Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

January 13, 2008

“Crazy Like a Fox:  Exploring the Mind Not At Ease”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

            A psychiatrist reported on two meetings he had with patients.  At the first, he was able to tell the patient that, after 15 years of therapy, he was doing so well that there was no need to see him for counseling sessions any longer.  His patient answered, “Well, that’s good, I guess.  But on the other hand, fifteen years ago I was God.  And now, I’m nobody.”

            A woman, who was seeing this psychiatrist for her depression, told him, “I tried to kill myself by taking 1000 aspirin.”  The doctor asked, “What happened?”  She said, “Well, after the first two I felt better.”

            I hope you don’t think I’m being irreverent about mental illness with these jokes.  We are exploring a serious issue today, one filled with heartache, so I believe that we need the laughter.  My first job out of college was working with the mentally ill, and I have continued to be involved in this area in some form ever since, including as an advocate.  Today, though, I don’t only want to talk about those people who are diagnosed with mental illness, but I want to talk about all of us, and when our minds are not at ease, whether dis-eased in whatever way.

            We have brains that are amazing, and complicated.  They function in ways that seem effortless much of the time.  And when we bring our willpower to bear, wow – what an extraordinary capacity we have – for intelligence, morality, love, creativity, enjoyment.  Our brains are incredible.

             But sometimes, our brains do not work so well.  Like a computer or a car or any other functioning amazement, our brains sometimes betray us and just seem to go haywire, out of whack.  And often this is a bleep on the otherwise well-functioning horizon, and sometimes, we feel ‘crazy like a fox’, we feel like our minds are something we cannot explain or control.  The realms of mental illness are mysterious and awful, and we would do well to understand them a bit more, so that we can be compassionate with others, and with ourselves.

            Everyone must have glimpsed the world of “brain out of whack” at some point in their lives, probably several times.  Do you ever remember feeling down and not knowing why?  You search your mind for what could be causing the blues you woke up with, when you just wanted to crawl back into bed, and there isn’t anything you can identify, and you have a day in the doldrums for seemingly no good reason.  Or maybe for a presenting issue – a grief, a disappointment – something that has triggered a deeper sadness than you ever expected it could, and it surprised you, reminded you of other low points, conspired with them to sink you down, but it didn’t last too long – a day, or two, a week.

            Or, you have anxiety that pushes and pulls, but you don’t know what the cause is, only that you feel surges that you wish would go away.  Stress sneaks up on you, the cumulative caustic that it is, and suddenly you feel out of control in your emotions, and you lash out, or dig in, and you don’t feel or act yourself.  Your usual calm, clear mind has cut out on you just when you needed it most.

            When I had lyme disease, I became manic a couple of times, which was thought to be a combination of the disease and the medication, the latter of which was quickly changed.  I hated that sense of racing thoughts and feeling out of control.  Suddenly, I was the life of the party – and for those of you who know me well, you know that is odd for me.  Thank goodness the next medication worked differently, and I healed.

            We glimpse the times when whatever it is in our environment or in our bodies – the seasonal light or lack thereof, the amount of sleep we have had, or missed, the surfacing of an old issue, or the newness of a difficult situation, the changing chemistry as we age – so many causes – and our mind acts oddly, does not seem as trustworthy, and we see what dis-ease, the lack of ease mentally can mean.  Which is not to say that we really understand the depth of what can happen to people, either. 

            From the point of view of a mentally ill woman whom I knew well many years ago, I had a fresh perspective on dis-ease, temporary and long-lived.  Her mother had just died, unexpectedly, immediately gone from her fairly active life.  I went to be with my friend in her grief and found that she was very understanding of her family and the friends of her mother.  She could see them dealing with a huge blow, a disorienting, mind-exploding version of dis-ease.  She said that it was easier for her, in a way, because she was used to it, the peaks and valleys, the sense of shifting reality, the feeling that her life was overturned and her mind was out of whack.  She felt great sympathy for all those other mourners who hadn’t had the benefit of practice with feeling crazy, as she had.  My mentally ill friend was the sanest person I have ever seen in deep grief, and I imagine it was because she accepted it and empathized with others.  As someone who struggled with dis-ease in her mind regularly, she could somewhat understand what others who were new to it felt.

