13 Months: An update after a death from addiction

August 31, 2019

Dear Dave,

It's been 13 months since we lost you. And it's been 17 years and 13 months since you and I were a married couple, but our parenting partnership never ended despite the fact that our marriage did. Until you died, we had an understanding that when it came to our boys, we were a team.

This letter is to fill you in on what's happened over the last 13 month.

After a really rough year, our older son has decided he needs a change. Next week, he's moving halfway across the country to your hometown, a place you had always wanted to return to but never did. We are seeing this as an exciting fresh start for him, and he's looking forward to it, but I think he might be a little nervous too. Rightly so. He's never lived outside of our state before, and he's never been so far away from us before either. But your family has offered to help him get settled, and he's going to live with your niece and her kids. It's going to be great for him especially since he'll get to use those incredible fatherly instincts he inherited from you.

I wish you were here to see it.

Our younger son is almost finished with college. He's got one more semester to go for a political science degree. I can't help but remember the way you used to walk the halls of the high school where you taught with a miniature copy of the Constitution in your front pocket. Our boy is studying what you loved. And he's a research and policy intern for our agency this semester. His work will involve researching and supporting legislative efforts related to mental health and addiction. He is figuring out his life and his future. He's going to do great things.

I wish you were here to see it.

And I've been focusing our advocacy work more deeply into the issues of addiction. Now, when I train or consult, I have a more personal view on how a person's life, as well as their loved one's lives,  can dramatically change when substance use disorder is involved. I don't share the details of our story, your story, but I do talk about the fact that it affected us all. I do say it cut your life too short. And I say it stole you away from us years before you actually died. We watched you slowly fade away, a gradual suicide.

I wish you were here to see how hard we are all working to make our lives and others' lives better. Each of us in our own way is trying to make losing you have a purpose.

Forever your parent partner,
me.

P.S. Did you know September is National Recovery Month? How I wish you were here to celebrate it.

Untangling Your Holiday Stress with a Little Help from the Griswolds

December 10, 2018

Every year, sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, my extended family watches "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". It’s been a tradition for as long as I can remember. My parents, my brothers and their wives, my two grown children, my husband and I - we all know the lines by heart. In fact, to be truly inducted into our family fold, one must embrace the brilliance and versatility of the line “Save the neck for me, Clark,” as well as whole-heartedly agree that every holiday grace should begin with “I pledge allegiance to the flag…”

But for me, watching this Christmas comedy is about more than honoring a family tradition. It's a critical part of my holiday self-care kit. If you or someone you love lives with a mental health condition, perhaps you can relate. For many, the holidays can be difficult.

For me, the holiday season means one thing: Anxiety. I'm talking about the kind of free-floating anxiety that lurks overhead even while you sleep if you’re lucky enough to do that. It slinks in, thick as fog, right before “Trick or Treat” and doesn’t dissipate until well after “Happy New Year!” 

Perhaps, like mine, your holiday anxiety takes the form of a giant tangle of Christmas lights wound up and spun like a runaway snowball stuffed into a crumpled box in the attic. Each year, just after Thanksgiving, you retrieve the box, grab the ladder, and head for the roof. 

Teetering precariously ten feet above the ground, you reach into the box and try to unsnarl the madness, unravel the mayhem, while still maintaining enough balance not to land smack on your head in your front yard. 

If you’re lucky, eventually, you get most of the lights up and most of the bulbs illuminate, after a lot of trial and error replacing the duds. And if you’re lucky, you climb back down without any Clark Griswold moments involving dangerous staple guns, malfunctioning ladders, or minor zaps of electricity.  

You've managed to untangle the strands and replace any bad bulbs you've found. You're ready to reveal to your loved ones your sparkling display. But somewhere inside, you feel the tangle of nerves and you worry a few bad bulbs may remain, undiscovered. And you fear they may dim the display you've worked so hard to create. So by the time you’ve climbed down off that roof, you're hoping for illumination equal to your efforts, and that nobody discovers the truth. 

But, if you're like me, you're also hoping there's someone around who sees what you need and can help.

Like Clark Griswold out on his lawn trying to give his family a breath-taking spectacle, we are trying to light up, too. And, like Clark, we may be struggling with the cords and the switches and trying to convince those near us to "just wait, it’ll get better." 

