Crucial to know you’re not alone in facing stress

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/11/2023 (703 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It happens to many of us. Without warning, we find ourselves admitted into a group we never wanted to belong to.

These clubs go by many names. Divorce club. Miscarriage club. Disability club. Addiction club. Cancer club. The membership fees and initiation rites are often life-altering and excruciating to bear, and we find ourselves deposited in a landscape which we are seldom prepared for, where suddenly the lens through which we view our lives is forever changed.

So it is that many of us carry these very heavy membership cards, never showing them to one another lest supporting their weight makes us appear weaker than those who do not. Sharing is another act of potential loneliness, a minefield of possible misunderstandings and unwanted conversations with people who simply can’t understand, because they lack membership.

As head of the vaccine task force, Dr. Joss Reimer was a face of calm and comfort through COVID-19. She spoke to us in a common-sense tone and brought warm humanity and compassion to what was often cold pandemic rhetoric. Hers was an even and calming voice of clarity in a time when we were collectively confused and fearful. Her tone conveyed the message over and over, “I know things seem overwhelming right now, but you are not powerless.”

Last week, when Dr. Reimer shared her depression journey with the Free Press, she disclosed the high fees of membership in this particular club. She shared what it had cost her and what it continues to demand of her. But she also shared that this membership has given her a perspective that has made her more compassionate toward others and more committed to self-awareness.

For most, a disclosure like this is a risky endeavour. Our own journeys of change or loss are deeply personal, and sharing with others brings the threat of stigma, mistrust, misunderstanding or changes to relationships. When we share with others, we have to commit an act of bravery and faith during a time of insecurity. It’s no easy task. To disclose this personal part of ourselves risks confronting the fact we may be as alone as we fear.

But bravery and humility like Dr. Reimer’s creates an alchemy: it transforms isolation into community. It is only by disclosing our own membership in a unique club that we are able to see the other members and find solace in one another. We’re able to unmask one another and lay down some of the heaviness we carry. “You, too?”

No doubt there are many of us who now see Dr. Reimer as a teammate, and as someone in whom we can see both the cost and the credentials given by her journey, and thereby recognize these attributes in ourselves as well.

If you’ve thought, “You can’t know how it feels unless you’ve lived it,” you may know what it is to have to pay the excruciating membership fees of a club like this. For those of us who belong to one (or more), it can be a very lonely place to be. But the existence of these groups, if we embrace them, is an undeniable sign that we are not alone. The difficulty comes in committing to the faith that we will not be abandoned in our isolation, but that the very act of disclosure, which makes us feel the most alone, is the one that will bring the understanding and community we lack.

Dr. Reimer is someone we have come to trust, someone we put under intense scrutiny during unprecedented times. She continues to bring us together and encourage personal agency in our own journeys.

While we may not each be ready to disclose our own personal memberships, perhaps her act of bravery can remind us that we are not alone, that no “club” has a membership of one. Unseen, unknown to us, our teammates are all around us, and we are silently understood.

When we encounter safe places, like Dr. Reimer has created, we can place that heavy membership card upon the table for a while. We can exhale.

If you are struggling today, or tomorrow, know that although things seem overwhelming right now, you are not powerless, and you are not alone. Sometimes an act of bravery is also one of deep humility. Thank you, Dr. Reimer.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca