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Let’s Talk About Sex
How did you learn about sex? We all have a story and my completely unscientific discussions with friends tell me that learning about the facts of life (not those Facts of Life) is often embarrassing and riddled with euphemisms.
I recently saw a story about Marjorie Holsten, described as a homeschooling expert by Tea Party groups, who advocates teaching children about sex by using guinea pigs. She claims this is how she taught her own children about how babies are made and that she learned about the birds and the bees by “watching animals do it on the street.”
This reminded me of the delightful story about how Nana taught my mom about doing the funky chicken.
In comparison to Nana, the Duggars are sexually permissive. Nana repressed everything having to do with coitus, which might explain a few things about her. She didn’t talk about it. She would start talking loudly over any movie scene that began to imply doing the wild thing. And, believe me, she didn’t bump uglies any more often than she absolutely had to. By my count, she had sex exactly twice – once for my mom and once for my uncle.
Nana was so uptight about sex that she didn’t tell anyone my mom was pregnant with me. When I was born, she put out pink candy cigars to inform the world that her daughter had a baby. Yep. Nana was ashamed of her first grandchild because it let the cat out of the bag that my (married) mom and dad practiced the horizontal mambo.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when my mom would have gone through puberty and needed to learn about the changes her body was going through, Nana turned a blind eye to the entire situation. Except, of course, to drill into my mom that holding onto her virginity was paramount (yes, I get the irony) and the belly button was sacred.
Fast forward to 1968 or 1969 when my mom was a co-ed at Florida Southern College, living in the Alpha Delta Pi house with her best friend Lynn. Still pretty ignorant about sex at age 20 or 21, except for what she heard from her friends, one night Lynn snuck a cat into their dorm room.
As they were cuddling the cat, Lynn realized that it was pregnant and told mom to feel its belly. Mom felt the kittens moving inside the cat’s belly, which was an entirely new experience for her. She certainly never felt Nana’s belly when Nana was pregnant with my Uncle Michael.
Moments later, Lynn exclaimed, “Get some towels! This cat is about to give birth!”
In all seriousness, Mom looked at Lynn and replied, “How can that be? These kittens are moving further and further away from the cat’s belly button!”
Mom swears that as the words came out of her mouth, she knew in that instant that Nana had lied to her all those years. The belly button wasn’t the sacred place from which babies came out of a woman’s body, like a human Jiffy Pop Popcorn. Babies come into the world by moving from the uterus through the dilated cervix and into the vagina before shooting out like a canon ball shooting out of a canon.
Completely embarrassed and upset that she could have been so dumb on this matter, Mom called Nana for an explanation. I obviously don’t know exactly how that conversation went down, but I’ve imagined it in my mind many times.
Mom: Hi Mom, it’s Virginia. Do you know what I learned tonight?
Nana (with her deep Southern drawl): No, Sweet Thing. What did you learn?
Mom: I learned where babies come out. They DO NOT come out of the belly button! Why did you let me believe for all of these years that babies come out of a woman’s belly button?
Nana: Well, honey, I just don’t know. There are some things you just don’t talk about. Now can we recite some Bible verses. This is all too much.
Mom: I just humiliated myself in front of Lynn. She thinks I’m an idiot. How did YOU learn where babies came out?
Nana: You know I grew up on a farm in Batesville, Mississippi. One day, your Aunt Johnnie and I were walking around and saw a pregnant cow give birth. I guess I thought you’d learn about it the same way I did.
Mom (now pretty irate): WHERE IN THE HELL DID YOU THINK I WAS GOING TO FIND A PREGNANT COW ON THE BEACHES OF FLORIDA?*
Nana: I, I just don’t know. Let’s recite some Bible verses.
*This is the only line that I know for certain is exact. Mom has shared this story so many times and this line never changes.
So that’s the story of how my mom learned about birthing babies. Frankly, if not for that cat, she could have gone her entire life without knowing the truth. When both David and I were born, Mom was fully sedated, as was the practice in the early 1970s.
Photo from Amazon.com. Click on the photo to order the book. 
“By this time, the man wants to get as close to the woman as he can because he’s feeling very loving to her. And to get really close the best thing he can do is lie on top of her and put his penis inside her, into her vagina.” Fortunately for me, Mom wasn’t nearly so uptight about sex and human reproduction. She handed me this very handy dandy book.
That’s right. I received a cartoon book with gross looking people.
I have no idea how a book can claim that it’s teaching the facts of life without any nonsense when, aside from the naked people inside, it could have been lifted straight from the Sunday Funny Papers.
When you open the book, you get a complete feel for just how ridiculous the whole thing is.
Just look at that couple. It’s all about the man and what he wants. The woman, I assume, is just supposed to go along with it. Because, you know, that’s what you do. It’s simply assumed that the “sticky stuff” containing sperm magically appears and the “romantic sperm” (I’m not joking) finds the egg and boom! a baby is made.
