TEACHING STORIES
My chosen family
My family carefully watches me consider two fruits, one healthy and one poisonous, though I know not which is the better fruit. They teach me what they know about these choices and reassure me that my own thoughts on the matter are valuable. I grow frustrated with indecision. They say they cannot choose for me. They urge me forward, 'go on' they say, 'we're here.'
My family doesn't know how to speak the word 'failure' because such a thing doesn't exist; should I choose the poisonous fruit, I will each time thereafter know how to distinguish the benevolent juices from the belly ache of their brother's, and that, in and of itself, is a success.
My family doesn't make me pay for my choice, but celebrates the right by giving it to me, almost as a gift, and finding beauty in the furrow of my brow as I decide what to do with it. My family doesn't punish my choice and promises only to use their fists to pick me up off the ground should I fall ill from the bad fruit. My family doesn't judge my choice, doesn't kick dirt in my eyes to shame their mistake. Rather, they praise the discretion of my heart for having instincts, for its lack of indifference, for doing the best it could with what it had.
My family says, 'let's drink to the beauty in all of us, give what there is to give, work for the rest, love recklessly, bless the body, and praise the gift of choice and all the diverse and wonderful manifestations of greatness it provides. This is my definition of family. Nicole
The Potency of Public Practices in Teaching
In the book, Re-authoring Teaching, people generously share firsthand accounts of their experiences living through and learning from psychiatric crisis, severe depression and sexual abuse. After experiencing recordings of interviews, poems, letters, journal entries and guest interviews, students respond through letter-writing, intentional witnessing practices and online reflections. A good illustration can be found in Chapter 9, “Public Practices.”
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We created this website with a similar purpose in mind – to create space for share teaching stories that bring forth a sense Through these public practices, students, teachers, practitioners and clients all become partners in consulting with each other and linking their lives around shared themes.
Nicole’s Teaching Story
We begin with Nicole, a young woman who has experienced multiple hospitalizations in her struggle to overcome anorexia, self-harm, and depression. Nicole has generously given permission to share aspects of her story in teaching. Students and workshop participants have Students and workshop participants have become witnesses to Nicole share her journal entries and poems. Her writings and transcribed excerpts from the interviews have already rippled into many lives ranging from Boston, Auckland, Havana and Venice and Vermont. Each time I present aspects of Nicole’s story, supplemented by her writing, I ask her for permission. I now requested for permission to share her writings with workshop participants, students and on this website. Recently, Nicole responded to my request with an email:
It’s raining. I’ve turned the music off so I can listen to the thunder. Looking down at the scars on my arm as I type, I wonder whether or not I should cover them with long sleeves. How does the shame of hiding compare to the shame of exposure? Why, not at all. If you could have seen the look on the check-out woman’s face today as she handed me my change, not really sure if she was seeing what she thought she was seeing, you would know what I mean. Perhaps one of her friends has done it, perhaps she has toyed with the idea a time or two, or maybe she’s just wondering how to make it home without stopping at the liquor store. Maybe she’s just repulsed. Regardless, my cheeks redden from a smoldering voice telling me I should have known better than to wear short sleeves in public. I should have used the other hand to accept my change. You piece of shit, begging for attention again; my own voice betrays me. (more)
After sharing an account of the current challenges that Nicole faces – supplemented by her writing - I often invite students or workshop participants to write her letters. Sometimes students then follow up online with reflections or additional letters. In Chapter 9, Public Practices, Nicole shared what a batch of these letters meant to her at a time when she was wrestling with self-harm. Her response was a powerful testament to the impact of letter-writing on the recipient.
Eighteen letters, soft with wear. Eighteen letters, always in my pocketbook. Eighteen letters, from people validating an experience they have only heard about through storytelling. My eighteen letters, my eighteen flickers of hope.
I have eighteen letters I keep by my side at all times from people who don’t know me. Wrapped tightly in a rubber band, they are tucked into my bag, my jacket, and their rectangular pressure against my side helps me take one more step forward, even if that literally means putting one foot in front of the other. I’ve even slept with them under my pillow. At times, it’s the only way to fall asleep; by holding onto something of this world, something real, something of kindness and love. They create my silk thread that leads me back time and again to my chosen family, to a life that must be lived because there are others; others who have broken off small pieces of themselves and with those pieces, fortified a small glimmer of hope inside me.
Eighteen people wrote to me, some sharing their pain, some reflecting on the human condition, some offering their light, all of them giving me something so genuine I protect them as one would a velvet bag of diamonds. Rare, but there, and a great privilege to hold in my hands, they gently push me in the direction of life or at the very least, they whisper they’ll go with me no matter the direction I choose. They are too genuine to destroy, and so they will follow me, always at my side.
