We need to talk about “Dork Diaries.”

Dear readers,

I have not been this angry and unsettled about a piece of pop culture since the Fear VR: 5150 Knotts Berry Farm debacle of September 2016. This afternoon, I happened upon a post made by one of my Facebook friends regarding a book series called “Dork Diaries,” which is aimed at children (particularly girls) aged 8 to 14. The protagonist is a 14-year-old girl named Nikki Maxwell and her life as a middle schooler.

Before I get into the meat-and-potatoes of this post, I want to warn you that the following images contain extremely discriminatory language that some readers may find upsetting. All images were provided via a good friend of mine on Facebook who is also a mental health advocate and fights like hell against the stigma. I respect her deeply and am grateful to her for bringing this to my attention.

Below is the first image I saw regarding this series. 

Let me begin by stating that I have not read any of the books in their entirety and had no idea they even existed until just a few hours ago. I also hate that by writing this post, I am giving this author more attention. However, I cannot let this issue go unaddressed for a number of reasons. For the sake of brevity, I’ve made a list:

 

• Stigmatizing language hurts all of us, and we need to knock it off. Seriously
• The age range AND gender at which the books are targeted is highly disturbing, given the nature of the content. I’m not talking about the whole “celebrities being seen without panties but not phones” bit that many reviewers have cited as problematic.  

 

 

I’m talking specifically about the use of phrases such as “totally SCHIZOID!” etc. to describe the narrator’s peers. (I am also not 100% sure what the author means by “acting schizoid,” and I don’t think she does, either.)

Dropping “RETARD” (please note the caps), even as a self-descriptor, is unacceptable. Come on, people. I thought we were better than this. The sad part is, the author could have gotten rid of the problematic language without negatively affecting the rest of the content. Cutting it would have actually made the book better. I’m wondering where the editor was in this process, if there even was one. I’m wondering why we still live in a world where this kind of thing manages to slip by largely uncontested.

 

• Where did the narrator (a 14-year-old girl) learn this language? Why does she think it’s okay to casually throw around such hateful, derogatory terms? Why isn’t this addressed in the book? And more importantly, why did the author think it was okay to write this in a children’s book without any sort of disclaimer?

Kids don’t come up with “you’re trash because X/Y/Z” on their own. They hear it from somewhere else, accompanied by the implication that it’s acceptable to dehumanize others for being different and perpetuate that toxicity ad infinitum. And this is a powerful reminder that none of us exist in a vacuum.

We can’t bubble-wrap our children, nor should we. There will always be bullies. There will always be stigma. But what we can do–what we must do–is educate ourselves and our children about the glorious range of people who share this planet with us. We must teach them accountability and respect. We must teach them that they are okay just the way they are and that the limitless expanse of diversity makes the world a far more beautiful, interesting, and magical place to live.

I am not in favor of censorship. What I am in favor of is self-awareness and recognizing when you’re about to fly off the rails and discriminate against an entire group of people in one broad stroke. Anyone who steps into the public eye has a duty to ensure that they are not causing harm to others. Context is also important. While this type of language would be a bit unsettling in a book written for adults (though I would take less issue with it given the audience and their assumed level of maturity and awareness), it is absolutely disturbing when it appears in a book written for children.

As a writer, an advocate, and a budding therapist, this sickens me. It’s lazy writing designed for shock value, to laugh at and “other” people who are living with mental illnesses and disabilities. Rachel Renée Russell’s writing is irresponsible at best, though I would go so far as to describe it as dangerous because these attitudes are dangerous. These attitudes have gotten people killed.

The one silver lining I can see is that a parent could pre-read the book, then use it as a jumping-off point for a discussion with their child (or children) about why such language is hurtful and not okay to use when describing another living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being.

Here’s an easy way to tell if you’re about to say something awful about another person. Take whatever adjective you were going to use–let’s say “schizoid,” for the sake of continuity–and replace that word with a group that has been historically discriminated against (but that society has collectively acknowledged was abused, stigmatized, and worse).

