Monday 23 July 2018

I Demand Peace

Although evidence trumps anecdote every time, anecdote retains a personable and personal weight worthy of consideration. Evidence shows that very few people display heinous behaviour and fewer still would end up homeless, destitute, in need of the professional support I can offer in my job as a mental health nurse helping homeless people with "complex needs". I meet people every day who have done awful things and who have ended up homeless. Anecdote, on the other hand, would show that I meet people (a fraction of one per cent) who have committed the most repugnant and diabolical actions against other humans- sexual violence, sadism, murdering children and so on.
At times I feel swamped by violence, about which I have no control. I spend many working hours looking at the pragmatics, addressing specific needs for clients of the service such as putting formal mental health services in place, advocating for them at the council's housing department or creating a harm-reduction plan together for their drug addiction. But I also spend many hours trying to empathise, trying to understand their view of the world in the hope that my input will be appropriate, accurate and long-lasting. To point someone in the right direction I need to know where they have come from. I need to imaginatively place myself there to enable connection if they have come from a place of neglect and abandonment.
It is evidence that stops me being crushed. Proof and facts prevent me despairing. Despite all anecdotal experience, despite knowing a man (it's always men) who tortured his four year old daughter to death, despite knowing a man (it's always men) who stabbed his girlfriend to death so many times in the head the psychologist stated he was trying to "nihilistically dehumanise" her, despite all this I believe the default character of the average human to be based in altruism and selflessness. I have heard the worst things but I expect the best things. Evidence proves it so.
Also every day I meet other people- the victims, the survivors, those who dispute fate- who ratify the evidence, who give and share and divide their meagre winnings. Every day I meet the unprivileged 99% who love others with unexpected reciprocity, who request instead of demand, who possess deep warmth. These are the others of the evidence (of course there are blurred borders, slim shades on the Venn diagram where many people express their dark and light and shades of grey and it is a truism that we all possess these characteristics but it is also true that we mostly give or we mostly take- are we the lover or the loved?).
It would be easy for me to give up. It would be easy for me to sink into cynicism as I have seen many professionals do. The violence I am forced to learn of and its' results I am forced to witness scar me, gently but forever. I can unhear nothing I have heard. I am envious of the younger me and some of the younger people I work with who appear inured to the threat of trauma. I used to be, I thought, sensitive to the needs of others but luckily insensitive to the detrimental effects on me of their distress. But now, after Ruby, I am too sensitive to the needs of others and acutely aware of their heartache too. My defences are weak.
In the five years since Ruby died I have put a near-heroic effort into maintaining my mental ballast. For me to see the people I see at work every day, people who do the things they do, and for me to avoid persistent fluctuations in my life and in my mind I have to insist on an absolute negation of any violence or aggression outside of work. Home life is peaceful (this takes a little luck but is mainly about effort). I avoid pubs and places of conflict. I have disengaged with my previous passion for international news and current affairs (my explanation is traditionally "self-preservation" but is more specifically about avoiding stories of violence and heartlessness). Some people I know have difficulty managing their anger and I have to avoid them. Anyone I know outside of work who has lost their temper in my company, anyone who lets their frustrations and anger evolve into abuse or aggression, gets a non-negotiable cold shoulder.

I demand peace. I need not stand for an alternative and I will refuse to do so. Evidence shows that humans want to live together and in peace, parochially and globally, and so do I. I am tough, I know I am- I have survived the death of my child, so far- but I am not hard. And for me to bend without breaking I must live in peace.