Ya, that wasn’t embarrassing for me. Not at all.
Fortunately, for parents too lazy to review the book with their kids, there’s even a Saturday morning style cartoon. You can plop Junior down in front of the TV with a box of Sugar Smacks and return 30 minutes later, confident that your child has all the information he needs to avoid sex at all costs.
How did you learn about sex?
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Lies My Parents Told Me
Things have been kind of heavy here at Little Merry Sunshine recently, so I’m going to lighten the mood a little for the next few days.
Over at The Tot Wrangler, a wonderful ChicagoNow blog that you should be reading, there’s been a very lively discussion about lies parents tell their children. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
The stories are hysterical, so go over and read them. I’ll be here when you get back. Really. I’ve got a glass of wine, so I’m good for awhile.
You’re back? Okay, great.
Reading all those funny anecdotes got me to thinking about the lies my parents told me. Trust me, they told me some doozies. My parents were some big fat liars. Tonight we’ll focus on two of my favorites.
Lie #1
When I was little (approx. ages 1 to 4 1/2), we lived in Fort Myers, Florida. At that time, Fort Myers was kind of a sleepy town. Nothing like it is today. It had a small regional airport, Page Field, located just east of US 41 (first, I remembered that without looking it up, and second, that’s the same US 41 that I live off of in Lake Bluff, IL). The airport serviced bigger cities in Florida like Tampa and was home to many small private planes. My parents told me that the small private planes were “baby airplanes” that would someday grow up to become the big planes we flew to Tampa. I completely fell for this line of crap and loved going to look at the baby airplanes whenever we could.
We moved to Arlington Heights in the fall of 1975 and lived just south of Palatine Road. My Gardner grandparents lived in Northbrook, just north of Willow Road, which is the same as Palatine Road. Between our houses was Palwaukee Airport, now known as Chicago Executive Airport, which only served small private planes. We drove by the airport every single time we visited my grandparents and I’d always comment on the baby airplanes.
Even though I’ve recently learned (okay, probably 35 or so years ago) that the small private planes don’t “grow up” to become 747s, I can’t help but smile as I’m reminded of all the trips to see the baby airports every time I drive by.
Lie #2
As a toddler, I had a strong oral fixation (please keep your filthy jokes to yourself) and refused to give up my bottles. I drank out of a sippy cup or regular cup during the day, but I would not go to bed at night without my bottle.
It didn’t matter how many stories my parents read to me or how many sips of water they gave me in a sippy cup. If I didn’t have my bottle, I was not going to sleep and neither was anyone else. There was simply no negotiating on this point.
My parents read all the Dr. Spock books on the topic, tried everything the pediatrician told them to try, and all of it was to no avail. They would throw out my bottles in the morning with my consent and, by 7:30 that night, someone would be driving around to find an open store that sold bottles. It was 1974 and there was no such thing as a 24-hour store. If there were no bottles to be found, misery was in store for everyone.
One day, my mom heard that the Budweiser Clydesdale Horses were in town and she devised a plan. Now pregnant with David, she believed this was her final shot to break me of my oral fixation before he he grew out of bottles. It was now or wait til I was in Kindergarten or First Grade.
She sat me down and explained that along with the grown-up Clydesdales, there were some baby Clydesdales who desperately needed bottles. Would I be willing to let them have my bottles because I was a big girl who didn’t need them? After contemplating the situation for a few minutes (you know I did, even if I didn’t know what that meant), I agreed. We bagged up all of my bottles and headed off to perform my first charitable act.
Upon arriving at the fairgrounds, Mom took me over to the Clydesdales, told me to stand still and she’d be right back. She needed to get the man who cared for the baby horses. Don’t judge my mom. This was 1974. I also probably stood in the front seat without a seatbelt the entire way from our house to the fairgrounds.
As I now understand it, my mom went over to the man with the horses and told him that I was going to walk up and offer him something and that under no circumstances could he turn it down. She didn’t care what he did with it after I left, but he’d better say thank you and graciously accept my gift. He agreed, although I bet it was a bit reluctantly.
I stood proud and tall, summoned all of my Big Girlness, walked over to the man, held out the brown paper sack with my bottles, and offered my baby bottles to the baby Clydesdales. The nice man accepted my bottles, thanked me, and assured me that the baby horses would appreciate my generosity. I walked away with a big grin on my face, knowing that I’d made a difference, and had permanently given up my baby bottles.
My oral fixation never left though. To this day, I prefer to drink everything from a bottle – beer, Diet Coke, water, juice, whatever. I’m almost never without a bottle of water or other non-alcoholic beverage. In college, I kept a 32 ounce water bottle next to my bed every night and usually drank the entire thing either before I went to sleep or would drink it if I woke up in the middle of the night.
Up next: Let’s talk about sex.
