Honest Talk Continues
I got honest earlier today on a call with a new but definitely lifelong friend. Her name is Cindy and she is A-MAZ-ING!
As we build all the components of this documentary through research, conversation and interviews I am painfully aware of something I’ve heard a lot about but never really looked into for understanding.
The cool kids call it imposter syndrome. Now, I don’t have any degrees to speak of so this should be understood right off the bat as something I relate to but not something I’m ascribing or prescribing to myself.
As I dive deeper into Stigma related to Substance Use Disorder and find SO MANY people who’ve been talking about it I have to chuckle at myself about the day I stood in my office on the phone with my friend David Hampton declaring to him, as though I’d discovered a new planet in our Solar System, “It’s almost like there’s a stigma attached to drug overdoses!”
David, being a good friend understanding I was in the early days of grieving the loss of my cousin Nate, softly, slowly and systematically gave me a list of areas where stigma does play a role in people not getting the help they need. He talked about social instances, medical areas, judicial circumstances, faith community responses, the list goes on.
I held my phone in one hand and a marker in the other as I feverishly tried to write everything he was saying on my white board.
I had determined by the end of that call that I was going to take the idea of this documentary to my partner Antony and pitch it as our next big project.
Photo captured from a short video on the instagram account of Mitzi Dawn from the Overdose Awareness event at NRC.
A few days later I was at the NRC with Nate’s mom, dad and sister listening to others share on stigma attached to this disease. I was an absolute mess as I stood holding hands with my cousin listening to all the pain that existed because society doesn’t talk about this. When they opened up for others to share their experiences Maggie leaned over and said, “If I go up there will you go with me?”
My heart sank and elevated to an ethereal place at the exact same time. Like a roller coaster kind of feeling.
What is it with the bravery of this family?!?
I’m a behind the scenes kind of guy. Despite what some think, I don’t like being in front of people... at all.
How was I going to take that step? How could I not take that step? How much more love could I have for this amazing woman holding my hand and wanting me to walk with her to the front?
Back to imposter’s syndrome... I’m not the dude that discovered that stigma plays a role in Substance Use Disorder. I’m not the single, solitary discoverer of this fact.
I came to it honestly as I watched and still watch it play out in real time.
I’m also not the spokesperson for this movement. I’m a documentary filmmaker. All I have to do is organize the interviews, set up the microphones, let my partner Antony point camera, light subject and push the red button and craft the narrative in post-production with him.
The stories of those we are gathering to share in this film unfortunately have the 10,000 hours put in. They’ve done so uphill, in blood and sweat and need to be heard.
Our job at TEN/28 is to make a megaphone that will carry those stories to a place into societies consciousness that will see this disease for what it truly is and stop looking at it as what happens to “those people.”
As Dr. Stephen Loyd said in the most recent episode of Freakonomics Podcast, “I think any time you lessen the stigma associated with addiction you increase opportunities for people to step outside of the shadows and ask for help...”
-Skip