For example, the above passage would read “OMG! MacKenzie was acting totally JEWISH.” [Or “Black.” Or literally any other group that, when used as an adjective in a negative context, would make you look like a terrible person.]

That sounds bad, right? Does it make you feel really gross? It should. We may think we’ve conquered racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, all the other -isms…but we haven’t. We’ve barely even addressed them. All we’ve done is move on to another scapegoat, another bogeyman, another substitute that is slightly more socially acceptable but still conveys the level of disdain as older, more taboo slurs and epithets.

And what about the kids reading it who happen to have any of the conditions Russell has singled out in her books as targets of derision and malice? What happens when a child who has some form of mental illness or disability? How is a parent supposed to help heal the damage done when the hatred is right there in black and white for the child to see? The message sent by these books is that it’s acceptable to make people feel less-than because of something they cannot control.

And readers, you should never let anyone make you feel like less than you are, period. You are beautiful. Your brain is beautiful. You are strong. And we all deserve better than this.

With love,

One of those so-called mentally ill “weirdoes”

— J

 

It’s okay not to go home again.

For Thanksgiving, we flew back to my hometown in the Midwest to visit my remaining family–my mother, the aunt who was my legal guardian when I was a child, and another aunt who lives about an hour away from said hometown but visits regularly.

As I told my therapist this afternoon, “I don’t want to say it sucked, but…it sucked.”

I don’t want to get into any of the messy details, but I realized a few things during our brief Thanksgiving trip.

The first is that my grandmother is dead, like, for real-real. My “mom” is dead. Full stop. It’s not that I was pretending otherwise, but being in her house without seeing her there drove the point home in an unexpectedly painful way, and I had to hold it together while I was there because I knew if I lost it, so would everyone else, and then it’d be this whole terrible thing that I was just not equipped to handle.

The second is that it’s not normal to spend the week up to your flight being anxious and trying to brainstorm ways to defuse any potential arguments. It’s not normal to be five minutes from landing in your hometown and freaking out because you have no idea how many fights there will be this time or how bad they’ll get.

The third is that it’s simply not healthy for me to go “home” again. My therapist agreed with this assessment–there really is nothing there for me anymore. I’m 28 and am building my own life, my own family. If anyone wants to visit me, they know where I am. There are several large airports nearby. I never turn my phone off, though I have become more selective about when I answer calls–if I’m emotionally exhausted and have nothing left to give that day, I let the call go to voicemail.

It’s not like I’m unreachable. I just don’t want to make the effort anymore. I’m tired of throwing myself out into the wilds of my family-of-origin and hoping I come back in one piece. I’m tired of having to tell them, “Hey, I flew all the way here, can we all just get along?” I’m tired of having to put a dog into the fight. I’m tired of there even being a fight.

I went back “home,” and all I got was the flu and three days of crippling anxiety and depression.

Readers, it’s okay to set boundaries. If, like me, you’ve finally hit your breaking point, please try not to feel guilty about it. You need to take care of you first. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and life is too short to spend it with people who make you miserable.

Dichotomy

Is it possible to simultaneously be the most troubled and the most well-adjusted person you know? The deeper I go into my counseling program, the more this question pops into my mind. On the one hand, my demons are legion. On the other, I keep them very well-controlled and they all have little color-coordinated leashes.

Am I well-adjusted because I have to be? Does being well-adjusted look the same, or mean the same thing, for people who have backbreaking loads of trauma and those who don’t?

I used to worry a lot about whether my personal mental health history meant that I can’t be a therapist. I still worry about that, though thankfully not as much. Tonight in class, we were discussing self-disclosure and one of my classmates brought up that exact question–how are our clients supposed to trust us if they know we have our own set of problems?

I guess it’s one of those situations where what you have doesn’t matter as much as how you handle it. I get up every day and even though I do a fair amount of yelling at the intrusive negative thoughts, I still manage to accomplish everything on my to-do list. (Well…most things, anyway. I’m human.)

