Are You Happy??????

A dreaded question or not, are you happy. My wife asked me this last night and of course I immediately said, sure I'm happy. Of course, she didn't let me off with the flip, yep answer, she wanted me to think about it and then answer, something I am supposed to do tonight....boy I hate pop quizes.

Its a funny question, a few weeks ago I was listening to CBC 1, a sure sign of getting old that I have begun to prefer this station to even the easy rock stations. Anyway they were talking about this question and quoted the French Actress Geneveave Bu something, a famous and aging french actress who when asked the questions said that no one can always be happy you can be content and happy sometime and since happiness comes from pleasure you should seek pleasure and the things that please you.

Well that then begs the question what pleases me and to that I must say I don't really know, I like alot of things, my family, old movies, cooking, 70's music, and doing my job but do these things give me pleasure or are they distractions. Not my family of course or my job these things while are more complex than anything that can be described as pleasures, they can be pleasing, they give you hope and affirmation and love, but also responsibility and as we all know frustration and stress, they cannot be reduced to simple pleasures.

The Frog and The Scorpion

There is a story I heard years ago....its about a frog sitting on a river bank when a scorpion asks him to give him a ride across the river. The frog says no because you will simply sting me and I will die. The scorpion says no that he promises he won't and besides if he stings the frog while crossing the river he would drown. The frog thinks about it and sees the logic in the position and agrees to carry the scorpion across the river on his back.

Halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog and he cries out, why did you do that, now we both are going to die, the scorpion simply says, I am a scorpion, its in my nature, its what I do....

Lately in light of the new proceedings that I have discussed here and other things in my life and especially after a discussion I had with my wife last night, I have been considering why I do what I do. Chrystal asked why I wanted to keep appearing in court, dealing with other peoples problems as my own, dealing with the stress, the fears, the second guessing and the continual battles to prove myself, (this last one is the one that ticks her off the most)

You know dear reader if you have read the now many posts herein you have a pretty good idea as to why I became a lawyer and ended up as a paralegal, however after my talk last night I began to wonder why I still want to do it, is it my nature, simply what I do or is there another reason.

Chrystal and I discussed not so much what I was doing as the whys. What I think it came down to was that I have an inherent need to prove that the confidence once put in me as counsel so many years ago was well founded. In other words I feel the need to prove that I am a good person and I am frustrated that no matter how hard I work, no matter how honest I am, no matter how successful I am, and no matter how long I do this, it can be all undone by a single comment about my past or any other mistake when added to my past. This of course as she quite vehemently pointed out is wrong and of course she is right, however knowing this and feeling it are two different things. I guess like Sisyphus I am still trying to balance that boulder on the top of the mountain, to obtain redemption in the eyes of others instead of looking for it in myself.

I know I have spoken about this in the past, this self acceptance and advised my readers to do it for themselves and this is true, but maybe I should work harder to do it myself. The thing I am scared of in retrospect is that like the scorpion it is now part of my nature, and "what I do"

Another day and I just returned from the Landlord Tenant hearings, of all the proceedings I am involved in this one is the worst, nobody really wins, nobody is ever really satisfied, and the bureaucracy of the proceedings, while probably very necessary is sometimes frustrating. The reason I mention this is because of my comments above, and the thought I have been giving them.

I look at what I love about this business, dealing with people, always a new challenge, helping people that need your assistance to resolve the issues in their lives and my ability to affect their lives for the better, I hope, the vindication in being right or at least being sufficiently persuasive and/or skilled enough to be determined to be right. So to be honest and to strip away all the drama, I love the law, appearing before the courts and helping people and I guess doing something that I know I am good at doing.

However, and maybe like most of us that do this type of work, I cannot stand the business of practice, the insecurity of income and new files, the stresses of worrying about my clients and files. You may remember that I have never really been able to separate myself personally from my clients and my files which to some extent has been the source of alot of my stress over the years. So dear reader while I guess I really can't stand the mechanics of the business of law, I love the practice, bit of a paradox but in addition to that it allows me to some extent find the personal redemption that whether for right or wrong, I believe I need to move on in my life. So I guess in fact it is what I do, but unlike the scorpion I do it because I love it not because I have no choice and as I have discussed in past posts, when suffering and/or recovering from depression, you must make choices, with help and sometimes guidance, but you must make choices if for no other reason than to prevent the choices making you.