We say, "hang on, I think I've got it this time." And we may say that over and over again. Maybe we’re even saying this to ourselves. And just like in the movie, it feels like it takes forever to show them the brightness, to prove that we really can do it.

In the movie, Clark’s complex light display eventually turns on…because, unbeknownst to him, his wife Ellen has flipped on the power from the circuit breaker inside the house. He never knew she did it, but we, the audience, know and we smile, relieved that she's got his back and his hard work has paid off. Ellen Griswold understands and adores her husband's complexities. She supports him. She helps keep him safe and she loves him unconditionally.

This holiday season, I hope you practice self-care that untangles you. I hope you seek out your own sources of inspiration, laughter, and fulfillment. Please stay safe and surround yourself with people who understand your complexities and love you for them.

Your energy, your enthusiasm, your hope, while sometimes a tangled strand of mayhem, can light up the world. Sometimes, though, you may need a little help, so keep your eyes out for your own Ellen Griswold. She's out there.

Oh, and “save the neck for me, Clark.”

Happy Holidays!

Based on the original post "How Christmas Vacation Saves Me Every Year" found at http://www.ibpf.org/blog/be-village

Measuring The Progress of Our Village

Nov. 10, 2018

It's important to measure progress. I wrote this more than three years ago as a blogger for the International Bipolar Foundation. My feelings are still the same but, thankfully, our village is ever-growing.


May 27, 2015

Parenting isn’t easy. Anyone who’s ever parented, or has even just been parented well knows that. Don’t they say, “It takes a village to raise a child”? As if to say raising children well takes more than just one person, it takes a community, right?

Let’s suppose, God forbid, that your child has been diagnosed with a very serious illness, such as diabetes or, dare I say it, cancer. My assumption is that the outpouring of support would be ample from the very start. From what I can tell, serious childhood illnesses like these are publicized and supported locally and nationally in many ways. There are 5K races, online campaigns, viral videos, fundraisers, and celebrity spokespersons offering their support to encourage donations and community involvement. And, of course, in our local communities, neighbors and friends seem to be willing and able to offer random daily kindnesses. They are bringing over lasagna, mowing the lawn, or caring for your other children when you take your sick child to the hospital. Yes, the entire village certainly seems to step in and help. And thank God, too. Because caring for a sick child is not only heart-wrenching, it is exhausting. Caring for a sick child can break you.

But now, let’s suppose, that your child has been diagnosed with a mental illness. What does the community do for you? How do they reach out and help?

(Crickets, the sound of crickets)

Childhood Cancers and other similar illnesses are tragic diagnoses, life-changing, and sometimes terminal. Parenting a child with such an illness requires on-going support. Parents need to be thoroughly informed, comforted and encouraged to stay strong through the challenges ahead.

But, have we forgotten, Childhood and Teen Mental Illnesses are tragic as well? Life-changing...and yes, sometimes even terminal. Parenting a child with such an illness requires on-going support. Parents need to be thoroughly informed, comforted and encouraged to stay strong through the challenges ahead.

Parenting isn’t easy. But when you are parenting a child with mental illness, the walls cave in. I know this first hand. And there are no neighbors offering lasagna at your doorstep. Because it is likely, you haven’t told anyone. Because who would you tell? What would people think? What would they say? And what could they possibly do to help? So, often times, it’s just you. And your child. With perhaps their siblings, frightened and alone.

I met a mother this week, a mother of a son who has schizoaffective disorder. Her son is exactly my son’s age. We traded stories and some tears over coffee. The onset of my son’s bipolar diagnosis paralleled her son’s situation in many ways, only her son’s illness is relatively new, while my son’s illness has been a part of our lives for five years now.

As I relayed our family’s story to her, the tension in her neck, the quiver in her voice, the furrow in her brows all seemed to lessen a bit. She kept saying, “How do you do it? How have you been so strong? I am not sure I can do this…”

But, clearly, she can do this. Because she took a step I didn’t take when I should have. She reached out for help. When my son first presented with his illness five years ago, my walls all caved in. I didn’t tell anyone. And there was definitely no lasagna, no one to share stories, coffee and tears with. But now, thankfully, the stigma of mental illness is finally breaking down a bit. This other mother and I met through a local mental health organization that put us in touch when she contacted them for help. I became involved with the organization about a year after my son’s spiral into serious illness, after he’d begun self-medicating out of denial and after he made life-altering decisions that ultimately led to his incarceration. She, however, became involved at the onset of her son’s diagnosis. So her son, thankfully, is now getting help...and so is she.

