Peer Support and Boat Maintenance
Last weekend I took a dinghy out of the water that hadn’t been used for about six months. What an amazing number of things had grown and attached themselves to the bottom! There were a few kinds of algae and slimy stuff, barnacles and mussels all over the hull. It took more than an hour to scrub it all off of this small boat. If I had tried to use the boat with all of this marine growth attached it would have gone very slowly indeed.
I realized that when we have experienced a behavioral health issue in our lives all kinds of things attach themselves to us and slow us down. We form relationships that are dysfunctional or codependent and they sap our time and energy. We develop bad lifestyle habits that might include a poor diet, not enough exercise or insufficient sleep and we become stressed or ill. We can also have bad habits of mind “attach” themselves to us and drag down our mood or keep us from getting things done.
What can we do to remove these and other barnacles from our lives? There are at least three steps we must take. First, we need to “pull ourselves out of the water”. We have probably picked up the most issues from wherever we have spent the most time. We need to go someplace else, at least for a while, so we can start to sort things out. Some time at a coffee shop, a library, at the beach or in a park can help break the “psychological set” we develop from too familiar surroundings. Second, we need to look objectively at what has become attached to us. We can often do this better with the help of a trusted friend or peer. Third, we need to remove our dysfunctional and troublesome items. This can be the hardest part of this simple process. Unlike with my dinghy, we may need to attack one item or one area at a time and patiently, slowly repair the part of us that needs to be restored. This is where an ongoing peer support group can be particularly helpful. It’s only when we have worked through our issues, with the encouragement and help from others, that we can enjoy the benefits of having a smoother life that allows us to glide forward.