I Looked and There It Was....Gone

I am posting this brief post because for a change I do not have to be so glum or preachy.

I have discussed on several occasions my concerns both with the general lack of understanding of depression on the part of the public and specifically on the part of the Society in my past proceedings and my fears about the licensing proceedings that are upcoming. However in furtherance of the upcoming hearing I had a discussion with the discipline counsel in charge of my file and to my very pleasant surprise when we discussed the depression years ago she not only was aware of the seriousness of depression but also its effects on an individual and on lawyers specifically. It was a discovery that provides me with a great deal of encouragement, not in respect to my dealings with the society now but rather for those that might or may have the same misfortune as I and have been forced to walk this dark path.

As I have previously stated there can always be hope, so to be fair I was at fault again, I was looking for the lack of understanding and I looked and there it was....gone.

The Lord and the Devil are Now Playing Chess, the Devil Still Cheats and Wins More Souls and the Lord, Well He is Just Doing His Best......

The title to this post is from The Spanish Train an old Chris De Burgh song and to some extent mirrors my feelings tonight. It is often said by Christians that "the Lord never gives you more than you can handle". Well I just wish that he did not have such confidence in my abilities or such high expectations.

The reasons for these musings is that this weekend my daughter told me that she is separating from her spouse and moving out with our 2 year old granddaughter. While we had suspicions that she has not been happy for awhile and we were concerned about her spouse' treatment of her, she never gave us a clear indication that there were very serious problems. Now of course we told her that we support her and in fact I discussed with her for the first time, a very small portion of my marriage to her mother suggesting that if I had acted quickly and in the best interests of both her and her brother, much of the pain I caused them might have been avoided and for that matter the pain I caused everyone around me, my family, my friends and my clients. I explained to her that I didn't act when I knew there were problems to severe to fix and in doing so I lost myself, and that she must for her sake and the sake of her daughter act only in their best interests without considering, the thoughts of others or the fear of stepping into the unknown and she must above all not be too proud to ask for help or to accept it when it is offered.

Now it could be said that this type of thing happens all the time and I am personalizing it and to some extent that might be true, however dear reader as I hope I have shown here the effects of depression and specifically my depression spread like ripples on a pond moving outward over the years and bouncing back as they reach their initial limits and as such I must try to protect my daughter even now from the effects that my earlier fall may have today.

So to paraphrase the song, the devil still cheats and wins more souls and I am still doing my best...

Reflections on Faith

I haven't been posting alot lately as I have been very busy both with work and with preparation for the character hearing that I have been discussing in past posts. However today I returned again to the Lawyers with Depression website and there was an article in respect to the place of faith in recovery from depression and it got me thinking.

You may recall from past posts in high school I became involved in what was called then, the Jesus People movement, again not the glassy eyed version but the more conservative Baptist movement of the seventies. While I was as described certainly being a hypocrite in respect to my professed beliefs versus my actions, some of what I learned during that period did stick or remain with me. One thing I remember from that period was having a discussion with a charismatic evangelical missionary at a retreat that I had attended.

I had asked him about hell, saying that I really couldn't buy the medieval concept of fire and pitch forks. He told me that he believed hell to simply be an eternal separation from God. Not just a turning away but a separation. He told me that whether or not you believe in something bigger than yourself it is always around you, the possibility of faith or a turning to God is always there, however in his version of hell, he is not around you and you cannot turn to him even if you want to. Its kind of like sunlight, you can decide to go outside or not, it does not change the fact that it is there, by analogy, in his version of hell, there is no sun to go to.

In hindsight when I think about these statements in terms of the depression there seems to be a strange analogous truth to them. I was never really religious after my high school days, perhaps I at least accepted my past hypocrisy, but I did believe and I did occasionally attend church and had my children baptised in the Church of my youth, I guess to use terms of the 21st century I was spiritual rather than religious. I prayed in low times, thanked God in good times, however in thinking back during the depression that option was gone, not ignored, not avoided, not rejected, just gone.

