How can we help people during their lowest moments?

Part two of my conversation with Rev Marion Chatterley, where she discusses what her end-of-life work has taught her about living...

A few nights ago, on my train home, I sat adjacent to a woman sobbing. There were bottles of Prosecco and chipped plastic cups scattered across the table, her towering jewel-tone heels were discarded and spread across the train floor. It was that proper drunk, hiccupy, can’t-stop crying and - as she gulped her tears down - struggling to get her words out two things became clear. 1) She hated her job and that’s why she was crying. 2) Her mum was ill and that’s why she was really crying.

She was with a friend, her sister and her boyfriend. Her friend tried to gently say that perhaps it wasn’t her work that was making her so upset but, instead the news of her mum’s illness. She said, “it’s OK to cry about that.” To which the woman wailed: “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” Her sister refused any sympathy whatsoever, was stern and told her to simply “stop crying.” Her boyfriend gave her a cuddle, her mascara smearing all over his crumpled white shirt. She eventually fell asleep and he shrugged “she’s just really drunk” to the people around them.

What was the right way to react to her sorrow? Her friend was being the kindest, trying to get to the root of why she was upset. But it was clear she’d sunk in a form of denial, a place where she wouldn’t allow herself to be upset about her mum. That pain was, perhaps, too acute. I understand that. I’ve been there. I’m not sure if someone consistently trying to tell me, back then, what I was really crying about would have helped. I remember seeing a grief therapist shortly after mum died, I left after one session and refused to go back. “The bitch kept trying to make me cry,” I said. I was on auto-pilot protection mode. I felt this woman was too. So, probably was her sister, who needed to be cold and harsh, in order to ignore her own pain.

People when they’re in extreme pain react in surprising ways. Some go numb, cold and they can list off moments of trauma as if they’re reciting a shopping list. Others self-medicate, drink, pretend everything is fine (or cry about something minute). Some can get trapped in their own sadness, caught in the loop of it, struggle to find any way out.

It’s why the second half of my conversation with Rev Marion (you can find the first part here) was so interesting to me. She’s sat with people, almost all of her life, in their darkest moments. Sometimes she’s been able to help them see where to go next and other times she’s had to accept that their life is just that: their life.

We all make decisions that others might disagree with. We all do things knowing that they will hurt us but that we feel compelled to do anyway. We even end up in situations and wonder how the fuck it is we arrived in this place again, are we addicted to our own suffering? We make brilliant calls and we make stupid calls over and over again. Yet we also all want to help others, guide our loved ones away from pain. Is that possible? Or are people set the way they’re set?

While that’s an impossible question to answer Marion’s life experience helped me unpick it, a little…

The work you do isn’t what I would expect from the reverend of a cathedral… 

It still feels a little odd to me to be working in [such a grand] cathedral. 

Almost all of my working life has been engaging with the very vulnerable. I recognise that I feel very drawn to people who feel different [and ostracised]. 

Can you remember some of your earlier outreach work?

In the very early days of HIV [in the 1980s] The Church Of Scotland had a project for street workers. We had premises down in Leith where the women worked and a link with the sexual health clinic. We had two clinics a week and would also go out into the streets at night with condoms. It was about offering consistency for people who have never had any consistency in their lives.

What sort of reaction would you get? Particularly as this was at a time when HIV was so demonised. Was it a struggle to get women to speak to you? 

You would see girls scuttling and running away as soon as they saw us. It was about making a connection; we would take cigarettes and use them to open up a conversation. Then, gradually, we got to know a few people and we had a couple of women who had stopped working who volunteered. That made a big difference. 

We were working with people’s fear and their denial. A lot of it was about trying to persuade women to really take HIV seriously. But we were also protecting them from very abusive men. There wasn’t a big pimping scene here but there were some pimps from Birmingham who used to bring women up. They were so nasty. 

I still remember taking one woman to her abortion. She had a child that she wasn’t able to bring up because she had to work [on the streets], so the guy’s mother was raising this child. Then she found out she was pregnant and he [her pimp and boyfriend] told her she couldn’t have the baby. But it was a very late termination that she got because of her circumstances. As soon as it was all over the first thing she asked me to do was to call him and tell him that she loved him. 

That was tough. I have no doubt that it was right for her to have had an abortion. It was her not being able to see how evil this man was. I encountered a lot of horrible people. Guys who would steal the girls’ methadone so that they would become more desperate to go out and make some money so they could then buy on the street. 

You’ve spent so many years helping people in really tough situations. What do you think helps in those moments? 

There is something about being there and letting people be. You’re not there to judge. But, at the same time, I want to be able to guide people towards a healthier way of living. I want to show them that there’s something they can value in themselves. Sometimes you can do that, and sometimes you can’t. The worst case scenario is when you can't and people die by suicide. And that’s just awful as you can’t help but think “should I have said something different? Could I have helped in another way?”

How do you help people find that valuable thing about themselves? 

You need to be looking for something that is life-giving. You need to pinpoint a change moment while honouring and acknowledging all that really rubbish stuff. You’re trying, when you’re listening, to help people move into a place of change. 

Would you have an example of that of like a something you've managed to spot?

I used to see a man who was really into chemsex. Someone who often felt he was just a sex toy, and who was engaging in increasingly damaging behaviours. I’d see him later in the week, often when he was coming down and feeling really bad about himself. 

