no reason to be sad

I was fourteen-years-old when I wrote my first suicide letter in the back of a plastic, snap journal my brother had gotten for Christmas. He was in Africa at the time on a mission trip and his steadying, protective presence is something I have come to rely on. At fourteen, I didn’t know the logistics of what committing suicide looked like, but what I knew was that my mind had me trapped in a darkness and sadness so deep that I knew I could escape. If my memory serves me well, by the time my brother returned I had dug out of the hole and it took years for him to find the letter. 

This week I found myself at the event Uncovered with Nichole Mischke. Nichole’s passion and belief is that we must tell our stories of shame in order to live our fullest life and that our stories will help set others free. That night we heard three stories—stories of alcoholism, opioid addiction, and sexual abuse. As I sat listening in on these stories of destruction and healing, I realized that I have kept the most shameful parts of my depression stories tucked safely away. As I unravel my story through this blog and on my Instagram, hoping my boldness will help someone else, I have truly kept it all hidden besides to those few who were walking my divorce story in real time. I don’t want to hide it anymore because my 

biggest secret hinges on a very common thread being spoken over young people with depression every day. 

I was raised in a Christian Conservative home. One where depression was a sign of unbelief, not of chemical imbalance. So many nights were spent sitting on a couch across from my mother telling her how sad I was and her refrain was always “you have nothing to be sad about”. 

You have nothing to be sad about. When a child or young adult heard they have nothing to be sad about that take that sadness and they bury it. They turn it into something else. Something more acceptable. I learned that my sadness was more accepted when it became anger. Think about your friends sitting around the table during a divorce or break up, a job loss, a death, a sexual assault. Think about that awkwardness of sitting in that moment with someone. Do you find it easier to console them? To let them cry on your shoulder without giving them a single answer to why the universe is unfair? Or is it easier to mock the other person? To swear and seek revenge? In our society, it seems to me gossip and anger are much more accepted than the tears and uncertainty of cruel situations. I learned quickly that I could have tantrums and I could let rage explode and both friends and family had an easier time wrapping their head around it. 

Four weeks after my sweet boy was born it was clear I was not okay. I wasn’t showering or sleeping or surviving. I had begged God for a baby for the six years I had tried to get pregnant. I had spent that time falling in love with other people’s children and working in Early Education. I had no reason to be struggling. I had no reason to be sad. I had moments I could feel the depths of my postpartum depression and begged Jim to institutionalize me. I didn’t have the strength to do the research in what that looked for. Mostly, I had moments of deep pride. “You have nothing to be sad about.” Newly married, a new city, a new baby. I leaned back on my rage. I hated Porter. I couldn’t mother him the way I imagined and so I took it out on him, not physically ever but I decided he was a boy I just couldn’t love and whom I resented. I hated Jim. Every thought of suicide I had in the three years we waiting out our eventual demise I equated to his inadequacy as a father. He became what I called the “fun uncle”. The man who just swept in to save the day while I fell apart. Each time he flew away on an airplane for a work trip I told him I hope his plane crashed since he was useless anyways when really all I wanted to tell him was I needed him home. The cruelty I spoke to Jim, both emasculating him and alienating him, when all I needed was to love him and for him to love me so I could get help still stands as unforgivable in both our minds. “You have nothing to be sad about.” I couldn’t admit my weakness because it was something I didn’t deserve to own. 

This year has come in as a gift. Following my suicide attempt my therapist told me to be depressed, speak my truth. I tend to want everyone to be comfortable and so I skip over anything that could be awkward. She told me it is up to other people how they receive what you have to say. What I heard time and time again while I told people “I’m done and tying up loose ends. I don’t want saved” was “we don’t know what to do”, “we’re here”, “we’ve never dealt with this but let’s figure it out together”. Slowly, my rage has unraveled into speaking my sadness when it is present. Slowly, my anxiety has caught itself before an insult towards the person inducing it. It’s not perfect but I’m growing. 

Remove “you have no reason to be sad” from your thoughts and vocabulary. I would even challenge you to step up when someone tells you they’re depressed and they have no reason to be. That, my friend, is your red flag calling you to help. 

Porter James Ulysses: Year 5.

Dearest Porter Pie-

Every year when I sit down and write your birthday letter, I think through all the things we’ve lived the year before. My biggest prayer for our lives is that no moment would be without purpose; that no moment would be without laughter or growth or meaning. There are so many moments this year that feel like they are without but, Porter James, the plan is never ours to know. Slowly things fall into place and the beauty of the story that is being written is revealed. This year has felt like the constant restarting of chapters ruthlessly re-edited into something that makes your little heart sing. 

