Distraction as Protection

**Trigger Warning** This piece discusses suicide and suicidal ideation, and some people might find it disturbing.

I would like to make sure that I convey this point again in a nuanced way. Controlling, manipulation, and distraction are not the enemy or “wrong” refuge. Those are, too, nature. My teachers would often call them “protection.” Maybe it is not so wholesome at times, but protection regardless. I have heard it like this in different occasion from Jesse, Michele, and Jake:

Mindfulness is the intention to understand rather than to judge it. It applies to all sounds, body sensations, emotions and thoughts whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Maybe a sense of solid self is protecting us to feel a little bit secure from the truth of impermanence. The human experiences through body and heart-mind is bonkers: every moment is falling away faster than we can comprehend. That must be overwhelming. Then it is natural for the mind to be distracted, bored, or doubtful. Instead of yanking the attention back to the anchor, can we feel the texture of “lostness” instead? Maybe even a little loving-kindness to the distracting thought itself. If that’s not possible, it's completely ok to ground ourselves with anchors. Neither practice is better than the other. 

What would I have done if I did not distract myself and pretend that I was a boy? I don’t think the environment I was in growing up was supportive of any queer kids. Maybe it was. I say this because of the amount of internalized transphobia that I am unlearning now.

Who am I to judge pretending, distraction, or addiction, are “bad” and not supportive? At the same time, it is true that those attitudes and behaviors would likely have harmful tendencies. They often carry a certain amount of intensity. But I truly think that my self-hatred spared my life even though perfectionism and self-hatred itself led to my suicidal ideation to begin with… that’s a another conversation leading to the colonizing, capitalist, patriotic, racist, homophobic, transphobic society. 

Vmmmm

Just as the sound of base vibrates underneath all, 

my heart quivered. 

You may call it compassion 

but it didn’t feel like the warm fuzzy saying that gets you a thousand likes.

It came with pain. 

The pain that’s so familiar and painful that had almost killed me 

and saved me at the same time. 

I used to think that I didn’t deserve even a suicide. 

Worthlessness and loneliness were my friends. 

Hatred in me was so strong that it made me question… 

Why would I think I could end my life on my terms? 

I’m not worthy. 

That much self-hatred had somehow saved me. 

Or maybe it didn’t. 

It was in the past.

So I thought. 

But my body remembered the darkness and its weight. 

My brain caught up that it’s happening right now again. 

I started to weep on the street. 

I felt warmness in my hand. 

For the first time in the face of overwhelm, 

my heart chimed in with the low vibration that held everything. 

Brain caught it and said… 

I wish I didn’t have to feel this. 

I care for my pain. 

Vmmmm. 

I looked around for the first time in hours. 

Human life is filled with struggles, ignorance, pain…. 

It’s so hard. 

Vmmmmmmmm. 

I didn’t know what I felt was the vibration of the music blasting or the heart trembling. 

Who’s emotion is this? Yours? Mine? 

Because the borders the brain creates separate 

me and you, 

inside and outside, 

body and mind, 

private and public, 

life and death… 

Conceptual borders to keep us safe 

How I look in the mirror and how my body feels when I close my eyes are nothing alike but the same. 

That’s confusing 

Yeah. 

I hate the oneness. 

It’s unreliable. 

Vmmmmmmmmmmmm. 

Resting on the heart’s vibration, 

I continued being overwhelmed. 

It’s so hard. 

Hard for you, me, and us. 

Let me weep in front of strangers. 

Let me feel the pain and shout on the street. 

So that we all can understand… 

It’s so hard to be human. 

Maybe then we can care for each other. 

Because pain, struggle, tears, joy, boredom, anxiety, 

everything is worthy of our attention.

The worthwhile question my teachers often ask is, “What would be the healthy distraction instead of the harmful ones?” Healthy meaning less charged, less intense. My teachers suggested having tea, walking outside, aimlessly gazing out the window… With that space I started to notice what I’m dealing with is not distraction itself but the resistance to the distracted mind. 

I started to have faith that I might be worthy, and so is every being.