I'm supposed to be at a lunch meeting with a tenant but since he didn't show I'll take care of this instead...
This morning I met with one of our tenants in Uturn (transitional housing for homeless young adults) for coffee. I walked over to her apartment, knocked on the door and waited. I could hear music on the other side of the door and knocked louder which prompted the shuffling of feet. The door opened and "Amber" stood in front of me awash in tears. She immediately spun on one heel and walked toward her soft, pink rocking chair. As we sat down she began describing a morning dominated by an endless barrage of voices with invisible sources. Amber suffers from psychosis and despite all the different anti-hallucinogenic drugs her doctors have tried over the years the auditory, visual and olfactory (smell) hallucinations continue. This morning was particularly bad. We sat and chatted and I tried to be empathetic, encouraging and soothing. She talked about "them", the characters that she hears and sees and occasionally can smell, what they say to her and the conspiracy they have against her. I listen as best I can and try to be as present as possible with her. My mind wanders at times to try to understand what my role is, how can I be a catalyst to something different right now but I find myself grabbing at unseen straws. There is no miracle here this morning, no "AH HAH" moment that re-wires Amber's traumatized brain and allows the apparitions to fall silent and "reality" to become something much more clear. Unfortunately the one (or handful) of things that stops the voices for a while is alcohol and prescription drugs which has led to a significant dependence on these substances. This isn't unusual for sufferers of mental illness and Amber slips often and self-medicates in order to press "pause" on the nightmare that is the majority of her days.
Amber is one of my favourite people. She is funny, smart and extremely creative. She paints, writes poems and songs and she is the source of one of my favourite Uturn stories. I'll save that for another time but there's a part of it where Amber jumps out of a second story window and lives to tell the tale. Part of what peeked my interest in meeting with Amber this morning is that I am singing the song inspired by her and the second story leap in my church on Sunday (spoiler alert) so her story and life have been more on the front of my mind this week than usual.
I get overwhelmed at times when I think about Amber's future and others like her. Truth be told I've been overwhelmed by a whole bunch of things lately but something that has brought some brief relief is being aware that a lot of me feeling overwhelmed isn't about the right now, it's ruminating about unknown future events. So as I consider my sense of frustration at God ("don't you think this would be a dandy time to step in?"), medical solutions, upset neuropaths and neurochemistry gone awry, I recognize that my role is to be present in the moments that seem overwhelming and terrifying for Amber. To offer suggestions and tools when she feels more stable and consistently let her know she is loved, cared for and cherished. I can't take away the alternate reality that Amber experiences but I can work hard at bringing those elements into her reality. Looking beyond that and it becomes difficult to hold the course...
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