There are lots of ways for humans to get sick. Most of the time it happens from the inside out – cells skew-whiff, too much of this, not enough of that, a bug, a clot, the robber’s dog. But I am a doctor who works with young people. So, I don’t really see a lot of that stuff. The young people I work with often get sick from the outside in.
That can happen in lots of ways – the people who are supposed to love them might ignore them. Or thump them. Or touch them. Sometimes, they might yell. Or struggle with their own illnesses. Or disappear from their lives completely. Sometimes, there’s not enough money to go around. Young people don’t know where they are going to live then. Or what they’re going to eat. Sometimes, those young people are hassled by other young people, bumped into, laughed at, thrown to the pack. And sometimes, they are picked on by big people – schools or doctors or social workers or the police. Especially if they don’t act in the way everybody thinks they are supposed to.
After a while, all those things can get into young people. Adverse childhood events, or ACEs, and the science around them tell us that. They can become solid; a sore tummy, a sore head, a sadness, a worry, cutting arms, cutting legs, not going to school, wanting to die. These are the illnesses I see most of the time working with teenagers in my small New Zealand town.
I’m not sure if these illnesses are really located inside young people, however. So often, they are reasonable responses to some very unreasonable demands. The illnesses they are dealing with are really illnesses found in families and streets.
But families and streets grow in countries. And when I look at countries, I think they get sick in lots of ways, too. Half the people in a country can own everything. And the other half own nothing. Governments can be silly. And kind of weak. They don’t want to upset the people who own stuff. Hospitals and schools and courts and cities slowly fall apart. Companies sell alcohol. Companies sell sugar. The alcohol causes pain. The sugar causes pain. But no one stops them.
We tell ourselves that people who own stuff deserve to own stuff and people who don’t, don’t. Most of us believe that. I believe it. Until I talk to the kids.
But countries grow in histories, too, I suppose. And when I look at histories, there’s a few of those that look a bit crook as well. The way Māori have been treated in their own country; our immigrant communities, our rainbow community, women – each of them has their own particular pain. All of these are outside-in bugs, too, if you ask me.
People might say all this is drawing a long bow. But 200 years is really just 10 sets of mums and dads and bubs – which is a blink, I reckon.
I do love us, though. Especially our kids. And I wish you could see how brave they are. How much they want to be loved. I wish I could show you how the ones you might be most afraid of are funny and wise and doing what they are doing because they are somehow fighting back. They’d help you believe. I’m sure of it.
It’d be nice to chew the fat one day. We need help. Our families. Our country. Our histories. Sometimes they make our kids sick. It doesn’t have to be that way. It would be good to talk about it a bit more than we do. So many of you have found a way through. I know there is love in you. In all of us. And I know you’d know what to do. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t.
Glenn Colquhoun is a GP and poet working with young people in Horowhenua, and the author of Holding the ACEs: Adverse Childhood Events in New Zealand.
