Globally Grateful

I work with crazy people, all the time.  Not crazy as in zany or plain stupid - the real motherfucking crazy people - like dual diagnosis challenging behavior types with intellectual disabilities and psychosis.  Rainbow tic tac boxes full of medication tablets and inch thick behavior plans and one on one monitoring and - you get the picture.  It can be, as the name suggests, fucking challenging.  Like about three hours ago.

The Waiting Game

Right now he is lying asleep, dozing fitfully with the obligatory snail's sliver of silver dribble on the corner of his mouth.  And I am cowed over the laptop, typing this in the darkened kitchen.  Last night just getting him to sleep was a test of my patience, my thresholds, my mindfulness.  He has demolished rooms and furniture with his strong arms and, even though he is deaf, blind and unable to speak, he can communicate in his own overt way how he is feeling.

And the consensus is he is terrified.  Living with a catalog of diagnoses, feeling a parade of fumbling support workers and staff each try their particular style of care, and all the while being effectively de-sensitised to it through his crippling disabilities.  His receptive senses are restricted to his soft fingers, and his feel of vibrations and surfaces.

So it is hardly surprising he gets frustrated and struggles to have his needs met.  And as a young man he has a volatile temper and the vigour and strength to communicate it in his own special way.  So last night (or three hours ago) from 1230am until 0345am, I was there, next to him, living his private, special needs hell.  And it is a real test of character and endurance to sit with him whilst he 'settles' into his drug induced sleep.

If we learn to open our hearts,
anyone, including the people who drive us crazy,
can be our teacher.
Pema Chodron

Not sure what I have learned tonight.  But I am sure I have seen just how all consuming and intense and overwhelming our minds can be, and how learning to settle the noise in our heads is half the challenge of this life.  No matter how often I see it, there is always a moment of mindfulness, a moment of reflection when the window is open for us to be grateful for some very simple things.  Like not living with an intellectual disability.

Maybe I did learn to appreciate and be globally grateful my daughters are healthy, strong willed, inquisitive little monkeys and that I feel immense gratitude for their simple health and, dare I say it, normality.