Mmmmm... Barbecued Kittens... Tasty!

Dear Readers of Sensationalist Newspapers,

I just want to make it clear that I am NOT a cannibal!!!

The newspapers have been spending a lot of time on the Tim McLean/Vincent Li tragedy, and have been painting Vincent Li, who has schizophrenia, as basically inhuman. It's true, the delusions and hallucinations that Vincent Li was experiencing as a result of his illness did compel him to do a very heinous and bizarre act, that fact cannot be denied.

The papers/press have invested a lot of time painting a mythological portrait of psychosis as it has manifested in the case of Vincent Li, and true to their sensationalist form, the press has spent zero words to explain that what happened in that incident was exceptionally rare. Indeed, they haven't spent any time at all discussing the actual crime statistics of persons living with a condition like psychosis. (Incidences of violent crime, committed by persons with severe mental illness, are very rare, rarer even than in "normal" populations.)

Sadly, because of distorted (should we call it deranged even?) media reporting, the public is left with a mistaken belief that a medical condition like psychosis will turn a person into a murdering cannibalistic zombies on a mission from some god. I don't want to leave the public with that mistaken impression, so I'm here to inform the public of the Truth of the Matter:

Myself, I'm not on a cannibalistic murder mission from god; I just like eating kittens. I find they're best roasted in barbecue sauce. After my meal of kittens, I finish with cupcakes, iced with ground unicorn horn frosting!!! Do you know how hard it is to catch a unicorn?


If we don't laugh, we cry right? Laugh. Hard. Then write your newspapers and tell them that you oppose sensationalist crime reporting.

Big love and kitten breath kisses,
O.

Catharsis

Dear Criers, Laughers, and Pressers of Grim Lips,

You ever just wake up one day and think, "I'm not in a bad mood. I'm not sad. I'm just not happy. In fact, I just feel like crying?"

Well, I wake up feeling like that, and today is one of those days.

I like to call them my "Tender Days."

On Tender Days, my insides feel as if they have been run through a cheese grater, and I feel like I'm pulpy, swollen, and would burst into a river of bodily fluids at the slightest provocation. In fact, on days like today, I'm known to cry at commercials, laugh and cry at the same time at a stupid joke, or sit on the bus trying to maintain composure as evocative thoughts loll around in my head.

In short, I spend Tender Days perpetually on the verge of tears, and every little thing, both kind and cruel, real or remembered, makes me weep.

So I'm feeling a little tender, and I've been weeping a bit as I cruise around on my daily run through the various media I like to read. I'd tell you what I'm tearing up about, but I really don't want to dwell, and you needn't depress yourself too.

I'm going to sign off the web for the night. I'll try to distract myself by baking some strawberry muffins. I'll give you the recipe to save for your own Tender Days in a coming post. Maybe they'll help you feel a little lighter too.

Crying over my cupcakes,
O.

Thoughts on Death

Dear Lovers of Life and Those Who Could Care Less,

Suicide is a difficult subject for some people. It is a touchy subject. It is often a divisive subject.

Understandably so. The notion of suicide, that one would have a desire to end their life here on Earth, contradicts the very nature of our existence. The simple nature of our existence is that we are alive; our breath reminds of this and so too does our uniquely aware sense of human consciousness. Most of us will attest to a strong desire to remain alive for as long as possible, some of us will even express a desire to prolong our lives if we become able to do so.

Some people don't feel a desire to live, for whatever reason, and this confuses those of us who eschew death. Those of us with a desire to live a long life wonder what it is inside of a person that could make them want to move on from Earthly existence. We wonder if a person who wishes to die has lived through some kind of tormenting pain, whether or not they've experienced immeasurable hardship, or if they simply feel unloved or unwanted.

I have lived through suicide. Not my own, mind you. While I have wondered what life would be like if I were not here, I have never felt a compulsion to end the life I have made for myself here on Earth.

I lived through the suicide of my father and I learned some things about this unconventional type of death.

My father died when I was relatively young. He struggled with a condition that affected not only his mental health, but also his livelihood, his life quality, and all of his relationships. Schizophrenia had consumed my father's life and he suicided after a short battle with this disease process. He left me and my young mother behind to cope with his death and the challenges it presented.

As I grew up through the transition of adolescence, I began to wonder if there was something I had contributed to his death. Stress made the symptoms of schizophrenia worse. Had I caused my father stress? Did he want to die because of me?

I wanted to blame myself. In fact, I looked for ways where I could implicate myself in his death. I also looked for ways to blame other people. I even tried to blame his disease.

