Trauma and Lawyers’ Mental Health: September 2020

Sunday, September 13, 2020

My Approach to Mental Health Messaging: Embracing the Contradictory Multitudes

I'm relatively new to acknowledging that I have a mental health condition. I have mixed feelings about what it means. Sometimes I embrace it. Other times I feel it fails to capture what I'm experiencing. Sometimes I reject the label altogether; other times it helps to have a name (even a far from perfect one) for what I'm going through. It helps to connect me to a community of people with experiences similar to mine.

As for healing, I've embarked on the path slowly and cautiously. I've researched my condition and I've also done a lot of soul-searching before choosing what treatments to accept and reject.

Within me, there is enormous ambivalence, complexity, and nuance. I don't see this as a problem. Embracing and examining these apparently contradictory multitudes within me is part of my path towards self-knowledge and healing.

Since acknowledging myself as someone living with this experience, I've also managed to connect with others who have similar conditions. Brilliant, wonderful, amazing people I'm so proud to know.

In some ways, their experiences are very much like mine. Yet we can also have very strong opinions/feelings about what what healing should mean, what the essence of our suffering is, what kinds of treatments we should try, etc.

Just as I embrace the seemingly contradictory multitudes within me, I embrace them in my newfound community.

It's part of what it means to be human: to not have to be reduced to one dimension. To get to be seen and heard in all our shimmery glorious brilliant agonizing terrifying contradictions. To me, PTSD means one thing. To someone else, it may mean something else altogether. It may depend on the moment we happen to be in, the history we happen to have, our cultural and/or socioeconomic background, and any number of other things. Our condition is important but can't be understood separately from the ways in which it intersects with all that is unique about us.

We can find connection in the common threads we identify, but there is no solace for me in that if there isn't also room for profoundly difficult questions about which we may disagree.

Personally I've noted that the highly individual, seriously complicated way in which trauma affects me is a reflection of the nature of the experience of trauma, which is something that can shake our entire being and send shockwaves throughout our whole brains, bodies and spirits. Because it strikes at our foundations and can have wide-ranging disparate contradictory unpredictable effects, our subjective experiences of the same type of trauma(s) may share a lot of similarities but also have dramatically different manifestations and meanings. I think of it like an earthquake. It all depends on how you were situated when it struck, your pre-existing strengths and vulnerabilities, how it happened to unfold, which parts of you happened to get repaired first, as well as so many random factors that can follow. For some, the essence of an earthquake experience may be the fires it caused. For others the damage could have resulted directly from the shaking itself. For others it could be the loss of all their material possessions. And, of course, for any one person it can be all those things and so much more.

Some may find a refuge during or afterwards that may mitigate the impact, while others may be caught out in the open. Some may experience the event with others in ways that shape the experience, while others may experience it completely on their own.

And for those of us with Complex PTSD, it was not one earthquake, but numerous events that shook us in the same or differing ways, some striking just as we were trying to repair the damage from the previous one. If I had to point to one defining feature of the experience for me, it would be its complexity: the way it strikes at the core of everything and sends ripple effects throughout all aspects of my life in ways that aren't possible to understand without knowing me as an individual.

Naturally, there will be similarities but we do no one any service if we try to erase the differences.

I can't speak about other conditions: some may be more straightforward. And perhaps some people may even have a relatively straightforward presentation of PTSD that can readily be generally understood. I am not equipped to speak to others' lived experiences. But nevertheless no condition exists in the abstract: rather they all affect individuals who have their own histories, vulnerabilities and strengths.

