main discussion. This will be in two parts. The first will be from the angle of looking at everyone and how each of us, no matter who we are, should treat those who have mental and physical health struggles. The second part will be from the perspective of those who struggle with mental and physical health difficulties.

So, first of all I’m going to take a look at empathy and understanding from the perspective of everyone. A good opening question in this part of the discussion is,

   

What is most important in life?

There will be a large variety of answers, but for me the answer is, people. I very rarely make statements that are absolute I.E. this way is the right way of doing something etc etc, as there are so many bad, good, or better ways of doing things in life, but this is one of a very few things where my flexibility stops. I will always say, 'people are the most important thing in my life and should be in the lives of others.'

   I imagine that when I am on my death bed it’s those relationships I had with people that I will hold most dear when I breathe my last breath. It’s cliché but how big my house was, how fast my car could go and what clothes I wore will have no worth in comparison. That’s just my opinion, but perhaps something all of us should reflect upon more often. However, it will always be your choice to decide where you place your energies, or how you value things. After all, what I have said is just my perspective and NEVER adopt anyone else's perspective unless you want to.

   My perspective is that the value of a life is so great that it cannot be measured, and is why each person is important and worthy of love, kindness and understanding. With this said, it baffles me how often the lives of others can be so undervalued by society. I know that’s a generalisation, as many people do care so so much for others, but as a whole I think we fall short- just look at the injustices in our law system with so many criminals having such short sentences after committing such atrocities as rape and murder. 

   Going back to the specifics of health struggles, but there is still a relationship to other topics, I think this neglect/indifference towards the importance of an individual life comes from a lack of understanding and empathy. My comment on this isn't meant to be a criticism really, just an observation that as a whole we has humans seem to struggle to relate to one another at times.

   I think one of the reason for this is because we have to provide for ourselves and work so so hard just to live and because of this we don’t get a chance to consciously try and think about how others feel. It’s just something that doesn’t seem to cross our minds most of the time. But when you do sit down and think about it, you realise that the most effective way to be would be if we could understand why we all behave the way we do, and not judge so quickly certain appearances, or behaviours, without first trying to look at the bigger picture. I strongly believe relationships with families, friends, work colleagues and strangers would dramatically improve if we did this. (There is more discussion on all of this in the lecture I’ve chosen for the ‘Education’ link at the bottom of this post).

   As mentioned above this is a very generalised picture and short discussion on the subject, but I hope you see the root of what is being said. On a specific level I feel mental and physical health is one of the most misunderstood struggles within our society. Awareness is increasing, and great efforts are being made, but there is still a lot of work to do to make sure the majority of people, if not all people, understand the complexity and specific nature of mental and physical health and how it affects individuals.

  

So how is it we improve this and increase awareness? Well, I guess this opens up part-two of the discussion and it's time to look at empathy and understanding from the perspective of those, like myself, who have these struggles to some degree or another.

   I honestly believe simply talking about it is one very significant way to improve awareness. This is easier said than done as I know it can be very difficult to open up about such struggles. I have often kept my struggles hidden as best I can so I don’t get judged as weird, or weak, or ostracised for being negatively different. All of which are not true, but it doesn’t make the fear, and sometimes the reality, of being judged this way any less real. On many occasions I’ve felt I've had to hide my struggles as best I can to avoid being laughed at, or looked down on. It has only been through realising I’m not alone, and that there are people who understand, and people who may not understand, but do care, that I’ve been able to pluck up the courage to speak up about my mental and physical health challenges.

   This is why I would encourage those who feel strong enough, and comfortable doing so, to speak more about their struggles. The experiences, wisdom, empathy, compassion and understanding you can share because of these difficulties can actually save lives, and in time it will improve peoples understanding. There are so many people out there who feel lost, or who are perhaps just at the beginning of a very difficult journey, and to know of someone who is fighting and dealing with similar experiences, and who truly cares, is invaluable. But, once again, this is all your choice. Please only open up if/when you feel comfortable doing so, as you are just as important, so do not risk your own health, because if your health gets worse you will not be able to help anyone.

