Whom Shall I Fear?

When I had finished my general nurse training in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in the ’80s, I went on to train as a mental health nurse in a very progressive psychiatric hospital in England.

At the end of that training, there was an opportunity to apply for a three month paid secondment in the hospital psychology department working as a junior therapist under supervision.

I had already had a student placement in the psychology department and I had loved it. The psychologists were a mixed bunch. Brian was a total behaviourist. Paul was completely psychoanalytical. Chan was eclectic. There was also a sex therapist and some others who I don’t remember as clearly.  I recall using CBT though.

I submitted a written application and then I was interviewed. To my absolute amazement and sheer delight, I was the successful candidate. As far as I can recall, my time was divided between all the psychologists and they each gave me at least one client to work with.

I remember working quite a bit with clients with fears and phobias, such as agoraphobia. I had to design and implement programs to help them overcome their fears. Some of my work involved visiting clients in their own homes and traveling with them on public transport, or even accompanying them on outings in their own car. I remember one lady driving anti-clockwise around a very busy roundabout when I was in the front passenger seat. This was a very anxious moment for me as well as for her.

Another lady had a fear of spiders and I was helping to do a desensitisation programme with her. I was supposed to accompany her to a local zoo and let her see me hold some kind of large spider, possibly a tarantula, but I chickened out!!! I wasn’t very helpful to her – was I?!

Seriously though, what I did learn, as I helped several people overcome their fears and phobias, is that severe anxiety/emotional distress is self limiting.

When triggered, the difficult, unpleasant feelings will increase dramatically and will feel incredibly uncomfortable.

However, those difficult feelings will eventually peak and then they will begin to subside again.

Little did I know that one day I would be using that knowledge to talk myself through difficult situations, in the same way as I once accompanied agoraphobic clients around Croydon.

Not because I’ve become agoraphobic, but because after such a major trauma as the illness and death of a child, so many places trigger such strong emotional reactions, that I now need to be my own therapist so as to prevent myself from having no-go areas in my life.

I think that the first time that I became aware of myself doing this, was last year when I was at our local hospital for another reason and I spontaneously went back to the Sperrin Oncology/Haematology Outpatients Department on my own and sat for 10 minutes opposite the seat where I once sat with Leah. I write about this here.

The next time was a bigger challenge. It was the week of Leah’s one year anniversary. I was in Belfast. I entered the foyer  of Belfast City Hospital, went to the cafe on the ground floor and ordered a cup of steaming hot cinnamon milk, which had been my staple diet while Leah was dying. I then went and sat in the nearby eating area, where I had sat on many occasions during Leah’s final two and a half weeks.

My heart was beating very fast, my vision was blurred, blood vessels were pounding in my ears. I silently prayed for help and reminded myself of what I used to tell my clients in Croydon all those years ago – these difficult feelings are self-limiting, they will peak, but then they will start to subside.

Sure enough, within about 10 minutes I was starting to feel calmer.

I know that it will be easier the next time.

I also had to put it into practice at work recently. A mandatory annual training update was scheduled to take place in the South Wing of our local hospital. I work in the community, so my inservice training is normally community based – not this time unfortunately.

The South Wing houses the Sperrin Oncology/Haematology Ward where Leah had two admissions, as well as housing some other departments.

Just parking in the nearby carpark is often enough to have me in tears, never mind walking through the doors AND down the very familiar corridors. By the time I had found a seat in the training room, everything within me was screaming “get out of here, go home, you can’t do this”.

One of my work colleagues asked me something and I looked at her blankly, unable to focus on her words or their meaning.

Inwardly I just kept praying for help and reminding myself of what I knew – the difficult feelings would peak, then they would subside. Admittedly, by the time that had happened, I was so exhausted, that I struggled to concentrate, but at least I showed up.

It will be easier the next time!

Back in the office a few days later, someone asked me something related to what had been discussed at the training. I looked at her blankly and said “Was I there when that was discussed?” Then we both burst out laughing! You have to have a sense of humour too!

Don’t worry, this is training that I attend on a regular basis, I will have other opportunities to update my skills and knowledge.

I have shared the above experiences in the hope that my story might be of help to somebody else, struggling with similar issues, for whatever reason.

Next month I’ve a short trip to Bristol planned, along with my two daughters, to do the Shaun the Sheep Trail in Leah’s memory. The Shaun in the City project was announced while Leah and I were in Bristol in 2013. Leah and I discussed our plans to come back for it and we promised to bring her younger sister Miriam. Leah looked forward to coming back as a tourist instead of as a patient.

Even booking the tickets for this was very emotional. Everything we do will be emotionally loaded and will trigger so many memories – Belfast International Airport, Bristol Airport, my planned visit to Bristol Children’s Hospital, retracing our steps in so many different ways.

However, I just know that it’s the right thing to do, it’s all part of the remembering.

As I write this, a song by Chris Tomlin keeps playing in my head.

It’s called Whom Shall I Fear (God Of The Angel Armies)

I know who goes before me
I know who stands behind
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side

The one who reigns forever
He is a friend of mine
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side

My strength is in Your name
For You alone can save
You will deliver me
Yours is the victory

Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear

The Mask

Why do I blog?

Many reasons really!

I woke up at 4.15am this morning with a “vulnerability hangover” and wondered “Why did I tell everybody about going to the Cemetery last night?”

I imagined what people would think as they read it.

I knew that other bereaved parents would probably understand, but what about everybody else?

Well, I imagined that some people might think that if I really trusted God then I wouldn’t be so distressed and preoccupied with grieving. Maybe they would think that I was wallowing in self pity and just attention seeking.

I worried that some might resemble Job’s wife in the Bible story and would react with the attitude “Why doesn’t she just curse God?” Job 2:9

Then at 7am this morning I received a private message from someone who goes to the same church as me. She says that reading my blog is the only thing keeping her sane. Receiving that message was both humbling and encouraging.

I feel at times like a drowning person clutching a piece of driftwood to stay afloat.

If my blog can help another person to also find a piece of driftwood to keep them afloat, then I will have achieved something.

If my blog alerts people to the possibility that the smiling person sitting beside them in church, or sharing an office with them at work, is really feeling quite broken on the inside, then I will have achieved something.

It concerns me that so many people feel that they have to wear a mask. Lots of people share with me in confidence how they are really feeling, but then tell me that they feel compelled to wear a mask in front of everyone else.

They are scared of letting other people know how weak and vulnerable they really feel at times.

Why do we spend so much of our lives pretending and hiding behind our masks?

I did my nursing training in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in the 80’s.

I remember Sr Bosco handing us out copies of a poem about masks.

I was so intrigued by it that I copied it into my journal at the time. I read and reread it many times, it fascinated me.

That was over thirty years ago.

Has society changed any in all of that time, in terms of our acceptance of each other, in terms of our willingness to know and be known?

This is the poem that Sr. Bosco gave to us:

Please Hear What I’m Not Saying

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask,
a thousand masks,
masks that I’m afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,
but don’t be fooled, for God’s sake don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm and I’m in command and that I need no one,
but don’t believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacency.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,
if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It’s the only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself,
that I’m really worth something.
But I don’t tell you this.
I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me,
that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I tell you everything that’s really nothing,
and nothing of what’s really everything,
of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I’m saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying,
what I’d like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can’t say.

I don’t like hiding.
I don’t like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you’ve got to help me.
You’ve got to hold out your hand
even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings–
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator–an honest-to-God creator–
of the person that is me if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.

Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.

Please do not pass me by.

It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.
It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

~ Charles C. Finn, September 1966

And men too!