Can You Measure A Life in Boxes?

I saw my life
packed up in bins,
bags and boxes. My
whole life had been
condensed into assorted
cardboard and plastic.
I said goodbye to
nothing and no one.
I went silently,
too tired to fight. 
But the bins, bags
and boxes, said more
than my silence
ever could. 

How could five
years fit into 
such a cramped 
array of containers?
Where is everything I
spent time building
and creating?
Since when are adult
children the 
youngest of all?
Why will I always
be sick even when I 
become well?
When did they all
become blind to
logic and reasoning?
When will I
learn?
When will I stop
trying to change
and understand
them?

All of the questions I
could never say,
were spelled out in
packing tape and
Storage lockers. 
I couldn’t look back, 
the tears were coming, 
so I ran as fast as my
car could drive.

August

If I were a weather pattern, I would be one of those late August days. The days that look so good on paper, the ones that never look bad on the surface but if you look beneath it you’ll wish you hadn’t.

On the surface, late August is perfection. School is out for the kids, warm weather, long weekends, swimming… What’s not to love? But if you go deeper you’ll see the wandering minds of children and wandering minds are dangerous. You’ll see the sticky and humid feelings of discomfort that accompany warm weather. You’ll see routines interrupted and ensuing chaos and you’ll see the possibility of drowning.

When people saw my surface, they saw a helper. They saw someone who had it all together. But if those people took the time to peel back my layers, they would see that I needed more help that I could have ever given out. They would see the struggles I masked with humour. They would see the years of wounds I left unattended. They would see the discomfort I felt in my many sticky and humid situations. They would see the constant closeness I was to drowning.

They would look beneath my surface and see all of these things, but they would wish they hadn’t. The surface is always easier to stomach.

You Two

I heard
words and
never had
bruises or
black eyes. 

But why
should that
make my
suffering any
less valid?

My wounds
were beneath
my surface
but they
were still
painful and
true and
sadly real. 

Words hurt
because memories
never fade
the way
bruises do.

Surface Wounds

I sat in waiting
rooms full of
girls who looked
nothing like me. We
had the same problems,
but I did not look
sick like they did.
They saw it too,
the shrinks and the
doctors. They saw
me and could not
see why I was
there.

They did not put
the other girls
on the scales right
away, they were
too fragile. The
numbers made
me cry and they
broke my soul
but they made me
see it every week. I
could tell by the looks
they gave and by
the questions they
asked. They could not
see bones protruding
from my skin, or
hear me gasping for
breath like the other
girls. They did not
see the tears I shed
every morning when I
got dressed, or hear
the cruel words I spoke
to my body, and so they
did not believe I
was sick.

Until I met Anita. She
could see and understand
that shallow breaths
and protruding bones
did not an illness
make. She understood
that my wounds were not
as visible as the other
girls, but that my sickness
was just as real and
that understanding
saved my life.

Grandpa

I have the eyes
of my parents.
When I drive,
I am angry like my father. 
I speak in ways
like my mother.
I am blunt and
opinionated like Granny.
I drink vodka,
like Grandma.
Sometimes I am 
quiet like Papa.

People tell me all of
these ways that I am like 
all of these people;
but no one ever tells me
how I am like you
and forever I will wonder.

 

Mantra

Find your words and
hold them close to your
soul. It might be one simple
word, or an entire phrase
long. Repeat it to yourself
not only when times are hard
but also when you are
happy. Let your words serve
as a reminder to always hold
something dear to you. May you
remember that even in the darkest
of nights, your words can act as a
guiding light.

Just as I am, I am enough.
Just as I am, I am enough.
Just as I am, I am enough.

I Wasn’t Even Good Enough at Being Sick

I thought that
because I could not
count each of my 
ribs,
that I was not sick.

I was not
keeping down more 
than one meal a day
but that one meal
made me
believe
that I was not sick.

I searched for
hours and
looked at pictures of girls
who were ill and I
saw that I did not look like
them
so I decided that I was not sick.

So I hid and I
told myself that
until I could count
all if my bones
and I was passing out,
that only then would I
be sick.

Stillness

I need you to lay
beside me. Stroke
my back and caress
my soul. I need you
to speak with you
eyes and keep your
lips silent. I need you
to make me forget the
rest of the world and
the problems that
exist outside of
this bed. For the
time we are lying
here I need us to be
the only two people
in existence. I need 
everything else
to fade away with
every blink of your
comforting eyes.

Survivor

The job of  a Survivor is to outwit, 
outlast, and outplay. It is to be better 
than the rest, yet still be liked by all. 

The job of a Survivor is to thrive
in barren lands and desolate
places. It is to rise from ashes
and grow out of concrete.

