Origins
In my life, I’ve generally been optimistic. Even being a police officer and seeing the tragedies in peoples’ lives, they gave me hope and courage. My grandmother was entirely ambivalent to my presence, but I still showed her my love and compassion. Sometimes, though, life throws unexpected wrenches into one’s perspective. After I was sexually assaulted, my life changed, quite dramatically.
As a result of the rape, I got HIV. I became depressed, I shut down, and I became despondent. Some medical providers refused to treat me, gave me wrong treatment, or dismissed it entirely. This turned everything upside down. I felt less than human, I felt rejected, and I felt embarrassed. I had little to no hope.
I don’t know if any of this points to my cancer, but I guarantee it was a contributory factor. It’s a variable I’ve thought about daily. Our medical system is biased, and it harms our minority communities. Even a few of the LGBT+ providers treated me differently, with one representative saying, “Well, you have a few good years left”, offering no support or resources. He just walked out of the room after my diagnosis. A nurse told a doctor I refused an immunization, but that never happened. Another nurse refused to perform a staph infection test and lied about it.
I have been an advocate for others, especially in my experience as a teacher and public service professional. Sometimes it’s different when you have to advocate for yourself. Amongst all of the ill treatment I received, it got harder to issue personal proclamations. By the end of everything, I was exhausted. I had prepared to die. No one else seemed to care, so why I should I care? The inevitable is meant to be inevitable. Isaac Asimov said that “life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”
During these past six months, I’ve learned six things I think everyone should know, inherently:
Behavioral Coherence is crucial to supporting others: behavioral coherence means recognizing our own behavioral hinderances. For example, we develop habits early in life, mostly by the age of 22. After that, behaviors manifest themselves, typically becoming more entrenched. We become less aware of others’ emotional needs, and we fail to recognize how vital our emotional support can be. Being emotionally available is hard, but it’s needed more today than it ever has. People report feeling more lonely today than they have in the past.
Traveling is essential to understanding human behavior: studies show that people who travel more experience less stress, accept people more from different cultures, races, and backgrounds, and better understand themselves. This is one thing I’ve made a point to do in my life, and it has changed it tremendously. Yes, it can be scary. It can force you to think about who you are, being more introspective than usual. I remember getting lost in Prague for five hours. I literally felt panic and fright. I cried. In the end, I realized that bad habits led me there. I refocused and eventually found my way back to the hotel. We have to put ourselves in stressful situations in order to evaluate ourselves. Constantly.
Journaling is a BIG factor in processing information: I rarely journaled. I started as a police officer when a lieutenant discriminated against me for being gay. It helped, a lot! But, I stopped. It wasn’t until my sexual battery that I started journaling again. What a lost opportunity. But, since then, I have evolved and transferred thoughts onto paper. I’m not a very emotional person, but when I journal emotions start surfacing. I cry. I laugh. I reflect. I process a lot of bad stuff. And it helps me understand myself and how these emotions affect me and the people around me (my supporters and family and friends). Bad behaviors start because we don’t fully understand how they interact with stuff in life. How they began. Why they exist. A big reason why I wrote Headwinds is because I needed to process my life’s experiences.
We’ve lost our ability to communicate: As a consultant, I train thousands of people regarding communication. Over the past few decades, our ability to effectively communicate is been downgraded. Our social groups have dwindled. People now say they are comfortable sharing personal news with one person (some say zero). Not only are we not communicating personal stuff, we now are holding that stuff in. Suicide is now a leader is cause of death, with 8.3 million people committing suicide last year. Communication is so important to our well-being, and it protects our lives. We are emotional creatures, but it no outlet exists to express emotions, we become lost and depressed.
Experience new stuff: One of the best experiences I have had on this Earth is forcing myself to try new things. In 2008, I missioned in Nicaragua for a local church. I’m not that religious, and to me, it wasn’t that part of it that I remembered. It’s the help I wanted to give to the impoverished. It’s the skills I wanted to share to help others. It’s the passion I wanted to share for the school children and their needs. It was the group of people who shared the same things with me. It was the experience in a different country. It was different. But it made me explore my abilities, emotions, skills, human interactions, and trying different things. It literally changed my life going forward. Push your boundaries. Being comfortable means being lazy.
Advocate for yourself: Please. Even though it can mean speaking up regarding bad customer service, give the feedback. I recently had an encounter at a local hotel regarding less than favorable treatment and service. I wrote the manager, expressed my emotions, and how the process made me feel. The stay was comped. I was given a free stay. Feedback is essential to everything. If we don’t speak up, don’t expect anything to change. It’s not about getting free stuff, it’s getting your emotional and behavioral baggage outside of your brain. The more this stuff stays in your mind, the angrier we get. The less communicative we become.
More to come, folks. I am more than willing to carry on private conversations with people. A lot of my clients and I chat about personal challenges, and we simply troubleshoot :)