When I invite people to write letters to Nicole, I always reassure them that I will screen the letters before passing them on. Sometimes people volunteer to read their letters out loud or to post them online. Others share their letters privately with me. Here I include several recent letters by workshop participants and social work students - the best way to convey the powerful effects of Nicole’s writing on others, and the uniqueness of each person’s letter.
Letter #1:
Nicole,
Your writing touched me on many levels, reaching out, gripping me, shaking me. In my life, I have shared the journey with someone in my family who has experience with the roller coaster of emotions that fall on the spectrum between mania and depression. You are so clear and honest in the ways you describe your experience that I understand when you say that you seek something else in your life that makes your co-existence with depression worth enduring. I find your characterization of “co-existence with depression”
tremendously insightful. I get that. I’ve struggled together with my family member in seeking that “something else,” and I find your thoughts about your search to be so valuable, especially to social work students who are learning to sit with people, see them...students who are learning, in your words, to not “remedy the situation immediately.”
I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to do that exact thing...remedy the situation. I guess I always thought that--particularly as a parent--the best thing I could do was fix things and give good advice. The shit hit the proverbial fan when my kids were teenagers and I began to see that dispensing advice was often like peeing in the wind. Dropping the “advice-giving mode” can be a hard habit to let go of (and I’m working on that still). When you write that you want someone to “see you, to honor your struggle,” it really helps me. What do you think that means and what does it looks like? How does your life change when you are seen? Does being seen have an impact on your “co-existence with depression?”
I was struck by your statement that “bringing pain out into the world diminishes it, puts it in context.” I will be working at a homeless shelter beginning in September and I will remember these words. In my own life I know this is sometimes daunting, often frightening, and I wonder how putting the pain in context diminishes it...how does that work, why does understanding context make any difference? I’m going to be thinking about this because I think its very important.
Your ideas have lingered in my mind this morning as I walked with my dog in the warm early morning summer air. This is the power of writing, that almost magical ability to reach out over time and physical space to grip and shake. To me, this is a most valued gift, and I want to thank you for offering your writing to us.
Most sincerely,
Ethan
Letter #2:
Dear Nicole,
I kept scribbling down your words as Peggy read them aloud. When someone puts words to something that I have known, but without having language for it, it’s like sparklers going off in my soul: bright, flashing, and unsettlingly temporary. It gives warmth and clarity at once. I wrote and wrote to try to hold onto the things you had said.
Nicole, you put words to some of the brutal strangleholds of depression. You reflected on the pain you had experienced, and that others have witnessed and born, and said simply: “this world is capable of making this happen.” You wrote, too, “I have to believe in something or I am going to die.” That’s a crux of it, isn’t it? How can we believe in anything when such pain and injustice are even possible? In your writing, I heard a voice of a young woman who profoundly values justice and values being of use. I heard a voice calling for a compassionate world. I wonder what names you yourself would give to the voice of value that underlies your writing about the orphans in Romania and your compassion for your friend who overdosed. Where were these values born? What has kept them burning inside of you since then? I wonder if the names of those values have changed since your writing, and how you will say their names as you allow yourself to move and begin graduate school.
I had this image in my mind of you being knee-deep in mud in a swamp
full of heavy vines and lashing trees. As Peggy read, you put words to
the experiences of walking away from the swamp of depression: “I do not
feel a forward impulse. I just know that there’s no going back” and
speaking to “what it is to be alive in a world full of alive things” and
looking to live “mindfully and gently.” “Mindfully and gently” did not
fit in that swamp. Your stated desire to be of use to others did not
fit in the swamp. I wonder what rocks you placed under your feet in
order to climb out. Did you leave them in the swamp, or do you carry
them with you yet, for the next time you need to climb? As you move and
enter the field of social work, I wonder what stones you will bring with
you. I wonder if there are ones that you will intentionally leave
behind. I wonder if there are ones that you are still hoping to discover.
It’s been nearly a week since I heard your stories, and the line “this
world is capable of making this happen” keeps reverberating in my head.