He’d tell me all about the parties, and what happened and I’d ask: “aside from the sex, what is it that’s good about the parties?” And his favourite thing wasn’t the Friday night, and Saturday mornings, when everyone was high and having sex. But instead it was the afternoons, when he could snuggle up with someone. From there I would start to ask him, “so tell me about that warmth… where else in your life do you find that? And if you don’t have anywhere else in your life you can find that, where else do you think you could?” From there, he could begin to see a different way of being, that would – eventually – make him happier. There was a glimmer of hope. 

How do you look after yourself? 

I’ve had external supervision for a long time. I see the same person and I trust her completely. It’s a safe space where I can really process and let out all of my emotions. I’ve also learned to be able to switch off and I genuinely don’t remember what people tell me. That’s a deliberate coping mechanism. I’ve heard so many terrible stories and you can’t carry that. For me, that transition point from coming home from work is really important. I like to cook and there’s something about peeling carrots and chopping the onions that helps me transition from work-mode into home-mode. 

[My religion] is what grounds me and what centres me. Particularly since I’ve been here, as we have morning and evening prayer and there’s almost a monastic rhythm to the day that I find incredibly helpful. It frames your day and holds you. Particularly the Evensong song which is four nights a week. There’s fantastic music that just washes over you, and somehow it does wash away [the day.] 

Is there an element of giving in and accepting a lack of control? 

It’s the AA thing of accepting the things that you cannot change. I think one of the lessons of working around HIV was that there was so much that I couldn’t change. Not just in terms of disease progression but also in terms of other people’s choices. 

After the street worker project I was ordained and I was asked to go and work as a chaplain at Milestone [the UK’s first purpose built HIV hospice]. [I can remember] a guy who received a lung cancer diagnosis – quite an early one – and the consultant told him that he could have life-saving surgery, but only if he stopped smoking. He smoked 20 joints a day. And he just said that life without smoking wasn’t worth living. He couldn’t contemplate it. 

That's the life he knew.

The consultant phoned me and asked whether I thought he was able to make that decision. Because for her it was clearly such a wild decision. I had to say yes. He just couldn’t imagine a life without weed.  And he lived about a year. 

Did you keep up with him during that time?

Yes. He was somebody who had been in and out of care as a child and, as such, had a poor education. But he was so bright and really interested in learning, so self-educated watching The History Channel and documentaries. 

When I first knew him he used to say to me “I honestly can't understand why someone is intelligent as you would believe all that stuff.” [meaning religion and heaven and hell]. Then as he got further into his disease progression he started to say “you know what Marion wouldn’t it be great if you were right? But you’re not!” 

What became clear was he needed to leave the door ajar. The ‘just in case.’ Eventually we got to a place where he’d say to me “well if you are right, how am I going to tell you?” I told him he could come back and haunt me! But there was something lovely about that. I’d say to him “you do know [heaven] isn’t just full of bottle of Buckfast, right?” I love that sort of banter that actually has something really deep to it. I love being able to plant a little seed of something. 

What other moments can you remember from Milestone?

There was a big seating area and people would come and they’d say to me “what are you going to say about me at my funeral Marion?” or “I’ve been thinking about my funeral music and I’ve just heard this song.” 

It was really, really healthy. It was just normal to discuss funerals and death. We did lots of that stuff: when we moved people from their rooms after they died we didn't cover their face. There was something about normalising death and showing that a dead body is a dead body, but it's not the person. 

How do you think that's kind of impacted your views about your own death and the deaths of the people incredibly close to you?

I have bought my own burial plot! I also like to think that if I had bad news I would find a way to process that. But then you never know. I worked for a little while at Marie Curie Hospice and there was some people who wanted to stay in a place of denial. Almost like a security blanket. 

But mostly we got to a place where it was okay to talk [about their deaths]. Jo [AUTHOR’S NOTE: my dad!] did a talk recently where she read from [her play] Sister Death and one of the things she was talking about was that dying is hard work. I saw that when people reach that place where there is a point of no return they seem to turn inward and engage with the ‘task’ of dying. 

In what way could you see that? 

One of my most important ways of understanding the process has been with people who love soaps. Who would fit their diary around them. But then [as they approached death] they’d stop watching them. Not because they were tired but because they’d say “so what? It doesn’t actually matter what happens.” They’d accepted their own death.

And people make choices when they reach that place. There was a woman I knew who had breast cancer and she was a very proper Edinburgh woman and, from the beginning, she said “I can’t have my hair falling out.” That really limited her treatment. What she was willing to take [and how long she would live for.]

And isn't that funny, as I’m sure she wouldn’t think of herself as similar to the man who smoked 20 joints a day. And yet, they both made decisions to do with what they felt a life worth living would look like…

My final question is - as I’m also using this newsletter as a way to explore my own grief and get to know my mum better – what are your memories of her? 

She had a very open face. One that invited you into sharing. She was friends with this group of feminists who were all a bit older than me, so she was more of a friend of a friend. But she was very clearly someone who had a network of people and who was good at maintaining those relationships. She was someone who had something to say and knew how to convey that, she wrote really well. She made an impact. 

Thank you so much to Marion for speaking to me. And for everyone’s kind words on last week’s conversation - I’m glad you found her as inspiring as I did. Please keep sharing and subscribing, it really helps. See you next week!