(Potential trigger warning: mental health issues, hearing voices…)
Years ago, during one of the many times my mother was near death, I went down to Florida.
During the day, I stayed at the hospital, and at night, I slept in her bed at her apartment.
She’d had a seizure and there was blood on her chair and comforter. And the energy in the room was all fucked up. You could literally feel the monsters my mother had been battling.
Lying in her bed, I was so scared. Terrified, in fact.
Even with all the lights on. But there was no other place I could go.
And then when I got more scared than I could handle, I realized there was only one thing left to do: talk with those monsters, my mother’s monsters, that had scared me on and off my whole life.
So I took a deep breath, and I said, “I bet you guys have been misunderstood too, just like my mother. I bet in some ways, you’ve just been trying to protect her. To tell her important things, urgent things. But she hasn’t been listening, or she’s been twisting the meaning of your words. That must be frustrating.”
I felt a softening. So I continued.
“Well, I hear you. And I’m here. And so what I’m going to do, is give you guys all a hug.”
And that’s what I did. I hugged each scary thing I was feeling, and the strangest thing happened…
Every time something scary was touched by love, it turned into love. One after another. Everything scary melted into the understanding it was given.
The most powerful weapon turned out not to be attacking the fear or fleeing the fear, but giving love to the fear, by accepting it first, and then reflecting its best intention.
Then I got another idea. I got up and wrote my mother a note:
Whenever you hear voices in your head, telling you terrible things, I want you to listen deeper. Because there’s another voice that’s there too. It’s this one. Mine. Telling you I love you and that I understand you. And that I’m here with you. If you hear my voice, I bet those other voices will hear my voice too. And they’ll like the sound of it. And they’ll feel better too, and they’ll let you get some rest.
I love you, Your Daughter.
Then, I got back into my mother’s bed and fell asleep.
And ever since, when something inside me scares me, I try to remind myself not to run away, but to instead go right toward it, and give it my love.
-JLK