            On the other hand, when people take their minor experiences of dis-ease and try to understand the issues of those who confront it regularly, sometimes they have great insight and compassion, and sometimes they forget to change the scale, and are dismissive, cutting someone else’s experience down to their size, bringing hurt instead of healing.  When my Mom was beginning her long, slow descent into Alzheimer’s, she would be annoyed when someone would sympathize with the memory loss, saying that they had also forgotten things, and it didn’t mean anything, when she knew that her dementia was not the same creature as occasional memory lapses – was another much more frightening and maddening betrayal of her brain.  As with my Mom, and with my grieving friend, we can glimpse what others are going through in their journeys of the mind, knowing some of what is happening from a somewhat shared experience, but we do not know.  The mind is quite unique, and each person only knows what they experience, and even that is hard to really know.

            What those who study mental illness can give us to understand it better are a few simple concepts.  The brain is literally working differently in mental illness – thinking and perceiving in a different way from how brains normally work.  One or more of the following is going on in the mind not at ease:  unspoken voices seem real; threats are palpable; negativity is all around; self-understanding and the perception of others is not in line with reality; fatigue or anxiety or reasoning cannot be controlled; brain scans show oddities and blood chemistry is unusual; and more.

            When someone whose mind is able – temporarily able, of course, since we all face some blips, at least when tragedy or chemistry puts our brains out of whack – when that person tries to help someone whose mind is not at ease, they can be totally off.  They can expect the person who is suffering in the mind to be able to just change their behavior, (which is based on their thoughts – well then, to just change their thoughts), to rationally contact them when feeling off, to reasonably stop doing whatever it is that is making things worse.  The mind not at ease starts in a totally different place cognitively.  If the person could easily change their thoughts or actions, they would.  Usually, it takes a great deal of work, therapeutically, with counseling and medication, and sometimes spiritual practice.  Those who are at ease, most of the time, in their minds have no idea how much effort and challenge those who are going through a time of being mostly not at ease mentally, put forth.  Our great compassion should be called forward for those who are dealing with their own dis-ease.

            Mental illness is treatable, but not always curable.  Mental illness knows no boundaries for who it will affect – race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, gender – whoever you are, you can become afflicted.  

            Karen Armstrong writes in her autobiographical book, The Spiral Staircase, of her experiences with anxiety and depression.  She feels out of control and cannot tie what is happening to her to particular issues.  It’s not when she feels the most anxious that the fainting or anxiety attacks happen.  Years after she has begun consulting doctors and therapists, she realizes that her brain has gone south on her at times because of epilepsy.

            Whether there is a diagnosable, physical disease or not, there is always a physical component.  It is not just the mind that is out of whack, not at ease – it is the body that is not working right in a number of ways, from sleep problems to physical pain, from digestive issues to movement concerns.  A mind not at ease means a body in distress.  The systems are so interconnected, and we understand those connections poorly, but this is an area of increasing knowledge.  Sometimes dealing with the body’s issues – the sleep deprivation, the hurtful drug, the bacterial infection, the sensory learning problem, etc. – will put the mind more at ease.  Sometimes dealing with the mind’s issues with medications and therapy will serve to heal some bodily symptoms.

            I have been involved with two different mentally ill people at the end of their lives, when they were suffering from a physical illness – cancer, heart disease.  In their last couple of months, both people were suddenly and inexplicably totally at ease in their minds, after lifetimes of struggling with mental illness.  Something in the physical body had triggered a real change in the brain, and they died in peace.  Amazing.

            Finally, let us remember to bless the times when the mind is not at ease, and even be grateful.  While we wouldn’t wish this kind of suffering on anyone, sometimes it is in the depths of depression or at the heights of hyperactivity that a person is most creative, most capable of contributing to the world.  To say that someone is “crazy like a fox” is also to notice that they are brilliant, clever.  Sometimes what is seen that is not real informs the world in ways that deepen our reality.  The brain that is not making connections in the usual ways, on brain scans, may be making extraordinary connections, that others much appreciate.  Those who have had times when the mind is not at ease, has betrayed them, been totally out of whack, can be the most compassionate, empathetic among us.  They know the depths.

I am reminded of one of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. sayings, “If it were not for the wind in my face, I could fly like an eagle.  But if it were not for the wind in my face, I would not be able to fly at all.”  The part that we think we are healing from, that is like a great wind against us, that makes us feel not at ease, is the same aspect of our being that lifts us up and helps make us who we are.  From our times of not being at ease in the mind may come the experience of wisdom and peace.

May all beings be at ease in their minds and hearts.  Blessings and peace to you all.