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Mental Health Awareness Month Celebrated by ChicagoNow
May was Mental Health Awareness Month and the incredible bloggers of ChicagoNow shared their incredibly personal stories and expertise with more than 30 posts on the topic. Most of the bloggers who wrote are not mental health professionals, but there is at least one Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Nicole Knepper, writer of Moms Who Drink and Swear and you’ll find her posts throughout the series. With or without actual mental health credentials, anyone who’s successfully dealt with mental illness of their own or been the caretaker of a loved one with a mental illness is an expert, in my opinion.
By collecting these stories in one place, it’s my hope that wherever you fall on the spectrum of mental illness, from someone with a mental illness to a friend or family member or a caregiver, you’ll find inspiration in these posts. At the very least, know that you’re not alone. You’ve got many friends at ChicagoNow and I’m honored to be part of this wonderful group.
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Does Facebook condone child pornography?
Earlier tonight a fellow ChicagoNow blogger and friend of mine linked a video on Facebook and commented “(For the second time today) Jesus take the wheel.” I looked at the screen shot of the video and saw two girls dancing. Knowing my friend, I figured the video would be some sort of spoof or parody and would be hilarious, so I clicked on the 2:51 minute video that she shared from someone else’s Facebook page.
Let me be clear: The video I am about to describe does not belong to either my friend or to me. My friend linked it from her niece who received it from someone else. When I went back to the original source (not my friend or her niece), the video shows that it was uploaded on January 8, 2014, almost 5 months ago.
The video features loud music and two pre-pubescent girls dressed in matching shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush and what I think are the skimpiest “training bras” I’ve ever seen.
It starts out innocently enough with the girls strutting around and mugging for the camera, but by 0:27, the music features grunting noises and one of the girls is simulating male masturbation and then by 0:30 that girl is simulating oral sex while the second girl is simulating male masturbation.
At 0:43, the camera is giving the viewer a close-up of the first girl who licks her fingers and slides her hand from her mouth down to her crotch where she rubs herself and gyrates. The second girl then comes back into the shot, as the first girl moves to the back, and does the same thing the first girl has just done. There are also at least two adult sounding voices, separate from the one in the music, laughing and encouraging the girls to dance more.
By 0:56 the first girl is featured again and she’s now down on the ground humping the floor and simulating being penetrated from behind.
You get the idea. I’m not going to describe the rest of the 2:51 minute video to you. I don’t think you need me to do so. Just trust me, it gets worse.
Based on those 56 seconds, I quickly determined that this video is child pornography and should absolutely not be on Facebook. Even if the people featured in the video were over the age of 18, I would still find it offensive and consider it pornography.
I did what any rational person would do. I clicked “options” at the bottom of the video and chose “report video.” I reported that the video was sexually explicit and chose to report it to Facebook.
Meanwhile, a lively discussion was happening over on my friend’s Facebook wall about the video. All of her friends were outraged at what we all agreed was kiddie porn and couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been removed in the last 5 months. I can’t even repeat the four-letter words that were used to describe the person who would take and post such a video. We were all certain that Facebook would recognize it as inappropriate and remove the video and, hopefully, ban the user who posted the original video.
Boy were we naive. About an hour later, I received this message from Facebook.
What? Facebook says the video I describe above isn’t “nudity or pornography.” Although that’s not the category I chose because it wasn’t one of my options, I’m pretty sure it fits. I chose “sexually explicit content.” Even though I didn’t choose “nudity or pornography,” I would definitely say that what these children are doing qualifies as pornography, even if they are (more or less) clothed. Furthermore, I don’t know of any requirement stating that videos or pictures must be of naked people engaged in sexual acts to be considered pornographic.I wondered what Facebook’s Community Standards allow. I was sure they would explain that although I think I’ve just seen child pornography that would make any pedophile the happiest person alive, it’s possible I was mistaken. I’ve never seen kiddie porn before, so I could have been wrong.
There it is. In black and white. Facebook is quite clear.
“Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved.” (emphasis mine).
That is pretty straightforward. What I witnessed was absolutely 100% “explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved.” So why the fuck won’t Facebook remove the video?
In case you were wondering, the original video has 3 “likes,” 13 comments, and 44,344 shares. That’s right. These children simulating sex are being shared all over Facebook by more than 44,000 users. What. The. Fuck.
Interestingly, while all of this was happening, another friend of mine posted a note on Facebook stating that some very tasteful head shots she had taken earlier this week had been removed from Facebook tonight. I’ve seen the two pictures of her in question and neither one of them were sexually explicit in any way. One was just of her face and the second was of her face and you could see some of her cleavage, but she was fully covered and not doing anything that was in any way suggestive of sex or simulating sex. My friend looked awesome in the pictures. I’d go so far as to say that she looked sexy. But she absolutely did not look sexual, nor was she in any way pornographic.
So my question is this: Why does Facebook have a double standard when it comes to removing pictures and videos? What is it about seeing a little cleavage on a grown woman that is offensive while two pre-pubescent girls who should have no idea about sex are humping the ground while simulating anal penetration while being encouraged by adult voices is acceptable?