Ultimately, with more awareness, sympathy and understanding from everyone, there is greater chance to give hope to those who may be losing it. Surely there is nothing more important than giving hope and helping others? 

   And as previously mention in the discussion about hope, it is key to say there is always hope! No matter how hard it gets, the truth is there is a way to live a good life with happiness, we just have to find it. It takes a lot of effort, and patience, and support, but I have no doubt it is possible. Showing people there is always hope will be made easier by each of us as individuals being more aware, empathetic and understanding to those around us.

Education: A good look at why we don’t always be as understanding, empathetic or compassionate as perhaps we should.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_on_compassion?language=en#t-294820

Fun: A friend put this on Facebook and with it being Christmas, and seeing as I’m a huge fan of South Park, I thought I’d share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wofsgfQ2VSc&feature=youtu.be

P.S. I’ll be taking a break for Christmas and New Year. The next post will look at trying to balance these struggles so they don't solely define us, or stop us from being who we want to be. This will be from my own experiences. 

Specifics and Individuality

In the last post I used a personal experience to discuss some ideas around hope and despair, and I spoke about how the experiences affected me as an individual. This post is going to discuss more about how everything we experience in life is relative to the individual, and when dealing with mental and physical health struggles it is important to understand that specifics are required.

   I know fine well there are people out there who would have dealt with the struggles I face a lot better, and people who would have dealt with them a lot worse. This is just the nature of circumstances and individuality and it is why we should never generalise these things and say ‘oh, if so and so can deal with a certain struggle then why can’t you deal with this one.’

   I also know there will be people struggling with harder things than I do and pains and hardships that I can’t fully understand. Despite knowing this I will endeavour to discuss the things I’ve learned from my health problems in the hope that anyone, in any circumstance, can take a little something from these discussions.

Remember that what I share is just personal experiences with my own perspective attached. Everyone is different and everyone sees things in a slightly different way than everyone else. But that is a good thing. I think the key is learning to also see other people’s points of view and perspectives and this will allow for better relationships with each other as human beings. The truth is I could never fully cover every possible angle of how to be specific in these discussions, as I can’t find out your specific struggles from just writing a blog. I just hope even my little seeds of thoughts, experiences and perspectives may be of some use. At the end of the day the common themes, and what unites us in all this, will be how we feel and react, and though complex, our emotions and desire for happiness are the foundation that we can build upon to support one another.

As I’ve mentioned above, the important ways of learning to be specific and treat people as individuals, in my opinion, is gaining a broad understanding of diverse perspectives, and putting yourself in someone else’s shoes/seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

In the case of gaining a broad perspective, I think we have to harness and control our natural reaction to avoid, or attack anything that is different or do not understand. In a general sense we tend to become very defensive, and although this has benefits to protect us, it should not completely stop us from learning about that which is different. Caution is always the first and best policy, but if we encounter something new, or different, we should gradually attempt to understand why it is different. When this is done we usually realise our first judgement to avoid, or be defensive, was wrong and we would have missed out on a friend or experience if we had followed are initial reaction.

   Take stereotypes for example. Too often I fall into the trap of prejudging someone because their clothes are different, or because they like a certain type of music, or even at times I’ve noticed I avoid girls who currently fit the media’s constructed view of ‘attractive’ because I often make the assumption they are going to be vain and shallow. The truth is I’m the one being shallow, but my natural reaction is to judge this way so if I don’t watch myself I narrow my perspective. The problem of prejudging occurs because everyone can fit into a box/stereotype, but this does not mean anything! People are an individual and any outward appearance, or different behaviour to your own, has no real correlation to the vast scope of what makes them a unique person. 

This leads to the next point of how different behaviour can cause us to be general and not specific. If someone acts different from what we think is the ‘right way’ then we box them as a negative or strange or wrong. This is why when it comes to being specific to individuals looking at life through their eyes is so very important. Trying to understand why someone may do something differently from you, and seeing that most of the time there is no right or wrong in these cases, just differences, is so important.

