GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS.

Some of us have never had to struggle or have known hunger or want. Some of us have never had to wait online or have applied patience as a virtue. Or some have never known to ration or have done without.

As a child, I never went hungry. I never went without. I had everything that a child could want. There were always presents under the Christmas tree and on my birthday. But life is about more than material objects. It is about the power of connection and creativity. That is where I did not receive what I needed.

Like many people my age, my father worked shift work at the plant and I rarely saw him. When I did, I feared him. My mother was there but not. She was challenged with taking care of my youngest brother who is special needs to due a fever she had while he was in utero. I think to this day she blames herself for something that was beyond her control. I was there the day she received the letter from the state with the test results that labeled him “retarded”. An ancient term that until this day still brings a lot of baggage and misinterpretation.

I knew I was loved. I would lose myself in my room, in my head, In make-believe, and my imagination. I had to or I would find myself alone in the gulf between want I needed and what I received.

I knew I was a little different. I knew something was not right. There was certain darkness that I felt deep within that I could not explain or voice. When I asked my father if I could talk to someone – he told me that I had himself and my mother to talk to. The problem was that they did not comprehend or understand the range and depth of my despair. I felt alone and isolated within my room, home and within myself.

In my mid-thirties as is so often the case, I was finally diagnosed as being Bipolar I / depressive. Made a world of sense when I finally understood what was going on within my mind, heart, soul, and spirit. The flights of fancy and plunges into the deep darkness that is depression.

Before I was diagnosed, I would volunteer at the Psyche ward at a University Hospital. I would go there and play guitar and sing to the patients and bring a little light and laughter into their lives. I felt a little uncomfortable when I entered the ward and they locked the doors behind me. One day I was able to visit the low functioning ward where the patients were all but catatonic as they listened to me. When I began to play some older music – specifically – “Sitting on the dock of the bay” by Otis Redding, to my surprise, they came alive. Some stood up and swayed to the music others joined along and clapped and all were for a brief moment completely present there with me in unity and feeling.

Moments later a nurse came in to tell me that my time was up, and it was time for the patients to receive their medicine. Medicine? Music for that moment was their medicine. My connection there was the Art therapist. She had me come several times before I would need to be treated.

I was living with a friend when it became blatantly obvious that I was a danger to myself and in hell. One that I alone could not find my way out of. My choices were to commit myself to a nearby hospital or do a walk-in day program at another hospital, but there was a waiting list. I had to move out where I was staying so my choices were limited. I feared being locked away behind steel doors with no real idea of what I was up against. I did not know what to do. So, I called my parents who recently moved away to see if I could come to stay with them. I made the call and explained everything to them. They told me to come there. They said – “just get here”. I pulled into their driveway with a car that was not legal on fumes exhausted myself and slept for two months before getting help and beginning my path to wellness.

I learned from that day at the hospital with those beautiful souls that if you extend yourself beyond your reckoning and give yourself over to others and the moment that healing is possible, probable and irreversible if you just give and give some more to it hurts then give some more. Then and only then will you know the true strength of character within you and know what you and they are capable of.

JEFF TURNBULL