sekritly a social justice radical

Last Tuesday night I was at a visioning session [and yes, I would like a less ableist term for that] for a group I've been involved with for much of this year, and I repeatedly said that social justice isn't where my passion is. And just about every time I said it, I felt a little twinge like I was lying -- because fat pol and disability pol and mental health pol ... these are all issues that have become very important to me. But they're not issues where people are going to say, "Yes, I'm totally on board with that -- or at least as a good liberal I feel like I 'should' be."

And so I frequently don't speak up and advocate for these things I care about, because I am, contrary to how I may appear, frequently a risk-averse confrontation-avoidant person. (Reasons I don't self-identify as an activist.)

So I am owning the things I care about.

I care about healthy sexuality -- and about being inclusive of various manifestations of sexuality, including the asexuality spectrum, polyamory, and kink.

I care about being inclusive of a variety of gender identities and gender expressions. (In a Christian context, I want the diversity of humanity to be represented in the ways we talk about ALL persons of the Trinity, because we are ALL created in the image of God, and we are ALL part of the Body of Christ.)

I am growing to care more about the negative effects of rape culture and cultural appropriation.

I care about disability, including chronic pain and mental illness. I care about accessibility and about resisting the culture of shame in which we live. I care about models of disability other than "you are broken, and you would be happier/better if you were 'fixed.' " I care about not using language like "lame" or "crazy" as synonymous with "deficient" or "ridiculous." (See also: "mental illness as boogeyman.")

I care about Health At Every Size -- about not treating weight numbers as indicators of health.

I care about DBT -- about not using "should" language, about recognizing that we always have choices in how we respond to situations but we can't magically wish ourselves out of those situations. (This latter piece I think has a lot of utility in justice work -- about working with what we have right now, rather than solely bemoaning that we don't live in a better world.)

I want to be aware of the multiplicity of human experiences.

And I can't help analogizing that to the radical hospitality that Christians are called to.

I care about drawing the circle wider.

As someone who has visited many churches, I care about making church as hospitable as possible -- clearly articulating our choreography, offering gluten-free Bread and non-alcoholic Cup, taking cues from people about their level of comfort with touch (Passing of the Peace!), etc.

Returning to social justice as more traditionally understood, I've been thinking recently about setting the terms of the debate -- about being proactive rather than reactive. ... And I don't have a useful conclusion to this.

on DBT

Via rydra_wong I saw the NYT piece about Marsha Linehan, developer of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), coming out as someone who suffered from what would now be diagnosed as borderline personality disorder (BPD -- the diagnosis for which DBT is particularly used).

Reading the comments on her entry, I find it so bizarre to see people registering discomfort with DBT (often couched with, "Well, I don't have BPD, so perhaps it is just that it is quite literally not intended for me") since I have become such a convert to it -- I who have never had a DSM diagnosis (save "adjustment disorder," which was basically so as to give the insurance company a reason to cover my therapy).

La bff concurs that she thinks of DBT's applicability as being for struggling with overwhelming emotion -- which can come up in many mental/emotional health contexts, including non-diagnostic ones.

Some commenters talked about discomfort with the religious inflection of some of the stuff in DBT, which I found ironic since I remember having a visceral negative reaction to learning that the workbook includes the option for your Higher Power can be another person (my visceral reaction being because humans are fallible and will ultimately disappoint you -- plus are not infallible behavior models -- though the ways in which the workbook talks about that I find more palatable than when I simply first heard the concept).

[Clarification: The commenters had experiences w/ DBT which v. understandably led to that discomfort -- I just found it really ironic on first encounter given my experience early in learning about DBT.]

A woman I know from college posted the NYT link to facebook, commenting:

Dialectical behavior therapy works for people with borderline personality disorder & other "stubborn" clients [the article's word choice]. It's also used for other disorders not mentioned. Personally, DBT introduced me to mindfulness and gave me a useful set of skills. In an un-grounded society filled with "shoulda coulda woulda," I wish more people could do some DBT. Bless Dr. Linehan for her courage & her work.

pastoral care: parishioners with mental illness

I recently read Howard W. Stone's Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling -- which I was optimistic about based on the table of contents, etc., but which failed to live up to that optimism.