   An example of this is my health. I often need people to be understanding and see things from my perspective. At the very start of the panic attacks they would often come out of nowhere and I could be out with friends and feel one coming on. I would have to leave and find somewhere quiet until it passed and if bad would have to go home. My friends had to be understanding of where I would just leave for no apparent reason.

  Another example is my diet. So often people offer to have me over for dinner and I often decline because I don’t want to be nuisance with my specific needs. If I ever eat out I often have to take apple juice with me as this seems to be the only drink I can drink on a regular bases that doesn’t make me ill. If a restaurant doesn’t have it on the menu then I need a back up. It’s seemingly random behaviour from the outside but to those who understand that I’ll be sick otherwise it makes sense.

This is why I feel so strongly that if we take time to think of the possibilities of why someone behaviours outwith the parameters of what’s perceived as normal. If we do this then we will broaden our understanding of others. In turn, when we need to be understood, hopefully others will have more sympathy, empathy and understanding. It all requires an ability to be specific towards people and treat each other as individuals and not just generalise one another.

  I do understand that this can be hard, as I still fall into the trap so often. I’m trying to do better and that is the key here as change doesn’t happen overnight, it takes years. It is clear that there is so much understanding and empathy needed in life, and even more so when mental and physical health struggles are involved. In the next post I will discuss empathy and understanding in more detail.

Education:

Mary Shelly’s, Frankenstein, is one of my favourite stories and excellent for learning about behaving specifically and not judging. There is much more in the story than just the general, ‘oh you shouldn’t judge,’ theme, which it often gets narrowed down to. Although this theme is good to understand, there is so much more that can be taken from this story and I would recommend giving it a read.

Fun:

A very funny sketch from Harry Enfield and Ronny Corbett.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI

A Personal Experience: Two Sides to the Coin of Hope

This post follows the previous discussion on hope, and is a personal experience of how hope for my future saved me and how the same hope nearly destroyed me later on. It’s a discussion about balancing expectations and having patience. As with most of these updates you can take what you want from it. 

In the first few months of some of my health struggles, winter 09/10, I often cast my mind to the future. I speculated that if my health continued to get worse what future would there be for me, and how would I work and earn money etc. In this speculation I thought how nice it would be to have some way of earning money doing something that was not physically or mentally demanding on my health. In the last month of 2009 I had the seemingly laughable thought of how good it would be to be able to write a book and become popular and earn money. I shook the idea off as even though I loved stories, I had no story related creativity and never had. I didn't know how I was going to make a future for myself and was quickly losing hope.

   At some point in early January, however, I was having an all too frequent sleepless night and in the early hours an idea for a story developed in my thoughts. The following day I re-shaped the idea and over the next few days wrote 20,000 words while at work and home. I remember the excitement and hope that beamed from me, knowing that perhaps this was the help I needed. So over the next 4 months I wrote when I was not sick or busy. It was actually towards the end, or just after those 4 months, that I lost hope and took the pills, but that’s because I let my hope run ahead of me and I exhausted myself to the point of feeling like I had no control over my life, and I wanted to escape. Once through that mistake I continued to hold on to the writing as a hope and I had came up with a story of 100,000 words. I was so elated to have created something I thought would be the answer to most of my struggles. The hope I had gained gave me a rock to tie myself to and it often kept me hopeful that one day in the future would be less painful.

   However, I was very naive and innocent in those first couple of years as I had no idea of how hard the publishing industry is to crack, and how there are hundreds and thousands of great stories that struggle to get notice so why should I consider myself unique. Even before finally realising this I had to accept my own weaknesses in writing stories. This was shown to me after the wonderful and objective feedback I received from friends and family. I was shown that due to my lack of writing experience and skills the story was very poor in its technical quality and structure, even if the ideas were good.

   This was a hard lesson, and many times I nearly lost hope as I felt my weaknesses made my new found creativity pointless. The hope I once had turned against me as I felt disappointed and useless. I did my best to work hard to improve my writing and hold onto the hope that this was just a set back and with more effort and time I could still achieve what I wanted and hoped for. The amount of re-writes and edits of my first story will attest to my initial weakness, but also my desire to improve and willingness to keep trying, but it was a daily struggle.

