The day I didn’t die [Monday Mental Health]

I may run a tea store now, but I still remember the day I sat in the office of a high-ranking medical officer, gripping an image of my sexual assault patient in my mind with iron mental fingers.

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On my outside I folded my hands by my lips like the man next to me and forced my shoulders to look relaxed, my breath to steady, focusing on the pleather chair beneath me, the yellow light on the desk, the rustle of my Army uniform. I couldn’t. Freak. Out.

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If I did, I wouldn’t be able to help her.

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I was in that office, in trouble, because I’d had a breakdown a few days before–a loud, dramatic one, in front of an uncaring, uncoordinated superior who threatened and cajoled and mocked me as I spiraled.

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“We’re going to lock you up in a padded room!” he’d roared. I was spiraling because I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that someone ranking above me would hurt one of my patients–or stop me from saving them. This was because I’d literally seen people slander my Soldiers, refuse them healthcare, or punish them with extra work duty 15 hours a day for 16 days straight for illness–and after four years treating assault patients, I’d seen dozens of shattered men and women creep broken into my exam room, and fight as I might with medications and tests and soft words and doctor’s notes, the one thing they needed most–justice–I couldn’t give them. I couldn’t un-rape them.

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(I vividly remember one woman who didn’t report because she believed the assailant might beat or kill his wife, a witness, in retaliation.)

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So I was spiraling, terrified someone might die in my care, because on top of this–on top of knowing no one had my back but my two young medics fresh out of their teens, and a grizzled, jaded mentor who didn’t really believe in me–a little more than a year before that I’d held too many dead people in my arms. People I kept thinking could have been saved if only I had been allowed to do X or Y or Z.

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Amidst all this–while investigators and bureaucrats wrestled with what to do with the broken young doctor I’d become–one day my beloved took me to downtown Seoul to hunt tea shops. I was in physical pain. I hadn’t slept a real night in months. I was so scared, always–I still remember the constant dread in my stomach, the hypervigilance, the near-constant terror pounding in my chest.

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But as we sat on the floor of the oldest shop we could find…

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Surrounded by mahogany and hangul…

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Sipping a warm, amber blend, speckled with fruits and spices used for centuries for healing…

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And as we pulled out chique minimalist plastic chairs in a hip little dessert cafe, forks digging through bright emerald cake sponge into soft jade cream, sweetness and freshness and a touch of that bitter green blending in our mouths…

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As I gripped a little paper cup, warm against the wind and the sprinkling of sleet in the street…

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For a moment, I had rest.

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This is why I started the tiny, weak, brave little tea shop you may have stumbled across, and why I mix that experience with ASMR–with a moment of sensory calm. Because sometimes we can’t defeat our dragons all in one–I’m still shocked, looking back at that time, that I’m alive now three years later.

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But if I can give you a little tiny oasis in the desert, a rocky crag to pause in during the storm–

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If I can give you Tea-Time With Dragons–

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Well, that makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?

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Whether or not you ever work with me or ever buy anything I make, I hope you take a moment today to think about just ONE healthy activity–actually healthy, not ice cream and Netflix–that you can add for just ten minutes into your daily schedule. A moment to paint, a moment to meditate, a moment to add broccoli to your plate so your body can better feed your mind–

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Just SOME moment of actually healthy, wholesome rest. But maybe you’ll take a beat from someone who’s been there–someone who’s got the scientific experience AND the personal experience–and maybe you’ll take a look at the brand new Monthly Box of Rest I’ve put together. It’s a guided exercise WITH ME and a gentle, exotic, invigorating tea, every month. Will you drink with me?

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Rest adventurously,

Jen Finelli, MD, SAMFE, FAWM

Your Tingles Tea Fellow Dragon Survivor