But I had an epiphany one day, some months after I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, the condition I had inherited from my father. I realized that I had nothing to do with my father's death. I realized that no one really had anything to with my father's suicide. There was no cause. There was nothing to blame. And there really was no easy answer.

Having faced the same demons of mental health that my father had to confront, I came to understand some things about life. Moreover, I came to understand some things about death.

That pain alone would cause someone to want to die is a myth. It is also a myth that unfortunate personal circumstances or hardship would cause someone to end their life. It's a myth as well, that one would end their life because they feel unloved or unwanted. This latter belief is the most dangerous myth among those who survive a loved one's suicide, since it compels us to imagine that if only we had been more loving, we could have prevented a needless death. This latter myth is the one that imposes a deep sense of personal guilt and shame about suicide among those who are left behind.

In my experience, there is only one thing that keeps us humans holding on to this thread of existence that we call life: This thing is hope.

While some may scoff at the simplicity of this relationship between the desire to live and the desire to die, you need to understand the power of hope.

Hope means that you are able to fall asleep at night knowing that you will wake up to a *different* tomorrow. Hope means that not only can life change, but that you expect it to change for the better some time in the future. Hope means that you can trudge through a dreary present, if it will take you to a happier place in the days that follow today.

If you lose hope, you lose access to the promise of tomorrow.

When you are hopeless, your concept of the future becomes blended with demands of the present.

If your present is bleak, or overwhelming, and if you imagine the future to be nothing but more of the same, you begin to feel as though you are treading water, rather than moving on or along. While you tread water, you become exhausted, and may find yourself losing your will to live to see another day.

And that is what my father faced, I think. An immeasurable sense that tomorrow will be no better than today, whatever "today" looked like to him all those years ago.

Who wants to wake up with a feeling that their present circumstances are permanent? I know I certainly don't.

Admittedly, my current life circumstances aren't great. I'm still technically unemployed, living up to that wonderful statistic that dictates that about 80% of people with my diagnosis are unemployed or underemployed. I know that I will wake up tomorrow and have to confront the challenges of discrimination and social mythology. I know that tomorrow I may have to hear another story of a life lost to mental health problems. And I know that tomorrow I may ask, again, for meaningful support and an iota of understanding, and that again, I am likely to be ignored.

So why do I want to wake up to see another day? Well, I attribute my will to live to that hope. I know that tomorrow can be different from today. I know that the struggles I live with today aren't necessary, and that they are becoming more and more impractical as our treatments improve. I know that some day there will be social change, and that my struggles will be diminished. When that day will come, I don't know. But I know I want to be here to see it. And maybe I hope to participate in helping that day to come.

I hope that tomorrow will change and become better than today. That is what tethers me to this world. I think this is what tethers most of us to this life on Earth.

Would my father's circumstances have changed? I don't know. Likely, but he couldn't get close enough to that future to be able to see it.

Can I blame my father for his suicide? No. I can't blame my father for wanting to end his life any more than I can blame myself for wanting to live.

Do I think my father's choice to suicide was an easy one? Certainly not. My father understood that he was leaving behind his child and his spouse, and he indicated as much before his death. He knew he was leaving an extended family who loved him. He understood that he would be missed, and that all of us would be confused and hurt in the wake of his loss.

Was my father selfish in his choice to end his life? I don't think so. Selfish implies that my father would have imagined that his death was exclusively to his benefit. My father understood the consequences of his death, and had to weigh these with the life he was living. Frankly, I would think myself selfish to expect him to live a life that denied the truth his very pressing reality: that he felt hopeless and that he wanted to die.

My father's death was his choice. It was a choice borne of his circumstances, whatever they were, whatever sense of hopelessness they engendered. I understand the complicated feelings he had to endure while balancing out the things he had to live for with the sense of hopelessness that compelled him to end his life. At the end of the day, I respect my father's choice, despite the fact that I wish things had turned out differently for him, differently for our family.

My choices are equally borne of my circumstances. Thankfully, I have the benefit of hope and the promises of tomorrow to carry me through.

**********************************************

If you are a Canadian having thoughts of suicide, or if for some reason this post has made you feel uncomfortable, the Centre for Suicide Prevention has a list of local prevention centres and hotlines.

If you are a US reader who is having similar thoughts, 1.800.SUICIDE would be the place to call.

PostSecret.com is also a great place to vent about life and all its dirty details. (In anonymous secrecy, of course!)

Warm Regards,
O.

Aminal Luver

Dear Lovers of Aminals,

I have recently come across some disturbing information. Apparently there are people in the world who believe that people with a condition affecting their mental health should not be owners of pets.