Now when I say gone, I am not implying or trying to suggest that in some delusion of grandeur that the universe turned its back on me personally but rather that in the depression I turned my back on it, the separation was self imposed, in other words rather than deciding not to go out, I painted the windows black, locked the door and threw away the key, I chose hell. Sounds dramatic but in hindsight, I don't remember praying during this period, I didn't ask God or anyone else for that matter for help, I was alone and I accepted that fact, and quite frankly I think I preferred that position, I didn't want anyone to know what I was going through, even God. So I chose the separation from God and the world and entered into a personally constructed hell.

Sounds a bit grand but I think that when you have faith in something larger than yourself you can have hope but when you cannot have faith you cannot have hope and I like others that have suffered from depression know that without hope there is despair. I have spoken about the pain of depression before, and it is almost impossible to describe, except to say that it is severe enough that you will view death as a reasonable alternative to it, and look forward to the relief that oblivion will bring, this pain I believe comes directly from the despair. A feeling of such hopelessness that even God does not exist in the world you have entered, so not only are you separated from your friends and family but from the everything that could ever lift you from the despair.

So the upshot of what I am trying to say is that if you are suffering from depression you must find hope and hope lies in faith in something bigger than yourself, so you must find someone to help you whatever faith you had or may want, go, and ask for help, tell that someone that you need faith, you may not want it, you may never before believed that you wanted it, but now you need it, and with that help you will hopefully be able to ask for the other help you need to beat the depression and once more have hope.

I didn't do this and suffered for it, and while I am still not a religious person I can say that I do have faith and know that there is something bigger than me in the universe, so I am not alone and there is always hope.

I have re-read this post and while I have not changed it I wanted to add some further thoughts, not in terms of faith so much as the need at least I had and have to be part of something bigger than myself.

When I was young, well like all teens and young adults I wanted to be accepted, to have friends and be part of a family. As I got older I think this need was met, at least during law school and after my call when I went west by the fraternity of lawyers, I believe that is the term although I am not quite sure if there is a more politically correct one. Anyway this sense of belonging to something larger than myself was a comfort and satisfied that need in me, however when the depression set in with its attendant shame I became separated from this fraternity and lost that comfort and confidence. Now I would like to say that as discussed to some extent in previous posts that I was ostracized and lost this sense of belonging through no fault of my own but that wouldn't be true or in the least bit accurate. Yes I have previously discussed the reactions of some of my colleagues when I jumped into the pit and the Society began to take action and I have discussed some of the problems experienced to date with various local counsel however it is important to note that there is no question of the chicken or the egg. I dug the hole and I jumped into it. In other words as I became more depressed it was my decision, no matter how delusional or misguided to retreat from those that not only loved me but also those in the profession that could have helped or at least understood the pressures and problems that were driving me. So I guess to be be honest it was I that disengaged not the fraternity or my colleagues initially.

I discuss this here following my discussions of faith not only because I disengaged from faith in the same way that I did from God or the Universe but because I want those that may not have had any type of spiritual faith before they began the descent into depression that faith is not the sole property of the church and to try to illustrate that the faith I am discussing does not have to be spiritual, it simply has to be a faith or trust in something bigger than you although the two are not mutually exclusive.

I am not suggesting dear reader that this trust is easy either during or after suffering from depression, but you must believe and trust in something, you must specifically decide to trust in things outside yourself, family and friends when you can but generally the long term overall justice of the world. The trust may not always be justified but you must trust anyway and with that I believe you will have faith after all even God sometimes says no to prayers.

In my case I believe that things will work out somehow, I believe that there are inherent truths in the world that despite signs to the contrary will eventually win out, I believe that justice may not always be done in the short term but will succeed in the end. I keep this faith even when the facts may indicate the opposite and when my fear of something I cannot control tries to overwhelm me.

A good example of this is the licensing hearings I am now facing, despite the fear that sometimes sneaks up on me, despite my concerns in respect to agendas and institutional policy I have faith that the truth will be accepted and everything will work out in the end, and this as I spoke about earlier is hope and despair cannot stand against hope.

Cast Your Bread Upon The Waters...

