Recognize the Opportunity

     “Recognize the Opportunity”

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy

I haven’t written in a long time.  A lot has happened in the past four months, personally, professionally and on the world stage.  I got up this morning with the urge to write that I haven’t felt in many weeks and decided it was time.

I’ll start with personally.  I have been off the radar for a while.  I have been struggling with severe depression.  It could be perimenopause that has me going through a hormonal shift of epic proportions with all that accompanies it, including the mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia.  I also started on a new psychiatric medication that did not sit well with me and had some horrific side effects and took some time to wean off of.  The medication could have played a part in my current state of mind but I could also have a new mental health diagnosis that my psychiatrist is discussing with me at the moment.  It could be that I have bipolar II disorder.

When my doctor first mentioned putting me on yet another medication for women with bipolar my internal reaction was to reject it outright.  I thought, “I do NOT have bipolar disorder!”  I didn’t want to think that I have yet more problems, yet more to overcome and yet more to try and understand about myself.  I also had it in my mind that people with bipolar disorder had periods of manic elation and I didn’t see that in my life. 

But then I looked at my last blog post in November right before I crashed with some life consequences I will go into at a later date, and thought, “Oh wait”.  The title is “The Center Cannot Hold”.  In that blog post I talk about how many things I am doing (and there were a lot) and how I didn’t think I could handle it anymore.  It was like I was warning myself it couldn’t last.  I can’t tell you how many people have told me over the past few years, “I don’t know how you are doing it.  I don’t know how you fit that much into a day.  Etc…”  It could be that my manic episodes are not so much elation as they are hypo-productivity.

So here I am now a few months later and I went from hypo-productivity to finding it hard to get out of bed and shower.  So maybe there is something to what my doctor is saying.  So is it hard to consider the fact that I have yet another mental health diagnosis?  Yes.  But what would be harder would be to ignore it and not rise again above my problems and move forward in my life and be the best that I can be for myself and for Dermot and Wren.

Then let’s talk about professionally.  I had a job at a methadone clinic.  They hired me in October knowing I had a Bachelor’s degree in communications but that I was close to getting my Master’s in psychology.  In December the state came through and did an audit and they told the clinic they could not bill for my services because my Bachelor’s was not in behavioral health and I was told to not come back to the office just before Christmas. 

I am now in my last semester of graduate school and have been treating my internship as my full-time job.  I just completed the hours I needed before the Coronavirus had us all quarantined.  I am taking the rest of my classes remotely through my college and hoping I can get my degree in May as planned.  Job prospects are not looking great at the moment for me and countless others.  I worry I won’t find a job and that I won’t be able to pay for the things I value, like my house, or for the things I owe like my student loans. 

All that being said, lets now talk about COVID-19 and the opportunity it has brought to me and to my family – yes the opportunity.  The kids’ school initially closed for two weeks, now closed for a further two.  When that happened, Frank was also told to work remotely.  The kids opted by default to stay at his house.  They are there during the week anyway, there is more technology, more room and more to do.  It made sense on many levels for them to home school there and to quarantine there.  I stayed at my house for the first four days – alone.  By the fifth day I cracked. 

I came over to see the kids and I told Frank I didn’t think I could be alone anymore.  He invited me to stay over in the guest room if I wanted for the night.  I took him up on it and by the next morning the four of us collectively decided that I should stay for the duration of this “shelter-in-place” type directive.  It has been the best gift.  We are pooling our psychological resources.  We are together and it feels right.

We are cooking together.  We are eating together.  There are chess games and snuggles and there is laughter.  We talk about the news but not too much.  Wren’s thirteenth birthday is this Friday and Frank and Dermot and I are working together to find creative ways to make it special since she can’t have a party.  We might go geocaching that day.  We plan to make her favorite meal and dress up to eat it in the dining room by candle light.  Dermot has a projector rigged up in an upstairs room and we are going to watch a Broadway show and tell her we are taking her to the theatre…  Last night Dermot said to me, “Mom, what are you doing tonight?”  I replied that I had no plans (obviously).  He wanted to have a “date” and watch a movie just the two of us.  So we did.

In this time of crisis, with all the uncertainty around us and all the unknown in my future, there is opportunity today for me to heal with my family around me.  We have what matters right here and right now and that is what counts today, at this very moment in time.