So when it comes to mental health messaging, my approach, informed by my own experience of complexity:

1) Platitudes and generalized directions/slogans may help some but can cause actual harm to others. Just because something works for you, or even works for a lot of people, doesn't mean it will help someone else. Presenting it as a universal truth or directive can be profoundly stigmatizing and harmful for those who have a different experience. Sometimes the reason people have a different experience is because they come from a very different background than the majority around them. If we want to create inclusive messaging, our messaging should come from a place of humility. Even when it seems like something so obvious and basic, please consider that it may not be so simple for many whose experiences have not been like yours. Just to speak from my own experiences, being directed that people who love themselves are better in x, y.z ways is profoundly harmful to me, since my ability to love myself has been problematized and damaged (perhaps permanently, perhaps not) by my experiences of trauma. Such slogans and mantras send a message that I am less worthy as I am, which only compounds the harm I've already experienced. And being directed in a catchy overly-simplistic slogan to embrace self-compassion as if it were an easy thing to do is similarly harmful because my experience of my condition has made that road very dangerous to me (I might attempt it but only with careful planning and guidance) and it's possible I will never be able to travel it. Cutesy slogans about how you have to love yourself before you can care for others are damaging, not to mention questionable in their accuracy, both morally and factually (as I explored here). There may be a place to have nuanced philosophical conversations about who is "right" about such questions, but platitudes/slogans/directives that ignore the underlying complexity aren't the way to do it.

2) That is not to say I don't think it's helpful for us to share our experiences and wisdom so we can learn from others what has helped them and choose whether to try it ourselves. but we can do this in a way that allows for differing perspectives and experiences. Instead of saying, "Do X," we can say "X has helped me," or even "Many people have found X helpful, so you may wish to try it and see if it works for you." Or "I used to feel X, but I found that when I opened my mind to Y, it was very healing to me, and here is how I did it. I'm sharing it because perhaps it may help others too." Sharing of experiences and individualized wisdom is far more helpful (in my view) than sharing of platitudes, directives, and slogans. Unlike directives and slogans, sharing of personal experiences takes away the potential blaming and stigmatizing. It is simply an offering to others: here is what has helped me. Perhaps it could help you too. It doesn't deprive the recipient of whatever wisdom it may contain, but it leaves open the possibility of different experiences so as not to exclude or erase those who may have a different perspective, perhaps for very valid reasons. It allows us to find areas of connection while also leaving room for us to be who we are and heal in our own ways.

3) So my ideal mental health messaging is anything that cultivates (or at least doesn't undermine) a zone in which we can listen and share, without judgment or preconceived ideas about the "correct" answers and approaches. Where we can be individuals and also find connection amidst the nuance and complexity. Where we can note trends and apply what we have learned from them without closing our minds to the fact that some among us may have very different experiences. I try my best whenever I make an outwardly directed mental health utterance to ask myself: am I promoting or undermining this aim? It won't be perfect (especially when tweeting with limited brain cells and limited word counts) but I strongly believe that the value of such a space is far more important than any possible message or directive. So much harm could easily be corrected simply by rephrasing in a more open and humble way. This applies both to mental health professionals (who often see themselves as imparting the fruits of what they know based on their studies and what clients have told them) and to those who speak from lived experience (who have hugely valuable information to share but sometimes can lapse into speaking as if the approach that helped them heal is true and necessary for everyone).

