A Head Full of Crows

Few things in life are harder to control than our own inner realm. The world pummels us with so much stimulus, so much emotional feedback, data, physical sensations, involuntary reactions (from sneezes and hiccups to the more—um—pressing needs below the bellybutton) it is amazing any of us can think or focus at all. Add those special alphabetical acronyms, like ADD or ADHD, among others and you will find it increasingly difficult just to maintain attention to one person speaking let alone an entire world of information. 

It is for this reason that I always laughed when the sensei on some martial arts show or movie told his aspiring pupil to “empty your mind”. It seemed like mystical nonsense back then, but it also seemed impossible specifically to me. My early forays into mindfulness were exercises in distraction and futility. If you can imagine a ruined castle or cathedral and that space is filled with hundreds of squawking crows and ravens, the din is exactly what the inside of my mind was like as I tried to “empty” it. My attempts to quiet the inner mind only managed to jack up my anxiety to levels that could tip me into a panic attack. There was no quieting that inner space. The more anxious I got, the louder the noise and the more upset those mental birds got.

For a long time, I managed to get along okay, as long as I only focused on one thing at a time. But life is rather like that scene from I Love Lucy, where she’s working the conveyor in a chocolate shop. Soon things would decay into hilarious chaos. Micki or my bosses would be talking to me and my mind was elsewhere. Meetings were a chore. Conversations were a nightmare. Add to all this the ease with which my inner self got stirred to the point of overstimulation and a healthy dose of emotions and anxiety and you can see the mental agony I was in. That was just one-on-one, or in reasonable small groups. In large, loud, open spaces with lots of people, like a store or the Fall Festival or the Zoo when it is busy, you can imagine my discomfort. Finally, just for fun, place a healthy dollop of social anxiety on top of all of this. I was in a bad way.

I was raised in a family that believed trials of this sort were caused by “powers and principalities of the air” which is a fancy way to say demons or evil spirits. Looking back now, I can see that many of my school issues, my problems fitting in, feeling connected all stem from the way my brain processes information and trauma at being told to ‘conform’ or to ‘try harder’ to fit in. There was no acceptance, no support, no help. The way I was, felt, saw the world had everything to do with me not believing hard enough in their worldview and very little to do with actual, legitimate mental health issues (issues, by the way, that everyone in our family has). This was also around the time that I started to learn that alcohol and nicotine really helped to calm the birds and allow me a space of internal peace. As a kid, most of my alcohol was supplied by my step brothers, but once I was old enough to afford my own (and legally), I started to understand that it provided me with a very useful crutch, smoothing the feathers of the cawing birds in my skull. 

That way lies madness. No substance, no matter how it appears to work in the beginning, can ever take the place of learning to cope with things without chemical assistance. The more I drank, the more I felt I needed to drink. The genie in that particular bottle made the ailment of the mind much worse without access to drink, so that the part of life that had once been nicely calmed by a drink or two, were jittery until several drinks were imbibed. Then, it was half a bottle of heavy stuff. You see the evil of it. The more I had, the more I wanted and felt I needed. Soon, no amount of alcohol would calm the birds and drinking those amounts has its own set of consequences. 

Finally, after a devastating set of circumstances over too many years, I got help. I stopped drinking. I got into a program. The longer I went without a drink (each day a record-breaking duration), the more the crows started to caw. Now, there was no magic potion to calm them. Now, I had to learn how to face the angry avians in my head, as I ought to have learned when I was a small person. There, family and religion were against me, but now, it was (and remains) my responsibility to deal with the sometimes maddening rookery in my brain.

Sobriety requires that I try to tune into my innermost thoughts and dial to the many swirling dark birds there to get at the root of how they got in there, why they prefer my head and how to manage things without addictive substances. The first thing I had to do was understand the nature of the birds themselves. They are not demons or evil spirits. In fact many of them are learned behaviors, modeled to me when I was young. Some are genetic propensities, handed down from generations. Some are trauma-based anxieties, again demonstrated by parents and family who had no idea how (and I sometimes think, no business) raising an intelligent and curious and sensitive kid. It took me a little time to understand that there was nothing wrong with me, per se. These were natural and commonplace among many young people of my generation. So I had to brave the inside of my head and learn to quiet my inner realm and look and listen and feel and think and remember and reflect and learn. All things I was desperate not to do for many years, and which now I had to face, if I wanted to heal and grow.

My first challenge was understanding the nature of some of my thinking. A therapist once told me that we see ourselves as our parents see us. Lack of confidence, social discomfort, and brutal internal dialogues come almost entirely from things we believe about ourselves because our parents made them clear to us in their own behavior. I’m not blaming my parents, here. 

They were only as good at the job as their own parents were, and I’m of a generation whose parents were raised, in turn, by people who didn’t talk about things, didn’t acknowledge mental health, pretended everything was okay and who didn’t (and often couldn’t) manage things that swerved anywhere beyond the status quo. It took being a parent myself to learn that no parent raises kids in a vacuum. Families are dynamic organisms being pressured by all kinds of challenges and personal issues. They were doing the best they could with the tools they had. I sometimes lament (even now) that those tools happened to be the childhood development equivalent of stone axes and animal skins.

As I reflected on my upbringing, trying to give grace to my parents, and to see how it must have been for them, something interesting happened. A large, black bird fluttered down onto a rafter and quietly preened its sable feathers. Each time I acknowledged the problem, accepted how things were and spoke a tiny word of forgiveness for something that, until then, I had blamed and held a resentment for, another bird settled. It had to be done again and again. Soon a whole group of black birds sat quietly, their beady black eyes intent on my inner voice.