The Center Cannot Hold

     “The Center Cannot Hold”

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”

William Butler Yeats

My new job is challenging on many levels.  I am there three days a week and have a relatively light caseload of 18 people.  I am a fee-for service outpatient drug and alcohol counselor at a medication-assisted treatment program.  I run two group therapy sessions a week and meet each client individually on a bi-weekly basis.  I will say right from the gates that for the most part I love the clients.  Contrary to how they often get portrayed in the media, the people at the clinic who are there for treatment are lovely; they are struggling from a myriad of problems and barriers, but they are lovely.

What I don’t love is the paperwork – there is a staggering amount of it to do.  I can say that I am a highly organized person, and I struggle to keep on top of which pick voucher goes with which service, versus which blue one goes with that etc…  The amount of time spent on filling in different sheets of paper astounds me.  I also feel like I am slow to make a difference and wonder how I am helping.  I think this may be a common theme among people in the counseling profession, but I am being hit hard by it at the moment.  I want to help but sometimes I feel I am drowning in the need I face every day and the lack of resources available or that I simply don’t know about yet.

I spend the other two days a week at my internship where I feel a little more sure-footed because I have been there longer and am more comfortable.  I am part of a very small team there and feel I have made a few bits of difference along the way since I started there in May.  I am also there on Sunday mornings for group and that makes me further included in the pack as it were.

Occasionally I get asked to speak or do trainings which is new and exciting, but it takes time.  As does attending conferences which is now part of my professional development routine.

I am still in school, writing papers at night and reading and trying to be present for Dermot and Wren as best I can.  I thank them often for being so patient with me as I am rounding the corner on grad school and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I should be finished in May of 2020 – one more semester after this one. 

I’m also heavily involved in my recovery community.  I try never to miss my home group meeting and I sponsor women when they ask me.  I take it seriously, even when sometimes they don’t because doing the steps was pivotal in saving and changing my life.

Doing as much as I can I think is a by-product of a time when I did next to nothing in active addiction but wreak havoc on the myself and the lives of the people who love me.  I wasted time and energy ad trust and love and I don’t ever want that to happen again.  I believe I can make a difference now so I should and I will.

All that being said, I preach self-care to my clients, to my kids, to my friends, to my sponsees and to fellow counselors.  I just helped a client at the clinic come up with a self-care plan for the holiday season as he finds the holidays stressful and lonely.  I drove home from the clinic yesterday and thought, “What are you doing for you Fiona?”  Right now I am doing a pretty poor job of it for myself and I feel like my center cannot hold.  My gyre is spinning too fast and I am taking stock this week about what I can cut back on and what I can put into place to make my life a little simpler, run a little smoother and allow me to rest a little easier.

When I read the falcon cannot hear the falconer I think I may be a little too far from my higher power.  I need to lean in.  When I lean into my spirituality things always feel better, look better and work out better.  I need to listen for my falconer right now because that is the most essential part of my self-care.

Becoming What I Do

“Becoming What I Do”

“I can’t go back to yesterday – because I was a different person then.”

Lewis Carroll

I have been struggling lately.  The tendrils of grief that surround Liam’s birth and death tend to wrap themselves around my heart like a drifting fog this time of year.  I feel his loss in waves that sometimes crash in on me when I am enjoying a moment with Dermot or laughing with Wren or when I am listening to a song or just because it is Tuesday.  I look at how big Dermot and Wren are and feel a profound sense of mystery around the third child who isn’t.  Dermot, at fourteen, is now taller than I am and I find myself looking slightly up at him and wondering just how much taller than his mother Liam might be today.  Wren and Liam looked so similar to one another as new-borns.  As her face changes and matures I wonder also how closely they might resemble each other today.  This coming Sunday he would have been sixteen.

The grief is present along with my unstable future and I find myself tired this October.  I am tired and afraid and just a little bit sick of being strong.  I am also in a state of profound gratitude for where I am in life and the opportunities that I have been given.  The fact that I have such a strong relationship with Dermot and Wren now seemed impossible five-and-a-half years ago.  I am nothing if not a beautiful paradox and wildly complicated.