This is progress.

Our communities need to acknowledge that parenting children with serious conditions, whether they are illnesses of the pancreas, the blood, or the mind, need help.

We need a village of support to do this right. I hope to be part of that village, if only for this one mother. Because nobody should have to do this alone.

Original post titled as "Be the Village" on http://www.ibpf.org/blog/be-village

The Benefits of Re-Routing: Finding Hope When There Are No U-turns

June 3, 2018

A few weeks ago, I traveled out of state for work. After a full day of school presentations, I was tired and ready to get back home. Three hours away, on an unfamiliar highway in the mountains where cell service is spotty, my phone navigation lagged in a dead spot for just a moment and I missed my exit. 

Worst yet, there was no place to turn around. I had to drive 20 miles the wrong way before I could finally head back in the direction of home.

But on that road traveling the wrong way cursing emphatically, I was reminded that in life, we rarely get to turn around. Sometimes we have to go the wrong way for a long time before we get a chance to get back on the right road.

I haven't always known this. As a kid, I loved "do-overs". Whether it was a roll of dice, a hand of cards, or a final shot at the free throw line, if I didn't like the outcome the first time, as the big sister, I often declared the need to do it again. And my younger brother, always eager to please, would agree. I'd always get another chance: another roll, another hand, another shot at the basket.

In middle school, our family got our first computer. My brother and I were supposed to take turns - one complete game per person and then switch. The problem was, I rarely finished a whole game so he didn't get many chances to play. I would constantly find a reason to start over. Looking back now, my brother's patience was saint-like. I ought to give him a call and apologize.

As I grew older, my desire for a do-over when things didn't go my way continued. While rehearsing for piano recitals, I'd start over every time I flubbed a note. Eventually, I would get through the piece error-free, but the beginning of the song was always better than the rest of it.

I've done this a lot over the years, looking for the do-over so I can get a better outcome. Lots of staccato-moments, lots of beginnings, lots of starting, stumbling and seeking to start again. Parenting, though, doesn't offer do-overs. There's no time you can turn around and try again. You just have to keep going and hope there's another way to get where you're headed, hope for re-routing.

There have been plenty of times I would have loved to call "do over" when I'd flubbed as a mom. The little mistakes like when I let my son eat too much Easter candy before church and he vomited all over the crowded pews of parishioners. And the big mistakes, like the times, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about my son's crisis, letting stigma keep him from getting help.

Knowing what I know now - that the impact of stigma can be devastating and that the lack of information and support can lead to the lack of hope - I would definitely do things differently. But, sadly, there are no U-turns in parenting. 

The good news is when our life roads get re-routed, we have new opportunities. My re-routing has allowed me to meet some other wayward travelers.

Recently, I gave a presentation and I included parts of our family's story. One of the participants followed me out to my car afterward and asked if I had a few minutes to talk. 

"Thank you for coming today and telling your story," he said, and his eyes cast down before adding, "I feel like you came here just for me." 

For privacy, I won't share the specifics about his loved one in crisis, but he said it was the first time he'd told anyone about it. He appeared visibly shaken, yet also somewhat relieved.

When I share my family's story in presentations or at meetings, people often seek me out later, privately, either that day or days, weeks, even months later to tell me their own story, relieved and grateful knowing there are others who've been through this too. Sometimes I say to them, "we're members of a club we never knew we joined -but we are in it together." 

These encounters are powerful. No matter how many times someone says, "Thank you for telling your story - I feel so much better because of ..." something washes over me. Their relief and their gratitude fill me up, temporarily quelling the guilt I still feel about my own son and what happened years ago. Often, they conclude by saying something like this, "Just know that you helped someone today."

This isn't about my story, though. And you don't have to have a blog or change careers to make a positive impact on someone else. Each of us traveling, whether by broken GPS or not, has the power to help other lost travelers simply by sharing our story. It's not complicated and it doesn't require special training. It might be hard at first but it's worth it. By sharing our stories with other solo travelers, our own roads become less lonely.

