Debby Rose
When I was young and just putting on my life. I worked at a job where I spent time with people who had had at least one inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. Many of them had spent years in in-patient psychiatric care. I claimed these people, they were mine, my clients, my cases. I was their RP-their responsible person.
In those same years my friendships were also vital to my existence, to my happiness, it was a time when loneliness could sneak up and overwhelm me without much warning. I connected the dots and that saw these people of mine with their very lonely lives did not have friends. Instead of good friendships they had unusual boundaries, shocking language and no money. They were people who could easily forget to shower and and sometimes considered other people only as a means to an end, to be only a way to another cigarette to hold between stained fingers. Their shame had isolated them already, their brains had already taught them to sabotage, avoid or ignore any possibility for someone good.
But me, the responsible person, the one on duty, the intake lady, the one being paid to say good morning, I'd see their insides, there'd be little windows, little peeks at their loneliness and it hurt to look. I'd wish so hard that someone out there would see them and be their friend.
One day, one 18 year old girl was admitted to the residential facility where I was employed. She was 18 and I was 22 and on some of my shifts, I was the "responsible person" and she would need some care. I should but I won't go off here on a tangent, an important tangent about the state of our mental health systems, and how a 22 year old just out of college was responsible for a 19 year old just discharged from a psychiatric hospitalization. But that's somewhere to go another day. This young lady and I knew each other for a short time and then she left the program. I also moved to a different job, same population. About 6 months after those first few months of connections between us, we ran into each other again. This time I was not in a caretaker role and so we decided to be friends. This took some figuring out for both of us.
Some friendships can be a flurry of coffees, with long quiet times between and that was how ours worked. My busy life nudged up against her troubled life. I want to believe that as time went on it was due to outside circumstances that we saw each other less and less. Yet, regardless of longer and longer times between our coffees, always when we spoke there was a lilt in her voice and caring between us. She would want to know how I was and about my kids, and I would want to know what was going on with her. Sometimes I'd be pregnant, sometimes she'd be fighting for mental health rights, or she'd be in another hospital experience, or I'd be moving to another country. But still we were friends, not the best of friends, but we were important to each other.
Just this past month we had a couple of messenger video chats, she called me and she told me she wasn't sleeping, to the point where they had admitted her to a hospital and she had slept for three days straight. She was so tired on those calls. Just shortly after these couple of calls, I saw on her sister's post that Debbie had died. I don't know how or what, I but I do know she was tired from recent severe insomnia and a life of struggles.
I've been thinking about her a lot. I'm sad, and I regret that we didn't do more while she had her life. I miss that we couldn't have our catch up coffee date this summer. We did connect though before she left and I am thankful for those last calls. I am honored that she respected me and loved me, that she didn't resent my life, a life without complex trauma. I love that she enjoyed my children and wanted to know about them every time we talked and that my life joys made her happy and she made my life rich.
This afternoon I was giving my daughter a ride to a downtown church and there was a woman dancing on the sidewalk, her dress was shiny and clingy and her make up a bit odd, but she was dancing on that sidewalk with absolutely no concern for what anyone might think of her. Jaimie and I both noticed that her dance moves were a lot like mine. I imagined dancing with her, I mean its always nice to find someone with your same dance moves. And I hoped friendship for her, people who would share her love for dancing and see her heart.
In those same years my friendships were also vital to my existence, to my happiness, it was a time when loneliness could sneak up and overwhelm me without much warning. I connected the dots and that saw these people of mine with their very lonely lives did not have friends. Instead of good friendships they had unusual boundaries, shocking language and no money. They were people who could easily forget to shower and and sometimes considered other people only as a means to an end, to be only a way to another cigarette to hold between stained fingers. Their shame had isolated them already, their brains had already taught them to sabotage, avoid or ignore any possibility for someone good.
But me, the responsible person, the one on duty, the intake lady, the one being paid to say good morning, I'd see their insides, there'd be little windows, little peeks at their loneliness and it hurt to look. I'd wish so hard that someone out there would see them and be their friend.
One day, one 18 year old girl was admitted to the residential facility where I was employed. She was 18 and I was 22 and on some of my shifts, I was the "responsible person" and she would need some care. I should but I won't go off here on a tangent, an important tangent about the state of our mental health systems, and how a 22 year old just out of college was responsible for a 19 year old just discharged from a psychiatric hospitalization. But that's somewhere to go another day. This young lady and I knew each other for a short time and then she left the program. I also moved to a different job, same population. About 6 months after those first few months of connections between us, we ran into each other again. This time I was not in a caretaker role and so we decided to be friends. This took some figuring out for both of us.
Some friendships can be a flurry of coffees, with long quiet times between and that was how ours worked. My busy life nudged up against her troubled life. I want to believe that as time went on it was due to outside circumstances that we saw each other less and less. Yet, regardless of longer and longer times between our coffees, always when we spoke there was a lilt in her voice and caring between us. She would want to know how I was and about my kids, and I would want to know what was going on with her. Sometimes I'd be pregnant, sometimes she'd be fighting for mental health rights, or she'd be in another hospital experience, or I'd be moving to another country. But still we were friends, not the best of friends, but we were important to each other.
Just this past month we had a couple of messenger video chats, she called me and she told me she wasn't sleeping, to the point where they had admitted her to a hospital and she had slept for three days straight. She was so tired on those calls. Just shortly after these couple of calls, I saw on her sister's post that Debbie had died. I don't know how or what, I but I do know she was tired from recent severe insomnia and a life of struggles.
I've been thinking about her a lot. I'm sad, and I regret that we didn't do more while she had her life. I miss that we couldn't have our catch up coffee date this summer. We did connect though before she left and I am thankful for those last calls. I am honored that she respected me and loved me, that she didn't resent my life, a life without complex trauma. I love that she enjoyed my children and wanted to know about them every time we talked and that my life joys made her happy and she made my life rich.
This afternoon I was giving my daughter a ride to a downtown church and there was a woman dancing on the sidewalk, her dress was shiny and clingy and her make up a bit odd, but she was dancing on that sidewalk with absolutely no concern for what anyone might think of her. Jaimie and I both noticed that her dance moves were a lot like mine. I imagined dancing with her, I mean its always nice to find someone with your same dance moves. And I hoped friendship for her, people who would share her love for dancing and see her heart.
Comments
Post a Comment