CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

Somebody once told me that ‘the hole in your heart is the place where memories reside’ and I have always considered that to be a thought worth nurturing.
I was talking with my friend Jane the other day. We were driving Jane’s truck along a darkened northern road with two other friends, Emily and Janie, enjoying the starlight and evening snow when Jane asked “Do you think we ever really heal?”
Taking a drive at night can be a calming experience, almost as if it was designed as a joint venture by nature and man to hypnotically stimulate deep reflection . . . and that is what we had all been doing for the past few miles. The car had been silent; each of us lost somewhere in our own thoughts or experiencing, drifting out through the window and back in to the car. Just being there. Enjoying and reflecting. Moving smoothly through the night seemingly without care or worry.
We all work with young people and their families. We had spent the day in meetings about how we were doing and how we ‘should’ be doing in our work so it wasn’t at all surprising that the question of healing should be lingering somewhere in the back of our minds. But still, Jane’s question seemed to call out of the night from her still place behind the steering wheel.
I surprised myself a little with my own response. “I hope not,” I said and then went on to talk a little – truth be known, perhaps a little too much for such a reflective time – about how the residual pain from the losses I have experienced keep those who I have lost alive for me. Somehow the pain evokes the memories – warm, wonderful and sad – of times that I had with the person I have lost. And I don’t ever want to loose that living memory. It maintains the connection, keeps the person alive and real for me, when I drive along dark northern roads or sit in the quiet of my solitary nights or wander around inside my memories. I worry that if I ever fully ‘healed’ from this loss, I would lose them forever. That’s a strong fear, a haunting one. I think that if I can keep the person alive through the memories, I will never really lose them completely. I think that, in some strange way, if I let go of all of this, I will be more alone, and more lonely. And that would make those solitary nights just a little bit darker.
The residual pain of other unpleasant or hurtful things that have happened to me are also precious. Because they are a constant reminder of how far I have travelled in my own journey of healing. They are almost like a landmark somewhere in the distant past, still just visible, which mark my passage to the place where I now find myself. Like a distant hill climbed or a giant tree noticed in passing.
I like where I am now, so I wonder, (or is it ‘worry’) if I was to ‘heal’ in the sense that people normally mean it – get over it, leave it behind, eliminate the effects of ‘it’ on me – would I also lose a connection to my history? Would I be different than I am now? Somehow less me? And do I really want to take that risk? Perhaps I am an emotional coward but I don’t think that’s a risk I want to take. So I hang on to them,. Guard them against extinction. Preserve them like the photos of an earlier time hinged in my own personal album.
I guess I don’t think that we ever ‘heal’ in the sense of get over it, leave it behind, eliminate it – whatever the ‘it’ happens to be. I prefer to think that we are all ‘on the path of healing’; that it is never complete but is rather an important part of the process of growing, of getting on with life, of moving forward as people. Because I do believe in moving forward – recognizing a position, or an attitude, if you will, towards the things I have experienced and then moving forward from that point, carrying the past with me, but not letting it control me. I know that’s a delicate balance; letting history guide you without directing you. And it can be a struggle to maintain that balance because the power of the past sometimes threatens to be overwhelming. Ah, the constant tension between then and now.
I am aware there are a lot of people who believe that we do actually ‘heal’. That somehow time, and maybe the right work, makes the pain go away forever, casts it off like an old coat no longer warm against the wind, thread bare, its usefulness spent. But in my experience that kind of ‘healing’ has always been more of a shutting down, a closing off or denial of an experience, rather than a ‘healing’ of it. As I write this I am thinking of the scar I have on my leg where, in a fit of frenzy, my dog bit me because she couldn’t get at the little mutt that was tormenting her. Without getting into the reasons why she chose my leg instead of, for example, her leash, let me simply say that I won’t ever forget that it happened and that the scar is a constant reminder of what is possible. But it doesn’t stop me from playing with her, or walking her about, or enjoying her company. Nor am I really differently cautious. I just remember, when the time is right or appropriate, that this happened one day. It is a part of who I am now and I remember. I reflect on it and we move forward, once more around the block, the danger still present, the opportunity for a repeat experience still there. But I enjoy this experience and I won’t let the fear deny me the experience of my enjoyment.