From page 67:

Obviously some depression is so severe that it requires hospitalization. The vast majority of melancholics seen by ministers and other church professionals are only mildly depressed, however, and will benefit from skillful pastoral care. [...] As a rule of thumb, ministers do best to see mildly and some moderately depressed individuals, referring the more serious cases to pastoral counseling specialists or mental-health professionals. Both minister and congregation, however, still offer support and pastoral visitation to seriously depressed members who are on medications, have periodic psychotherapy, or are in and out of psychiatric hospitals throughout their lifetimes.

The author doesn't really elaborate on what this "support" would look like, and I am genuinely curious -- you who are in pastoral ministry or pursuing that vocation -- What do you do if you have a parishioner who struggles with severe depression that includes suicidal ideation and self-harm impulses? This hypothetical parishioner has a qualified psychotherapist they see weekly, is on psychiatric medication that seems to be working fairly well, and is "high-functioning" enough to hold down a steady job and present as "fine." But this person was also suicidal enough to go in-patient at a psychiatric hospital for a few days recently. As their pastor, what do you see as your role in their support system? (They have explicitly stated that one thing they need is more one-on-one time with you. How frequent do you imagine that one-on-one time to be? What do you imagine those pastoral care sessions might entail? What do you do if you have a lot of other time commitments -- e.g., a second job, a family, commitments to other justice organizations -- where do you place these pastoral care sessions in your prioritizing of your time?)

I would be hard-pressed to "define" pastoral care (though I'm developing ideas), and I am really interested in what actual pastors would say in answer to this question. (And also what parishioners might want pastors to say.)

Christian resources re: mental illness?

I've been disappointed by the books I have read thus far that offer a Christian response to mental illness. My therapist housemate's response to this is, "We should write a book together." I'm not sure how serious either of us is about that project, but I am really curious: What do you think such a book should include?

[BADD] we live in a culture of shame

Today I emailed a friend of mine (who is queer and mentally ill), Subject "~closeting," telling her about how a casual friend and I were having a conversation on Facebook Wall about making plans to get together, and she suggested next week and I thought, "I don't know when my therapy appointment next week is," and I opted to move the conversation to private message rather than continuing it on our Facebook Walls. (Yes, some of that was about a desire to streamline the conversation, but that was only part of it.)

The friend I'd emailed said: "I have been really impressed that you posted about therapy both on FB and LJ."

I was so thrown by this. I mean, I have posted barely anything about the substance of the therapy I've had (all ~10 sessions in ~4 months), so it's not like I'm revealing much at all by publicly disclosing this information.

But if anyone were to ask me about my being in therapy, my honest answer would be something along the lines of, "Well, I'm experiencing a lot of grief and transition." This isn't anything that's going to make anyone think me less employable. This isn't anything that's going to make anyone uncomfortable to be around me.

People would in fact be sympathetic. I woudn't be perceived as "broken" or "less than" or "other."

There would in fact be a sense that I don't "need" to be in therapy -- that it's sort of a luxury item, like going to a spa or something, a nice thing to do to take care of oneself.

I would be perceived as still being a healthy, whole, high-functioning person at base.

But I wouldn't be perceived as someone who "isn't really sick" and is cheating the system. (This is connected to race, class, etc. privilege that I have.)

My "luxury item" doesn't preclude me doing my job. Would people's stance change if I had a condition (mental health or otherwise) that required specialist care far away and so I had to miss a lot of work?

Possibly a better title for this post would be, "we live in a culture of perfectionism."

Last Friday, Scott and I were talking about how chronic conditions are stigmatized, whereas temporary injuries aren't. But even so, I think there's a sense (at least in white, middle-class, culture) in which even when you're only temporarily "broken" you're not supposed to ask for "too much" in the way of "special accommodations." And that's one of the ways in which dis/abism affects all of us. If resources aren't provided for "those people" and then you become one of "those people," whether temporarily or permanently (and yes, I'm thinking of physical disability now, but you can make the parallel for mental health, too), you suffer too.

There's other stuff I want to talk about, too -- particularly about the "joking," dismissive, and pejorative things people say about people with mental illness (and with physical disabilities -- especially invisible ones) -- but that's a whole nother post.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010 was this past Saturday (May 1, as it is every year), and I had some posts in mind which I never made, so this is in some ways this my post for that day (even though there is a sense in which every day should be Blogging Against Disablism Day).