I just returned from mailing out the first group of letters requesting letters of recommendation from various counsel and judges in my area. I had obtained a few others in the past for the preliminary stages of the investigation but this is essentially my first mass mailing. It will be interesting to see the responses, whether my conduct over the past years has garnered the respect I hope and believe it has or not, and if it has, whether that respect is sufficient to allow them to feel comfortable enough to write a letter to the society. The fear in me says no, but as previously discussed you know how the fear lies and I will wait and see. In the mean time I will prepare more letters, casting my bread upon the waters so to speak, or once more into the breach dear friend, both are appropriate but I am hoping the first bears more fruit.

Its been about a week since my last posting and I received my first response to my letters requesting a letter of recommendation. It was from a Deputy Judge that I have appeared in front of on and off for the past 10 years. He is not a local lawyer, Deputy Judge, he is from out of town, I sent him the letter more on a whim than as a result of any plan as I really know little or nothing about him and have had no social contact with him other than to say hello in various courthouses. I guess I thought that if he responded I would get a standard, he is not a bad guy letter, something to pad the file for the society with a little credibility given his position.

Well dear reader when I received the letter, I cried, and to tell the truth I am crying as I write this post. This lawyer, Deputy Judge wrote a letter that touched me deeply, it was a letter that clearly showed that he not only recognized my abilities in court but noted how I approached the profession, my approach to the people I deal with in the court, the court staff, the opposition and the members of the public that are forced to utilize the judicial system. He, more boldly than I thought anyone would, given my past comments as to the fear of counsel to enter into this process, spoke to his impressions of my character and integrity in such glowing terms that I almost doubted it was about me.

I showed my wife this letter and all she said was that finally I might be able to see myself as others see me, not through the haze of self doubt and constant need to keep proving myself to people but as a person worthy of the high opinion people have of me. As usual my friends she was right, further she has illustrated yet another scar of depression or the remaining fallout of the bomb that went off in my own life and affected so many others around me, being the need to constantly make amends, to prove that it was the depression that detonated that bomb and not me whether they blame me or not.

So after my first letter I have learned something that maybe I really needed to know going into this process, I am not as bad a person a I think I am and I may deserve to be happy despite myself.

Well dear reader it has been about a month since my last post, it has been a very busy month both in terms of work and in terms of my dealing with the Law Society hearing. The pre hearing meeting has been set for October and I have been receiving various letters from Judges and Lawyers recommending me and my character which has been very encouraging. There are still more to go and I have yet to review the Proposed Statement of Facts from the Society which will outline the issues they have with me.

Its funny though as I have indicated in past posts and in the previous parts of this post, despite the encouragement and good recommendations, the fear is still there, haunting me almost daily about these proceedings. Now I should say it is a bit different now. Instead of the being paralyzed or obsessing on the fear it is like I am standing apart doing what I have to do but noticing the fear as a side effect of those actions. Its more a function of observation than dwelling on it, I feel the fear but when I do its like I can now say, oh, that's interesting, I wonder why that is bothering me, and I move on. I can only hope that this is a function of moving past the depression, as I have said the fear will probably always be there, maybe now that I have recognized it for the misleading emotion that it is, it will show its face a little less often.

On Your Mark, Get Set, ......

Dear reader I entitled this post On Your Mark, Get Set... for me more than for you or to even be a little clever. Rather as a goad or whip for myself, I know what I have to do, I just have to do it. It can be get set go, or it can be get set run around in ever decreasing circles. This is a reminder to myself not only to get moving but to be effective.

It is hard to prove you are of good character, where do you start, so I will continue when I have something to write about. I know I am of good character the problem is how do you prove it on the balance of probabilities, think about it, who do you know that can definitively say you are a good person other than those that that love you and as such have little weight in such a hearing.