Six years back I almost sank into the swamp myself. I could only see
the destruction that the world was capable of. I have been able to tell
myself some stories of how I climbed out of the swamp, but none of them
seemed full enough to depend on. As I’ve entered grad school, I have
wondered if I would be strong enough to resist the swamp as I bear
witness to others’ experiences with injustice. Thinking on your words
“this world is capable of making this happen” gave me a new story about
how I’ve stayed out of the swamp. I realized that over these years,
I’ve slowly begun to tolerate the idea that this world is capable of
making many things happen. This world makes the courage happen, and it
makes the translation of hope into action happen. I can trust that I can
stay out of the swamp because I’m learning to recognize how many things
the world is truly capable of (and it was that damn depression telling
me that it was ONLY destruction!). I can have faith in my strength to
stand on firm ground. To let go of that worry will let me work more
openly and authentically with those I serve. With less need to guard
against my own fears, I can be more open to what they are experiencing.
That idea (the world’s capabilities) has been resonating so continuously
that I know that it’s not simply a sparkler; you gave me a lighthouse.
Thank you, Nicole.
Yours in mindfulness and gentleness,
Kathryn
Letter #3:
To Nicole
I want to thank you for giving me the gift of your words and for inviting me to enter into conversation with these words. I just returned from a hot, sweaty tromp through a favorite park with my dog. The walk takes me to a beautiful view of the Adirondack mountains. Walking, running, swimming , just being with my fur companion grounds me more than most things. I wanted to clear my head so I could write some thoughts to you. He is lying beside me as I write this, right at my feet, such a comfort. I remembered that Peggy said you have a dog as well.
There was so much that I heard that touched places within me, within my own personal struggles, and that spoke to my deep desires of how to place myself in this world in a useful way to others. I wanted to put some of the jewels I received from your words in this letter.
I wrote down your words “at the very least I can see you” and “bearing witness to their experiences”. This struck chords for me, in my personal life, and my professional strivings. My experience in class yesterday hearing some of your words spoken out loud by Peggy was one of “feeling seen”. How powerful I thought, that as you spoke of this as something you could give to others, “survive by honoring the humanity in others”, that your words, even without your presence and without your very eyes upon me, provided me a glimpse of this experience. The effect of hearing your words through Peggy’s voice left me feeling less isolated and less alone. Is this what you mean when you can say I can see you to another? What is it like, for you, I wonder, what comes to life for you when someone sees you? And how I wonder, can we best allow the “seeing” to unfold? How can “seeing” be cultivated? I appreciated hearing what you wrote of as being helpful to you: to “not try to remedy the situation too quickly”, “sit with me”, “stop pathologizing, don’t immediately jump to ask where the razors are?” (Please forgive me if I have captured anything incorrectly in my own words). Two weeks ago my closest friend attempted suicide, through an overdose of sleeping medication. I immediately wanted to know what this medication was, did she have any more? How did she get it? I found myself ‘rushing” in with my own fear, and “fixing” and I felt useless after. Yesterday in class, I wanted to ask you “ How I could have just “sat with her” ? I wanted to ask you to share an experience of having had someone just be with you, just sit, not fix. I imagined, your “chosen family” as perhaps those that were able to be less invasive in a fixing sort of way, and I wanted to hear more about how you can to create this chosen family for yourself? It is also something that struck a chord with me, as I have cultivated “family and a sense of place” in alternative ways in my own life.
When I wrote my “letter of interest” to the graduate program I am in currently in (Adult Mental Health/Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner), I wrote about my years of practice as a women’s health nurse practitioner. I wrote about “the pervasive stories of depression, anxiety, sexual violence, grief and despair, and enormous amounts of pain and suffering that women and men of all ages bear”. I wrote that “this part of my practice, “bearing witness” and attempting to assist individuals in “making meaning” after being shattered had become the deeply fulfilling part of my work”. I finished the letter writing of the notion of spending time in graduate school pondering this question of “How to just be WITH the other in their/our journey? Another part of the nudging toward this journey I placed myself on was fed by a personal experience of “bearing witness” which happened for me when I attended a weeklong workshop at Kripalu Yoga Center in Massachusetts. I remember this powerful and distinct moment when I was listening to this woman lay bare her suffering, and a well, from deep inside me opened, and my own tears poured, and the pouring out was not only my stored pain and the crying was not only crying for me, but it was mixed with crying for another, and then as so many others were crying, it became almost like a universal crying for all of us, and extended outside of that circle. It was the simultaneous experience of bearing witness while making myself bare. I felt so much less alone after that experience, so honored and honoring of the “container” of hearts that allowed for such expression to come forth. And to my surprise , I hadn’t dissolved, disintegrated, disappeared after allowing myself to come undone, a fear I had carried for a long time. I wondered about your words “ this sadness that is keeping me one step beyond the experience” and if it had any connection to my own experience of fear that I would be annihilated if I really allowed myself to feel beyond the numbness. I wondered if this is what you meant by bearing witness?
