A wonderful minister named Rev. Dr. Gloria Winston read aloud this quote from an unknown author at an MLK Day service a few weeks ago, “The most beautiful souls are those who walk out of the fire and return with water for those who are still in it.”
I found myself so taken by this quote. I realized that it described what has been at the heart of so much of what I’m trying to do.
I see the great pain of people I love, people who share some core experiences of mine, and those who I bring inside my heart to teach me about their pain so that I can bear witness. I spend so much time trying to figure out how I can drag them all out of the fire. There are a million types of fire. Probably more. Anything that can feel or be all-encompassing, extreme, and in some way difficult. (And, of course, we hold within us the capacity to be in many fires at once.) Fires come in all shapes.1
I definitely believe that you can still be in the fire and try to help others out of it or to find relief from the burning. I am certainly not all of the way out of the fire. However, after many years of dire OCD crisis, I find myself in something of a lull. Some of the smoke is clearing. I do not know why it is this way, but I am trying to never take it for granted.
I have searched for many ways to make community with fellow survivors of my personal struggles, and to build a world where survivors of all kinds are witnessed and cared for. Especially those encompassed in the flames right now.
I know deeply what it is to be in pain, for every moment to feel unbearable from one second to the next. To reach rock bottom and not have the strength to push up from it yet. Perhaps you do as well. There is certainly power in witness. And yet, I am left pondering:
How do I hold the knowledge that there are so many people feeling equal or more pain than I have in my worst moments, without again descending or spontaneously combusting from the overwhelm? And how do I do anything when I don’t have the resources to save them?
I do not have all the answers. (I can’t be the only one that wishes some blog post would answer all my questions.)
Writing letters has become a way I practice, hopefully, giving people a moment to breathe away from the smoke of the fire. I write letters to anyone I can find, but especially to those who are in the fire. I write to many people I know, especially those who are in familiar fires. However, having avenues to write to strangers is such a gift. I know my personal community, but having access to people who are looking to be encouraged and accompanied from all over the world is so precious to me. Not Alone Notes provides me the opportunity to write to strangers— to make them some art, to tell them that they are not alone, and to provide resources.
Not Alone Notes has been a gift for bringing water to the fire and for connecting with the broader OCD (& related disorders) community. Not Alone Notes is one of many groups embodying Mother Teresa words of wisdom: “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Tokens of goodwill and hope and camaraderie are certainly small things with great love. If something I make can make its way into someone’s heart in a time of need and provide a moment of hope, that is enough to never give up.
I do not know if suffering inherently has meaning. But if it does, one avenue of meaning is that we learn to accompany others who suffer.
-Emerson, Not Alone Notes Writer
Footnotes
1 like depression, houselessness, raising a newborn or child, crisis of faith, medical neglect or unmet need for healthcare, chronic pain and fatigue, loss of community, hunger, altered states of mind (hallucinations/delusions/mania/etc.), oppression, waiting for needs to be met, exhaustion and burnout, addiction, violence and war, trauma, incarceration, loneliness, relationships breaking down or ending, anxiety, crisis of faith, unemployment, grief, eating disorders, inequity, family nonacceptance, psychiatric incarceration, displacement, caregiving, disability and lack of accessibility, illness, lack of resources, identity crisis, bullying, and of course other mental illnesses including OCD & its cousins.
Not Alone Notes 