Monday, November 17, 2014

Shouting for Help



I missed two days of posting, probably for the first time in six years, but it felt right to take a break, and just watch lacrosse for two days. It was a fine weekend, albeit exhausting, and while not a real sports mother, I've grown to like watching my son play lacrosse. Since the games are only one hour, there's no time to feel bored, and the venue for the tournament was beautiful, albeit a repurposing of a landfill. The skies were big with dragon clouds, Bob Dylan's song on repeat in my head, and since I know few people on Henry's team, I was left largely to myself.

I NEED HELP! 

I heard this over and over, shouted in hoarse, deep man-boy voices during the games.



HELP HIM OUT!  HE NEEDS HELP!

I heard that, too, in even deeper and louder shouts from the coaches on the sidelines.

The boys -- young men, really -- scramble to help one another, seem to know implicitly who needs help, when and how much. The game is often a violent one, and when too violent, yellow flags fly, a boy is sent off the field to kneel in contrition for however many seconds the umpire assigns, after those seconds pass, he stands up and runs back out to join in chasing that small, hard white ball, scooping it up, passing it to another boy whose position is to race toward the net, aim toward it through the phalanx of players helping out their goalie.




Get ready because other than dragon clouds and only knowing careless love, being alone on a lacrosse field for two days under the wide blue sky calls for more introspection and possibly, even, a strained metaphor from the likes of non-athletic me.




It struck me that shouting for help and ordering help during a lacrosse game is completely acceptable, but that many of us who care for kids with disabilities or our aged parents for years and even decades,  or those with chronic illnesses themselves, rarely ask for help, much less shout for it. Many of us, when we do ask for help, do so reluctantly, whether it's for money, for relief, for an open ear or arms to hold us. The longer you go, the more difficult it is to recognize your need for help and to ask for it. I'd venture to say, too, that most people don't even realize that we might need help, probably because we don't ask for it, or because they think we've got it all down, at this point.  I believe that in the absence of crisis, people feel a sort of compassion fatigue when it comes down to dealing with people like us. I confess to feeling a gnawing resentment about this and a quiet acceptance. Both feelings -- resentment and acceptance -- come and go, the one small, hard and painful, much like the lacrosse ball, the other majestic in its breadth, much like the clouds and that sky and the lonely path ahead.

Maybe it's time to start shouting. Maybe it's time for you, too, to shout for help. Maybe it's time for you to shout for others to help. Maybe it's time for you to help.

16 comments:

  1. A stunning post. stunning photographs, sobering insight. I think sometimes we don't know how to help, or if the little bit we think we might be able to do will be enough. and sometimes we are in our own warrens, also unable to call out, sometimes not even feeling worthy of asking for help given what we know others are dealing with. Everyone, everyone needs to read this post, and think on it, and act on it, in whatever small way or large way is possible.

    My God, Henry is handsome. That first photo, he looks like a gladiator, and not in an Olivia Pope way. He looks purposeful, capable, heroic.

    Life can be such a lonely journey sometimes. Thank you for this amazing post.

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  2. I've read this twice so far this morning and thought about it a lot. There's much truth here, Elizabeth. Thank you for writing it - a light, a reminder, a guide. And wow is that Henry ever a fine boy, in all ways.

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  3. I wonder if, to take the lacrosse metaphor a little farther, it is necessary to have a 'team' of folks who are all interdependent in order to have consistent help and to feel good about asking for it. The way a team is designed is inherently about acknowledging that the goal is shared by everyone and that everyone will find themselves needing help at one point or another. In constructing a team of people who all want the same thing (healthy children, healthy parents, some fun along the way), perhaps the compassion fatigue could be relieved.

    Love.

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  4. I think Kario made a very point. I wonder why it is always so damn hard for us to ask for help and also, why it is so hard for us to offer it.