Does Facebook condone child pornography? Why won’t it remove this sexually exploitative video of two clearly underage children? I’d love to hear what Facebook has to say about this decision.
UPDATE 6/1 12:00 noon: It’s more than 13 hours after I first reported the video to Facebook and 9 hours since I first published this post. I’ve shared the post on my personal Facebook page, Little Merry Sunshine Facebook page, Pinterest, and Twitter multiple times and tagging Facebook each time. Other people I know and even people I don’t know have reported to me that they’ve shared my blog post (thank you!!!) and reported the video to Facebook, as well. What have we heard from Facebook? NOTHING and the video remains on Facebook.
A friend of a friend pointed out that the comments on the original post are in Portuguese and that he believes the video is from Brazil. I don’t think that has any bearing on whether or not it is child pornography and illegal. Facebook is clear that sexually explicit material involving children is a violation of their Community Standards. If they are staying silent and not removing the video because it’s from Brazil or some other country, then the answer to my original question is yes. Facebook condones child pornography.
I’m not optimistic about getting Facebook to take action because people have been reporting it as sexually explicit since January with no success.
I’ll keep you posted.
If you or a child you know is being exploited sexually, please immediately contact the National Child Abuse Hotline 24/7 at 800-422-4453.
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Mental Health Awareness Month: Keep talking to stamp out stigma
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and it ends in just a couple of hours. Although Mental Health Awareness Month is over, mental illness never ends. There are always people who are suffering or who have family or friends who are suffering. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reports that 1 in 4 people experiences mental illness in any given year.
Here at Little Merry Sunshine, I’ve dedicated 5 of my 14 posts in May (including this one) to the topics of mental health and mental illness. They’ve been some of the most personal posts I’ve written in my seven years as a blogger.
Why did I dedicate 36% of my blog posts this month to this topic? I did it because I firmly believe that the only way to conquer the shame, stigma, and discrimination that surrounds mental illness is to bring it out of the shadows. It also seemed that not talking about mental illness, an issue I so passionately believe in and have been profoundly impacted by, was completely inauthentic and bordered on irresponsibility.
In Little Merry Sunshine I have a platform that touches hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people each day. If I sit in silence about mental health topics, it would make me complicit in how mental illness is viewed in our society. It would appear as though I was embarrassed or ashamed or that I felt mental illness gets all the positive press it needs. And I don’t believe any of that. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed about what my family or I have experienced and I absolutely do not believe that mental illness gets treated well by the press.
So although Mental Health Awareness Month is coming to an end, I will not stop talking about mental illness. I won’t be talking about it as often, but I wouldn’t be true to my mission of making the world a better place if I didn’t continue to discuss it from time to time.
I believe so strongly in stamping out the mental illness stigma that I’ve taken the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness Pledge to Stamp Out Stigma to do my part to recognize and reeducate people about mental illness, treatments, and success stories. I believe that in time this will reduce or eliminate the stigma around mental illness and we’ll all be healthier.
Will you join me and take the Pledge to Stamp Out Stigma for yourself?
Read my other four posts about mental health:
- 10 things I know about mental illness
- 17 ways to help yourself when you have mental illness
- End mental illness stigma, save lives
- We never met, but my grandfather, Jesse Paulk, shaped my life
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We never met, but my grandfather, Jesse Paulk, shaped my life
If I could meet anyone in the world, I’d choose to go back to before September 12, 1961 and meet my maternal grandfather, Jesse Paulk. September 12, 1961 was my mom’s 13th birthday and also the day my grandfather died. I was given my name, Jessica, in his memory. My mom’s brother also named his oldest son Jesse in honor of his dad.
I’ve heard many stories about my grandfather. He grew up in Florida in Palm Harbor, Crystal Beach or Tarpon Springs. I’m not really sure which one. He moved to Mississippi in the 1930s and married my Nana in September 1938. He was one of three boys. He was also known to be a God fearing man and devout Christian, Presbyterian more specifically.
During the Depression, my grandfather worked in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) where he learned to dig wells. He also served in World War II in the Army Corps of Engineers, and, upon returning home he began Paulk Brothers Well Drilling and Plumbing so his brothers, who remained in German POW Camps, had jobs when they returned home.
By all public accounts he was a kind and loving man who worked hard and provided for his family. Over the years, I’ve heard many wonderful stories from family and friends about the man for whom I am named.
But that’s just one side of him. The Disney-fied version of him.
He had another side to him. It was a side that only a very few people knew about.
Jesse was reportedly an alcoholic and was quite violent with my Nana. He also did things to my mom that no father should ever do to his daughter. It all went on for years.
Nana denied all of this until the very end of her life. Actually, she practically deified him. My mom, on the other hand, remembers it all quite clearly. Of course, in the 1950s and 1960s, victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse had very limited options for getting help, and probably no options in a small Florida town. No one talked about it and women were often blamed for the abuse they suffered at the hands of their husbands.
