The Tools of Recovery

Addressing the Need to Know What Works and What Doesn't.

Bearing Witness: Deborah Max's I'm not angry, but sometimes I forget that

Most days I don’t feel like a mental patient. In itself that might not seem like an odd statement, but when you examine my history or simply the fact that it’s my predisposition to insanity that pays my bills, you might expect that I’d wear crazy year round.

I grew up in the inpatient mental health system. And now I earn my living as the Deputy Director of an agency funded to help people who too are labeled with psychiatric diagnoses. Just like a model relies on her beauty for her bread and butter, my recovery, and maintenance of my mental health is my earning chip. Though it’s funny, in all the years I have done this work I am asked less often than you would think about my health. More often inquiries are related to my illness. What was it like being inpatient for 6 ½ years? Were you really in restraints for months at a time? “It sucked, and yes.” But other than that, what they are really asking for is the gore; the blood and guts of mental illness.

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Zen Teacher, Bernie Glassman
talks about bearing witness:

About Bearing Witness
“In my view, we can’t heal ourselves or others unless we bear witness. [B]earing witness to the wholeness of life, to every aspect of the situation as it arises… means being each and every element of the situation. You can see immediately how hard this is. Sometimes all we can do, at least in the beginning, is bear witness to our own rage…

“The approach in Zen practice is based on penetrating the unknown, on starting out with no concepts or ideas… [W]e are bearing to parts of ourselves that we ordinarily ignore – and often avoid. We become the terror and gnawing hunger of the starving girl, the grief of her mother, the explosive rage and fear of the killer, the distress and shame of his mother. By allowing them to emerge, we are remembering, reconnecting, with those parts of ourselves. It’s the beginning of making ourselves – and society – whole.”

“Telling stories is one of the most important ingredients... We tell stories that are true and stories that we wish were true. We tell the straight facts as we know them, and we also tell the myths of our lives, tales that reflect our deepest dreams and yearnings… Whether they tell the facts, whether they’re made up, or whether they’re told in silence, they are all peacemaking stories. And they’re all true for they reflect how we see ourselves and the world.”

-- Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace (New York: Bell Tower, 1998).

We hope that you will share your stories. As we tell the tales of life with mental illness, the healing of society can become a living reality.

Email your stories to bearingwitness@verrazanofoundation.org. No attachments please.

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