I’ve been hit by an emotional NUKE. Exactly 7 days ago some friends and I saved a man from OD’ing and 2 days ago I figured out a friend of mine passed away. So my nervous system has been on fire. I’ve been trying to take care of myself and haven’t been the professional powerhouse I usually am so I apologize to all of you who I haven’t gotten back to yet.
The funny thing about when a person is ODing on opiates they look like they’re sleeping. Like they’ve just passed out drunk, or had one edible too many. Your fight or flight doesn’t kick in right away because there’s nothing glaringly obvious about their unconsciousness.
But you can usually tell by the people around them. The panicked wide eyes, the rush of other humans surrounding their bodies. Sometimes that’s the only tell that something’s terribly wrong. It’s a terrible thing to be alone, or to be around people who wouldn’t notice if you suddenly went unresponsive.
The second best way is to touch them.
I have touched hundreds of bodies over the years, hell I’m a bodyworker, and I’ve never felt a body that felt like that. So wet. So cold. So pale and still. Where was all the movement? The life? The flow? It all felt so disturbingly flat.
You know what else is jarring? Other people’s response to the trauma. Some people don’t have the capacity to let other people process or be in pain. They struggle to sit with their own so they want to gloss over yours. Glossing over someone else’s experience is less about helping them, and more about making yourself comfortable. This literally just happened to me guys. I can’t get his cold, wet, body out of my mind. I can’t stop hearing him scream.
But still I will persevere, I will tend to myself, I will heal, I will commit to my projects, my people, and the collective mission. I just needed this week to be a mess.
This one is a little heavier than the ones before so I apologize for coming to your inbox with a huge bummer. Here’s to hopefully more uplifting entries in the coming days.
See you in the next one.