Reaching

Dear Readers,

Merry Christmas, and other wishes of peace and joy as you would apply them. I am relieved to have pulled off the holiday with a minimum of carnage. Holidays have never felt natural to me and the first once after leaving my partner of 20 years was no exception. So today after handing my beloved progeny to their adoring father at the appointed time and after taking a MUCH needed nap, I took myself to dinner (at a VERY busy and delicious Indian restaurant) and a movie.

I went to see MockingJay (part 1), which I very much enjoyed - I loved the books. (Suzi you make no sense. You want to beat up anyone who so much as speaks rudely to children and you loved a trilogy which starts with gladiator children? The hell?) Watching Philip Seymour Hoffman was rather poignant. As the reader will likely recall, we lost Mr. Hoffman to a drug overdose early this year. The pain and anguish of addiction, to the addict and those that love the addict, is beyond measure to those of us blessed to have avoided the affliction. As a member of the loved ones category (no not Mr. Hoffman, I merely admired him from afar), I will liken it to repeatedly sticking myself in the heart with a hot poker.

We poorly understand our brains. Moving along in 2014 to lose Robin Williams to suicide underscores this point most painfully. Suicide is dreadfully understood, and widely misinterpreted. But for someone who spread such joy and laughter to die so sadly, so desperately, is inexcusable for us as the wealthiest nation in the world. We can heal amazing things. We can reattach limbs, faces even. We can cure cancers we couldn't even find 50 years ago. And we do a really shitty job healing the human spirit. From veterans earning subsistence wages and suffering from post traumatic stress to men so rich they could buy any cure we could provide, we are doing a really shitty job of healing minds.

When I suffered from post partum anxiety with Robert, I was afraid to ask for help. I thought if I admitted to anyone the horrible images that wouldn't leave my brain in peace, that Robert would be taken from me, destroying the tenuous breastfeeding relationship for which I had fought so hard, and breaking my heart. I thought if I asked for pharmaceutical relief, I would hurt him. I thought I was bad and wrong for having these thoughts in the first place, involuntary though they obviously were, and that admitting to them would be shameful. So I suffered, needlessly, and largely alone.

Thank heavens when I had Jackie, I had a midwifery team that I trusted. I knew they valued my bond to my child almost as much as I did. I knew they knew I am a good and loving mother. And on this go, suffering from both post partum depression AND anxiety (two for the price of one!!! But wait - order now, and the insomnia package is ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!) I was desperate enough to reach out to them at a horrible moment when I had been crying for hours and couldn't figure out why.

A long, difficult path followed. I tortured myself with various attempts to avoid pharmaceuticals for a few more months, until I decided that Jackie was better off with a little bit of SSRI in her gut than with no mother. Because lost to the world literally or otherwise, that's where we were headed. And I am so thankful I did. And I also know, I am so very lucky. Lucky to have that team of caring professionals with the right training. Lucky to have the resources to afford them. And lucky to have a caring community of friends and acquaintances who either are enlightened about mental illness or are polite enough to shut the hell up. Either way I am so very grateful.

My college classmates and I lost a bright and beautiful light a while back, to, ostensibly, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She had suffered terribly for years, ineffectively treated and at times really just abused by a health system that did not understand at all what was going on with her. Shortly before she died, she posted a note indicating that CFS sufferers died mostly from three things, one of which was suicide. At the time I didn't realize her post might have been a cry for help. Shortly afterwards she was gone. The cause of her death has not been officially disclosed, but I know in my heart that I missed an opportunity to be of use. To demand that she call me or I would call 911. To tell her she was not alone. To tell her I would miss her. I wasn't very close to her, but her artistic spirit and sweet smile are memories I will carry with me always.

These memories remind me not to let it happen again. To always reach out. Obviously I can't save all the babies. I can't really save anyone - mostly people have to save themselves. But we can't do it alone. We have to know that we are loved. We need a reason to keep trying. I am so grateful that I did when it was my turn to suffer, to feel that my brain had betrayed me, to wonder if I would ever feel like myself again.

Please always reach out. Don't give up. Someone loves you. Someone will miss you. Someone will be so heartbroken to think they could have helped you and didn't take the right chance.

I pray (in my odd nondenominational pagan yogini faith way) that I always reach for my loved ones when they need me, or just want me. That they always ask and that I always answer. What if we each just let someone cry on us? What if we each just said, "I love you, I want you around me, I would miss you so much if you weren't here with me"? Would it help? Would it give someone the one more breath they needed to gather the strength to keep trying? I think it would.

Please keep trying. I love you. I would miss you if you weren't here with me.

Much love always,
Suzi

PS - this is very much inspired by a particular someone in my life right now, and I would like to hasten to reassure all of you that it is NOT me, I am NOT in danger, and I'm really just fine. Promise.