This has been on my mind for most of the day today, probably because I had intake with my new therapist yesterday and was thinking about the wall between my thoughts and feelings. I depend so heavily on that wall to keep it together, and I’m a bit worried–or, okay, a lot worried–that once I start really delving into the trauma and trying to merge my thoughts and feelings that there will be this monumental change and I’ll basically fall apart. I can’t remember the last time I was able to feel an emotion on an actual deep, meaningful, emotional level for more than a flash before cognition takes over and the brain reasserts control over the “heart.”

I know that’s unrealistic and that no one can do a total 180 in terms of functioning, but the unknowns are scary. As horrible as it is to know certain emotional things but not be able to feel them…better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, right?

I haven’t had self-doubt like this in quite a while, but getting the thoughts down on this little blog has helped a bit. It’s funny how writing about your troubles takes away some of their power, isn’t it? I’m also going to hit the self-care pretty hard tonight because tomorrow I have a phone interview with another prospective internship site–yay! That search is pretty terrifying, but I have a good feeling about the last couple of sites I’ve contacted, so fingers crossed.

Until next time, readers, remember to take good care of yourselves. I will, too.

 

News Day Tuesday: Acronyms! (Or: MDMA for PTSD)

Good morning, readers!

School started last week and there’s been a lot going on in my life on the personal side–my 93-year-old grandma, who essentially raised me as her own for most of my childhood, has been ill and I’ve once again been dealing with anticipatory grief.

Anyway, on a happier note, here’s some news for you about PTSD. (And it’s literally happy–it’s about Ecstasy!)

In a nutshell: those lovable FDA officials just granted MDMA “breakthrough therapy” status as a potential treatment for PTSD. Clinical trials will (hopefully) be easier to come by now, and I am very much looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Important distinction: MDMA isn’t FDA-approved, but this is a huge step in a very promising direction.

Right now, PTSD treatment options are super-limited. My brand is pretty wicked, but my only option for dealing with the symptoms is lorazepam/Ativan. I count myself lucky that I only have depersonalization/derealization, anxiety around crowds, and the occasional nightmare. It could be a lot worse. I’ve written extensively in the past about my experiences with dissociation (hence the name of the blog), but like most things, you get used to it.

But it’s not something anyone should have to “get used to.” None of us should have to accept the symptoms as our “new normal,” and for many, the symptoms are debilitating. That pretty much goes without saying (though of course, I decided to say it anyway).

I recently completed a research proposal for one of my summer classes, and while it was a painful process for someone who’s not a big research fan, it was definitely eye-opening. There has been shockingly little research done on depersonalization/derealization; most of what I encountered deals with “dissociation” in broader terms and the individual disorders are either not specified or are all lumped together in a mass that ultimately provides no insight about the actual conditions.

Anyway, that’s a post for another day. What I’m getting at is that PTSD is an incredibly complicated beast. While some symptoms are consistent, it never looks the same in two different people. Anecdotally, the symptoms can look different at various stages in a person’s life.

Seven years ago, I was having flashbacks (not the dramatic Hollywood kind where you’re literally in the memory–the kind where you sort of space out and the memory plays out in your mind’s eye while you’re pretty much unresponsive to the real world). Then, in 2012, the flashbacks stopped and the depersonalization/derealization got its hooks into me and has been hanging on for dear life ever since.

Like I said, you get used to it. The pain fades. You adjust to never really feeling “real,” to being in this perpetual dreamlike state. When it spikes, I try to welcome it as a new adventure and pay attention to what feels different without getting anxious or judging it as “bad.”

Still, it would be nice if there was something out there that could help just a little. I’ll be keeping my eye on the MDMA  breakthrough and keep you posted on further developments.

In the meantime, readers, what helps with your symptoms? Grounding exercises are one of my favorite things to do if I start to feel anxious. It’s less tedious than counting things.

News Day Tuesday: BLOOM by Anna Schuleit

Hey readers! This week, we’re doing something a little different for News Day Tuesday.

I stumbled across Anna Schuleit’s beautiful BLOOM project from 2003 (yes, I know I’m super late to the party). Today, I want to celebrate that project.

In 2003, artist Anna Schuleit installed 28,000 (28,000! Yow!) potted flowers throughout the psychiatric ward of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC).

