1) Support in mental health

1) Support in mental health. Written June 2011

NOTE: I have four pages of scattered disjointed writing in my “latest blog” file in word.
It is all about my struggle with depression over the last few months.
I realised today when I sat down to start writing again properly that none of that was ever finalised and put into this blog.
So for all the people out there with depression, and for those who love people with depression these posts are for you.
As the week progresses, more posts will go up, and they will be numbered, from earliest (furthest in the past) to most recent to make it easier to keep track.
I hope that they help you see light and hope, and possibility. Because even if it can’t be seen now, it is there, and you WILL find it. You just have to stick it out today. Tomorrow will come.

I am what I would describe as a “maintenance phase” with my depression.
Every winter I get lower in mood, and every few years when all the shit collides at the same time, my ability to keep it at a “controllable level” is lost.
This has been one of those years, and this is the first winter with severe depression AND blogging.
To keep things functional and interesting and still blog about things I really care about has been a challenge.
On one hand, I haven’t blogged regularly, so I’ve sort of failed.
On the other hand, I haven’t lowered my standards, gone off the rails, or allowed topics to overwhelm me or my life.

I’m going to call it a win at this point.

Also on the winning side of the coin... My partner who has also experienced depression has the most wonderful gift.
Every time he looks at me he sees ME.
Me with a cold sometimes.
Me with PMS sometimes.
And at the moment, me with depression.
But always the primary focus is me.
That alone will make this winter a million times easier. One of the biggest challenges for me when I am struggling with depression is that the voice in my head isn’t really mine anymore and I sort of fail to see myself.
If I can see even the tiniest glimpse of who I REALLY am, even if it is just in his eyes, I won’t forget her, and I won’t give up.
Because I’m worth fighting for.
As are you.

Speaking out about “yucky feelings”.

I was in my late 20s.
I was articulate.
I had the support of my parents as an equal.
My mother and I have a strong bond of trust.
And it STILL took me two days to say “hey, does X hold you too long when you hug?”
It took me two days to figure out how to verbalise it and get up the courage to say something about this lovely man whom we all respect.
It took me two days to figure out if saying something was worse than not saying something.

And I was strong and powerful and knew my boundaries and legalities and moralities and all the players involved.

The sense of relief when Mum said “yes, and you don’t have to hug him if you don’t want to” was palpable.
Not just from me, but from everyone involved in the conversation.
Because we had all been a bit worried, and no one had said anything.
It is strange to think that even as an adult I needed reassurance that if I didnt want to hug someone I didnt have to.

It made me think again about how hard it must be for adults or children who are not in a position of power or trust. Such as those who are in care for mental health or disabilities, or children, who’s’ voices are not heard as clearly because of their age.

Speaking out is HARD. You risk someone else’s reputation as well as your own.
You risk hurting others.
You risk being ignored and not being able to raise it later.

Next time someone's kid doesnt want to give you a hug or a kiss, dont let the parents tell them to do it. Let them raise their own boundries - because how else will they feel confident enough to say no when they need to, if they dont practice on safe people??

So I just want to say it again.
Because some people who read here are adults. Some are young. Some are people who look after vulnerable/young people.

If you don’t like it, it’s NOT ok.
And the response to “does X make you feel uncomfortable/ touch you funny / hold you too long / creep you out” should always be to supportively listen to the person raising concern, and allow them to choose their own boundaries.

Because we have them for a reason.
And that is ALWAYS ok.

Character building isn’t just a cliché.

Kids aren’t resistant. They don’t miss stuff; they don’t always bounce back from loss and grief. Don’t be naive. Their experiences in childhood will shape them.
But negative experience building character isn’t just a cliché.

I’ve re-written the first bit of this paragraph about four times.
I don’t want to undermine the importance of the people who are a part of the loss I experienced in my youth. I also don’t want to use their stories in order to strengthen my own point of view. Their lives and deaths were their own, and should stay that way.
Let’s just say that before I was a teen we lost a lot of friends and family to accidents, cancer, and illness.
Not all of them were older. Some were younger than I was.
There was a hangover from this and it is not until I became an adult I realised my ideas of life, death and assumptions about what life will bring are not necessarily the norm.