This year my heart ached for you in so many ways. Looking through the window between my classroom and yours and knowing so much of your acting out was because you could not process your world. You almost lost me at the beginning of this year and as my heart and mind fell further into an abyss of depression, your actions came to a point you were dismissed from school. I tried to protect you as much as I could, to keep your world untouched by the thing that I couldn’t control in my own but you, my sweet boy, are the most empathetic and emotionally intelligent child I have ever met. It was felt in the way you always cozied up to me when my heart hurt. In the way you rubbed my back at night, like you were so used to me doing to you when you couldn’t sleep. It was felt in the way you would ask for stories about when you were a baby. 

On the days you were with Dad, my heart felt like it was being shredded into a million pieces. My purpose, the reason for my moments, has always been you. Without you anchoring me, laughing with me, adventuring with me, living with me, I wasn’t sure what life looked like. The more I struggled to find my footing, the more it was clear that you could not find yours. Your dad and I fail in a million different ways as ex-spouses but in a million different ways we navigate co-parenting better than a lot. When my heart has missed you, I have been able to see you. 

The summer served as a reset for us. Your grandma came. Miss Julian stepped in. Your Dad took time off work. There are times in life when people need structure and learning and hard work and then there are times when people need rest and love. You were held as we figured out the next steps of what life looked like for you. You needed the daily reminder that you were not an inconvenience, that you were not a trouble maker, or a difficult student. Day-by-day I saw your smile return. I saw the stress fall away from your face. I saw the destruction of a label given to you over and over again for a year change. It changed for inconvenience to loved. It changed from difficult to growing. It changed from too much to unique. It turned from angry to sweet. As each piece of your identity was shown, the way you interacted with the world and the world interacted with you changed. 

I have never met a more polite, sweeter boy, Porter. I am proud of you at every turn because I know that the things that shine in you are not nurtured but rather just the nature of your sweet little heart. I remember taking you to babysit with me and you sitting right now with the kids and joining in the fun. The Dad observed that you are secure because of the deep love you know exists in your world. It made me proud to know you can walk into a crowded room and always be comfortable because you know no matter what your Mom or Dad is there to catch you and love you when need be. We will always be here. 

Life this year will again change for you as I prepare to move across the country. I know you won’t understand as a five-year-old why this is important for me, for us. The truth is that my job is to create the best life possible for you and right now I don’t have that ability from where I’m standing. I want to build a better life for you. That means for the next few years while I go to school, there will be a sacrifice of time for both of us. My heart doesn’t know how to feel about it in this moment but I know in the future this will build the life we need. This decision has already come at a loss for me. The attacking of my position as your Mom. I’ve said it often but I will say it again here—I am not perfect. I am human but try each day to be better for you, and for myself. Even in the moments I have failed you, it was never my intention. I came out on the other side of every accusation leveraged against me because I see the truth when you jump into my arms after school, hold my hand when your nervous, and insist on cuddling with me until the moment you fall asleep. I love you well and in return you love me so well. I am in this life with you, whether here or in New York. 

I love you to the depths, Porter James ❤️ Happy Fifth Birthday, Pie. 

Mommy

Suicidal in America.

For several years now I have shared bits and pieces of my mental health struggle. Mostly, it has been the victory, the forward motion. Struggling again the past few months has felt like a failure, an embarrassment. The shame that often is associated with depression and suicide found it’s way back to me, making it difficult to talk about it in any honest or real way, even to my nearest and dearest. The story is still evolving but life feels better. It feels like it’s in a place of deep healing but also in a place after the storm when I must look back at all the damage that depression left in it’s wake. I cannot put together a full narrative for you because I cannot yet see the full narrative. As always, I share the bits and pieces of my heart I feel safe sharing in the hope that there’s someone who may read them and not feel so alone in their journey and that people who have never had this darkness sneak in grow a little more compassion. 

It was a simple trip to REI to look for some new workout clothes. I remember getting halfway through trying on clothes and feeling exhausted. Not the type of exhausted that sneaks up after a long day of work but the type of fatigue that made me question if I had any choice but to curl up on the bench in the dressing room and wait it out. I made it to the car but knew I could make it no further. My body nor mind had the fuel necessary to continue even the four blocks home. It didn’t feel like something had triggered this sudden shut down my body was experiencing but I recognized it all too well. My flight or fight response was screaming at me but paralysis came over me instead. There were tears but no crying. I couldn’t turn the key to start the car to go to a safe space so my phone became that safe space. I tried to call a friend but when they picked up no words would come so it was the feverish texts still present on my phone that came out. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t go home. I can’t stay here. I don’t know how to make it through this day. I don’t think I’ll make it through the next minute. What do I do?” 