If I could meet him today, I’d have a million questions for him.
Mostly, I’d ask him why. Why did he do what he did to Nana and, more importantly, to my mom? My mom was a helpless little girl. She didn’t do anything to seduce him. She didn’t want him to touch her and do what he did to her.
WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE THINKING?
I’d take him on a little trip forward from September 1961 to the present day, very much like the Ghost of Christmas Future.
I’d let him see how abuse impacted Nana’s career and her ability to advocate for herself. How she struggled to raise two happy and healthy kids as a single mom, attempting to put the past behind them. I’d also let him see her second marriage, a decade later to their minister, and how physically and verbally abusive it was for more than 30 years. She didn’t want to marry him, but he relentlessly harassed her for months after his wife died until she finally said yes. I’d show him how he tore apart Nana’s self-worth with his violence, causing her to believe that relationships had to hurt and that abuse in a marriage was simply the norm.
I’d spend most of my time giving him a long and hard look at my mom’s life. The good news is that my mom didn’t marry anyone who was abusive; she broke that cycle. The bad news is that her marriage disintegrated in the early 1980s and the scars that formed from the abuse she endured, manifested in mental illness that has haunted her throughout her life.
Like Nana, Mom never knew how to advocate for herself personally or professionally either. She was never able to establish a healthy, loving relationship and has been alone since she and my dad broke up. Her professional career had ups and downs. She was highly successful in her endeavors, but never got fully paid. Why? Because she didn’t know how to recognize an unhealthy environment or how to get herself out when things went horribly wrong.
Those scars of my mom’s also inhibited her ability to raise a daughter with much self-worth or understanding of love. It’s taken me more than 40 years to figure out that relationships don’t have to hurt, physically, verbally, or emotionally, and to understand that I deserve better. There are many days I’m not really sure. The good news is that at this point in my life, children are no longer an option, so I’ve completely broken the cycle. The flip side is that I’m also alone, so there’s that.
I’d also tell him how cursed I feel having his name and how I’ve spent my life hating it and me because I hate him. Long before I knew what a monster he was, I would physically react to someone calling me “Jessie.” I always said that Jessie sounded like a hick slut and make it known, in no uncertain terms, that Jessie was not an acceptable nickname. I don’t know where I came up with that, but that’s what I would say. Frankly, I’m not even thrilled with “Jess.” It’s not so bad, but it’s not my name.
Then there’s my Uncle Michael. I don’t really know much about him. I’ve never heard any stories about abuse he might have suffered, although I can’t imagine that “second hand abuse” (think second hand smoke) didn’t leave scars on him as well. You simply can’t abuse one or two people in a family without repercussions on other family members, even if they don’t personally witness the abuse. At his choosing, he’s completely estranged from the family, which makes me really sad. He didn’t even come to Nana’s funeral because we didn’t have his contact information to let him know she’d died. It’s only been in recent years, through the joys of Facebook, that I’ve developed a little bit of a relationship with my cousin Jesse.
Three generations all deeply damaged because of Jesse’s selfishness, brutality, and lack of self-control.
That Jesse died on my mom’s 13th birthday was simply poetic justice.
After I gave him an up-close and personal view of the hell he’d inflicted on our family, I’d ask him if what he did was worth the lives he destroyed. And if he said yes, well, Lord help me, I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. Then I’d give him a send off of “Burn in Hell you rotten bastard.”
After it was all said and done, I’d change my name to something that didn’t constantly remind me of someone so vile.
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Tonight’s post was part of Blogapalooza, a monthly challenge for ChicagoNow bloggers to write about a specific topic given to us at 9:00 p.m. from Jimmy Greenfield, ChicagoNow Community Manager. We have to post at 10:00 p.m. That’s right. We’ve got one hour. Tonight that’s all I needed. Any more and I couldn’t have handled this topic.
Welcome to ChicagoNow’s Blogapalooz-Hour!
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to publish a post in one hour. Here is tonight’s challenge:
“Write about a person, or persons, you never met whose death had an impact on you. Can be a writer, a celebrity, a politician, a regular person in an extraordinary situation, (Trayvon Martin, for example), an event (Sept. 11, for example) or even somebody who died before you were born.”
Be creative, enjoy the process. Use words, images or video. Whatever you need to tell your story.
Be aware of the time. No matter when you finish, please wait until 10 p.m. to publish. Above all, please respect the deadline.
You have one hour.
Go.
Want to read all of tonight’s fantastic Blogapalooza posts? Check out the Storify.
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End mental illness stigma, save lives
Three things happened on Friday that I can’t get out of my head. On the surface, they’re unrelated. But in my head, they’re intricately woven and the direct result of what happens when we continue to stigmatize mental illness, cut mental health services, and look the other way when people are desperately struggling.