Stuff that I do that some other people don’t.

Assume the worst if the land line rings after 9pm. – My family never calls each other at night because they know the palpitations it gives us.

Know the process when someone calls and says they are on the way to the hospital:
Call next of kin and tell them you will pick them up if applicable. (No-one freaked out should be driving)
Pack toiletries, pyjamas, bottled water, juice, muesli bars, and any meds that the person needs into a bag.
Grab coins and cash for parking
Stop at the petrol station and pick up some phone cards for recharging the patient/ family member’s cell.
Take a book, bottle of water and some sort of food for yourself.

Assume if someone gets sick enough to go to hospital that there is a risk of it being a really bad sign of things to come.

I know that if a doc says you have a 20% chance that is what it means. It doesn’t mean you are in the “miracle” category and the 20% thing doesn’t count for you.

That if a doctor says “hmm we need to take more tests”, it’s not a good thing.

That just because someone is young and cute doesn’t mean they are guaranteed passage through to adulthood without illness or injury.

That people don’t have to attend a funeral /tangi, and may not want to, and that is ALWAYS ok.

Needless to say, I assume that everyone else has had a wealth of experience with grief by the time they get to 30.

Someone was trying to tell me the other night what he thought “the appropriate” grieving period and process was for a particular situation. I had to explain to him that grief doesn’t come at your convenience, and there are no rules and regulations for what is “normal.”
A mother may never stop memorialising their lost child’s birthday. Or she may choose never to acknowledge it. It’s up to her. She is the only person in her position, just as the father of that child will also have his own process.
This difference in process is therein the issue.

I get really sick of people telling me I look surprisingly good or sound surprisingly calm when I call in on bereavement leave, or tell them about bad news. I get even sicker of people expecting me to hit a “get over it” time line by a certain point – always allocated by them.
It is worse when it is someone you love. I sincerely hope that when I am next bereaved my partner will let me grieve on my time, my way, with their support, and without being judged.
My ex didn’t even attend my much beloved grandfather’s funeral with me.
My grandfather didn’t notice.
I did, and that is what is important - those left behind.

I was going to leave it at that, but I’m going to get into some stuff to help cope while you are getting through the roughest patches if you are here from a Google search on grief, and don’t want to just hear me whinge.

Don’t ignore or bury your feelings. Screw what else is going on, do what YOU need to do.
If you feel like going kayaking for 6 solid hours, or beating the shit out of your friends in a sports game go for it (true story, and it was AWESOME).
If you feel like smiling and hugging and talking at the funeral, do it. There are no rules, as long as you also respect how other people feel.
Feeling alone and often angry or sullen is to be expected, just give clear boundaries, and find a way to get the space you need, without attacking or hurting those who may want to cling.
Communicate your feelings. Sometimes just saying “I’m angry ” will make you feel a bit better, even if it is a “bad” feeling. And chances are someone else will feel the same way.
Learn and understand the stages so you can recognise what you may be going through, and allow yourself to transition through the process.

With all of this stuff the biggest thing is, don’t try and do it alone.
If you are afraid of burdening friends, use 7 and call a different one each day.
If you are living with a partner, allocate a time to be negative but have a clear stop point and go for a walk or something nice after you have gotten out of that head space.
There is nothing wrong with paying a therapist so you can talk through things, without feeling like a burden. (nb feeling like a burden and being one are different, friends like to support!)