What logic is behind this notion? Well, the logic is that while pets can provide companionship and love in the short term, they inevitably die, and their owners (remember, the mentally ill owners) will be so stressed from bereavement that a relapse is likely to occur.

To be honest, I found this logic a little strange. Number one, the logic denies the natural order of life: All things will die.

At some point a person living with a mental health condition (MHC) will have to confront the concept of death...

People age. Accidents happen. Life happens.

No one can be protected from what is inevitable.

And so I think of pets in the same way that I'm sure most parents do when they find themselves dealing with the similar issues for their bereavement-naive children; pets are a primer to help all of us deal with the concept of loss.

Wait! Don't get me wrong... I don't think that the only goal of a pet is to help people gain experience with bereavement.

Secondly, from experience as a pet-owner, animal lover, and as a person with an MHC, pets provide a lifetime of love, companionship, and joy to their owner. For some reason, in times of severe distress, when I found myself overwhelmed and unable to reach out to people, I was able to reach out to my pets. The pets in my life have always been there to soothe me, distract me, and entertain me whenever I needed it most. In exchange for their companionship and attention, I gave them good food, clean water, and a constant supply of belly rubs. Not a bad deal, I think, for either me or my pets.

When my first pet died, I had been living with my diagnosis for about 7 years. Did the loss of my furry friend cause me to relapse? No. She was sick. Her being unwell was very stressful for me, and it gave me comfort to know that she was no longer suffering. Did I cry? Yes. And did I learn something from that experience? Yes. I learned that it is okay to cry, and to cry hard, when you are very sad. I also learned that veterinarians are nice to sad people who have just lost their pets. And so are most other strangers you meet while you are a young girl, on your way home from the vet, crying your eyes out about the loss of your little buddy.

I also learned that the hole that your loved one left behind in death can be filled with other things over the course of time.

More than animals teaching about bereavement, they teach us about relationships and care, and they show us what unconditional love *really* looks like.

So the next time anyone wants to argue that pets cause too much stress for people with an MHC, you need to explain that the rewards are worth the loss - a loss that we all know is inevitable at the end of the day.

Sincerely,
O.

Hoppy New Year!

Dear Revellers,

Alas, it is a New Year. For some of us, it is a new beginning. For some, a time of reflection. For others it is just another day.

I always find New Year's a bit of a mixed blessing. I try hard not to care about the New Year, but it's very hard not to. You see, I was born on the first day of the New Year, and so not only is there a lot of hype rolled into that special calendar year turn over, but there is also an element of aging and age-based reflections that get thrown into the mix.

And so I'm dealt with a bit of a one-two-punch every time this event rolls around.

As a combined New Year/Birthday celebration, some of my friends and I went out to dinner. Inevitably we all began summarizing our year, reflecting on our successes and failures, and outlining conclusions about whether the year was a "good" year or a "bad" year.

For the most part, my friends were positive or benign in their responses, but I answered honestly: I've had a horrible year. For me, 2008 has been the worst year so far in my experience. Considered as a whole, I struggle to find good aspects of the past year.

And I'm not going to rant on about why my year was awful, since some of it is described in this blog; but I do want to talk about the reactions my friends offered after my confession.

Most of them thought I was expressing resignation or sadness about my year. They cooed and said things like, "O, it can't have been that bad! Find something good in it! Don't worry, it will be better this year!"

And I think they made a mistake in assuming where those statements were coming from; I was not complaining or looking for platitudes. I was doing an honest appraisal of the last year of my life.

It sucked. It *was* depressing. I cried over the events of the past year. I tore my hair out, and beat my breast, and got lost in despondency.

I know my friends found my flat (and relatively negative) summary surprising. Surprising maybe because I didn't lightly gloss over the past, and speak only of the positive things, like so many of us are prone to doing. I was being honest, and sometimes, honesty, well... it makes others uncomfortable, I guess.

Despite the discomfort of my friends, it was important for me to be truthful about my experiences. Sometimes life is downright overwhelming, and I think it's important to admit that. And sometimes life is quite ugly, and I think we need to be honest with others about that too.

Pretending that things are great all the time does nothing for us as social beings. Perhaps keeping up illusions of a perfect life experience works in some cases, but I think in most cases, illusions can be destructive and counterproductive. How can people help you, or love you, or give you things if you never ever express a need?

Telling people that life has been difficult helps them to understand why I've been a little standoffish for some time. Explaining to my friends that I've spent a lot of time sitting alone in a corner, licking my wounds, enables them to understand that I haven't actually been a neglectful friend; I've just been working on some difficult problems, and that they should still call, even if I'm too tired or preoccupied to engage in meaningful visit.