But back to Child and Youth Care …
I am saddened sometimes when I see instances in youth care situations where the staff are intent that a youth will heal. And angered when they become annoyed with the youth for not doing so smoothly. A young person encounters a helping professional and for whatever reason makes a few steps forward, moving away from the place where, in my terms, the youth is not healed, but is on the path. And then, again for whatever reason, the youth takes a few steps back – to the place where once again the hurt, pain, experience is controlling. And I see people get annoyed with this ‘regression’ – an evil word which I think should be expunged from our vocabulary – and sometimes they even move to punish the young person for not staying in that more forward place. As if somehow something magical had occurred and in a matter of a few days or weeks or months the young person should be healed, never to be affected by the old experiences again. As if those few magical words or experiences had somehow erased history. Made it non-existent.
I don’t know for sure about anyone else but my experience suggests that the move forward is never smooth or without moments of moving back. Because its winter here as I write, let me say that it is like driving uphill on ice; sometimes there is a little traction, sometimes we spin our wheels and, especially if we are going up a hill, sometimes there is no traction at all and we slide back some. And then we regroup, take a breath and approach the hill again. Intention, determination, skill, knowledge, resources – they all make a difference in how we do, or do not, move forward. And even if you slide back a little, are you not still on the road?

*    *    *

Worker: I’m concerned about Annie. She’s been so hurt by her experiences. How long do you think it will take her to get over it?
Supervisor: Well, I am guessing that she might be ready to start dealing with it when she is about 30, and she probably won’t ever get over it.
Worker: God, if you believe that, then what’s the point of our work with her. I mean, what’s the point?
Supervisor: To help her find a healing path that works for her. One that might let her start her journey.
Worker: So you don’t think she’ll get better while she is here?
Supervisor: Oh, no. I think she will get much ‘better’ while she is here. She just won’t ‘get over it’ the way you might like her to.

*    *    *

It has become almost common- place to say, when we are working with youth and families, that we are on a ‘journey’ together; that we are going somewhere. But I think sometimes we get confused when we use this word because typically a ‘journey’ has not only a destination, but an ending, as in a common dictionary definition of ‘moving or travelling from one place to another’ which implies a ‘reaching of the destination’.
But for many of the young people and families with whom we work, there will never be an end to this journey of healing. And we do them a disservice, I think, when we imply that there might be one; a final destination, a place where they will be, once and forever, ‘over it’. Perhaps we would offer a different service, and even a better one, if we were to define our work with people as helping them to find their path, for surely the healing path is different for each of us.
In all the time I have worked with young people, families, and staff I don’t think I have ever met to people whose journey was the same. They may have seemed to go to the same place by the same route. They may have shared common exercises or done things together. They may have appeared, from the outside-looking-in, to have been on a shared journey but in reality, from the inside-looking-out, every journey has been different and specific to the individual. Same walk, perhaps, but a different journey.
I remember once going on a walk with a few friends through a bush land. When the days walk was over we sat around a fire and shared experiences. One of my friends was going on about the texture of the vegetation, another about the feel of the ground, and still another about the shape of the trees. A I listened to them I was reflecting on my own experience of the sounds of the bush land which were so new and unusual to me. Each of us had been ‘on the same voyage’ but each of us had a different experience. For some a part of the trail was difficult, while for others it was easy. For some parts of the walk were familiar, while for others it was new. A different person with a different experience. The same walk, a different journey.
Thus, of course, the reason why, as a field, we have moved from the ‘one size fits all’ group approaches to the individualisation of interventions in a manner that is specific to the person. No-one is the same as anyone else and no two journeys are the same. I am thinking of the old adage ‘you can’t step in the same river twice’ and thinking that, as well, that ‘no two people can step in the same river’.
In the end, I think, all we can hope to do, is help each person find their own path. And our job, while helping them to find it, is to become, somehow, a companion in the search. Just as we were all companions for each other when we drove the northern night road.

Thom
Rosemere, Quebec

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