Grief is not a timeline from horrible to A-Ok. It is a rollercoaster.
My personal rollercoaster goes a bit like this... get plenty of good stuff done in the first two days, melt down, perk up, melt down, start having normal weeks where I don’t think about things then all of a sudden a smell, or something random (one time a Lego boat) sets me off back to an evening of sobbing uncontrollably unable to breath, feeling like my heart is breaking again.
Slowly but surely I start putting the missing person, or part of my life (in the case of my injuries) into a category of something like a treasure. Where I can control how I view them. I wait until I have the time to pull them out of the safe place I store them and hold them gently in my hands and admire them. I look at them from all angles, and take the time to acknowledge that I miss them, but I’m ok without them.
And you have to congratulate yourself when you reach that point, because you are awesome for getting there, no matter how short, or long a time it takes.

Grieving a child - A new resource for families experiencing loss.

Note: the base details of this write up were taken from the details of an interview with the Bay of Plenty Times.

I want to thank Liz, primarily for writing this incredible book, and also for allowing me to write this, I hope this will help market the book and allow the community to know about this new resource.
Please pass the word around. As activists in various different women’s interest
groups we are ideally set to pass the word around.

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

It is not often that a book comes out, and I want to;
A) Get it NOW
B) Buy multiple copies for my friends.

Recently I got a wee note from a friend of mine who wanted to let people know that his sister has written a book.
*sigh*
The number of books I have read because I know the author, and then wished I had that couple of hours back...
This is different.

For a start it is a book written to help families cope with bereavement and the process of a stillbirth.
Liz Tamblyn has self-published 300 copies. She hopes the book will be a valuable tool for people working with children dealing with grief .

Secondly Liz is the author and it is written in first person perspective, but
not hers...
The book is called Baby Sam and is in the voice of Baby Sam’s big brother Jack, who was 4 when Sam was stillborn.
Liz wrote the story soon after Sam's death four years ago.
"A lot of it is Jack's words. I read it to him seven or eight times and he corrected the bits I got wrong."
There are not too many times in your life you remember minute to minute. The day you realise your child is gone is one of those moments.

Sam was six days overdue when a check-up discovered that he had died. Liz had felt him moving just the day before.
She knew about stillbirth through her cousin’s experience 14 years before her, and what she had seen in the media, but nothing can prepare you for this.
What Liz’s book does help with is the process after. Grief, the experience of mourning as a family unit and the ways of remembering a child lost.
“The book tells how the family celebrated Sam's life with a special dance at his funeral and by releasing red balloons. Jack and his younger sister Sally received presents from Sam and had a birthday cake with a train on it to mark his birthday.”

This really hit home for me; we celebrated my friend’s son’s 18th birthday a few years back though he died quite soon after his 4th. The first birthdays were filled with the weight of grief, raw and unhealed. In contrast his 18th Birthday was a picnic on the grass; we each laid flowers on his grave and had our own private moments with him before joining the group for what was definitely a celebration. A celebration of his life and his family’s since his loss.

No one grieves the same way, or uses the same coping mechanisms, and so any resource to help support a child through a healthy and natural process of loss is highly relevant.
The BOP times reported that this is the only book on baby loss from the sibling’s perspective, which Liz has kindly let me know is incorrect.
In her words...
“There is another book put out by Skylight NZ, SIDS Wellington and Sands Wellington called "What Happened to Baby" (Which I highly recommend!). It is generic and could be any baby, for any reason at any age or gestation. The text has been carefully designed to fit a wide range of bereavement situations, including miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death and accidental or natural deaths of an infant or toddler. Ours is the only TRUE and PERSONAL story I have found on the subject.”
Liz who is also mum to Harry and Sally, found writing the book was extremely healing and therapeutic.
"It's almost like his life has left a legacy of helping other people through their grief. It's like a new purpose in my life, which I would never have had. I'd rather have him if I had the choice but I have to find the good things."

Mrs Tamblyn is a committee member for Sands, a support group for “families grieving the loss of a baby no matter the gestation or age or reason for death. (Not just stillbirth and newborn death).”

The book was officially launched at a private function in Tauranga last week.

To buy Baby Sam, email babysam@tamblyn.co.nz or visit www.skylight.org.nz.