The End of Empathy.

Just read The End of Empathy by Stephanie Wittels. It actually took me a minute to realise she's Harris Wittels' sister. It took the mentioning of an entertainment rag announcing his death for me to make the link.

Her piece talks about the seemingly impossible existence of empathy on the internet, especially in comment sections.

She's right. I'll often write something relatively benign on the Atlantic's comment feed and get a bunch of "Millennials are the fucking worst" and non-related rants about Muslims or Feminism. It's just, the worst.

Usually, I'll try and stay away from comment sections, but the masochist in me sometimes just can't resist.

I try and offset that type of rage or ignorance through simple, kind reactions. It usually works.

This one time I also just replied:

It was an honest reaction, and my sensitive, empathetic nature was worried about his blood pressure / rage haemorrhoids.

I don't think empathy is dead, but I do think emotional intelligence is a spectrum, and that crap people love being crappy on the internet, where they can rage-out and be ridiculous with impunity, and without getting confronted/called out or punched in the face.

I actually find empathy a great tool in confronting outlandish reactions. Especially in confronting anger/shittyness.

"Are you alright, you seem really angry."

And when people need to answer with how they feel, or why they feel that way, they change their angle.

Then again what do I know. I'm a liberal man-hating queerbones baby butthole - or whatever.

Illustrations of self-care.

Illustrations by Kristin Matte.

Available as a greeting card / print over on the Paper Kindness Etsy shop. 

What I Wish People Knew about Depression.

Really great piece over at Psych Central about the unknowns and untruths about depression.

Written by Therese J. Borchard, who nailed it.

Some of my favourite bits: 

I wish people knew that depression wasn’t something that can be cured by participating in a 21-day meditation series with Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle on Oprah.com, and that although mindfulness efforts can certainly help, it’s possible to have consistent, chronic death thoughts even after years of developing a meditation practice.
I wish people knew you could be grateful and depressed at the same time, that gratitude can coexist with a mood disorder. 

I wish people knew that, despite impressive research on neuroplasticity and our brain’s capability of changing, it is unfair to expect a person to undo depression by merely thinking happy thoughts, that the science is new and while a person can be mindful of forming new neural passageways, he can’t change a lamp into an elephant overnight, just as he can’t unthink a tumor from happening.

... 

I wish people knew that the hardest thing some persons will ever do in this lifetime is to stay alive, that just because staying alive comes easily to some, it doesn’t mean arriving at a natural death is any less of a triumph for those who have to work so very hard to keep breathing.

Really voices how I feel, that no matter the research, the knowledge and the understanding I gain, I still struggle daily. All the explanations in the world don's actually change the way I hurt. 

Great read.

Originally posted here.

Brené Brown on Empathy.

Mental illness while Black.

The Intercept has a piece up about the unnecessary shooting of a young black man suffering from some type of psychotic break. Elwood White was 22, and while visiting a family friend began putting rocks in his pockets and acting out violently while yelling "Help me!" and "It wasn't me!" He punched his friend, then ran towards a busy intersection where he ransacked a shop and then threw a cinder block through the window of a truck. 

The descriptions of that day, from bystanders and police officers involved, paint a pretty clear picture of someone in crisis, who would most likely still be alive if they had been a white woman. 

In the absence of good data, we’re left with what research tells us about policing and race and policing and mental illness. Experts say no research exists that examines the overlay of race and mental illness in confrontations with law enforcement.

A lot of the stories I'm hearing about someone suffering from a mental illness being shot by police show how little training cops are getting. They rarely walk into the situation as a crisis situation. A defensive/hostile position is the default approach. Of the stories I've seen, all those who died were either Black or Native. 

As described by the article:

This means that a 22-year-old black male who’s throwing rocks at cars, ransacking a minimart and wielding a broken broom handle will likely be perceived as more dangerous than a 45-year-old white woman engaging in the same behavior, said Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and former police officer who studies law enforcement training and tactics, “not because of conscious racism, but because of the implicit biases that shape [police] perceptions of that call or that encounter. At an unconscious level, that officer’s brain may be telling his mind, It’s unusual for a 45-year-old white woman to be engaging in this behavior, so unusual that this is probably a symptom of mental illness. At the same time, the officer’s brain may be telling his mind, at an unconscious level,This seems like violent crime that young black adults have committed in the past that I, as an officer, am familiar with, so it’s probably that.”

So why isn't there more training regarding mental illness? 

What goes along with the training for 5150's?

Surely, interaction with the mentally ill is a part of the daily life of police officers, there is a disproportionate amount of mentally ill folk living on the streets. 

Research shows that the less experience an officer has in dealing with someone who’s mentally ill, the more likely the officer is to view that person as a threat. Training in this area tends to be minimal, with most officers getting no more than eight hours of academy training, according to a recent survey conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum.

