Grit and Grace

Grit and Grace

(The words of this essay are not representative of any particular individual.  I honor the confidentiality of my clients, and never share recognizable details of their lives.  Instead, this is a composite of many young people I have known.)

She is gritty.  Not in the Rooster Cogburn, John Wayne, true grit kind of way.  I don’t think she is that clever.  But like the piece of sand that gets under your eyelid, irritating until you stop what you’re doing to flush it out.  Like windblown dirt, her grittiness stings when she comes at you with demands.  She does everything she can to alert an audience of an overwhelming need, screaming with teary, angry eyes.  Parents have learned to dread the assault.  But they too are gritty.  When she lashes out, they whip back at her.  The family is a living sandstorm of accusations and insults hurled across generations.

In her middle-of-the-night bedroom while her roommate is asleep, she scrapes across tender forearm skin a shard of misshapen, contraband plastic salvaged from yesterday’s trash.  She persistently digs until a tiny dot of blood breaks the surface.  Her eyes are now fixed on the damage she has done.  Later she tells you how satisfying it is to cut into flesh.  The broken skin lined with dried blood distracts her from the incessant voice of self-doubt.  In the next family therapy session, the stepparent misses the cue to offer empathy.

This is a family’s three-legged dance.  Adapted from the trinity of generational trauma, biochemical vulnerabilities to mood disorder, and environmental factors of cultural anxiety.  Blind parents are leading blind children through minefields of shame about the past and worry about the future.  This family, caught in the cycle of blame, can’t put down the weapons.  A few deep breaths and some self-restraint could settle the storm.  At least long enough to read a roadmap.  But the dance is well rehearsed. 

*****

I show up three minutes late for work today.  I can’t get myself moving from soft, smooth sheets to see adolescents in residential treatment.   I was in some delicious sort of dream.  Walking on the quiet beach at dawn.  But I collude with the alarm clock and navigate myself to upright.  I show up.  I keep the appointment.  And on the drive to the office, I lather up with protectant covering in the form of mantras.    “Hope.”  “Courage.”  “Release.”

This last word is the important one.  Release.  I want my young client to know release from the incessant onslaught of emotional turbulence.  I want her to experience release from a darting-eyed vigilant stance of distrust.   I want her to fall asleep like she did in the womb, upheld by an unseen cushion of fluid grace.  I want for her to trust her own space, to settle into assurance that she is well.  Furthermore, as her therapist, I want release for myself.  I need release from delusions of power.  I cannot save her.  I cannot rewrite the family story.  My bag of tricks is quite empty.   As I pull into the last parking spot in the lot and silence the car from the commuter hum, I whisper, “Release.”

*****

Her grit is full tilt.  She walks in to session insisting that I talk with her case manager.  I notice her hoodie, long sleeves pulled down over her hands.   I take a wild guess.   Last night’s storm was strong.  I wonder if a phone call to grandma has reawakened self-doubt.  I worry that she needs more supervision in her room.  My mind is ablaze with possible threats coming down the pike.  One hour later, I write a lengthy progress note, the kind of note in therapist lingo we call CYB – Cover Your Butt.

*****

Another night.  Another rude alarm clock.  Another drive to a full parking lot.  Another session in a cold treatment room with a wide-eyed, angry teenager.  Her words assail me.  Many words.  But one word rises from my solar plexus core.  Release.  I think I am channeling my yoga instructor.  Or maybe the clinical supervisor who gives me perspective.  Or maybe God.  Yes.  I think I am channeling God.   In the middle of the sandstorm, there seems to be a voice of quiet.  I am released from fixing things.  I am only asked to sit.  To be present.  To hold space.  To carve out a shelter from the storm.