Anna Schuleit’s installation project was created within the entire building of MMHC, on all floors, inviting former patients and employees, staff, students, and the general public, to re-visit the historic site once more before its closing. There was also a symposium at a nearby venue, and an open forum on the front steps of MMHC, during which the patients were invited to tell their stories. The events were dedicated to the memory of the thousands of patients of MMHC, and included as many of them as we were able to contact, as well as the doctors, nurses, support staff, researchers, students, and the general public. The project was a non-profit effort run entirely by volunteers and all of the events were free and open to all.

Source

As people living with mental illness, some of us with more than one, we know the therapeutic power of telling our stories, of having a voice when we’re so often voiceless. Mindy Schwartz Brown wrote some beautiful poetry about her experiences at MMHC, which you can read here. One poem in particular, “Asylum,” touched me deeply.

ASYLUM
(for Anna)

How did this edifice become “home” to its inhabitants-
the renowned multiply degreed,
the haplessly homeless dually diagnosed,
the walking wounded,
the worried well,
the happy go lucky who cleaned floors,
cooked lunches,
took blood pressures.

How could it contain all of the
the egos,
the disintegrated, the inflated,
occupying one space in parallel play?
MD, SPMI
Ph.D, BPD
MSW, DBT
Tell me in this soup, where does one find one’s ME?

DSM IV, Anybody going for V?
What’s the code for those who close hospitals
then open prisons for the sick?

We all feel so much better now,
knowing our brains are
faulty and we are not.
Structural errors ,
neurotransmittor deficits,
viral origins,
genomic misconfigurations.

So now can we all be friends?
Can we do lunch?
Just as we would with a diabetic?

October 3, 2003

Mindy Schwartz-Brown © 2003

The pain of not being recognized is one we know all too well. The lines “We all feel so much better now, / knowing our brains are / faulty and we are not” struck a chord with me that resonated all the way through my body and down into what some people call the soul.

We are the ones who are forgotten. We are the ones who are hiding in plain sight, not out of our own desire to be invisible, but of the desire of others to make us invisible. We make others uncomfortable, particularly when we don’t outwardly fit the mold of the “mentally ill person.” Whenever I reveal that I have bipolar I and CPTSD to someone, I am typical met with one of two reactions. The person either recoils–the discomfort in their eyes is stark and harrowing–or they tell me how “brave” I am.

I am not brave. I simply live. What choice do I have? I do not want to die, though there are plenty of people who view living with a mental illness as a fate worse than death–and I find that more disturbing than anything going on in my attic. There have been countless times when the hauntings have gotten so noisy that I feel as though my mind may literally split in two. Still, I live. Our lives have worth. We have worth.

I’d like to end by including a few photos of Schuleit’s installation. I spent a great deal of time yesterday perusing the photos and reflecting–not on my own experiences, as I have never been inpatient, but on what others’ experiences might have been like as they lived out their day-to-day at MMHC.

All images above copyright Anna Schuleit.

Tell me your stories, readers. It’s important.

News Day Tuesday: BiAffect App Links Keystrokes with Bipolar Episodes

Greetings, readers!

It was a bit of a challenge to find an article for this week, but I finally stumbled upon something that could make a huge difference in how we track our moods. There’s a new app called BiAffect that uses your keystrokes, frequency of texting, and social media app patterns to track manic and depressive episodes.

To find out whether a user might be experiencing a manic or depressive episode, the app tracks typing speed, how hard keys are pressed and the frequency of the use of backspace and spellcheck.

–chicagotribune.com

I know there are a lot of people who dislike the idea of being tracked in any sense, which is totally fine. However, I feel a bit more comfortable with it knowing that it comes directly from a research group. It’s only available for iPhone, which is kind of a bummer because I’m a die-hard Android user.

I wish something like this had been around in 2013, when I was deep in the throes of exhausting rapid-cycling episodes. I was newly diagnosed, but the challenge of finding the right combination and doses of medication, the loss of my job (probably due to my cycling), and the overall disintegration of my marriage had more or less temporarily erased any benefits or relief I found from my diagnosis.