Elwood White was only 22.  According to his family he made a comment to his father about hearing voices only weeks earlier. It's possible he was in the midst of some type of schizophrenic break. As soon as officers approached him, and heard him (literally) cry for help, alarm bells should have rung. 

The court case that followed White's death clarified the wrong-doing of the officers involved. But policies have not changed. 

It's just another example of a system with little to no understanding of those suffering from a mental illness, coupled with a systems clear prejudice towards black males. 

You understand.

That's what this blog is about BTW. 

Source seems to be hanna's butt! Ha!

I'm a Highly Sensitive Person.

My initial reaction to opening the Salon article What your levels of sensitivity say about you by Scott Barry Kaufman, was that it made me laugh, because, naturally, the banner image is Claire Danes crying.

The article starts with a quote by Pearl S. Buck. It irritates me that she uses the male pronouns here, especially since she’s the creative person she’s referencing, but I guess it’s a sign of the times.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, and create— so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

This rung true in me, since I'm sensitive to a lot of things. Crowds, noise - I'm easily over-stimulated, especially when I'm tired. It’s not unusual for me to get home some days and need to sit quietly and decompress. That might sound like meditation, but it isn't It just me sitting down and attempting to allow my brain to release some of the stimulation it’s still processing. I almost shut-down. There are definitely ways in which creative output help me feel productive with my sensitivity. It’s difficult, and rare, to feel sensitivity benefits me. I know it benefits friends and those around me, in certain situations (situations where I can provide support) but for me, it’s as if I'm carrying something fragile at all times.

The article discusses how different types of sensitivity are measured in people, and how being sensitive can affect you:

On the one hand, this research confirms that ease of excitation and low sensory threshold are related to negative life outcomes. This is consistent with prior research that has found that these forms of sensitivity are linked to lower levels of meaningfulness and self-efficacy, and are positively related to anxiety, depression,poor social skills, poor attention details and difficulty describing and identifying feelings, avoidant personality disorder, social phobia, and agoraphobia.

On the other hand, this research suggests that sensitivity need not be negative. As the researchers note, “for some sensitive people, sensitivity does not necessarily have to be debilitating. Rather, it could enhance their complex inner lives, and possibly lead to higher subjective well-being.” Prior research has found that aesthetic sensitivity is related to a variety of beneficial outcomes, including greater attention to detail and communication skills, and higher levels of affilitativeness and openness to experience.

The author goes on to mention an Elaine Aron book The Highly Sensitive Person:

...highly sensitive people may thrive in a more peaceful environment. In such solitude, these individuals may be better able to take advantage of their sensitivities. Indeed, many famous artists, musicians, humanitarians and scientists were exquisitely sensitive to their environments, and used their experiences as grist for the mill of their extraordinary creativity and compassion. Sensitivity is not only associated with creativity, but also with spirituality, mystical experiences, and a connection to nature.

The article is pretty thin, but I appreciate the research dealing with sensitivity. Yes, there are many kinds of sensitivity, and different kinds, coupled with the difference of individuality creates a myriad of experiences with sensitivity.

This article doesn't touch the socio-cultural readings of sensitivity, but by experience it isn't something appreciated in working spaces, the corporate world, capitalism or in structures of power. 

When the brain is tired.

Just finished Alan Watt’s The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. Though the book veers towards the religious in it’s last third, the first two-thirds have some excellent insight into psychological security and how our need for it exacerbates our anxiety and depression.

I found this passage beautiful and helpful in describing the way some court suicide. For someone who is healthy and strong, it might not make much sense, this can help in trying to understand:

For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole organism welcomes death. But it is difficult to understands how death can be welcome when you are young and strong, so that you come to regard it as a dreaded and terrible event. For the brain, in its immaterial way, looks into the future and conceives it a good to go on and on and on forever - not realizing that its own material would at last find the process intolerably tiresome. Not taking this into account, the brain fails to see that, being itself material and subject to change, its desires will change, and a time will come when death will be good. On a bright morning after a good night’s rest, you do not want to go to sleep. But after a hard day’s work the sensation of dropping into unconsciousness is extraordinarily pleasant. (67)

That last two sentences really hit the nail on the head for me. There are some days that feel like I’m pulling myself through such drudgery. Breathing hurts. My cells are itching with something unbearable and microcosmic. On days like this I am so sensitive from exhaustion that dropping into the unconscious sounds like heaven. The unconscious here sounds like escaping your life. It rings of release and quiet. It's a siren call promising serenity and nothingness. 

Nothingness might sounds terrible to you. But when the alternative to nothingness is the unbearable weight of depression and/or the torment of the constant agitation of anxiety believe me when I say it sounds divine. It sounds like a beautiful spring day after a long, hard winter.