I've met amazing people and learned so much on this re-routed journey so far. My road has even intersected with my older son's. Sometimes, I have the chance to travel with him briefly sharing a leg of our journeys together before our roads diverge again.

But I'll keep going this way - allowing the GPS to reroute me, trusting that the highway I'm traveling is the right one for me. And hopefully, at some point up ahead, at an intersection I can't yet see, my road will merge with my son's again and we can travel the rest of it together.

Requiem for a Turkey

Nov. 22, 2017

Seven years ago, as Thanksgiving loomed, my household was slowly unraveling. I was a single mother with two teenage sons, one of whom was experiencing the onset of serious mental illness. We had not shared with our friends and family anything about his condition. We hadn't really acknowledged it yet ourselves. In fact, my sons' father was unwilling to discuss it with me at all, citing only typical teen angst and a mother's over-reaction. And, as far as I could tell, my younger son was well-distracted by video games, 13-year-old girls, and new pimples. I had hoped he had not noticed the gradual disintegration of our home.

Only my immediate family knew that my 18-year-old son was seeking mental health treatment and that he'd been diagnosed with depression. That was the extent of it, and most people didn't even know that.

I was denying the obvious, determined that silent resolve was my only option.

And, because I usually hosted my parents for Thanksgiving, I first thought I'd just put on my game face and power through it. Only a few times a year I attempt a Martha-Stewart-Style meal, so I figured I needed to suck it up. But as we reached mid-November, it became clear that I was not cooking a turkey this year.

I remember agonizing over how to tell my parents I wasn't hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. At no point did I recognize that what I really feared sharing was far more intense than the thought of thawing and stuffing a 12-pound Butterball.

Instead, I convinced them (and myself) that I wanted to do something for others on Thanksgiving rather than host the traditional, gluttonous holiday meal. I expressed disdain for our society's disgusting obsession with the "wrong" message, even dipping my toe into the Pilgrims-Natives historical perspective and claiming revenge for our American Indian ancestors.

Frankly, I was off the rails with rejection about hosting a classic Thanksgiving. I researched local organizations that offered service opportunities for the day and opted for Meals on Wheels. Under the veil of social consciousness, I pitched the idea to my parents.

They weren't thrilled, but they agreed. My mom offered to help me make plans to "give back" for Thanksgiving. Funny, I don't even remember telling my sons about this. I suppose it didn't rile them one way or another or I'd remember, right? In hindsight, my suspicions are that my older son was so deep in the throes of his illness by then that he wasn't able to care, and my younger son was so traumatized by the daily uncertainty of his family life, that he wasn't able to care either.

My only recollection is that I stressed out about telling my parents that I wasn't cooking a turkey.

As all the planning for holiday humanitarianism was playing out, the symptoms of my son's illness were becoming more obvious and harder to ignore. Yet, somehow, I did just that. His volatile moods had become an expectation rather than a surprise. His swings between angry accusations and weepy apologies were now the norm.

Each day, driving home from the school where I taught and where my younger son attended, we avoided discussions about his older brother. He didn't ask any questions and I didn't offer any answers. It was as if we had made an unspoken pact of distraction and denial. Instead, we silently savored the steady, predictable hum of the engine as we traveled the 25-minute commute back home, never acknowledging the reality and unpredictability of what may be waiting for us there.

Thanksgiving Day went off without a hitch at first. We used two cars between the five of us and distributed hot meals to grateful individuals living in seclusion for various reasons. Some were elderly, some ill. All of them were alone and deeply appreciative of our offering.

I remember thinking, "This is really good for the boys to experience. I'm so glad we're doing this. They need to see what outreach looks like. They need to be involved in caring for those in need of support, those who really need help."

I never once realized that we, too, fit in that category.

Once we'd delivered all the dinners, it was time for us to seek out our own hot meal. I had imagined we'd go to a Chinese restaurant. In my mind, that would be the perfect outright objection to the holiday nonsense that I'd claimed had inspired me to skip all turkey prep this year.

We piled into one car and began our search for the perfect Anti-Thanksgiving respite. The Chinese restaurants that I had in mind were all - surprisingly - closed.