The job of a Survivor is to win
at all costs. IT is more than winning
idols and challenges, it is beating the demons
living in your head. 

The job of a Survivor is to soldier
on through unimaginable
circumstances. It is not giving up
and refusing to hear that the tribe
has spoken. 

The job of a Survivor is to not allow
anyone to extinguish your flame;
not even yourself. 

The D Word

I want to talk about depression. 

I was first told I had depression when I was around the age of sixteen; this was not news to me. By the age of sixteen I was (thankfully) about two years free of self harm but I would be lying if I said that my life had gotten significantly easier. I was living with my mind being in a constant overdrive of feelings. I was experiencing these intense emotions that I just could not understand. I have memories of crying fora seemingly endless amount of time and having no idea what was making me so upset. When my family doctor listened to things I was telling her and them presented me with depression, I was not surprised, but I was scared. I didn’t tell my parents she had said this to me. I didn’t think I could. I was scared that it wouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone: friends, family, teachers, or coaches. I was worried that people would think I just wanted attention, or that they would think I was just weak.

That was six years ago. I wish I could say that things have gotten better for me; sometimes it really feels like they have and at other times I feel like I’m worse off than when I started.

Depression, at its core, is a chemical imbalance of the brain. It has been proven that depending on the levels of certain chemicals your brain produces can have a huge effect on someone’s likelihood to develop depression. Now this is not to say that there are not other factors that play into someone developing depression; there are likely going to be emotional factors, environmental factors, certain circumstances or perhaps even genetics. All of this to say- having depression does not make someone weak. I (now) personally think it’s quite the opposite.

Within the past twelve months, my depression has unfortunately been extremely present in my life and I’ve encountered some stuff that just bothers me. Considering depression affects over 5% of the Canadian population aged fifteen and older, I thought I’d share these things in hopes that someone takes them to heart and avoids some potentially awkward interactions.

1. Just because I live with depression does not mean that I do not have other feelings. What I mean by this is that let’s say I (a person living with depression) get hurt or offended by something, it does not mean in any way that it is because of my depression. Now for a drastic comparison take someone with a cold/sore throat and let’s say someone punches them in the throat and says that it only hurt because they have a cold? Does that make sense? No. So if you do or say something to me and I get hurt or offended and I try and explain that to you, please do not say that it’s “just your depression acting up.” What I interpret that as is someone saying to me that my feelings are not actually valid and that were I not a person living with depression, the thing that someone did to offend me wouldn’t matter.
2. Depression is not all that I am. I get that people like to talk to me about my mental health, in fact I love being open about it and doing my part to create conversation surrounding mental health. However, I like it to be remembered that there is so much more to me than just my diagnosis. I’m a social service worker, a daughter, a sister, a proud cat mama, a writer, a fiancé, a graduate and so many other things. So next time you’re telling me a story about someone else you may have met who also lives with depression and refer to them as “someone like you,” please just take a beat, and reconsider your wording.
3. Please stop suggesting ways for me to feel better. Look I appreciate it when people try to help me. But the amount of times I have had people tell me that exercise is going to magically cure my depression is so frustrating. I have an academic and professional background in social work, I’ve read the studies and understand them. I know that physical activity can sometimes be a huge help for people living with depression. But what I also know is that when I am at my lowest points of depression, I have little to no energy and the last thing on my mind is exercising. The thing that is hard for people to grasp is just how debilitating depression can be and that a lot of the suggested remedies are the very things that depression makes it hard for me to do. If you know someone living with depression and they come to you for advice, that’s one thing. But giving unsolicited advice is ridiculous. Unless you’re a doctor of some sort, if I haven’t asked for it, maybe I don’t want your advice.
4. Understand that taking medication is acceptable. I’m sure you’ve all seen that picture on Facebook- a split screen image where the top has a picture of a gorgeous forest and says “This is an antidepressant” and the bottom image is of some pills and says “This is shit.” I have so many issues with this image that it would take me countless pages to describe. Depression is so much more than just being sad, for me it is sometimes the inability to get out of bed, the inability to properly take care of myself in so many ways. Getting out into a forest would do nothing for me when I am in those states. Medication helps with what depression is at its core- a chemical imbalance. Please do not belittle someone for taking medication for an illness; you wouldn’t say that to someone receiving treatment for a physical illness and this is no different. Someone taking medication is trying to get better and trying to recover and it is a hard enough road without those kinds of comments. (See image below for reference.)

All this being said, remember that depression does not look the same in everyone. If you want to be the best possible friend/loved one/partner/supporter etc., to someone living with depression, the best thing to do is to ask them what they need from you and really listen. Understand that sometimes they may not know what they need because navigating a chemically imbalanced brain is hard and that’s okay. Be an open ear for them and do your best to be what they need; they’ll thank you for it one day.