Next, I had to look at how I saw my own actions. Here was a man with a serious disease that caused him to hurt the people he loved. A hundred times, maybe a thousand, I had acted badly, used hateful words, reacted defensively, argued when it would have been better to agree, raged when it would have been better to laugh, blamed when it would have been better to empathize. It took a lot of hard work. Looking at family is one thing. Facing one’s actions as they are, without excuse, is another. Yet, each time I did acknowledge, accept and forgive, another crow settled onto a perch. The work wasn’t just internal. I had to actually seek amends from all the people that I had harmed. Those birds swirled for a long time, because it took me a lot of work to be ready, but also a lot of time to muster my courage. Eventually, I got to a place in my life where I needed to forgive just one more person.

Being inside my own head was now a much different experience. Yes, the birds still got jittery and swirled and screamed. Yes, it could be raucous in there. But I was learning to gain command of the ebony wings. I could close my eyes anywhere, take a few deep breaths and bring myself back to a state of calm. There was just one large bird that still never settled, that sometimes swept past, brushing me with its feathers, or clacking its beak at me irritably. This was a larger, darker, more ominous bird. I knew it and it knew me and was used to me ignoring it. I had, for years, pretended that I could comfortably get by without dealing with it, but that particular raven knew this was a lie I told myself and its sharp, steely gaze said as much.

It can be hard, growing up. I had a hard time with it. Things weren’t great for my parents, either and I had to learn to accept that and forgive them. I had to forgive bullies, circumstances, friends, loved ones and teachers. I had to seek forgiveness for my own stupidity and hatefulness. What I hadn’t done was look at myself in the mirror and name the one person who still hadn’t been dealt with. One person, hurting, terrified, anxious, lonely, worried that he would never be good enough for anyone to love. By the time he grew into a man, feathers had sprouted from his arms, and his face had elongated into a thick, black beak. His eyes glinted with self-hatred. His mind replayed the folly of his former actions and cast censure on them.

Christian ideology is full of rules about seeking forgiveness. We are told we are sinners, that we will never be good enough. That no matter how much we seek forgiveness, it can only be granted by a special set of circumstances. Salvation, or forgiveness of all sin, can only come when we have perfect faith that the death of a demi-god cleansed us. This creates an internal dialog that repeats every time we are at fault, “You cannot ever be good enough, to be truly loved.” I grew up with this lie pretending to be not only true, but the unshakable Word of God. When you’re in a closed system, broken by the rules of that system, locked into the world your adults believe, even after you escape and learn to live like a free person, the whispers continue.

The other birds settled, but the largest one still swirled and screamed. Who could tell me I was good enough? Who could tell me that the lies about the state of my spiritual life no longer had power over me? How could I ever break the power of those ideas? Who could issue me the key to break free? Where was the peace of my deconversion, my sobriety, my new, healthier life? The bird swooped, I ducked, the other birds started to shuffle nervously, to squabble; black feathers filled the air. What had worked for the others? Looking at them, directing my attention and examining them; learning and growing. I gazed steadily at the largest bird and it settled before me. Like something out of Poe, the creature glared at me and I looked unblinkingly back at it. I could see the boy hiding in the feathers, the rubber band holding on the beak, the sneakers with taped-on construction paper talons. I could see through the disguise.

Here was a boy I knew and knew well. My first, knee-jerk reaction was to scold him for this ludicrous display, but then, I breathed. I asked myself why he was dressed like this, what was he hiding from? I took another deep breath and saw an adolescent, not dressed like a raven, but just a regular kid, gazing back at me with questioning, fearful eyes. I raised my arms to him and he slowly, with painful hesitation, moved toward me. The ruins are now silent. Every bird perched around the cathedral of my mind goes to stoney silence. 

Here is the boy and the man. Here between them is a vast, dark sea of words, confessions, tears and sullen loneliness. Here is a young man with hopes, dreams, a wish to have meaning, to be loved, to be of worth to someone. Here is a man, who has those things, but only because he got the help he needed only just in time. The words are not said aloud, but they aren’t unspoken. Here is perfect mutual understanding that can only come from the inside of one head. Here is forgiveness sought and given, mutually, simultaneously, sincerely. Here is a man, looking at the boy he was and accepting him, loving him without blame, resentment, regret or bitterness. Here is the boy, a well of gratitude, finally being loved unconditionally.

The ruins have been gloomy, until now, but light from a bright sun, settling onto the horizon pierces the dark. The crows unite in joyful cacophony. Then, one by one, they leave the rookery, and sweep and roll and fly, as only happy crows can. The boy disappears, so does the man, but a new person is formed in the union. He is a man, but his heart is that of a young person. It's not perfect, but they are trying. And, when you can love yourself and find forgiveness—the kind that is born of love and acceptance, not mystical rules and rituals meant to keep people miserable—the birds in your head get happy and things get better.

Epilogue: Nothing is ever perfect, nor does healing come without work. I learned early on that getting into a recovery program helps, but it is contingent upon spiritual health (this isn’t religious spirituality, but the triumvirate of mental, emotional and physical health). It isn’t enough to stop drinking. I’ve seen too many “oldtimers” as we call them, that have thirty or more years of sobriety, but who have not grown, changed or made any personal progress. My own progress is not to be set up as a moral example. I’m a work in progress and it takes daily effort to keep getting better. If I don’t do the work, I will have a rough day. Some days are a challenge because life can be rough and that can make any brain cage full of birds a little rowdy. I try to give myself grace and do the next right thing. It’s not always perfect, but things are better. For that, I’m grateful beyond caws.