Rather than begin this commentary with uplifting words from any number of well-respected and learned professionals in the field of mental health, I would like to direct you to this paper’s opinion editor and his column published on May 15.
Throughout the month of May, as we take an even closer look at Mental Health Awareness, penning my own commentary has been a challenge, as I determine what information I will release and what will remain private. It’s not always easy to sort out the two in a way that just might make a difference to someone else who is struggling to make sense of their own corner of the world and the world at large.
Gazette-Mail ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Editor Ben Fields ruminates on his proclivity to procrastinate. While I cannot relate to his struggles, I can understand those who must contend with Fields’ shortcoming, since I’m incredibly and most annoyingly to others someone who insists on strict organizational rules and simply getting the job done — now. More often than I’d like, friends and family are more likely to walk away than to join me in my insistent nature to do what needs to be done without putting it on a list to do at a later time.
As Fields moves on to a discussion of how trauma plays a role in our behaviors, citing numerous experts, he mentions the all-too-familiar fight-or-flight response to traumatic experiences, which I would venture to say each and every one of us has, at some point (or multiple points in our lives), found ourselves choosing between the two. It is seldom a comfortable position to occupy; still, we must often make that choice.
And then, Fields lets the word “therapy†slide into place with very little effort. And that’s when I began to think about my own therapy over the years, beginning so long ago with trying to find ways to understand my very difficult relationship with my adoptive father. And as the years moved on, I would seek therapy in order to understand other troubled relationships as well as my own peculiarities that unbalanced rather than balanced me and which tended to negatively affect those I loved and cared about.
And as I continue to make sense of the often senseless around me, Fields made it clear that humor is a necessary ingredient to the healing process, reminding me of words spoken to me a number of years ago in a counseling session with the late Father Leon Alexander: “Unless we have a sense of humor, we will surely crumble.†And, with a great deal of humility, I might add that, unless we learn to share our struggles, we will feel all too alone in a world that is so very divided and isolated, one from the other.
As we focus on our mental health this month, and every month to come, let’s make certain that we’re there for each other, lifting up, rather than tearing apart.
Kathleen M. Jacobs has a master's degree in humanistic studies.