One of my long-time friends mentioned that he noticed I was posting a lot more on Facebook when I was manic than when I was depressed. Like, a lot. Even now that I’m stable and successfully medicated, I still pay close attention to what and how often I post. When I’m more energetic and feel like interacting with others, I find myself wondering if it’s because I’m manic, hypomanic, or just…not depressed.

When you’re living with bipolar disorder, it’s a constant question of Column A, Column B, Column C, or a bit of each. You learn to analyze your moods and energy levels, and this tracking can quickly become obsessional.

I see this app as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it would save those of us who pay attention to our moods a ton of work. On the other, those of us who are prone to preoccupation and overall obsessional thinking could end up checking in a lot more often than usual.

If BiAffect is released for Android, I’m for sure going to jump on it, at least for a trial run. It seems like it could be a useful tool for mental health care providers and patients alike–rather than having to drag in pages and pages of mood diaries, we could pop open an app and have the data right there at our fingertips (literally). And, at least in theory, it seems like any sort of self-report bias would be removed, or at least mitigated. I know I’ve been guilty of fibbing a bit in my mood diaries due to the shame that comes from realizing just how sick I am.

What do you think, readers? Would you give something like this a spin, or do you find it intrusive? Let me know! I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Until next time, stay safe and remember to be excellent to yourself.

News Day Tuesday: Sick Days

Hey readers! I’ve gotten really bad about posting regularly and as we all know, structure is crucial when you’re living with a mental illness (particularly bipolar disorder). I made myself a super-nifty planner before I started school in January and am actually going to start using it to keep myself on track. What this means for you is that hopefully, I won’t disappear for weeks at a time!

Anyway, today’s article addresses the stigma against physicians taking sick days for mental health. While it focuses on doctors in Australia, the topic is extremely relevant to anyone who has ever taken or needed a “mental health” day. According to the article, doctors (unsurprisingly) feel uncomfortable taking sick days for self-care, even when they begin to feel burned out and can’t deliver their usual level of care to patients.

“I’m completely supportive, but I’ll admit I’ve never been brave enough to take a mental health day,” one doctor said, adding, “How can you dump your workload on a colleague who is going through much the same things as you are?”

– abc.net.au

I find this extremely relatable because I’ve always felt awkward calling into work or needing to leave early because my brain has decided that doing anything other than crying in bed is just not going to happen. It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve always felt the need to claim another reason–usually migraines, which I used to get several times a week–because we’re conditioned to believe that depression, anxiety, and other disorders of the mind are not a valid reason for absences. We’re taught to believe that we need to suck it up and get on with our lives, even if that means hiding in the bathroom to cry or have a panic attack.

Naturally, this poses a huge problem for anyone in the workforce, but it’s especially problematic for health care providers. It’s something I’ve often thought about as my clinical practicum draws closer. How can I best serve my clients if I’m experiencing the same symptoms as they are?

I also fear that even in a mental health facility, where one would expect supervisors to be a bit more sympathetic, I’ll come across as weak or unsuitable for the job because of what’s going on in my brain. There’s an indescribable level of self-loathing and shame that comes with mental illnesses, and I’m sure all of you can relate. It’s the feeling of being less-than, the feeling that you don’t deserve to have a job because some days, you just can’t handle the world. You begin to question everything about yourself–am I being weak or overly sensitive? Am I doing this whole “adult” thing wrong? The fear of losing your job is a constant presence, which only makes things worse.

So what can we do about it? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that question. One would hope that with increased media exposure, employers will become more understanding, although every boss is different and there are zero guarantees.

When I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I loved my job. I was working as an editor at a translation company, but my symptoms were so severe that I actually had what I called my “Oh shit, I cried at work!” kit, which I kept in my desk so I could patch myself up after crying jags. Some of the items included eye makeup, because it’s embarrassing to have streaked makeup after crying (even though I became very good at crying without messing up my face). Although my employer was aware of my struggles, I still lost that job due to absences, which sent me into a horrific downward spiral that took over a year to break.

Since then, I’ve become quite anxious about divulging any information related to my mental health to anyone at any job…and that’s problematic by itself. Why should we feel ashamed of something that’s beyond our control? The answer lies in the stigma.