Today in class Peggy read the speech David Epston wrote as a tribute to Michael White. At the moment of hearing the words , “ We are all siblings in the same night of truth” I felt it captured my experience at Kripalu Today in class, I felt like your words brought forth that connection again.
There is such tenderness that comes through your words “ I wish to live mindfully and gently”. It evokes an image of softness, humility, of respect, of intentionality and reminds me of words that I once often returned my mind’s eye toward, “Live simply so that others may simply live”. I too, have never been “entirely lighthearted, and this one sentence of words captures lifetimes of wounds, disappointments, witnessed injustices and betrayals. These words capture for me the very heart of what is taken from so many of us and yet it evokes another wave of tenderness toward myself and others, of the desire to hold self and others gently, hold consciously, tending to the heart as a lived posture.
I so appreciate your sharing of yourself, for the gift of your words that sprung doors open for me. I too am at a crossroads in my own life. I know I need to go forward. I know I have to leave something behind. My therapist calls this “leaping into the unsupported moment”, the space between the leaving and the grabbing on. I have an actual image she gave to me of a penguin having just stepped off her iceberg, the other iceberg is in view, and there is the space between, the penguin looks so confident, so knowing that she will arrive safely. I try to keep this image in my mind’s eye. I like to think of your words right now, “of postured confidence”, of leaping forward with “postured confidence”. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Estelle
Aside from her chosen family and dog, writing is the single most important thing in Nicole’s life. Recently, she wrote:
“It's 1:30 a.m. and I can't sleep, so I decided to try and do a little reading. I'm reading Bird by Bird, which I remember you once suggested to me, and David serendipitously bought it for me in a little bookstore in Brooklyn. The first fifty pages have made me want to write so badly, I think I might have to take a bit more Risperdal to calm down enough to sleep. It feels manic. But I don't think it's a bad thing. Do you think I can really write?
Anyway, I always send you my doom and gloom pieces, and that must get old. Scanning through my journals tonight, I found a little blip from one St. Patrick's day.
St. Patrick's Day. I'm thrust back into my Hispanic, Catholic schoolgirl days, standing in an impossibly long service, half-heartedly scanning the hymnal and genuflecting away my seven year-old sins. I still remember the hollow sound of the pews and the peacock blue of the carpet. I remember you didn't piss off the priest, and if you accepted the body of Christ with palms right over left, you were going straight to Hell. It's true, everyone knew it was left over right, even us kids who weren't allowed to accept Communion yet. I wasn't too torn up about it; the whole idea of snacking on someone's body and blood freaked me right out. Plus, there were a few things about it I just couldn't figure out. For example, if we, the congregants of St. Patrick's church in Durango, Colorado, were receiving the body and blood of Christ, what was everyone else in the world eating? If we had Christ, then who did they have, a disciple? And what happened after twelve weeks when the disciples ran out? Why was it a wafer and not a steak? As far as the blood goes, I was just glad it wasn't some other bodily fluid.
Anyway, I talked to God a lot during these services, praying politely, "Dear God, when is this going to end? Would you make J.J. White stop spitting on me on the playground? I'm not asking that you send him to Hell, maybe just dangle him until he sweats a little. Why was St. Patrick green and not pink?" But God never answered, so I figured he must be real busy with the heathens, and it was all for a good cause. Besides, the St. Patty's dinner in the church hall was soon, and there I would get to eat. My Godfather, with his huge belly and Kiss Me I'm Irish apron would seize me and slap a piece of corned beef the size of my thigh on my plate. He would exclaim something about making sure his Goddaughter was well-fed and used this to support the "fact" that he was a good Catholic. For some reason his breath always smelled a lot like the Blood of Christ. I never really understood why.
Everywhere, people are touched to hear accounts of Nicole’s story told in her own words. During a workshop in Venice, Italy, Katy handed me a beautiful card, with a on the cover, and the following words inside:
Dear Nicole,
Thank you so much for giving Peggy permission to share your story and your writings with us here at our meeting in Venice. I want to say how powerfully your words affected me, both in the gut-wrenching descriptions of painful experience and in the insightful and delightful description of childhood memories of churchgoing.
Being introduced to your writings has me wondering how it was that:
a) You have developed your skills and knowledges of the writing craft
b) You have been able to put into words both seeing experience and memories of childhood wonderings
c) Who would have predicted your commitment to the honing of the writer’s craft?
d) When did you first realize this commitment?
e) What does this commitment mean to you?
f) What might this commitment give to others?
Nicole, it has been said that, ‘THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.’ I understand you have experience with both. What do you think of the statement? Does it seem to you an idea of merit? Or is it a silly, empty statement? Or does the reality for you be somewhere in between? What are your ideas on this?