Somehow in my planning, I'd failed to actually call them to check. I had believed completely in my fantasy that our local Chinese restaurant owners would ignore their new home country's holiday and remain open to serve revolutionary families like ours.

So we drove up and down the highway in search of a restaurant that was open. My sons were hungry and so was my dad. I bit my nails nervously, scanning both sides of the street for someplace with lights on. The first time we circled, my dad had spotted a diner serving a "Traditional Turkey Meal". I immediately opposed the idea - citing my determination to rebel this year. As we made our second and third pass by Said Diner, the growling from my companions grew louder.

I finally relented.

We slid into a booth at our neighborhood diner less than one mile from my house. And, despite my strong objection, most of our party of five chose from the menu the Traditional Turkey Meal.

There's a lot to give thanks for these days, seven years later: my sons, my parents, my husband of three years. But, I really can't get into that right now.

I've got a turkey to cook.

Bipolar in Paradise

June 22, 2014

Moist, sugar-soft sand squeezed in between my toes as I ambled along the beach. The oranges, reds, and yellows swirled across the horizon and the rhythmic sounds of the ocean blended in perfect harmony with the steel drums tapping out an island tune. For seven days I was in a Caribbean heaven vacationing with my family. And yet, for seven days, bliss eluded me.

It's difficult to know just what kept me from feeling as carefree and euphoric as one might expect under the circumstances. It could be my recent change in medication for the treatment of my Bipolar II. Or it could be the simple fact that my firstborn son still sits in prison after more than a year. I don't know. But the truth is while my entire family celebrated the joyful occasion of my parents' 45th anniversary in ocean waves of St. Croix, I secretly battled a different set of waves all week, the waves of melancholy that have plagued me for as long as I can remember. In the midst of a week-long island vacation, I was sad, plain and simple.

Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't spend my days in a darkened room with the covers pulled over my head. I was very active and quite social really. I jogged every morning followed by an elaborate breakfast at the resort restaurant. Then I sunned and swam, snorkeled and celebrated with everyone. But there was this gray cloud over my head all the time. I couldn't seem to thoroughly enjoy myself no matter how hard I tried. I knew how amazing this vacation was and how much I should be loving it, yet I couldn't. I just couldn't.

I suppose that's what living with bipolar really is for me-- being aware of how I should feel, yet feeling the opposite. I guess I am lucky that I am usually aware of what I am missing when my illness strikes. Others may not be.

After this vacation, I've learned that the waves of bipolar illness can crash any shore, even in paradise.

A Big Step Forward

May 9, 2014

Today I took a big step forward. I told our story in public.

Our local NAMI organization hosted a Crisis Intervention Team training for police officers. It was a one week course designed to prepare them for mental health crises. I was asked to give a fifteen minute talk during the Family Perspective portion of the program. 

There were about forty people crammed in the stuffy room where I was scheduled to speak right after lunch. I was sure that my audience would be ready for a nap, not ready to witness an emotional mother blubber on about her bipolar son in prison. 

But I was wrong. They were ready and willing to listen to me and for that I am grateful.

It wasn't easy. I am a teacher so I can talk to a thousand twelve year olds without a problem, but put me in a room with forty grown ups, that's another story! My voice quivered as I began to speak. My tremor kicked in and my hands began to shake. I had to steady my papers on a nearby projector cart. I probably looked and sounded like I was falling apart...

But I made it through and I think I may have had an impact. Or at least I hope I did. Afterwards several people came up to thank me for sharing such a personal story, and they asked lots of questions. Many of them also shared their own personal mental health stories with me. One gentleman told me that he lost his fifteen year old daughter to suicide, calling it "the S word." He thanked me for talking about it because it's so rarely discussed in public. He reminded me that I still have a chance to reach my son and that I should be grateful. Talk about powerful. That really got me. Lump. In. Throat.

So what I did today was important, even if is was emotionally exhausting. 

One thing I said was, "Though my efforts ultimately weren't enough to keep my son from going to prison, I hope that by talking to you here today I may make a difference for someone else's child before it's too late for them."

And if I do make a difference for someone's child some day, even just one, then I've begun to turn this tragic chapter of our lives into something more positive. That's definitely one big step forward.

