Papers and Trees

About a week or two ago I was on the bus on my way home when I experienced something odd. It was a pretty average bus ride, the day was sunny day and there were about a dozen people on the bus. About two bus stops before mine an old man, probably in his 80s, and his partner were getting off the bus. I noticed this man’s walking difficulties and worried he might fall off the bus, lo and behold, he fell on his back when he stepped outside.

I immediately jumped into action; I was the first person to run off the bus to help this man. I talked to him, I assessed if he had any injuries and then with the help of the bus driver I helped him stand up. We sat him down on a bench and other people from the bus helped with his bags and belongings. The man was a bit shaken, but he was fine. I wasn’t.

The rest of the day my hands were shaking and I was feeling really numb, the following day I even cried. I couldn’t quite understand why, the man was fine and I helped him without issues. He wasn’t the first old person I’ve helped in such a situation either, so why was I in so much shock? It was a bit later that I was able to understand. My ability to just help without hesitation, with full focus of everything that needed to be done didn’t just come from me being some good person or an effective first aid responder. It came from my experience taking care of my father in his last months of his life. Whist I cared for my father I had to do this kind of things a few times every day. I would have to help him stand up and hold him, sometimes on my own even when there were nurses around. I hurt my back a couple of times during this time. My father was heavier and taller than me, but somehow I always found the strength to lift his weight on my own. When I lifted the old man at the bus stop I couldn’t notice his weight, he felt incredibly light despite clearly being an overweight person.

This old man looked nothing at all like my father, but his vulnerability definitely woke up those memories. My brain had been so conditioned to do this kind of things that I had absolutely no problem doing what needed to be done. But this experience did trigger intense anxiety afterwards.

 The reason I want to share this story is because I had never truly understood what triggers were, until I experienced them. I knew its definition and was able to sympathize with the idea of people having triggers from trauma. But I was never able to truly understand what they were like until I went through them myself. Many things still take me back to those days, sometimes it just brings memories, and sometimes it triggers anxiety. 

During the last years we have become so apathetic to the word ‘trigger’ due to all the fruitless arguments, memes, opinion pieces, jokes about trigger warnings, social justice warriors and so on. I don’t give a damn about that, as it doesn’t take us anywhere. But I do think people should know that triggers are not some mystical double-headed ethnic unicorn invented by some attention-seeking girl in San Francisco through Tumblr. Whether things like trigger warnings or SJW labels help are totally different discussions. But one should never disregard that triggers, or any other mental health phenomena, exist. Doing so only adds to the existing stigma towards mental health issues. Let’s let the mental health professionals do the heavy thinking about what exists, we help more by stopping stigma.

Cancer is cruel, but I’m not angry that it took my dad away from me. There was no way to prevent it, there was no way to cure it.

Cancer was painful to witness. We saw it’s impacts, we saw it through advanced medical imaging, but we never saw it with our eyes. I saw it took my father away, but I never had the chance to see it face to face.

Cancer does not feel, it does not hate, it does not select. Cancer is not a coward, it is not brave either. Cancer is nothing but a cellular glitch capable of destroying lives.

It’s easy to say ‘Fuck cancer’, but it doesn’t change a thing. Cancer doesn’t care, it can’t care.

 I’m just relieved that he is not suffering anymore.

This is a letter I wrote to my friends following the death of my father from cancer. It reflects some of my thoughts about what pain means to me. I’d like to hear some of your thoughts about pain, or about the random things people have said to you after you lost a loved one.

“My father´s death brought many bizarre experiences into my life, one of which has been all the things people have said to me. They ranged from simple honest condolence messages to stories of their own experiences of grieving. They included terrible advice to actually useful advice, as well as a full range of expressions of pity. I have no doubt that most, if not all, were true and honest attempts to help me out, and that they came from people´s hearts.
These messages have made me reflect about a lot of things in life. I still haven´t been able to come to conclusions on most of the things that I heard or the things that I went through. But there is one thing that I keep hearing often that occasionally angers me, but also makes me want to tell my thoughts to the world about. That thing is when people say something on the lines of ¨You went through so much, and here I was complaining about [insert some personal life issue]¨. I´ve heard it from so many people, ranging from mundane daily problems to much more serious problems.
All I want to say from this is: I am tired of you saying this! I am tired that you are not acknowledging your own life experiences! I´m tired that you keep comparing YOUR own pain with mine! OWN your own struggles, RECOGNISE them as real struggles. Pain and suffering are not something relative; pain is pain regardless of its cause or difficulty to solve! Yes, I went through a horrible and traumatizing experience and I am here again struggling to get it all together. But it does not change the fact that this week I complained about adding too much salt to my lunch, or that I am still terrified of what lies ahead with university, or that I fear rejection, or fear any of my other insecurities. They pale in comparison with what I went through, but they are still things I will struggle with in my future (ok maybe not the salt in my lunch thing)…
Stop comparing people´s pain, and start working together to solve it. It´s much better that way. I don´t need your pity, I need your support and friendship and I want to give my support and friendship too. I need to continue hearing about your lives, about what brings you happiness and what makes you struggle (regardless of how mundane it may sound to you) because if you are my friend then I want to be there and support you too. It`s OK to feel pain.”