  I was laid off in July from a company I really liked but sadly was downsizing.  I spent a few days reeling about how uncertain my position was but then got down to work.  I built up my profile on Linked In, I called people, I applied for jobs, I networked like a madwoman and I took four classes this term instead of the usual two so I can get through my masters faster and graduate, all while logging in time at my internship.

I have been honored to network and meet up with a number of really inspiring people over the past few months.  I have been able to speak at a few events as well and nothing has given me more pleasure and more gratitude.  At one dinner with a new friend I met through one such speaking event, I opened a fortune cookie and got the message pictured above.  This was back in August and I kept it in my wallet until now.  I kept it as a reminder that when things feel dark and unstable I need to keep my eyes on the prize.

Today I start a new job.  I will be working as an addiction counselor.  I still feel uncertain about my future as this is not a full-time position.  But this past week I had to fill in a health form for the kids and it asked for my occupation.  I wrote in the box that I was a therapist for the first time in my life.  That felt indescribably good.  I have one more term of grad school after this one and one more term of my internship left.  It has been a long haul and I am not yet out of the woods.

When I saw my patients at my internship yesterday I told them I would be gone this week for orientation and training at my new job but would return the next week.  One of the patients wanted assurance I would return because, “we need you too.”  I assured him I would return after I cleared my throat.  I think I may need them as well.

I don’t always get things right and I don’t always make things look easy.  I feel scared and uncertain often.  I make mistakes and my life is still messy.  I don’t have all the answers and I cry… a lot.  But as I have said before, I am my own story and my ending is not yet written.  “The Queen Who Saved Herself’ is literally a life narrative.  It may be a children’s book but it is also a saga and I use the title as a mantra now when I have to lean on it.  When I need extra courage I say to myself that I can do this because I am the Queen who saved herself, so I better get to saving myself again with all the tools I learned in recovery along the way.

I am becoming what I do.

"The Second Marshmallow"

     “The Second Marshmallow”

“I believe the sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.”

Peggy Cahn

Dermot is an enthusiastic fellow.  He has many interests and you could say he is a bit of an “everyman”.  He tends to go to an activities fair at school or hear a friend describe their passion and want to jump in and try that same activity or several from the activities fair all at once.  He is also still a kid and the enthusiasm will sometimes then wear off.  I think as parents, Frank and I have learned to reserve judgement and stand back and see if one thing or another will stick.

Jazz band seems to have stuck and a few other things.  This spring he really wanted to try karate.  He had taken karate before when he was very little but we nixed that when he started using Wren as his practice target.  He has a good buddy taking karate and there was some excited almost pleading going on.  We went for the free trial lesson and he still wanted to do it so we signed him up and stood back to watch and see if this would stick.  I will admit to being dubious.

I was so wrong.  He is all in.  He loves it and I have to say I love it too.  I love what it seems to be providing him with.  Over the summer he did their High Intensity Training program and it came with life coaching, a nutrition plan, extra training and he was required to read and be able to discuss in group “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.”   He did it all and the group discussions were with adults as well as one other teen.  As I said, he is all in.

What I like so much about the karate program beside the obvious physical aspect is that they teach about discipline and respect in each and every lesson.  Every lesson is set up so that they work out for a while and then they break in the middle and the kids sit in a circle around the instructor and the instructor tells them a story.  The story always has some moral to it.  I happened to be there the other day when the story was being told and it struck me that is so relates to recovery.

There was a social-science experiment done (and still used) where a social scientist sits a child down in a room with a table in front of them and places one marshmallow on the table.  The scientist tells the child they are free to eat the marshmallow anytime they want but that if they wait fifteen minutes they will get a second marshmallow which they can also keep and eat or share.  The scientist then leaves the room and sees if the child waits and the experiment is done on different children.  The children were followed over a number of years and it was shown that the kids who were able to or chose to wait for the second marshmallow tended to have better life outcomes.

Delayed gratification is a concept hard for addicts because when in active addiction and often in early recovery there is strong self-centeredness.  The phrase “we want what we want when we want it” is heard a lot in 12-step meetings.  The concept of having to wait for reward is difficult.  I think about this often when people I see leave rehab and go home and apologize for their past behavior and are baffled or hurt that their family members accept the apology but are still seemingly angry with them.  The damage was not done overnight and will not be repaired overnight so in this, like in many other things in life and recovery, we should probably wait for the second marshmallow.