First, I read a story on ABC7Chicago’s website about a woman named Carol Coronado from Torrance, California who murdered her three daughters. Ms. Coronado is 30, married, and was the mother of three girls, ages 2 years, 16 months, and 2 months. According to the story, she stabbed the children to death as her husband was doing work directly outside their home and then laid them out neat and orderly on a bed. She also stabbed herself. Shortly after murdering her daughters, her mother arrived for a visit, found the children, and ran out of the house screaming with one of the bloody knives in her hand. Allegedly, Ms. Coronado called her mother to come over saying she was “going crazy.”
In the days since I first read about this horrific crime, none of the articles I’ve read have made any statements about Ms. Coronado’s mental health, but my first thought was “with three girls that young and having just given birth two months ago, she’s probably got untreated postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis.” Just like with other forms of mental illness, we don’t talk about postpartum depression. Women are supposed to be happy about having babies and often feel ashamed of the other, more negative, emotions they’re feeling. That can stop them from getting the help they need. That and not having access to help.
A few minutes later, I read the New York Times article, Depressed, but not ashamed, by Madeline Halpert and Eva Rosenfeld, two high school students who are co-editors of their school paper in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They discovered that they were both taking Prozac for depression when they shared a hotel room at a journalism conference. As they discussed their personal struggles with mental illness, they realized that they weren’t alone and they wanted to end the stigma against depression and mental illness by devoting an entire edition of their paper to the topic.
They would share their personal stories, along with the stories of their classmates using real names (with written permission of their classmates and their parents). The staff of the paper interviewed students and prepared stories about depression, eating disorders, homelessness, insomnia, and anxiety. At the last minute, as they were assembling the edition of the newspaper, the administration told the editors that they could not publish the issue with the students’ names because, after consulting with a mental health professional, the administration decided that reading their names in the paper associated with their mental illness stories could trigger some students to relapse, could open them up to bullying, and the students might regret their decision to open up later in life.
Could and might. Nothing absolute. Just could and might.
On one level, I understand the concerns of the administration. Honestly, I really do. I understand that it’s their job to look out for what they believe to be the best interests of the students. On another, more deeper level, I know that aloneness and shame creates and reinforces stigma and discrimination that exists around mental illness. I wish the administration had done more to figure out how to address this important topic in a personal way that supported the students and created a safe environment for them to discuss mental illness. I have no doubt that the administration would have allowed stories identifying a student with cancer (assuming of course permissions was given by the student and his/her parents) and have to wonder if their own fears got in the way of the mental illness edition of the paper.
Finally, Friday night, an obviously disturbed young man shot and killed six people and injured 13 more, before killing himself, on the campus of University of California at Santa Barbara, allegedly because he felt so isolated and rejected by women. He left a 140-page manifesto and many YouTube videos detailing his struggles to fit in and obtain affection from women. His parents tried to intervene and get him the additional help he needed on at least two occasions. The police came to his apartment for a well-being check, but found nothing so out of the ordinary that would allow them to forcibly get him help. Evidently, he was seeing at least one counselor.
So here we have three completely separate incidents in different parts of the country, yet they all have one thing in common: mental illness.
Two stories of people not getting the mental health help they clearly desperately needed and becoming unfathomably violent and one story attempting to bring mental illness out of the shadows. I have no illusion that the editors of the student newspaper in Ann Arbor were thinking that their issue focused on mental illness could help prevent violence in the long term. They were simply focused on the stigma and the isolation that so many people with mental illness feel that often prevents them from getting help today. But their issue could have saved lives. And that would have made it worth the risks.
It breaks my heart that these three stories have been in the news lately. I desperately want to live in a world where people with mental illness aren’t so marginalized.
I imagine a future in which the students from Ann Arbor had been permitted to publish the mental health edition of their paper. Students learn empathy towards one another and those who are different from them. They have discussions about mental illness at their dinner tables and in their classrooms with their other students, teachers, and families, spreading the reach and impact of the newspaper. Students who are struggling, but currently too ashamed to get help, reach out. People learn how to recognize signs of despair and suffering that aren’t always obvious. People help one another. Those with mental illness learn better coping skills and feel accepted for who they are, not alienated for who they aren’t. Years from now, women who feel the “baby blues” recognize it as a legitimate and treatable illness rather than a personal failing and get help. Lives are saved.
Lives are saved.
Lives are saved.
That’s the world I want to live in. I believe we can live in that world, but it takes education and some risk taking. I applaud the editors of the student newspaper and the students and parents who gave their permission to participate using their own names. Their actions took courage. Yes, stepping out of the mental illness shadows and fully owning who we are is scary. From my own experience with my mom and sharing what I have of my own personal struggles, it’s also liberating and strength building.
We can end, or at least significantly reduce, the lives lost to mental illness. We owe it to each other.
Read my other posts about mental illness: 10 Things I Know About Mental Illness and 17 Ways to Help Yourself When You Have Mental Illness.
Like Little Merry Sunshine on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, and see my pictures on Instagram to keep up with the latest goings on.
