Very rarely I can see the true impact of what I can do at my best when I am with my students. It is most unnerving when I tell people their lives from what little they do tell me. Unnerving for me and for them. Makes me feel good but a fraud as well. Those days don't happen very often. Twice in one day is unheard of. But that all changed today.
Living with a mood disorder makes one see the world as all or nothing. So do years of fighting perfectionism. All my students are perfectionists and each and everyone of them I tell them that they are destined to fail. I tell my self that too but I fail in that as well. There are many mixed views on me. I like the good ones but I shy away from them and sabotage the good feelings it brings. Depressed people can't be anything other than the most useless piece of shit that ever walked the earth. Sadly that is part of the condition. Today I felt exalted then a fraud.
It was a busy day. Despite it still being the holiday I had 5 people booked in. Only 4 turned up but it seems I was at my best with 2 of them and apparently changed their lives.
The first, a fiery, damaged and depressed Hindu I have known for a while. I don't normally mentions someone's faith but for the purposes of this paragraph it is relevant. She stunned me with what she said:
"I look up to you. When I think of you you remind me of the Buddha." Whilst I might like in my ego to think of myself as wise man and a dispenser of good advice. I know that is bollocks and I am certainly not enlightened. The nearest I get to the depictions of the Buddha is I have an overly large belly and am balding. When I questioned her she said "you have changed your life and can reflect on what was wrong with your old life." She compared that to the Buddha. I'm not sure I changed my life, more my life changed me; it was forced on me by psychotic breakdown. A flawed analogy but it feel great that I can have had such an impact on a young person.
Later I met student for the first time. She has been in therapy for years. She gave me a hint of her background and I told her her life. She commented that " I have let out more and learned more in an hour with you than with anyone in my life." She wants to come back. Not sure it will go down well politically but so be it. Actually what did it was that she had heard me tell my story in person. To her it was "inspirational." That makes me see my flaws.
Whilst I try to keep my ego in check I think today was truly a day on what I did some good.
I am not an inspiration. But as I write I am listening to one. The late great Bob Marley plays load and clear in my flat. Now he is an inspiration. Until next time.
I Heard a Voice.
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