   At the same time I managed to get well enough to work just the right amount of hours to support myself and not get ill. I did my best to balance everything and as the months and years went by I had many learning experiences related to my story writing.

   Since the initial hope, nearly five years ago, it has been a war of hope and disappointment. Almost every time I hoped for things to work out with the book I have faced disappointment. The rejection from literary agents was a struggle at first and it was hard to stay positive. However, I learned to realise that there are many avenues to such goals and after a couple of experiences with small publishers I found a publisher that suited my story and they have helped me improve it for publication; it was published in August 2014, to much happiness. However, this is one rung on a long ladder and there's so much work to be done to market the book and find an audience.

     The little success I’ve had has been nice, and many don’t even get this far so I am grateful. Yet, it has been a painful process to have the same hope that kept me fighting for a better future, be the same hope that has led to so much disappointment and nearly destroyed me at times. To stop it destroying me it’s required a lot of self reflection and especially an open mind. Those two things have helped me put my efforts into a perspective that is true and realistic and not warped by my ignorance, naivety and high expectations. I’ve had to learn patience, balance, hard-work, adaptability, creativity in thought and goals, and that there are an enormous, perhaps infinite, number of paths to achieve my goals. I just have to keep trying and improving and not react badly or irrationally to any challenges that come along, easier said than done when such emotions and behaviours can be so intense. I have also had to learn that if there isn’t a path available at a certain time it might appear at a later point, so I’ve had to figure out what to do in the mean time. I've had to think what other things I can do to bring in the money that I need to live and find employment and that is not so demanding on my health. This attempt to find another path for work is ongoing and I have actually been fortunate to see a possible future career but I will discuss this in another post.

   

I will always promote hope and the strength it gives and the beautiful thing it is, but from my own experiences I will encourage people to be careful with it as there are two sides. It is a challenge to only let the positive side of the coin shine, as so many things can turn it over in a split second. Yet, with patience, self-control, reflection, honesty, a willingness to learn, and understanding, hope can always be a strength and help us face even the toughest of challenges. 

   How we actually learn these things and how to apply them is the more challenging task, but I’ll share my thoughts on this in a couple of posts. In it I’ll discuss some ways I’ve been able to develop the traits mentioned above and how I’ve learned to keep the negatives like disappointment at bay, but at the same time use positives such as hope to be my strength.

   The next update will be about the specifics of Mental and Physical Health and the relative nature it has to individuals.  

An after thought: There are two enemies to hope and if possible they should be kept in check at all times. These are Fear and Doubt and will be discussed in the future when I get around to sharing a more detailed account of my experiences with Phobias, Anxiety and Panic-Attacks.

Education:

I love many types of music but my favourite genre is Rock and Metal. The lyrics for, In Due Time, by, Killswitch Engage, fit in with this topic nicely.

I know such a music taste isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but please don’t miss judge me or the music (often it is given negative connotations). It has been an incredible positive influence in my life and I’m sure I’ll explain why in a post in the future.

"In Due Time"

Pacing aimlessly, 
With my mind in unrest
Unsure of what may come. 
What have I done to bring this down on me? 
Helpless to make this undone

All in due time, see the world through different eyes. 
All in due time, the shadows will give way to light. 

How much more can I give of myself,
as these walls close in on me? 
As I slip down into this despair
(into this despair), 
There is nothing to attain

What victory
(what victory) 
When my soul is weak,
(is weak)
where does my help come from? 

All in due time, see the world through different eyes. 
I see the world through different eyes.
All in due time, shadows will give way, give way to light. 

All that we suffer through leads to determination. 
The trials we all go through gives us the strength to carry on. 
Something within us burns, desire feeds the will to live. 
A reason to believe I will see redemption. 

All in due time, see the world through different eyes 
I see the world through different eyes 
All in due time, the shadows will give way to light. 
All in due time.

Fun:

A classic I’m sure you’ve seen before, but it’s so funny!! The end get’s me every time!!!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4