Being On Guard-WITNESS #2

November 3, 2011 at 00:43

         I am ever on guard due to the fact I have hardly ever felt safe. I tend to alway expect the worst. I will share one of many reasons this is so. I am wandering the halls of my new hospital abode. A Jamaican speaking muscular man calls me to his side. He is one of the staff at Taunton State Hospital. He takes me on as a project. His voice booms ebullient as he limps toward me.

"Well hello Mr. Larry"(not real name) "You know it really good to see you again!" What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?"
"You know you will never get out of here. You are in this place for the rest of your life. What can we do about that?

(I am silent and very scared. Maybe he knows something I don't) None of my family or friends has come to see me since I entered the hospital. I have called my friends at college and they would rather not talk with me. The attendant(staff) seems to be the only person that is taking an interest in me. He is the closest thing to a family or friend that I have known since being in the hospital.) There is no therapy or crafts. It seems like am left in this place to wander the floors, hoping I can live to survive another day. Does anybody even care? Do they see me and decide to callously pass by?

          I recall a lot of times of being on guard in my life's journey. I tend to try to keep everyone at arms length. One day I am walking home from High school minding my own business and a younger man child calls me over, daring me to show what kind of man I am.( I have been preoccupied these days with the recent hospitalization of my younger brother Jon. He is mentally ill). There is little comfort in not knowing how this can happen to a person.)
         Donnie lifts me up over his head several times and then finds a youth about thirteen or fourteen years to finish a job he just started. He cheers the kid on. (I am despondent and lost within. How do I stop the stress monster from gobbling me up).
          I choose not to fight the youngster, because he so much younger. Donnie is licking his chops wanting for some more fun at my expense. There is no one coming to my rescue. After all I am taller than all these guys. A reputation I have had for being a good fighter has gained me little or no ground. After five or ten minutes they tire of their game and move on to fun elsewhere. I feel like a fool. At times I can not even protect myself.

         Because of incidents like these I am learning to stay in dark places/invisible and disconnected. I am ashamed of my emotional illness background. This despite the fact it happened thirty-five years earlier. It did help to hear these words from a counselor while in my graduate school years:
"Your emotional crisis was a birthing into growth. Apart from it I never would have known what it meant to be whole." (there was something to what she said):

         . Fights with people my own age and younger seemed ever present. Death was not far away if something didn't change. In my youth I was taught to not let emotions out because of what they might do to hurt myself and others. My emotional illness forced me to manage that part of my life and embrace life and be embraced by it. Still I felt like I was constantly on guard wondering who would take advantage of me next.


         At present I am a security guard, because of a decsion to no longer feel unsafe. (As I said in my first chapter, I was put in this position by crises that had forced me to find a place to heal.) I want to be with others who are determined to be safe on a journey of being safer than they were before.. I no longer want to be a victim, I want to be a victor!

         While at my guard shack at the library garage. I celebrate times of unfolding perceptions. I journal daily to determine what it means to say; “It’s been a great day!!" I have decided to underline my hope to be optimistic in this new sentence.

          I long for a day that invites connection and affirmation. My mantra to witness to withness includes two key words: “witness”and “withness” that embrace the man I desire to become. The word "witness" has a biblical foundation. In the book of Isaiah there is a challenge to God’s people “You are my Witnesses…” The word “withness”(my own made up word) celebrates God as “Emmanuel”--In the person of Jesus; "God is with us". I believe we all carry potential to witness and be with. I tend to be more passive for fear of getting hurt, until a spark within moves my spirit to mate a pen with paper. The ink in the pen becomes like blood my veins giving indication that there is life inside. There is something worth expressing and circulating to others.

         Motivation to write evolves out of growing awareness that I am putting on more weight than usual. Recent events have left me feeling disconnected and empty. A new child is to be born any day to my son and his wife.The lingering odor of divorce reminds me that if it could happen to me it could happen to my son. It could also be that I was jealous of my daughter-in-law Anna, who is pregnant with child.. I wonder if people exist who wish having a baby could be easy as eating food.
          My days of being a security guard wears me down. I had been a pastor surrounded by hundreds of people on a daily basis. I feel lost in a job that celebrates being alone and awake. And this is all happeining because I am dealing with unresolved traumas of my childhood in a therapeutic setting. I am glad for my beloved Sharon’s plea; "take care of yourself""I want you around." When I know that support, I feel strength to go one.