These Letters Spell H-O-P-E

January 13, 2014

If writing is conveying important thoughts and feelings using words, and words are created by rearranging letters into different configurations, then letters convey important thoughts and feelings when they've been configured accurately. Right?

Letters, when crafted with care and honesty, can spell hope.

My son's attorney suggested that I ask some family and friends of my son to write letters to the judge who will be sentencing him. The purpose of the letters is for the judge to get to know my son through the eyes of those who know him best, before deciding his sentence.

Over the last week or so, several letters have arrived. Each time I read one, I cry.

Not only am I awestruck by the incredible love that envelopes my son from his friends and family,  I am astounded at the accuracy with which each person has described him.  From his gift for working with children and older adults to his talents as a visual artist, writer, musician, and actor, these letters verify what I've known for the past 21 years. My son is a wonderful, caring, gifted human being. My son is not a criminal.

Most letters mention that my son has struggled with mental illness, but not one uses it as an excuse for his behavior. Most letters emphasize his geniune contrition about the events that led him to prison and his 100% cooperation since the moment of his arrest. But all the letters convey the overarching message that my son has amazing potential and, when released, is determined to use his gifts in meaningful ways. 

These letters have served as validation for me as a mother too. I read them over and over again. I just want to be reminded that it's not just me who sees my son as a kind, talented, bright young man just waiting to be given a chance to begin his life as a productive adult. There are others who do too.

I am (still)hopeful that the judge will read these letters and view my son through a compassionate lens, recognizing what kind of man my son will be once he is allowed back into society.

For me, these letters spell H-O-P-E.

Unwrapped

December 26, 2013

Since Thanksgiving, I've been trying to live like a perfectly wrapped gift. Smiling, laughing, trying to seem "in the spirit" of the holidays... but I've hidden behind the fancy ribbon and shiny paper. I've tucked away my tears inside my perfectly wrapped gift box.

Today I've been unwrapped.

No more artificial smiles and empty laughter. I'm out of the box. I'm unwrapped.

Let me cry now. Let me feel now. Let me grasp the gristly heartache that comes with having a child in prison during the holidays.

I'm unwrapped. It happened last night.

My older son, imprisoned since March 28th, sent a beautiful letter to my family. So last night, after the presents and the feasts, after the stockings and the caroling, after the holiday ho ho hos and hugs all around, we passed around his letter. It was addressed to each of us individually, each of us named in his blue pen scrawl. His heartfelt words of jolly good cheer and best wishes for a healthy, happy new year leapt off the page like a sleigh full of toys and eight tiny reindeer.

My parents read it first, as grim, bleak looks darkened their faces. I took it next in my hands, trying not to shake. Then my stoic younger son read it and I swear tears welled up. And finally, my siblings each read it, growing solemn and tearful. With reverence we held it. Ritualistic almost, handling it like precious china as we passed it from one to the next. Each of us reacted in about the same way. The room deflated. The holiday cheer escaped.

Reading his letter shredded my shiny paper and yanked my red ribbon right off.

I came unwrapped in less than a minute.

One Mother Who Cannot Be "Still Hopeful"

I just finished watching the movie Blackfish. I felt compelled to share my personal connection to this amazing film. I am not a radical animal rights person nor am I a film critic. I am simply a mother who misses her son.

The documentary reveals the inhumane treatment of orca whales by SeaWorld. These enormous, beautiful mammals have many similarities to humans. Besides the obvious mammal connection, they have their own language that has been studied extensively. They are smart, curious, playful. They live in complex social structures much like our communities. And one last similarity is the attachment a mother has to its young as so poignantly portayed in the film. Watching and hearing an orca mother as her young baby is seized and essentially kidnapped was heartbreaking. I could completely relate to this mother's anguish. Losing a child, no matter how or why, is a pain that cannot be explained.

SeaWorld, for years, has been holding orcas in tiny pools away from their families. They have "trained" them to do tricks for food. These mammals are secluded from their own families and instead, put in with other orcas from other waters and expected to get along with them. Fights break out and yes, the orcas become agitated. Wouldn't you?

The whale called Tilikum has quite a history. He was "extracted" from the wild when he was approximately 2 years old. One extremely difficult interview from this film is that of a crewmember from the ship that took Tilikum. He described the mother's cries as none he'd ever heard before.

