Join me…Join us…

The past few years have created for me a lot of firsts. It also represented a period of change and transition for us (me and my psychotherapy practice).

In recent years, through my own healing journey, I uncovered new identities related to trauma, neurodivergence and queerness. I realized that I created a safer space for colleagues and clients that was ultimately a safer space for me. I guess you could say I 'woke up'. I finally started to breathe...and then I gasped...

While this year sparked much creation and renewal, it also represented a period of much grief and loss. There is much anger and fire in my heart these days and from that will bring what I can only imagine will be something better. I discovered this year that I was here the whole time and that my practice is not only a safer space, but a call for political action.

It’s time…

This year I experienced many opportunities for professional development. I took intensive training in a variety of trauma therapy modalities (Decolonizing Feminist, IFS level 1 & 2, Somatic IFS, Psychodynamic, Ego state, Narrative therapy and EMDR) and I have grown to call these practices my own.

I revisited somatic work and came home to my body. I started listening more to myself and discovered new identities; new parts. I have also explored contextual underpinnings and parts that are not mine.

I slowed down in my pursuit of trying to figure out 'what I am doing here' and am slowly starting to learn 'how I am being here'. I came to the realization that I have no clue how to be. I also understand now that I am supposed to decide 'how I want to be'. That responsibility is overwhelming at times as I have grown up in a world where when I am being myself I am not accepted.

The pressure to show up as human in a world that doesn't accept us as we are can be too much to bear. I acknowledge that I show up and those who see me feel I should be happy as I am - a privileged white female identified educated mother. While I do acknowledge and am ever so grateful for my gifts and privilege I also have parts that need for you to know that there is a part of me that is stuck.

I don't want to be grateful for who I am. You see, it doesn't feel safe at times for me to be me. My sense of agency and control is who you get to see. What you think you know about me is in fact a mask. But that is okay because I get to decide who gets to know the real me. I get to advocate for us to appreciate that we have the right to live in a world the way we see fit. We have the right to show up in ways that may not always be to your liking.

We have the right to be unwell. Wasn’t it the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti that said “To be well in a sick society is not a measure of health?” Why do we keep the wellness agenda when we need a call for societal change? We need to do something! It is not okay for us to just be.  

You heard me...I said it...I'm a therapist who helps people and I believe that ultimately 'we have the right to be unwell'. I get it because I have lived it and I see it in my client's stories. I have come to ultimately understand that there is nothing ultimately wrong with us. We are not ill or diseased. We are not disabled. But we learned over time that when we show up authentically we are not accepted as we are and so then we learn to mask.

We mask in different ways. We show up as depressed or anxious. We get diagnosed with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. We are over- medicated and under-cared for. We live with chronic pain and are told there is nothing wrong with us. We are medicated for disease and then develop secondary diseases because we have been 'helped'.

We are not being helped...We are being harmed…

The worst thing is that many people do not want to see it. Either they do not see it or they won’t see it. This is illustrated by an industry of mental healthcare that has become two tiered and privatized. Where many of my colleagues are going into private practice for profit and those who do not have funds to pay for healthcare and in particular mental healthcare are left to live out on the street in tents and die from unnatural causes like drug poisoning and murder. Those in psychiatric hospitals are being recycled from street to police, to shelter, to hospital to street etc. 

We are being deleted

Those like me who do not have a voice are being incarcerated in hospitals and jails. Those who haven’t figured out how to be ‘high functioning’ are deleting themselves from self-abuse and self-destruction. They keep asking us for help and we keep telling them that we can’t help them and that they are the problem. Those like me who work in healthcare reject those who they cannot heal because they are too afraid to hold space for what they ultimately know to be true. There is nothing wrong with them, it is their context that is making them unwell. We keep on trucking because of our golden handcuffs and our relative privilege. We don’t want to see it because then we might have to deal with the discomfort of the reality that we are causing harm. 

We are not experiencing burnout…it’s not compassion fatigue or trauma…it’s moral injury 

If you’ve read this far you may be thinking that my work has impacted me and that I need a holiday. You are right about this. How could one NOT be affected by what has happened in healthcare in recent years. While there is much opportunity in my field and counsellors/therapists/social workers/healers have more of a presence in helping we are still underrepresented in healthcare. We need to unite and fight to change the face of helping. We need to empower others that it is okay to be unacceptable. 

If enough of us unite we could make it okay to be well. We could advocate for swift political action and contextual change. That understand the impact of social determinants of health on mental health and the ‘isms’ the intersectionalities and the impact of colonization. 

The winds of change are upon us and eventually the system is going to be so overloaded that it will continue to erode and then break and we will be left with nothing. 

So let’s do something before it gets any worse, shall we? 

How do you want to be here? Let me ask you…is the current state of healthcare and mental healthcare good enough? 

Would you like to see swift political action? We can’t do it alone…join us!

Pauline