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Happy Memorial Day Weekend
I love Memorial Day Weekend. It’s a three-day weekend and the first work holiday since New Year’s for many adults. It’s the unofficial kickoff to Summer, although in Chicago this year no one knows for sure. It marks about three weeks to my favorite holiday of the year – my birthday. And, of course, it’s full of patriotism.
One of my fellow ChicagoNow bloggers, Tween Us, wrote a terrific piece about Memorial Day and the patriotism it invokes. She did far better than I ever could on this topic, so I encourage you to take a moment and read her post. I’ll be waiting right here.
Take your time. Sammy needs a belly rub. You’re back? Great.
Memorial Day is a day I love for many reasons, including the fact that it marks the weekend I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1993.
I lived in D.C. from 1993 to 2000 and loved every second of it. One of my very first D.C. experiences was seeing the annual Memorial Day concert. Spending the evening before Memorial Day sitting on the west steps of the Capitol listening to the National Memorial Day Concert became a yearly event for me and one of my favorite traditions. Trust me, there is nothing like listening to a concert from the Capitol while watching the sun set behind the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. My heart swells just typing those words.
Nana always watched the concert on PBS and we’d talk the next day. Every year, without fail, she’d tell me she saw me on TV. I have no doubt that it was kind of a lie (this coming from the woman who always told me that I was her favorite granddaughter, never mind that I was her ONLY granddaughter), but I also know that she loved watching the concert knowing I was sitting in the audience in our nations’ capital. Her little lie was filled with overflowing love, so I forgave it.
Even after I moved back to Chicago, I’d call to remind her of the concert on Sunday night and we’d watch it together – her in Florida and me in Chicago. We’d chat and reminisce about the years I spent in DC and the trips she made to visit me there.
Sharing those concerts with my Nana are some of my most cherished memories of her. And I’ll be thinking of her as I watch the annual concert from my couch this year.
Tune in Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m. CT) on your local PBS station.
LMS will be taking the weekend off, but will be back on Tuesday.
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17 ways to help yourself when you have mental illness
In response to my recent post, 10 Things I Know About Mental Illness, I received some incredible comments. I love the discussion that was started. Thank you for reading the post, liking, commenting, and sharing it. Education is the only thing that will end the stigma and prejudice. It is beyond time to bring mental illness out of the shadows.
One comment in particular struck a very personal chord with me.
The commenter stated that she simply wanted someone to talk to, but everyone she turned to told her to just get over it or shared Bible verses with her. None of this addressed her issues and I imagine made her feel completely unvalidated. My heart broke for her. I’ve walked in her shoes and I know they hurt badly.
If someone has never experienced true depression or any other form of mental illness, they can’t truly know what it’s like. I want to believe that the people who gave her those pieces of advice were well-meaning, but simply uneducated and didn’t know what to say in the situation.
Towards the end of high school when my parents’ divorce became final, my mom thought it would be helpful for me to see a therapist to talk about anything I didn’t feel like I could discuss with her. This was incredibly wise and caring on her part. During my fourth or fifth session, the therapist looked at me and, in complete seriousness, spoke words I’ve never forgotten, “All of your problems exist because you’re not right with God.” I literally got up and walked out never to return.
I don’t have anything against religion. In fact, I think it can be really helpful for a lot of people. My late Nana always said that she slept peacefully every night because before she got into bed, she turned her problems over to God. If that works for you, awesome. If not, there are many other ways to deal with life’s problems and mental illness.
NOTE: If you are currently having suicidal thoughts, do not follow the suggestions below. Call 911 immediately. Right now.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I am not a mental health expert. My opinions are my own and based solely on my personal experiences with the road to mental health.
Here are my top 16 ways to help yourself when you suffer from mental illness.
1. Find a therapist. This should be your first step. Your insurance company can provide you with a list of therapists in your area who accept your insurance. Double check with the therapist though, just in case there has been a change. Organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) can also provide you with referrals to local therapists. If you have friends are who in the mental health or medical industry, they can be terrific referral sources, if you feel comfortable asking them. They cannot provide you treatment, however. It’s in their professional ethics.
2. Take your therapist for a “test drive.” It’s vital to your mental health that you and your therapist have a trusting, respectful, collaborative relationship. If there is anything that makes you uncomfortable about your budding therapist relationship, find another one. I don’t mean that you feel uncomfortable because discussing your issues is painful. That’s normal and vital to the process.
What I mean is that if you regularly leave your therapists office feeling far worse than when you arrived, if your therapist exhibits unethical behavior, if the therapist pushes his or her religion (see my personal story above) or other beliefs on you, if you don’t like the therapist, or if your gut simply tells you this isn’t a good fit, find a new therapist. You would never keep a primary care physician or a cancer specialist you didn’t like or trust. Why would you place your mental health in the hands of someone who gives you the icks? Trust me, you have value and you deserve a mental health professional you like and treats you well.
