SNWJ: The Beautiful Mess Series: These Shoes Were Made For Walking

These Shoes Were Made For Walking

John Paul Derryberry

The Beautiful Mess Series: Not everyone beats cancer, but we rightfully celebrate the fact that everyone fights the diagnosis. Not everyone wins their battle with mental health, but we only praise the people who overcome.  This series examines why we need to change this view of mental health. 

Remember we are using the pronoun “They” in these blogs to avoid revealing details about the people I’m writing about. 

The Introduction blog http://jpderryberry.com/blog/mess
Story 1: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/themariojumper
Story 2: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/the-escape-artist
Story 3: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/theoldtownbully
Story 4: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/neverbeenkissed
Story 5: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/ithreup
Story 6: http://jpderryberry.com/blog/dontknowme

These Shoes Are Made For Walking 

We spent six stories on the people suffering from mental health, how it's a beautiful process, and how they create moments of growth for those around them. Now we switch our focus to the dedicated staff who engage in this beautiful mess, who sometimes come home with bruises, bite marks, in tears, and emotionally exhausted. There is a reason why we do it. It is because most staff members understand that this field is about navigating the messy parts of people's lives and helping them see that they belong, deserve our love, and can create a better community. 

(The staff in this story gave me permission to use identifying features and will be identified as staff or their preferred pronoun. The individuals in the story will remain unidentifiable.)

The individual was angry, spitting at staff, and threatening aggression. The staff, who was newer to the field of dual diagnoses, asked what they should do. I replied: "nothing yet. They are working through their mental health issues; they haven't hit anyone again." Then the individual yelled, "I want to go home."  My co-worker stated, we can't go home. I stepped in and said, "correction, we cannot take you home until 2:00 p.m. when your programming is over. This doesn't mean all your options to go home are off the table." The individual screamed, "that's bullshit! You should be able to take me home!"  They stopped stomping around, sat down, and pondered their next move. 

The staff asked me what I was doing. I smiled and said, "getting them thinking about how to get out of this situation without using violence." She asked, "What happens if they decide to walk home and it's four miles away?" I replied through a smile, "It's a good thing you wore tennis shoes today, because I wore dress shoes and my feet are going to be killing me after a four-mile walk." 

Just then, the individual popped out of their seat and said, "I'm not going to hit people today, but I'm getting out of here." They stormed out the door and started walking home. The staff and I followed and asked them what they were doing. They replied, "I'm walking home." We reminded them that it was a four-mile walk home. They stated that they didn't care. 

We were off, and the staff was nervous about this change of events. They kept giving me the side-eye and the gaze of untrust. With each step clicking down the distance to cover the four-mile trip home, our individual calmed down.  They started talking with us and talked about how they walked home because they liked us enough to not hit us anymore. They talked about how that was a new feeling, because it had been years since they liked someone enough to stop themselves from violent acts. The staff no longer was giving me dirty looks for a hike today.  We made it. We covered the whole four miles. The individual was asleep within five minutes of walking into their house. We called for our ride back to the office. 

The staff replied as we climbed into the car, "That was cool. It was like they were working out their emotional health in real time." I shook my head yes.  She stated, "Man was it messy. They threatened violence, spit, screamed, and then ran home." I smiled, and offered a single, "yep." She stated, "but it was cool to be a part of someone's mess and see it through, to watch you let them solve it for themselves and just be there to help. Did you know it was going to go so well?"

"No clue, that's not our job, Our job is to make sure they have a safe enough environment to figure out their own stuff. Walking home when mad is safe but you're correct, every time I get to be a part one of these, I think it's so cool."

She asked how my feet were. I replied, "it was a good hurt."
She took a deep breath and said, "It was almost beautiful to see." I nodded in agreement.