I was sitting in my room earlier this week and one of my “homeboys” called down to me and asked me to come to his room to talk for a minute. When I got in there… I immediately could sense that something wasn’t right so I asked him what was going on. He proceeded to tell me that he just got an email from his Dad saying that his younger brother (2 years younger than him) had been in a bad car accident the week prior… he is in stable condition in the hospital but he broke multiple ribs, his hip, his arm, has some lower spine injury and a very bad concussion. Interestingly (to me)…his first thought that he had was… “why the hell am I just finding out about this now?! It happened last week! Why did you wait so long to tell me?”… I asked him if he called his Dad or his family since he received the email and he said… “no”. I pressed this a bit and asked why he hadn’t reached out… especially because he was so upset that they didn’t tell him for a week and he told me that he “just couldn’t take hearing any more bad news”.
While this defense mechanism is completely understandable and something that I believe we do in our real lives as well as in here… I have noticed that this notion of having the mentality of “out of sight… out of mind” is extremely common with guys inside these walls. I went on to tell him that I thought he should definitely reach out and that I understand his aversion to hearing what could potentially be stressful and upsetting news but his brother needs to know that he is thinking about him… that he supports and loves him and will continue to reach out to check in as much as possible. His response to this really was eye opening… he said… “Why? What is the point? I can’t do anything to help him… I can’t do anything from in here so why even reach out and stress myself out more hearing upsetting details when I can’t do anything about it?” I could see that this was going to be a delicate balance of telling him what I actually thought and making sure that I didn’t upset him further…
The conversation continued but this tactic of hiding from our problems… from attempting to shield ourselves from hearing bad news has been with me throughout the week. I have such clear memories (that even in this moment elicit physical reactions when I think about my past behavior) of me CONSTANTLY avoiding phone calls… avoiding going places that I may see people that I didn’t want to talk to… avoid opening mail… avoid checking emails… all to “shield” myself from getting bad news because if you don’t hear it and you aren’t confronted with it… it isn’t real… right?? WRONG. What I have learned over the past year+… and will continue to learn… is that the only way to work through our problems… our pain… our heartbreak… our disappoint… our fears and anxieties… is to face them and deal with them. Avoidance only exacerbates our stress and anxiety… in some cases… causes us even more anxiety than the actual issue itself. But this steadfast determination to face our demons… our potential heartaches… is much easier said than done. It takes constant effort and internal strength to hold ourselves accountable and force ourselves to show up when the easy thing to do (for the time being at least) would be the hide and shield ourselves from the pain.
This lesson is especially hard when you are in a situation where the stress is coming from some external circumstance (such as a hurt or ill loved one) and you are incapable of “doing anything” because you are in prison… or don’t live near by and lack the resources to travel or there is simply nothing that can be done for the person. Feeling helpless causes us to feel hopeless… and when we lack hope… we lack drive and the internal resolve to pick ourselves up and move forward… to move through the problem as opposed to avoiding it. But this inability to help in a tangible way cannot be an excuse that we use to not try to do anything that we can actually do… independent of our circumstances. In here… no… we can’t leave and rush to the hospital to be with our hurt loved one. But – we can call… we can write… we can check in and let our person know that we would do anything to be able to physically be there and make sure that they know… with absolute certainty… that we are thinking about them… that we care about and love them and will continue to reach out as much as we can. At the end of the day… I believe the old saying holds extremely true… “It is the thought that counts”.
I hope my homeboy reaches out to his brother and family… I believe that he will. And I hope we can try to remember that avoiding a problem for today… only makes it worse tomorrow.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Face the demons… your tomorrow will thank you 😉