It’s going to be a long, uphill battle, though the fact that today’s article even exists gives me hope. Exposure and time are the only things that are going to remedy this issue. It’s an unhappy thought, but I sometimes find myself wondering if mental health issues will ever be considered as legitimate as something as simple as food poisoning when it comes to work absences.

I’d like to end on an up note with another quote from the article: “If we can’t help ourselves, how can we help others?”

Self-care is so important, readers. The Compassion Project offers a list of self-care activities that you can check out to build a plan for yourself. Here are some of my favorites.

• Reading
• Baking (I’m a huge stress baker, though I haven’t done it in a while)
• Knitting or embroidery
• Crafting
• Cuddling with a pet
• Going for a walk (which you can even do at work–take a five-minute break to stretch your legs)
• Doing a crossword puzzle

What are some of your favorite self-care activities? Let me know–I’m always looking to add to my list!

As always, readers, stay safe and I’ll see you next week.

News Day Tuesday: Alabama inmate struggling with mental illness commits suicide

Good afternoon, readers! First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of posts these past few weeks–I got slammed with two bouts of cold/flu/whatever nastiness is going around this time of year and have been laying low.

This week, I want to share a recent story (updates were just posted about an hour ago) about Jamie Wallace, an inmate in Alabama who committed suicide in his cell. He originally pleaded non compos mentis (not guilty by way of mental illness, more commonly known as the “insanity defense”) in his mother’s murder, though he later changed his plea to guilty.

Those are some of the basic facts that led to Wallace’s incarceration. The more important point, however, is that before his death, Wallace mentioned receiving inadequate mental health care while incarcerated.

On Dec. 5, at the opening of a federal trial over mental health treatment in state prisons, Wallace described having multiple psychiatric disorders and claimed a prison officer once offered him a razor to use to kill himself. He also testified he had tried to hang himself at least once before. (Source: Seattle Times)

If this is true, it’s incredibly disturbing. It’s no secret that mental health care in general leaves much to be desired, though the problem is especially prevalent within the United States penal system. This is hardly the first instance of an inmate committing suicide while in prison, though Jamie Wallace’s case is yet another reminder of how much work still needs to be done.

I’m going to keep watching for updates and more details, but in the meantime, I think it’s important for all of us to focus not on Wallace’s crimes but on how the prison system failed to provide a human being with the resources needed to keep them alive. Admittedly, I don’t know much about the general state of health care within the prison system, but as in the “outside” world, it seems that mental illness is regarded as far less serious than physical ailments.

Let’s take this time to remember that we have a long way to go before we’ve achieved equality. Let’s take the time to mourn the fact that a person died by his own hand because he did not receive the help he desperately needed. Removing the “inmate” label from the equation also removes the stigma and helps us focus on what’s most important here.

Until next time, readers, stay safe and keep warm! I’ll post any updates about Jamie Wallace on the Facebook page.

Andrea Gibson – The Nutritionist

Hello, readers!

Today, I want to share with you a poem/spoken word piece that has always deeply resonated with me. The first (and second, and third…) time I heard it, I was reduced to helpless tears. I had the privilege of meeting Andrea Gibson and seeing her perform about six years ago, when she was doing a show in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. I ended up getting a comforting hug and crying on her shoulder when I told her how much this poem means to me, and I will never forget that moment.

“The trauma said, don’t write this poem. No one wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.” This, and the final lines: “Live. Live. Live.” will always make me cry–not from sadness, but from relief. This is the single most reassuring thing I have ever read (and heard) in my life.

When I discovered Andrea Gibson I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was not alone and that everything was going to be all right in the end. It was the first step in my long journey that eventually culminated in the ability to just sit with the pain and accept it for what it is. I have learned that no matter how low I feel, how dark the dark nights of the soul get, not every day will be like today.

The Nutritionist

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables
Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day
I would be grounded,
rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness is.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight
Said for 20 dollars she’d tell me what to do
I handed her the twenty,
she said “stop worrying darling, you will find a good man soon.”

