Power and Control

I worked in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in the late 90s. Over the course of seven years, I worked at four different agencies and six more on contract with the regional health board doing energy work and reflexology for those with or at risk of misusing substances. It was an incredible learning experience. My original intent was to supplement my psychology degree with practical knowledge but it soon transformed into a powerful catalyst for my own healing and self-awareness. Healing, however, doesn’t always come in pretty packages and the desire to do good doesn't always translate into good deeds.

The following is an excerpt from Notes from the Bottom of the Box: The Search for Identity by a Modern-Day Renaissance Woman.

There is a certain element that thrives in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, almost as if it is an entity of its own. Mythological and timeless as the gods themselves, it lures the unsuspecting and then traps, as Hephaestus once netted Aphrodite and Ares. The element is power and control.

Does it affect everyone? Some would say yes, but I feel it affects mostly those who had no agency or sense of control as a child, those who were lost in the confusion of abuse or neglect and, as adults, have yet to come to terms with it. They yearn to be seen, to be heard, and to make sense of that which has none. For some this need for influence is fairly benign, but for others it becomes a drug: a need to control, to power over.

I yearned for this sense of control when I first started working in the DTES. I didn’t know it at the time; it was coloured over by a need to help, to understand, to be a good person. And yes, I was a “good” person, but in that goodness, I disempowered and hurt not only others but myself.

Stay tuned for more weekly excerpts from Notes from the Bottom of the Box. If you like this blog, please like me on my Modern-Day Renaissance Woman Facepage.  Thanks for the support!

If you like my writing, check out my other blog, The Interdependent Life.