be generous as you can (& we all can)

what bipolar means to me, next installment

Diving back into a paper I wrote in 2019, we are at a historical overview related to mental health care in the United states asking these somewhat problematic but important questions:

· Who is to blame for mental health disorders and

· Who is to pay; who foots the bill?

Today I'm talking briefly about the first chunk of that section of my paper; the subheading is

Historical Overview: Who’s to Blame? Who’s to Pay?

Colonial times: It’s their own fault.

In colonial times, the mentally ill were seen as the “unworthy poor” and thus received little outside aid (Stern & Axinn, 2012). Usually, family and friends would care for the afflicted; in other cases, almshouses often took in the mentally ill (Rothman, 1971/2008).

Note: both citations - and where to find the publications - will show up at the end of this post.

Now that's all I'm talking about in terms of the paper specifically today but I want to make note of the beauty, actually, of the old way.

“Unworthy poor” sounds awful, but it also denotes a sense of family and friends understanding the story, the backstory, and all the strange and interesting strands of an individual life, as such that family and friends offer crucial pieces of care for anyone who has a diagnosable mental health disorder/neurodivergence/neuro-spiciness

& the concept of alms houses taking in the mentally ill is just as important.

As I was going back into this paper - and I've been doing that in little bite-sized portions for myself, because it brings up a lot of emotion - I remember the axiom that “research is me-search,”

& whenever we do a deep dive into something, we are connecting with our own history and our family history.

I have used the iceberg metaphor before. For me, as a bipolar person, in some ways being bipolar is just being a musical theater kid, and in other ways it's a constant reckoning with my capacity to unintentionally harm others by being winsome and able to connect quickly and deeply without necessarily recognizing that I might be implicitly offering my full self …

I might be explicitly and implicitly, just totally showing up completely and then I might not be able to follow through on some of the implied promises that were made.

I'll never forget in high school feeling anxious about going on a date with a boy for the first time – Kam Arnold, you're out there somewhere – and feeling nervous, not really wanting to see Ace Ventura 2 and calling my friend Laura [McVay Nichols] like a little desperate and arranging for her to show up with her little brother (because she was babysitting that day) & make it look just like a coincidence …

I did like him [Kam, that is] in a lot of ways, but I also was about to move from Hawaii to Pennsylvania and I felt confused, too much feeling, to just say to him, “Let's not see Ace Ventura,” or “I don't really want to go on a date, I'm too emotional right now,”

so I just did a thing, I was sneaky;

And to this day it kind of haunts me, not because I blame the 14-year-old me for being sneaky, but because I imagine … I mean, I know Kam figured it out, because he was smart [just check out his Google Scholar link above] and I think there was an e-mail about it later, once I moved to Pennsylvania …

…but having this sense of, “I have capacity to harm other people without wanting to, just when I'm trying to do what I need to do for myself”

& I know that doesn't make me unique, we all have that [capacity], but to understand someone who has harmed us, we have to understand the backstory and I'm sure Kam (who was, I think, the same age or a little younger than me) didn't understand what it was like for me to be about to lose all of my friends. He just liked me and was trying to do something nice, and under any other circumstance, it would have been really nice.

And when I dive back into this paper (bring it back around again), I think about the many, many stories where someone with a diagnosis kills someone or harms someone physically, or forever changes the life of another human and thus family system and community.

I think it was 2 weeks ago that I filmed an episode where I said, “Who is Kendra? This paper is about Kendra Law - can we do better?

& this morning I did a deeper dive into the story of Kendra, which I'll talk about next week; but what it evoked for me was [the same] emotion that arose for me this weekend when I was participating in Amesbury's first Juneteenth [picture down below], as well as when I saw this stunning, heartbreaking, but also love-provoking play yesterday [produced by the incredible Lane’s Coven Shakespeare Company - go Lily & Justin, director Kadeem Ali-Harris, and the actors who floored me] at Windhover Performing Arts Center - shout-out to Lisa Hahn & team] called Topdog/Underdog [the link here is to the stunning review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood on netheatregeek.com].

& I'm going to do a separate post about Suzan-Lori Park’s Topdog/Underdog [this is the wikipedia link] because that requires more time than I want to devote right now, but the feeling in both of these spaces over the weekend was a feeling of intense connectivity and awareness of the fragility of human life

and that the fragility is most real in the context of our closest relationships;

So those of us who have neuro-spiciness/neurodivergence/mental health issues or struggles or stories to tell…

It is essential for us to be open to the feedback and input of the people who love us;

And some of the feedback I've gotten from the people I trust most recently is, “Wow, you're burning bright there, girl. I feel hurt.” or “I feel like I need some time away”

& I have such respect for people doing that,

& I feel it deeply

& whenever someone gives me that feedback, it is my signal to slow way down.

And as a lot of people know in my life, I'm about to go on unemployment, and it is related to the fact that on paper I could be fully in the mental health care system for the rest of my life, receiving disability;

And those who do that, good. I might have to do that and I might do that sooner than later…

At this moment, it's unemployment, and I am proud to be taking it, because I've paid into it for most of my life

& also I'm not ashamed to say that I need the time to slow down, and a lot of it has to do with connecting with family and friends and trying to be accountable for the places where I've gotten messy and done harm.

And that also comes along with reckoning with the fact that sometimes you do damage that can't be undone

& I know from my own experience but also from witnessing many people who have survived harm, that there are elements of forgiveness that do allow for a full release and for something more beautiful to grow;

And forgiveness is not the same as forgetfulness.

We have to be aware of the ways in which the people we love most can do harm to us just by virtue of that love.

So as we think about colonial times and how the mentally ill were the “unworthy poor,”

I want to remind all of us that we all are worthy of expressing what is true for us, asking for what we need, and taking space when we need it.

I am figuring that out on the daily, which means sometimes I retreat from the people who love me most and who know me best, to [for example] the home of an old friend, which is where I'm at right now, to simply breathe and be in a space that feels like a sanctuary because it's somewhat unfamiliar, and do what is needed for the day.

And it is a luxury to look the way I look and have the social access that I have:

• that I can take unemployment

• that I have old friends who are willing to give me sanctuary

I want us all to remember that not everyone has those forms of privilege, so when you encounter someone who seems unworthy to you,

Do a deep dive into every single life you know that has looked good on the outside but has needed deep care, and try to be generous with your attention, your love, your money, your time.

Figure out what that means for you in this moment, and please be generous, not only with yourselves but with the people who you feel called to be generous to:

it can't be everyone, but it can be some.

Blessings and thank you.

Books cited in this paragraph of my paper & where you can find them.

Stern, M. and Axinn, J. (2012) Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need (8^th Ed.) Boston: Pearson. - publisher website & e-book version (30 day free download on Scrib’d as of now)

Rothman, D. J. (1971/2008). The Discovery of the Asylum. Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1971.

gratitude to Doug Bowker, one of the most generous friends & humans I have ever know, for this comment a while back: it seemed fitting for today.