Well here we go, after some discussions with various colleagues and one paralegal that has gone through the process I am about to start. First letters to as many counsel, judges and agents as I can in the hopes of obtaining their recommendations as to my competence, demeanour in court, and hopefully good character, then letters to as many past and present clients as I can again hopefully to get recommendations as to my handling of their matter, my client management and my character, then some personal letters from friends and family that while they will not hold allot of weight may give the panel a rounded view of my present life. I will then have to see if I can get anyone to attend at any eventual hearing, which may be tough not only due to the fact that these people are very busy but also due to the fact that I have yet to meet anyone that wants become directly involved in this type of hearing no matter how strongly they feel about the subject. I firmly believe that is why most complaints to the society do come from the public and not counsel, they just do not want to get involved with the process. Anyway that is the plan for this week, preliminary I know, but a start, as they say a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

It is Sunday and I am continuing on my journey by preparing the many requests for recommendations. Yesterday Chrystal and I had a long discussion about the upcoming hearing, she was a little ticked off that we yet again had to go through this type of process, that I again had to prove myself and that our family once more had to deal with the stresses of the ghosts from the past. While I must admit that despite my understanding of the reasons why, emotionally I have the same questions and wonder when this is going to be over, when I can take a step forward or even make a mistake without the events in the west colouring the perceptions of those around me. As I said earlier in this blog I guess the answer is never. This may seem unfair but reality is not always fair, it just is and I would suggest that anyone that finds themselves in the same position as I should understand this and not let it defeat you.

I was asked by the society investigator how I felt about what happened in the west, was I remorseful. I told him yes, that I think about all the time, that almost a week doesn't go by that I do not think about the pain I caused my clients and those around me because not only do I feel badly about it generally but I am never allowed to forget it. If it is not something like this investigation, or a comment from opposing counsel or someone I am acting against, it is found in the fact that because of all of the past problems I have to try to be that much better at my job, that much more transparent in my actions and not only honest but be able to prove my honesty to those that would question it. The frustration arises in the fact that whether I am successful or not in doing the above it means nothing when the single mention of the problems brings everything back and I must start again. The important thing dear reader is that I do start again that I continue on not only for myself which is important but to try and show that the past problems arising from the depression did not beat me and will not no matter how many times I have to start again. The importance of and I believe dignity in this constant movement forward can I think be best illustrated by a colleague that I speak to on occasion who was disbarred almost 30 years ago. He is a paralegal now and we have dealt with each other in the courts for years. He is a good man and works very hard for his clients and has rebuilt his life despite trials and punishments much worse than those suffered by me. He has served the public and has become such a respected member of the community that he was asked to run for a municipal counsel position. After alot of consideration but with a desire to serve he put his name forward as a candidate. Immediately after doing so the local paper ran an article disclosing his 30 year old disbarment, of course his election bid ended before it began. In this article there was no mention of his accomplishments over the past thirty years, his service to the profession, his redemption or rehabilitation, just the suggestion that he was dishonest without discussion or I think even any knowledge of the facts that led him to his mistakes. This event of course hurt and disappointed him but he accepted it as a logical if unfortunate consequence of his past actions and kept on moving forward in his life.

In discussing this event with him I told him that I understood his feelings of frustration at this type of thing, he said, as I was disbarred he could see how I would know what he was talking about and his feelings. I had to smile and I told him that I was not in fact disbarred which surprised him because from what he had heard it was considered to be general knowledge amongst the local bar and bench, this is after 10 years of my appearing before the court and not ever hiding my past. After I told him what had really happened we both just smiled at our mutual understanding and common experience, both agreeing that no matter how much time passes things will not change and the scars cannot be removed, you just have to move on tyring no matter how vainly to tip the scales of reputation to at least balance out the weight of past transgressions.

In reviewing the above paragraphs I do not want to suggest to any reader that this apparent endless struggle to push the boulder up the mountain is not worth it. In thinking about the plight of Sisyphus I think I can now say with some authority that the virtue is not in the getting the boulder to the top of the mountain but in the willingness to keep pushing. Dear reader if you are going through a depression or tyring to recover from it or have recovered from it and facing similar frustrations to those of my colleague and I, the greatest success you can have is the knowledge that you can and will keep going no matter what, not for the sake of public redemption but to reach a point that you can forgive yourself and see yourself as the person you wish others would see.

Again the journey is not for public redemption but for personal redemption, you must realize that if you were canonized as a saint the papers would say, disgraced lawyer becomes saint, the thing to remember is that all saints didn't start out that way and martyrdom is not a job requirement.