The first psychotherapist said I should spend 3 hours a day sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed, with my ears plugged
I tried once but couldn’t stop thinking about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet

The yogi told me to stretch everything but truth,
said focus on the outbreaths,
everyone finds happiness when they can care more about what they can give than what they get

The pharmacist said klonopin, lamictil, lithium, Xanax
The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget what the trauma said
The trauma said don’t write this poem
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones

My bones said “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.”
My bones said “write the poem.”

The lamplight.
Considering the river bed.
To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread.
To everyday you could not get out of bed.
To the bulls eye on your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die.
I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do-
Is remind ourselves over and over and over
Other people feel this too

The tomorrow that has come and gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing that letter to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried”
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back
There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into your spine

So let me tell you I know there are days it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings
You are not alone and wondering who will be convicted of the crime of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame
You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy

I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside
Some people will never understand the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house
But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing
A life can be rich like the soil
Can make food of decay
Can turn wound into highway
Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says
“it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society”

I have never trusted anyone with the pulled back bow of my spine the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat
Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound
Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town
Calculating exactly what I had to swallow to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.

So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don’t try to put me back in
just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better
but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts may have only just skinned their knees knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming
let me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be here
asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet

you- you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me.
Raising your bite against the bitter dark
Your bright longing
Your brilliant fists of loss
Friend

if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,

my god that’s plenty

my god that’s enough
my god that is so so much for the light to give
each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over
“Live”
“Live”
“Live”

You can watch one of the many versions of Andrea performing here, and I encourage you to check it out! It’s a great reminder that no matter how lonely we get, none of us exist in a vacuum.

Continue to raise your bite against the bitter dark, friends. Fight as hard as you can, because the world sees us as broken. Refuse to give up. Fight to show everyone that you matter, that you are more than the sum of your parts or the chemicals inside your brain. You are more than a diagnosis, a code on a medical chart, the endless insurance claims and the bills and the medications you swallow every day just to feel okay.

You are a human being, first and foremost. I hope none of you ever forget that. You matter. Your life matters. You are worth something to the universe not because of who you are or what you’ve done, but because you’re here. And you’re going to be okay.

News Day Tuesday: More Progress on Mental Health Care Parity?

Good afternoon, readers!

It’s no secret to most of us that securing quality mental health care can be frustrating, if not seemingly impossible. In 2008, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act was passed, which basically ensured that insurance companies were not allowed to discriminate against mental health care when offering coverage–benefits for these services had to be more or less equal to the benefits offered for standard medical and surgical care. (You can read more about the act here!)

I was nineteen years old when the act was passed, and it was a huge moment in my life. But things are still not great; many insurance plans have extremely strict limits on the number of counseling visits allowed per year (the insurance plans I’ve had in the last ten years have placed a limit of twelve appointments per calendar year), and there is still much to be done before we can honestly say that mental health care is equal, in the eyes of insurers, to other types of medical care.

For one thing, enforcement of the parity law tends to leave much to be desired. The task force, which formed in March of this year, has identified the following objectives in reforming mental health care parity:

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is awarding $9.3 million to states to help enforce parity protections. California, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island were cited as models of promising enforcement efforts.
• A new government website will help consumers identify the right agency to assist with their parity complaints and appeals.
• A newly released consumer guide will help patients, families and providers understand their rights and look into whether they have experienced a parity violation.
• The Department of Labor will report each year on its investigations into parity violations

-npr.org, “Federal Panel Calls For Stricter Enforecement of Mental Health Care Parity Law”

Though I am a bit skeptical that any great strides will be made in the immediate future, I am trying to remain cautiously optimistic that within the next few years, we’ll be able to enjoy equal benefits for mental health care.

My current insurance plan offers a very limited selection of counselors and psychiatrists, and wait lists are often several months long. I had an intake appointment a few weeks ago and am still waiting to hear back on whether or not the counselor in question will even accept me as a patient. I know my experience is not unique and, even more disturbingly, there is the continued dearth of hospital beds for people struggling with severe mental illness who need immediate hospitalization to survive.

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