Tear Down the Walls

There's just one more thing that I wanna say:

Everyone has got their own special way

That keeps them from getting too close to the day,

Accept and be part of it all and all;

Everyone tear down your own little wall

That keeps you from being a part of it all

'Cause you gotta be one with the one and all,

And everyone tear down your own little wall

That keeps you from being a part of it all

'Cause you gotta be one with the one and all,

You gotta be close to it all.

I remember so clearly, I was standing Crystal Palace Bowl, about three or four people back from the pool which sits in front of the stage, I’d had a couple of beers, I’d smoked a joint and was feeling good after seeing Richie Havens despite the now torrential rain, but for me the highlight was to come, and was to change me.

I had liked the music for a couple of years, but during the next hour I fell totally in love… and that hasn’t changed… Melanie has been important to me since that afternoon… she really moved me, and as she sang that passage up above, I was wiping away a tear or two.

Y’see, I had grown up quite lonely in so many ways, I didn’t go out much until around 1969, then started to go to concerts and gigs frequently on my own, before developing a huge raft of friends in the early 70’s, and even now, in, hmmm… around 1972?… I was still struggling to make lasting friendships.

As Melanie sang about tearing down your own little walls I realised that she was talking directly to me.. I had built a wall to protect myself, and although it was crumbling, it was breached but it was still there. I knew that I had to tear down my walls and let people in… let myself out… and get closer to people. That song, that concert, that afternoon, was a turning point… of course the alcohol and smoke played their part in this, the song opened my heart and mind to the humanity within me.

That’s what I am talking about here… the society we live in now is getting more and more distant, more and more remote.. more and more walls are going up and hearts and minds are closing in on themselves. Sure, we saw hope when the Berlin Wall came down, when the Cold War ended, but it was a false dawn.

We have just seen two Chechens kill with explosives at the end of the Boston Marathon… It was a barbarous act of brutality and cowardice, and I have no idea why it was done… neither have you. Does this mean that all Chechens are evil and dangerous… Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were dangerous, does that mean all the English are dangerous? Of course it doesn’t

What walls had they built for themselves? Why? What is their story? I don’t know… I don’t think anyone knows, maybe they don’t know. Until we know their story we must not be too quick to condemn them. By all means condemn the action they took. Of course they must face the penalty required by the law for that action, indeed the older has already paid the full price, but can any of us honestly say that given the same set of experiences they went through that we would behave differently, I like to think so, but can any of us put hand on heart and say we would have been different.

There is no disputing that the Third Reich was a brutal bigoted regime, but had we been in Berlin in 1936 would we have seen it that way,? Would we have joined up and done exactly the same?

In 2001 of course we saw the ultimate act of terrorism, the flying of aircraft into the World Trade Towers. That was an act of murder on such a vast scale it is hard to imagine it could have been carried out by human beings. The full blame of course fell on the Muslim community… does that mean the whole muslim community was guilty… of course not. I believe the majority of muslims were as appalled as anyone at the action. Despite that the community was vilified, feared, shunned… little wonder they built walls to face the walls we had built to face them.

Then we come back to Pratto… yes, I have written about the damage that Pratto does (http://on-goingcarersupport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/pratto.html), but we should also try to understand him. Pratto bestrides the earth in his thousands, but his condition isn’t a natural one for a human being… it is borne out of the circumstances he has lived through, the experiences he has faced, and had we positive people gone through his experience, can we honestly say we would not be Pratto’s as well?

Tear down your wall… experience has shown me the truth of the old saying a trouble shared is a trouble halved. We can all build up stress by simply holding back and not admitting to others, or even ourselves, what we are feeling… that is one brick in the wall.

We close our minds to things we don’t understand, and therefore we decide that we don’t like them. We don’t understand that other religion that the chap over there follows… we build a wall to hide it… it is hidden and soon becomes feared, that is where so much prejudice and hatred comes from. And there is the other brick in place.

Now, the point of this is the stigma around mental illness… a condition that has caused me my share of grief, also caused my friends their share of grief… I believe if we are ever to get a more effective and support mental health service we first have to remove the stigma.

To do that, we have to accept that mental illness is just that, to understand it’s impact on sufferer and carer, to understand just how heartbreaking, how soul destroying it is when, as a patient or carer you are challenged in every way… you are told to pull yourself together, you are possibly called a nutter, you are even told

That you are not really ill… that is the wall so many people have built to protect themselves from the trauma of mental illness.

Y’know what… you are kidding yourself. Mental illness does not acknowledge that sort of wall, like a ghost, it will go straight through it as though it isn’t there… it will take over your whole being whether you think it is a real illness or not.

Please… tear down that wall… tear down all of those walls… you may not know but there are many many friends out there you don’t yet know. Tear down your walls and let them in.

You will feel the benefit of being close to it, close to the one and all.

And yes, if you wonder, I saw Melanie again a year or so ago, she doesn’t look as she did, time hasn’t actually treated her too well, the hair is greyer, the body bigger, much bigger, and judging by her performance her memory isn’t what it was… but the voice, my god the voice, still rose and spoke to my heart…

Thank you Melanie, I tore down my own little walls, and feel now a part of it all