This to me now is ground zero. It’s the moment of the mental break. The moment that makes absolutely no sense but held hostage the next six months of life. This was the mental break that lead to the depression that lead to a month of planning my suicide. I know some of those words are scary. I know they make people look away or see me a different way but don’t look away, because there is a broken mental health system in this country that is deeply concerning. I guarantee someone you know is afflicted in some way and the lack of understanding, or perhaps care, around mental health is astounding. 

Anti-Depressants:

I told myself if I ever found myself in the throws of an episode again I would immediately go on antidepressants. Within a couple weeks of my parking lot meltdown, I was prescribed my first antidepressants. Everyone has a different experience with antidepressants and I know plenty of people who see them as a God send. I am glad that they have found a system that works for them. At my particular doctor’s office, I was asked 3 questions to determine what drug to be placed on. These questions basically assessed my energy level and hygiene while being depressed. The first round of antidepressants made me detached. I could read the emotions of a room around me but I could never quite feel them. I found myself back at the doctor’s office to answer a new set of 3 questions. I became very ill on my second antidepressants. I can handle a lot of things but physical illness brings out the wimp in me. I couldn’t stay on them long because of vomiting, migraines and the fear of seizures. My therapist suggested I do genetic testing to find which drug my body metabolizes with the least amount of side effects. I felt encouraged by the idea of not simply taking a stab in the dark. However, instead of that medication helping my mood, it detached any sense of connection I had to existing or surviving. On this drug, I found myself very logically planning my suicide. I called my son’s dad to let him know when I’d be making my exit. I told friends where my legal documents were and what I needed them to do to help with Porter. I told family that it was no different than scheduling a dentist appointment, the time had simply come. As everyone around me freaked the fuck out, I wrote a logical plan and a letter to my son. 

Antidepressants felt like the answer. They’d always been packaged as the one thing I hadn’t tried. I was completely discouraged that I could somehow be on antidepressants and still be having panic attacks and suicidal ideations. My therapist simply said to me “you have to decide you want to fight like this is life or death”. I knew with this medication subduing my mind there was no way I could get depressed enough to be scared or joyful enough to see hope. I knew in my heart getting the drugs out of my system was the only way to even have a chance of survival. What I did not anticipate was the struggle to convince a doctor you don’t need antidepressants once you’re on them. I drew the line at trying a fourth antidepressant, a fourth opportunity to have an adverse reaction. Yet today, I still received a phone call that the refilled the prescription I asked them not to. 

Safety Checks:

From first contact with the police by a friend who called for a safety check on me to the moment I opened my front door was 7 hours. 7 hours. I cannot imagine a suicidal human who would not have completed their mission in that time. I also cannot imagine a world in which the first person you want to see while under distress is a uniformed police officer. Let me break down for you how a safety check works. 

“People are worried about you. Do you have a plan to hurt yourself?”

“I rather not talk to you about this.” 

Police Officer hands you the number of crisis services. 

I guess that’s all it takes to stop death by suicide? 

Criminalization of Suicide:

As it became clear that I was at an alarming place, several friends came together to contact a crisis service on my behalf. This time it didn’t take 7 hours but 5 days for them to get ahold of me. I do not love people being in my home. I like it to be mine and Port’s space but I legally had to allow them in. It instantly put me on my guard. Upon entering my home, my safe space, they handed me a dumbed down version of the Miranda Rights and told me I had the right to an attorney at any point in the process. 

Since when is it a crime to have a mental illness? Clearly, we as a society have felt this way for some time as we call it “committing” suicide. I have a controversial view of suicide but here is how I feel; if we would not criminalize a cancer patient for refusing treatment, why would we make it punishable to choose not to seek treatment for a mental illness. Pain feels different for us all. We have not lived in each other’s stories. How can any of us be the judge for someone else’s pain? In the end, do you know what it feels like? The system in place seems inadequate to just someone’s mental state unless you present with the stereotypical suicidal profile. If you can just answer the ten questions correct about how you’re feeling and why, the system in place can pat itself on the back and sign off liability for your death, should it come to that. 

Community:

There aren’t many people around me who can relate to suicidal ideation. The one thing I cannot express enough is to just show up anyways. There were friends who stayed up with me for almost a whole weekend straight and mostly it was to say “we don’t understand”, “this is awkward and uncomfortable”, and “you’re not leaving even if you want to be pissed at us about it”. I know all the things that didn’t save me. It wasn’t the survey of why I feel like shit. It wasn’t the questions that came with the shame of a plan. It wasn’t medication or distraction. It was people showing up and not knowing what to do. They didn’t try to convince me to stick around, in honesty. They laid out the options and said “pick”. The beautiful reminder in their tough love was that when you’ve seen the finish line, you can decide to brush off all the excuses and build exactly the life you want. There truly is nothing left to lose. 