And so yes, my year has been shitty. No, I've not been around much. And no, there's nothing anyone can do to fix any of it. Of all the things you can't do, there is still one thing you can do: You can continue to be my friends.

I guess there was one very positive aspect to the last year: My friends. My very kind, very loving, very caring, very understanding, and exceptionally loyal friends.

Cheers to you all! Drinks are on me the next time around!
Your bff who is keeping her chin up,
O.

PS. I do predict that my next year will be immensely better than the last. I have some serious plans to roll out, and some interesting projects on the sidelines!!! Do I have a great job lined up yet... er... well, still working on that one!!!

Fierce love... ferocious affection

Dear People Who Love Others,

I read an interesting thing the other day on one of my favorite web-based time wasters. Here is the quote from www.postsecret.com:

"My sister's boyfriend came to find her after she left him.
I greeted him at the door holding a shotgun.
I'm afraid of what I would have done if he hadn't walked away."

While I'm not an advocate of gun ownership in general, unless you use it to feed yourself and your family, I thought, what an interesting expression of love. What a fierce expression of love. This PostSecret resonated with me because of what you will read below.

I grew up in tandem with a girl from elementary school. Born less than a day apart, inseperable twins from separate mothers, we began a tentative friendship in grade 7, when we were entering into the strange new world of our teenage years. We spent our last years of elementary school fairly innocently, and even the first few years of highschool were unremarkable. We got into the typical troubles that other kids got into, experimenting with new relationships, dealing with temptations and the introduction of vice.

Somehow, in our last few years of highschool we diverged. She went away to school, I stayed home, and we diverged. I went away to school, she came back and stayed home, and we diverged even more. In that time, she sunk deeper and deeper into something that I can't articulate; bad choices, depression, a series of choices based on impulse... I don't know. But these things led her to a lifepath she didn't predict for herself in the optimism of her youth. She had dreams of becoming a writer; a dream that grew more and more distant as her grades sunk, and as she later found herself quagmired in the consequences of adult opportunities.

Her family watched. I watched. I felt helpless and unable to help her. I felt powerless to control her path, or steer her path, or even to offer guidance. And I didn't feel it was my place to interfere with her choices. I could not choose her friends. I could not choose how or where she spent her time. I could not choose what she put into her body. And I had no role in who she chose as partners in her relationships. It's not that I wanted, really, to control any of these things persay, but truly, I could often predict where she was headed for certain pain, and I wanted to help her avoid that because I loved her.

I have no idea what her family felt through all of this, but I can imagine. And I've heard the stories from my friend herself, of how her family had to bail her out of troublesome places from time to time. I'm sure these weren't easy choices for her family, there is a fine line between "enabling" and helping, but how can we watch the ones we love remain mired in the consequences of bad choices and circumstance?

At our most recent visit, over two years ago, her and I talked idly about life. She expressed a certain amount of regret, without ever specifying what it was she was regretful of. And I worried about her for all the things she did not say. The man she was living with was abusive. I knew the signs. Having to call in every 10 minutes, complaining of the consequences of raising his ire, and hiding the bruises under her eyes behind darkened lenses. I asked her about those, and she said that she'd provoked him. No, he's not such an asshole, I did it, I pushed him into it. He's rough around the edges, but he's really a decent guy.

A decent guy who happens to hit the woman he loves?

I knew there were no magic words that could convince her that she did not deserve any of her life as it was at that moment. All I could do was let her know that if she ever needed a break, or an escape, that she could come to my house.

I wish she would run to my house. And when he came looking for her, I wish I would be brave enough to love my friend ferociously enough to worry about losing my own sense of control.

I wish I could do more than offer an ear and a place to run to.
Regretfully,
O.

one day out of a year... January 31

Dear Cold, Humbled, and Huddled Masses,

I have heard of an interesting event taking place January 31st:

A Light in the Dark: A silent stand in the night.

A Light in the Dark is a quiet show of solidarity and support for people living with a mental health condition.

Let a flicker of compassion become a fire of solidarity.
Light the night with love and hope.

January 31st.
8pm to 10pm or later.
Light a candle, put it in your window.
That is all you have to do.

Are you a mom, a dad, a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, spouse, or friend of a person living with a mental health condition?

On January 31, be a light in the dark, and show your support for the people you love and for the people who love you.

Light a candle, or put a small bare lamp in your window in a silent stand of support.

Stand up against dark mythology. Be a light in the darkness of discrimination.

Show your compassion, show your solidarity - Show your light. January 31. 8pm.




Stand up and let the light shine in.
With love,
O.