Tilikum went on to become an enormous (literally and otherwise) hit at SeaWorld. And for years, things seemed to go along just fine. What the general public didn't know was that at numerous SeaWorld parks, trainers had suffered injuries and even death while working with orcas. These creatures had attacked the very people who were their caregivers. SeaWorld disputes these accusations, of course, saying that these accidents were due to trainer error.

But let's think about this for a moment: "Extracted" from one's family? Imprisoned with foreign strangers? Food withheld as punishment? What would you do? Some say Tilikum went "crazy"...

I think of my own son. Imprisoned. Away from his family and housed with strangers and I worry about his mental health. He is not violent. I do not fear that. But I do wonder if he will be forever changed by this experience.

And I think about Tilikum's mother. They say orcas in their natural habitats have lifespans upwards of one hundred years. So she's out there somewhere. Circling her waters. Missing her son. Only she has no chance to be hopeful.

Top Ten Reasons I Should Still Be Hopeful or How Hollywood Compares to My Life

December 7, 2013

10. My younger son is thriving in school, in activities, and in life. (Though he's much like Ferris Bueller sometimes, he has a heart of gold and brings me joy everyday.)

9. My significant other completes me. (Seriously. Just like in Jerry Maguire.)

8. My place of employment continues to make me happy after all these years. (No Office Space problems here. I truly love my job.)

7. My extended family is happy and healthy and we all get along. (We're basically the Cleavers, with a dash of Modern Family thrown in.)

6. I am healthy. (So I'm not a size 0 Hollywood type, but I've got good genes.)

5. I have amazing friends who I trust and can always count on. (Think Steel Magnolias minus the terminal illness.)

4. I have a good solid home and a reliable car, both affordable. (No Money Pit issues.)

3. I have creative hobbies that occupy my ever-worrying mind. (But I'm no Martha Stewart.)

2. So far I have been strong enough to handle what life has thrown at me. (Like in Finding Nemo, I just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...)

1. And, most importantly, my older son is alive and healing. (Sometimes there is no comparison to be made.)

The Tipped Scale

August 22, 2013

Keeping things in balance is difficult. At times we have all felt like we're adjusting and readjusting the time and effort we're spending on certain aspects of our lives in an effort to keep things in check.

But Bipolar Disorder can hinder that ability to keep things in balance. In fact, those of us with some form of Bipolar may not even know what true "balance" feels like. For us, the scale is always tipped one way or the other.

As the disorder suggests, there are two poles of me: depression and mania. As a BD2, I usually gravitate toward depression, but I have plenty of mini spells of hypomania too.  These fluctuations in mood not only alter my feelings, they alter the choices that I make. If I'm not careful, they can affect the people who are the most important to me. So how is it that even knowing such consequences exist, I still allow my scale to tip?

An example. Sometimes my energies are so devoted to composing my own music that I forget to eat. I don't want to go to sleep. And I can't concentrate to do necessary routine things like clean the house or pay the bills. My son, patient as he is, will eventually cry out, "Mom, could you PLEASE stop playing piano?" For this I am ashamed, yet I can't explain the magnetic force that draws me back to the keys the very next day.

Then sometimes my focus at home is completely dedicated to doing school work (I'm a teacher). While this may seem like valuable time well spent, when it conflicts with recreational time I could be spending with my 16 year old son, the cost of missing my son far outweighs the gains I make with my school work. I know this yet, mentally, I am unable to shift from school-mode to parent-mode sometimes. My relationship with my son may suffer on days like this. Again, I am ashamed to admit this.

Here is a list of things that ebb and flow on my life scale: working on my novel (I've got 53 pages but just can't get to #54), running with some sort of routine (I had a half-marathon in sight months ago...missed that one), eating healthfully (which involves shopping the same way), playing word games on my ipad (I could spend an entire day doing this), becoming a better cook (a goal of mine), completing the house projects that have loomed overhead for years, and writing on my blog (ahem, here I am).  And the list goes on.

So mentally, I know when my focus is adrift, I feel it, I hear my son say it, I see the consequences of it, yet somehow, I am unable to change the course. There are times, many times, that my life is out of balance and I yearn for that stability. But for now, I suppose, I am just a tipped scale.