4) Finally a point about language. I think we should aim to eliminate egregiously stigmatizing, historically demeaning and harmful language, but in my view the ultimate goal shouldn't be to find the least stigmatizing language: it should be to create a culture in which mental health variations are understood with such empathy and nuance that we don't have to fear that a failure to use the "correct" term will cause harm. I feel like it's a privilege to exist with an identity that allows for a feeling of safety in being able to withstand numerous diverging seemingly contradictory ways of describing oneself. We don't worry so much about the correct ways of describing what it's like to not have a mental health condition. People who are free of such a condition are permitted to describe themselves in all kinds of ways without having to consult their "community" first. Rather than find the best, least stigmatizing language for a mental health condition, we need to get at the root of why we feel this is necessary in the first place. We need to remove the attitudes that create ugly language in the first place and force us to constrain our "acceptable" language within narrowly policed boundaries. Speaking only for myself, it's exhausting to navigate and is a harm in itself to be sent the message that there is only one right way to feel about and describe my condition. The inability to allow for differences and contradictions within a shared identity without undermining the worth of those who share it is in itself a major harm we need to address. It shows how fragile the "non-stigmatizing"window is if it can survive only highly specific ways of viewing and describing a condition. For instance, some will say we shouldn't describe ourselves as "suffering" from a disability, but for me suffering is an absolutely essential aspect of my condition. I suffered trauma and I suffer its after-effects every day. It doesn't mean I'm not strong and I haven't "survived" but someone can't understand the way I experience my condition if they don't grasp the incredible suffering it involves and the barriers that suffering creates. So why can't we have both? Why are we limited to one way of identifying and speaking about ourselves? Why are we all forced into the same boat rather than being allowed to remain on and describe our own while still remaining in community with others? Is it because we have to collectively shrink ourselves in social space and speak (as well as be spoken about) in one voice despite the variety and complexity in our experiences? In my view, that's the harm we need to address: not the language, but the constraints placed on us when we ask the question of what language we must use and avoid to "fit" within our community and not "stigmatize" it.

As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way. For more information about the purpose of this blog, please see here and for a bit more information about my personal perspective on this issue, please see "my story" here

I am very grateful to have received a "Clawbie" Award for this blog (which reflects the importance of this topic): https://www.clawbies.ca/2019-clawbies-canadian-law-blog-awards/

For some of my external writing on this topic, see:

Saturday, September 5, 2020

First Generation Law Student/Lawyer

When I started law school nearly twenty years ago, I had a different background than most of my classmates. Unlike many of them (as far as I could tell), I was a first-generation law student who knew what it was like to experience poverty, trauma* and chaos from an early age.

When I was born, my father was a 22-year-old truck driver and my 20-year-old mother remained at home. When I was five, they separated, and my mom moved me and my younger brothers to a small village in another province. While we had never been wealthy when our parents were together, from that point on we spent our early childhood years surrounded by poverty and dysfunction. When I was seven, my mother disclosed abuse that she had experienced as a child, which triggered a series of chaotic events resulting in a month-long hospitalization for her and years of unstable living situations for us. For the next several years, we bounced back and forth between our parents and other relatives, at the mercy of their ever-changing, precarious and unstable living situations and lifestyle-challenges. Throughout our childhood, our mother relied on social assistance, while our father, when he was employed, worked as a drywaller. We subsequently had a stepmother who initially was a waitress in a bar and years later earned income by offering childcare to a few children at a time in our home.

As a result of my upbringing, I not only lacked an understanding of what it was like to grow up with wealth and powerful social connections, I also knew what it was like to fear that my basic needs might not be met. I had even experienced what it was like not to have a stable and reliable place to live. While we usually had some kind of home, there were a couple occasions when we were functionally homeless, living in a tent with our mother in unhealthy communal living situations on the island to which she had moved.

Despite the instability and poverty of my childhood, one thing I almost always excelled at was school. When I finished high school, I won the award for the top academic average in my graduating class. As I progressed through university, I never felt like I didn’t belong academically. When I attended law school, however, in a program that was known for its diversity and inclusion efforts, I encountered an astonishing culture of privilege and entitlement. In itself, that wasn’t entirely new to me. Most of my classmates from grade school to graduate school had seemed to come from more stable and socioeconomically privileged backgrounds than I had. But for the first time in law school, I lost my naivete about how much of a difference my lack of connections would make in my ability to advance in my chosen profession.