Nicole, at a time when you are taking what appear to be significant steps in your live as a writer and a social worker, what is most important to you? I’m wondering what is most important to you? Why is this so? I’m wondering what it means to you in holding onto these two identities – what does their combination bring to you and what do you intend to use them for? Why is this (or thee) your intention? Is there something precious, do you think, honoured in holding with these intentions?
Nicole, I send you my heartfelt wishes to you on your life’s journey. I hope you will continue to share it with others through your writings, which may shed through your writings, which may shed light for others in understanding their own lives.
Kind Regards,
Katy,
Sydney, Australia
Upon receiving a batch of letters from social work students, Nicole wrote back the following letter, asking that it be read out loud in class.
It's always so hard to start writing, hard to narrow my thoughts to a point; there are so many thoughts, the possibilities for communication are infinite. I once had the opportunity to speak with an improvisational jazz trio in a writing class. The professor was elated, but my enthusiasm was lukewarm. I don't much care for jazz and besides, I'm a writer, not a musician, I didn't see the relevance.
Somewhat indignantly, I asked one of the men, Evans, how it was possible to truly not know what he was going to play before he started. You must do some planning, you must have some schema for composition, otherwise how could it be music? How could you perform in front of crowds? I asked. Evans smiled broadly and replied that he never worried about any of that. All he ever had to do was coax his instrument into making sound, just a few random notes; something always comes out of nothing, he said. All I have to do is START, he said. It's the same for you, just write a few "tuning notes" on the page and something will happen. Something out of nothing. Stop worrying it into being, he said.
To discover one's own ignorance is a very groovy thing. Someone has perturbed the landscape of your atoms, given your assumptions a little shove from behind, and suddenly you stand, rearranged, whole in your newly sculpted self. Thank you, Evans.
So, I write to you now not knowing exactly what I'm going to say. I know that I have a little stack of letters here in front of me that indicate, somehow, that I am connected to others. Impossible! I thought in my head when Peggy first read them to me. I suddenly had this image of her locking you all in a sweltering room without food or drink, forcing you to write nice letters in order to secure your release. But then I looked up at her and
saw the Peggy you see before you now and thought, "Holy shit, they wrote these letters because they wanted to." Once again, I was rearranged. Suddenly, I recognized that suffering is a shared experience, not an isolated one. I had to reject the egotistical notion that this pain is not just my burden. It's ours. Paradoxically, we are united through our own subjective experiences. Maybe Sisyphus would have been able to get that rock up the hill if he would have just asked for some help. Maybe not. Either way,
the weight of the rock would have been distributed among many. I have taken the pain of the world and made it mine, which is both unbearable and selfish.
I, WE, are on the cusp of change. As I listened to Barack Obama speak in Berlin last night, I realized how isolated we've become as a people. That's what happens when the world, the mind, becomes sick. Ambivalence and isolation are the most dangerous symptoms of this illness. As I've said before, in my darkest hour I felt no one's love for me and I had no love to give. As individuals, as people, we are in great danger of folding in on ourselves, moving inward until we are a dark point on a canvas, connected
to no one through line or color. Through Obama, through your letters, I have only realized in the past couple of days that this is OUR depression, OUR anxiety...OUR time. Let us pull each other out of bed. Out of indifference. Let us vote, let us talk freely about our pain, let us make something out of nothing. Let us SPEAK OUR TRUTHS.
Lay your hands on the rock. If we go down, it will be together.
In Greek mythology, Sisyphyus was a king punished in Taratarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Can we imagine another possibility - to recognize that suffering is a shared experience - inspired by Nicole’s alternative? Here is a photo of a group in Burlington Vermont, laying our hands on a special rock just outside our building, while Ethan led us in the John Lennon song, “Imagine.”
Shortly after leaving class, Estelle witnessed a couple of odd, upsetting and disorienting experiences – she posted a description of “the harsh reminder of how side by side beauty exists with such pain.” In her response, Judy reflected, “Might it help to revisit the rock and gather up some more of that good energy? From now on every time I see the rock, I will think of our class standing around in our final moments together and the goodness will definitely occupy space in my mind, making a little less room for other not so pleasant thoughts.”
Thank-you, Nicole, for your contribution to our lives. You make all of this possible and there is more to come. Please keep choosing the pen over the knife, and sharing your writing with us.
Reflections
Do you have any responses sparked by this teaching story – reflections, letters, stories, artwork, recording or? Peggy Sax will share relevant materials with Nicole, while protecting her privacy.
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