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  5. This is a huge concept for me to react to but it is resonating powerfully and truly. My thoughts are so disjointed -- this ties together with so much about the loss of community and family and the image of ourselves slipping into houses, closing the doors behind ourselves and being strangers to each other. Who among us is not touched by those who need help, whether they ask for it or more likely don't ask, or worse, do ask but those asks fall into silence because we don't know how to help? And if we don't have children or parents who need our constant care, aren't we scared to death of what will happen to us when we grow old and begin to lose ourselves and our ability to be independent? What about when we or someone close to us gets cancer, or Alzheimer's? Is it that our sense of being individuals and independent has taken us away from each other? "Is there anything I can do?" has become the most impotent phrase ever uttered. But we aren't alone, really. How do we find our way back to ourselves and each other?

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  6. I am always, always here to help you and feel very fortunate to know you are there for me.

    It has been so difficult to ask for help. Accept help. I have been shouting for 4 months now. Shouting. So strange some of those closest to me remark. For everything seems so "good" and my life" is beautiful". I should be "happy" that things are no in upheaval and that we are not in one crisis or another.

    Do they not know. Do they not know that I have grown so accustom to surviving and existing in crisis, that I have no idea how to do this life any other way. And that is terrifying.

    I will just keep shouting.

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  7. I am always, always here to help you and feel very fortunate to know you are there for me.

    It has been so difficult to ask for help. Accept help. I have been shouting for 4 months now. Shouting. So strange some of those closest to me remark. For everything seems so "good" and my life" is beautiful". I should be "happy" that things are no in upheaval and that we are not in one crisis or another.

    Do they not know. Do they not know that I have grown so accustom to surviving and existing in crisis, that I have no idea how to do this life any other way. And that is terrifying.

    I will just keep shouting.

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  8. Asking for help is very difficult and accepting help is even more difficult I think. We do need communities though, none of us can do it all alone, whatever it is, caring for a disabled child, single parenting, caring for our parents or a loved one, we all need help at sometime.

    It was awful taking care of Katie full time and even harder to let go of her. I still resent it at times. I picked her up yesterday and her coat was dirty. I want to yell, how fucking hard is it to make sure she has a clean coat. But I don't. I can't care for her and I can't not care for her. It is our dance.

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  9. I think for many of us caring for
    very severely handicapped kids, the most hands-on level of help is both hard to find and hard to offer in return when one is very depleted, quite aside from shouting,
    asking, pleading or wishing, unfortunately. And yet I and many mothers I know have become hyper-sensitized to the need to help, in a way that is the complete opposite of compassion fatigue. One is always aware of the suffering in the world.

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  10. Americans SUCK at asking for help. It's not in our "culture," which I don't really see as culture, but you know what I mean.
    I recently took 1st degree Reiki training (have yet to write about that), and am deeply interested in - & moved by - the way that giving and receiving Reiki amounts to "help." It's not the kind of help that promises a particular outcome, but rather the offering of gentle presence, unconditional warmth, peace and love to anyone who wishes to take the time to receive it. I believe Reiki could ease a great deal of suffering, grief and compassion fatigue, if it was widely offered and received. I hope to grow in it and be able to be part of that relief.

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  11. Asking for and receiving help means letting go of control. Though there are aspects of caring for our severely disabled children that do not allow for compromise, it is not unusual for we parents to become too attached to the minutia of daily care. When "help" enters the equation, we can stifle it by insisting all be done precisely as we do it, in every detail. With little room to breathe and the feeling of being constantly watched and judged, "help" will slip away and we will have missed an opportunity to allow someone different to bring their gifts to this particular party.

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  12. the only cultures that made "asking for help" acceptable, are those that made reciprocity a social obligation, and informally coded the you help me, and i'll help you exchange (I'm going off a tangent here, and sort of replying to Karen above).

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  13. in a time when you can't do without help, there's not even a way to describe that kind of asking. even harder to describe that kind of answering. like if you call an ambulance, it comes within a short time, but quite routinely, not like the kind of help you sometimes need when there are no such services available as you well know. if reaching for a lifeline at the last minute —and when there's a helpful response you realize there has always been a potential for it, but nuts and bolts — you take a re-set time for yourself and then get right back to it.
    and so it goes, god bless us every one.

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  14. Beautifully said, in every way. Thank you.

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