Even worse for me, there seemed to be an assumption in law school that we all came from similar backgrounds or else we couldn’t have made it there (see my previous post on this topic here). The apparent belief that people with my background (or other backgrounds that didn’t “fit” the prevailing image of a future lawyer) were inherently different from the people in the classroom and profession pervaded our discussions of legal topics. As someone with a history of childhood poverty and personal trauma (as a child and young adult), I was not prepared for how I would feel hearing those issues discussed as if they happened to an entirely “other” class of people. Not only were there obstacles in the way of people like me making it as far as law school, we were erased from view once we got there. To fit in, it seemed, we had to adopt the shared voice of the classroom (and thereafter the profession) by speaking of the problems of the marginalized as something alien, rather than something we may have experienced ourselves and about which we may have valuable personal insight.

In addition to my general sense of not fitting in, I was also struggling with active (but then undiagnosed) PTSD at the time from events in my past. Any advice I provide should be taken with the caveat that my law school experience was shaped by my personal history, my state of health, my unique strengths, skills, limits and coping mechanisms, and the fact that it happened nearly two decades ago. With that caveat in mind, here’s my advice about how to survive as a law student and member of this profession if you too feel a lack of fit. First, if it feels safe and comfortable to do so, acknowledge your feelings. They are valid. There is a very good chance that it’s not you that’s the problem--it’s the law school environment and/or the legal profession. Unfortunately, the profession and the system that feeds it are not as inclusive as they should be. Second, if there are ways to safely and comfortably find support, then consider doing so. You may wish to explore your university’s counselling services (however, some of these offerings may suffer from the same failings as the system itself, so if they’re not a fit for you, it’s okay to steer clear after weighing the option, as I did). Perhaps you could get to know some of the other students who may also be feeling a lack of fit, for similar or other reasons as you are. Maybe you can support and advocate for each other and create a sense of community. Or perhaps the best way to feel a sense of belonging may be to find and connect with a community outside the law school environment in which you feel more at home. I did this by volunteering at a local animal shelter (which sometimes involved last-minute studying for law school exams from inside the dog enclosures).

But if all else fails, as it sometimes does in flawed environments no matter how hard we try to do things as we “should,” then my advice is don’t feel bad about doing whatever works for you to get through it as strategically as you can. For me, that meant skipping almost all my classes and spending time with the dogs and cats at the shelter, where I could find a sense of purpose, belonging, meaning and solace that law school failed to offer me. It entailed accepting that my grades would not be excellent but just “good enough” to get me through. I decided early on that I did not care to strive to be near the top of my class. I just needed to get through it and move on. The markers of excellence that everyone embraced in an environment that did not seem to include me lost their allure for me. I could prove my worth later if I decided to become part of the profession.

Law school simply became an obstacle for me to get through and I ultimately accepted that was all it could be for me. As I’ve joked many times since, I had an “allergic reaction” to law school which shaped my perspective on it. By approaching it that way, I lost out on the ability to feel like I belonged there. But I was able to keep my sense of who I was, which felt more important to me. That said, there are likely better ways of doing so, and I’m not suggesting that anyone needs to surrender their aspiration to excel and belong. I think it will be possible to find that sense of belonging and rise to the top for many first-generation lawyers, including those who feel a profound sense of not fitting in as I did. I also think it’s entirely possible for people to fit in while unapologetically refusing to be anything but themselves. It just didn’t work that way for me, and I chose to be okay with that.

Instead of offering advice on how to excel, I’m suggesting that even if it doesn’t work out perfectly, or you don’t feel safe or comfortable trying to fit within the existing culture, or you struggle to fit but worry you are failing, that’s okay too. Law school isn’t your career. You can struggle in law school and find a sense of belonging in the profession later. You can become an amazing lawyer (if that’s still what you want) even if you worry that you don’t belong in law school or in the profession at first.

So rather than give any particular advice about how to survive and thrive, I will simply suggest that you give yourself permission to do whatever works for you. As for whether you belong here and deserve to be a lawyer, my view is that the very things that may make you fear that you don’t belong are likely all the more reason that this profession needs you. You are what we’ve been missing. And I’m so glad you are here.

*Note, I have not included any recounting of the trauma I was exposed to and experienced, since I have so far opted not to share those details of my life.