A place where I can share interesting ideas and maybe get a few things off my chest

Posts tagged ‘depression’

Rescue Mission (OctPoWriMo #15)

Sometimes I have to pace
Back and forth and back and forth
If I’m not careful, I trip and I fall
Headlong into the rut my dragging feet have worn into the day

Sometimes I rise easily (more or less)
Pick myself up, dust myself off
I’ve only worn away the dirt this time
And there’s still something of me left to salvage

Sometimes I lie there
In the rut, in the dirt
Without the energy to fight the weight of gravity
Of the earth or of my thoughts

Sometimes I stop struggling
Let my head fall back
Shut my eyes, shut out the world, shut out the pain
It’s easier, really, to just lie there

Always, though, you realize where I’ve gone
Lost in my head, lost in the dark
You come find me where I’ve fallen
And lift me up, back into the sunshine

Today’s offering for OctPoWriMo, a free verse based on the prompt “a change in perspective”

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Pain Reduction Via Profanity

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Last week at work, we were meeting to develop a course outline for training foster parents who are interested in serving higher-needs children. One component of training will be what behaviors to expect from these troubled and angry kids. One of the things a foster parent must be ready for, and be ready to let go of feelings of offense over, is colorful and sometimes quite imaginative profanity. This is common to almost all the verbal children care, sometimes learned from their parents, sometimes from the other children, but almost always present.

When we were talking about this, I remembered reading about a study that seemed to point toward profanity offering relief or protection from physical pain, and I wondered if the use of profanity by children in the foster care system (or anywhere, really) indicated that it might also help dull emotional pain. Since some of our neural pathways related to mood are also related to pain, (which is why chronic physical pain is one of the red flags for depression), it certainly seems plausible to me. And if it’s true for children, I would think it would be true for adults, too. Maybe the alcohol at the local bar isn’t the only thing easing existential pain.

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