Survivor’s Guilt

I spent 12 years as founding president of Integration Charter Schools, building a network of schools which provided opportunities for the most challenged students to heal and thrive, great schools for teachers and students. I’ve now been retired almost three years, and I’ve commented that I rarely get calls from the staff who are still there. Almost all the calls I get are from former colleagues as they prepare to leave ICS or just after they’ve moved on. They call with nightmare stories of the changes which have happened. Have the people who stayed gone over to the “dark side”? Maybe they weren’t calling to spare my feelings. They didn’t want to hurt me by telling me how much better it was now that I was gone.

I figured that some who had stayed had not gone over. For some, there was another reality. Some were hanging on to their livelihood. Some had limited job mobility. Some terrific people had come to our schools along non-traditional career paths and without the standard teacher credentials. We hired retired police officers, ex-military, artists and dancers and film makers. For many of them, leaving ICS could mean leaving education. For those who’d found a home working with our kids, this was a painful alternative.

Others had followed non-traditional pathways to school leadership. We prided ourselves on promoting the best and the brightest, those with ambition and drive, into leadership roles many years before they’d get these opportunities in traditional education settings. Moving to another school network could mean stepping back from leadership, “waiting their turn” in systems which relied on seniority and in which they would now be starting late.

Maybe it was survivor’s guilt which was keeping them from calling, from reaching out for support. Originally coined to describe the experience of concentration camp survivors, survivor’s guilt is currently recognized as an aspect of post-traumatic stress disorder. It occurs among people who have survived job layoffs. So many ICS-ers have been fired or forced out. The ones still standing were definitely survivors.

I know this dilemma and the guilt associated with it, the conflict between making a living and doing good, doing the right thing. One memory jumps out. It was more than 50 years ago. We were building one of the first community mental health centers in New York City, and I was the Center’s liaison with the Brownsville community. Community leaders didn’t want to talk about our mental health programs. Something had to be done first about our horrific emergency room. They were planning a demonstration. My colleagues and I thought that we needed to join the picket line if we were to gain community trust. Our boss, the head of psychiatry, talked to the hospital CEO. “What if my people join the picket line?”

“You’ll have to fire them.”

“What if I refuse to fire them?”

“We’ll fire you.”

We didn’t join the picket line. That was my first job in mental health. I’d been lucky to get it and lucky to keep it. I was afraid to throw the opportunity away. I felt guilty. I’d failed to stand up for something that I believed in.

I can still taste the survivor’s guilt, but I am seeing it differently today. I am smiling to myself because I’m thinking that I should have seen this 30 years ago, when I first met Bernie, when I first heard him say spirituality and social action were both parts of a balanced life. I was new to Zen then, and I was a committed social activist even though I’d hung onto my career. I’d come to Zen in search of inner peace, needing inner peace, but was challenged by guilt whenever meditation practice took me away from protests or political meetings.

Bernie had a way of talking with his hands, demonstrating a balanced life, by “holding” social action in one hand and Zen meditation in the other. It wasn’t much later – maybe it was even the same day – that I heard Bernie say that spirituality, livelihood, social action, community, and study were all aspects of a balanced life. Bernie called these “the five Buddha families.” I worked with this. Jishu taught me to use magic markers to color a week-at-a-glance calendar – there are different colors associated with each Buddha family – so I could see immediately the imbalances in my life.

But it never occurred to me to do Bernie’s hand trick with a pair other than spirituality and social action. Until now. Try holding social action – doing good for others – in one hand and livelihood in the other. Lead a balanced life. That’s the challenge facing the survivors in our schools, balancing the competing demands of social action and livelihood. We built our schools to serve the most disadvantaged students in an environment which simultaneously nurtured our team, allowed all team members to grow and to take care of their own families. When things change – and I’m told a great deal has changed – it can get difficult to keep one’s balance.

The sacrifices and compromises involved take a toll. Some may have coped with this situation by going over to the “dark side.” Others may be trying to keep the dream alive. Some may be trying to feed their themselves and their families. All have seen coworkers – often very close colleagues – fired or forced out. All may suffer survivor’s guilt.

No one at work should have to choose between doing good for others and their family’s livelihood. Balancing these aspects of our lives is always a juggling act. I can see Bernie standing in front of me, hands extended, palms up, holding in each an aspect of life, adjusting his hands to the weights, keeping them balanced. As we negotiate careers, balancing social action and livelihood is an ongoing, sometimes difficult and painful, challenge.

The survivors don’t call often, but it is good to hear from them.