The last six months have made me afraid, not for myself, but rather for people who don’t have community. The people who find themselves staring into a system that is not equipped to treat them as humans but rather as people who are “crazy” or “attention seeking”. The truth is we are aware of how uncomfortable our reality is. It is not who we are but rather the power of our mind to make us believe the unimaginable. It is you who must adjust. I would encourage you to stare into the uncomfortable with us. It sounds cliché but you never know what that one smile or “hello” can do to reground someone in the throes of an episode. 

Bravery:

Bravery looks like staying. Bravery looks like hurting and healing and struggling through the pain. Bravery is looking the face of the people who held you through it in whatever way they saw fit and humbly saying “thank you”.  Bravery is looking at what you lost in the process. Bravery is knowing that people now have notions about you that aren’t reality but what people must tell themselves to feel safe with their interactions with you. Bravery is repeating to yourself that you want to be here until your heart matches that refrain. Bravery is being scared you’ll reach the lowest low again but living life anyways. Bravery is giving yourself permission to smile and laugh again. Bravery is hard. 

home.

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of home lately. A decade has brought seven houses in four different states. Home was no longer the permanence contained in any four walls like it seemed to be living my first eighteen years in my parent's home. I have learned in those ten years that just because I possess a key to a door does not mean that comfort, safety or love exist once I cross the threshold. Before even taking off my shoes, each home created a world of it's own. There was the Oakwood apartment where friends laughing upstairs would draw my attention from the fist holes in the hallway wall from one more heated, drunk fight. The sound of Jeff or Jaime writing music in the studio of our Nashville house. The screen door slapping back as you came in off the wrap around porch of the Hampton house. Carl running to meet me as I took of my shoes at "Chenutica Farms". Our first home in Spokane where I was so fogged by Postpartum depression that I don't remember coming or going, or even where the closest light switch to the door was. Now the house on Sinto where I put my keys on the familiar Simon Pure tray but my eyes land on items I no longer consider mine even if I helped pick and pay for them. Each time I packed up boxes to leave one space, I slowly and carefully wrapped up every picture frame, pair of heels and coffee mug as though these things would preserve my identity once the movers had removed the last box and I had scrubbed the last finger prints off the kitchen counters of my current living situation.

In each subsequent house, the basement got fuller as only the most useful items ever found their way into the new rooms. It was never the Hero Design posters, my grammy's crystal juicer, or Porter's baby blankets. Unpacking in the rush of life was always limited to the pots and pans, pillows, and bath towels. Decorative items were bought time and time again instead of dug up from the dank attics. With each passing month, and eventually years, I realized I loved pretty things but that they were truly a nuisance. Home and my identity were not found in possessions or sentimentality. Things created a guilt in me for not caring about them more, misplacing and breaking more than my fair share even though I had put in hours and hours of work to afford them.

If nothing about physical walls and the contents within provided home, only shelter, I had to assume that humans were the real providers of home, of belonging, of rest. But the story of those same ten years held two sets of broken vows. Home became a scary word. It became a place of lies and pain, of false safety, and dashed hope. If the person whose last name you share cannot shelter you from the storm, where do you reside when the world feels unsafe? When grace runs dry and you're forced to look at the truth of the damage done, you find that your heart looks like a home hit by a hurricane. Only the damage is that of trauma to your soul and your mind. Two years ago, in the midst of life-altering trauma, 2,480 miles from my blood family without a home or a partner, I had to question once more what home was.

Will Reagen sings a song, 'Climb", whose lyrics became my anthem.

          "I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open. There's nothing I hold onto."

Life. Love. Security. Depression. Friends. Pain. Stability. Possessions. Home. They all became fluid. Sand running through my hands. I was so longing to find home here on Earth since I first left my parent's house. I had changed locations, partners, careers, habits all the find the one key that would unlock my true home. The reality, the right in front of my face truth, is that I was not made for this place. The longing to find home is natural but the answer to where home exists is supernatural. The moment I learned to hold the things of this world loosely (which happen quiet recently) I started to learn what home, my true North, felt like. 

Home is found in my early morning prayers, still lying in bed. It is found in signing along to worship songs in the car on lunch break with my best friend. It is found taking communion at church with a friend's hand in mine. It is found extending kindness and grace when I least want to. It is found in the deep cries that come with my depression. It is found in being broken but asking one more time for forgiveness. It is found falling asleep wrapped in the arms of my person. It is found in knowing myself better than ever before and loving myself, glaring flaws and all. There are moments of heaven on Earth, moments that are sacred if you take time to notice. That is home to me these days. Not a place or a person but the simple moments of great Love.