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0 By Elsie Ramsey
Last week, I met up with a mentor of mine in New York. He watched me get torn limb from limb at my first post-college job and has been a sort of protector and promoter of mine ever since.
It’s been years since we met face to face. We talked about all sorts of things: political affairs, housing in New York, our old colleagues and, finally, what I was up to professionally.
I Stared At Him In Shock
After that first debacle, he was my reference for two subsequent jobs. Neither job was a perfect fit; I left both after two years because there wasn’t any room left to grow. I should say here, that bouncing around in one’s early professional years is more common than not, and I think it’s important to view all that in this context. But as is my default, I’ve blamed myself for making “poor choices” and saw the lack of continuity as a personal failure. Which is why I was so sensitive to something he said soon after.
I’ll paraphrase the comment, “You know I’ve tried to help you… not landing somewhere, I thought… this person is a lost soul… ”. I stared at him in shock and it must have been obvious that he’d chosen his words poorly. He quickly pivoted, saying that many people lacked imagination and chose one thing they probably didn’t like that much, got married and had kids, and that was that. Those people were probably not all that interesting he said. Again, I’m paraphrasing here.
It’s OK To Be Different
I took the opportunity to say that I’ve never been conventional, and that wasn’t something I was ashamed of. There have been times I wished I was more like others, but the fact is I’m different and I’ve had to accept the value in that. He nodded appreciatively.
I was really proud of myself for being able to say that with so much equanimity. It’s only in the last year that I’ve accepted my differences. It was one of those rare moments where I caught a glimpse of how much I’ve grown.
I’m still savoring it ten days later.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted on biggerthandepression.com
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“Lost soul” is a good phrase or expression.When one has mental health issues,how much it applies.There is the loss of heart,of motivation and orientation,direction,and a mental fog or muddle seems to take over completely.In the Sahaja Yoga “recollections” books by Linda J Williams,that writer used the words “lost soul” for one of my contributions,saying how much Sahaja Yoga meditation helped when I was suffering mentally as a young person.
Also really hitting the mark is that bit about being torn limb from limb in the first post college job.This is a vulnerable time,and you can see how it happened to me at medical school at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge on this website in the article “Enduring Schizophrenia”.Nine years later after graduating as a mature student my first job or trainee placement was simply awful,so stressful I couldn’t even go to the toilet for three days due to being so highly strung.So there was a vicious assault by coughing and so on,but I was better prepared than I had been before in the previous decade.It was a “lost decade” for me in a way,appropriate for a “lost soul”.