3. Exercise. Get out and move your body. I’m not saying it will solve all your problems, but I am saying that there is documented research that shows a strong link between exercise and mental health. It doesn’t matter how much exercise, what kind of exercise, or what time you exercise. Just do it.
4. Eat a nutritious diet. Do you survive on Coca Cola and cigarettes? That’s a shitty diet. No wonder you feel shitty. What you put into your body directly affects how you feel, so make sure you’re eating nutritious whole foods. Choose fresh over canned, frozen, pre-packaged, and/or fast food. You’ll get the most nutrients without the crummy preservatives.
5. Moderate or completely eliminate alcohol from your life. Alcohol is a known depressant and can interfere with many medications. It can also exacerbate your mental illness. If you’re using illegal drugs or taking more prescription drugs than you should, you need to stop this as well. Organizations like AA and Al-Anon can be great resources to help you.
6. Get regular, quality sleep. I know you love being a night owl. You swear you’re more productive in those quiet hours after the kids go to bed or once the world settles down. The problem is that if you’re going to bed late AND getting up early and depriving yourself of a six to eight hours of sleep nightly, you’re in a serious sleep deficit. You’re burning the candle at both ends and we all know what happens when we do that – the candle gets smaller and eventually is completely gone. That’s what happens to us as well. This is a great article about effects of sleep deprivation. The National Institute of Health says that 17 hours without sleep can mirror the effects of having a blood alcohol level of 0.05%.
Can’t get to sleep? My favorite way to combat a bout of insomnia is to lay on my back with my eyes closed and my body in a comfortable position. I deeply inhale and fully exhale very slowly. As I inhale, I count. Each inhale is one number. I count from one to ten and then from ten to one. If I lose count, I start over again. Focusing on this one thing pushes other thoughts out of my brain and allows me to fully relax. Within a few minutes, I’m always asleep. Caution: The times it doesn’t work are the times I don’t do it. As the old saying goes, you’ve gotta play to win.
A few years ago, I invested in blackout curtains. They weren’t cheap, but they were worth every penny. When I turn out the lights, my bedroom is pitch black. I have a white noise alarm clock and I often fall asleep listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean. It turns itself off after an hour. Get the TV out of your bedroom. It’s too distracting.
7. Journal. Writing helps me more than you know. I’ve been blogging for seven years, but I’ve been writing my entire life. Most of us are visual people and process a lot of our lives through what we see. I have found that writing helps me put perspective around how I feel and allows me to see progress I’ve made. I don’t necessarily write about what I’m feeling. Writing about anything helps me.
8. Develop a hobby. Do you love movies, scrapbooking, photography, painting, quilting, or something else? Start doing it. If you’re already doing it, do it more. Hobbies are terrific outlets. Not only are they creative and fun, but they force you out of your headspace.
9. Get out of your house. I don’t know what the statistics are for shut-ins having mental illness, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that it’s highly correlated. Getting out of the house isn’t always easy, especially if you suffer from extreme anxiety.
One of the best things I’ve ever done was to challenge myself to have 100 new experiences in one year. I ended up having 160 new experiences, many of which I did with other people, made new friends, found some new things I really like doing, pushed myself far outside of my comfort zone, and discovered some things I don’t like. Read about my 160 new experiences and the full history of the journey here. This year, I’ve challenged myself to 250 new experiences.
10. Don’t focus on your diagnosis. Yes, your diagnosis matters. Your insurance company wants to know it in order to pay the bills. Your diagnosis can help guide your treatment. But at the end of the day, in my opinion, a diagnosis is simply a guide post. No matter what the diagnosis, people with properly treated mental illness function well in the world every single day. I’m not saying they’re all going to solve the world’s greatest problems, but I am saying that they function well within their abilities. Bottom line: If the treatment you receive works and allows you to function, check your ego at the door. It’s better to be a highly functioning schizophrenic who is regularly taking medication, than to fight the diagnosis because you hate the word.
11. Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness rock. Yes, yoga is exercise, so I could have included it there. In my mind, however, one of the greatest things about yoga is how it forces me to slow down and focus on what is right in front of me and on my breaths. This is liberating. Meditation and mindfulness have also been shown to provide significant benefits for people with mental illness.
I’m currently reading 10% Happier, by ABC Anchor Dan Harris. It documents his journey to overcome his anxiety and depression through meditation. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read and I highly recommend it. What I love about it is that Dan lays his problems all out on the table to show the reader that he’s just like her. Yes, he’s highly successful, but he still suffers from anxiety and depression and all the self-medicating in the world didn’t bring him any relief. Meditation did. This is not a self-help book written by someone in an ivory tower. This is written by someone who came to meditation and mindfulness through his life journey. It’s not full of statistics. It’s Dan’s very personal story and completely relatable.
12. If you need it, take medication. Just like I think it’s imperative to check your ego when it comes to your diagnosis, I think you’ll find that checking your ego and taking medication is worth it, if you need it. Medication isn’t a forever solution for everyone, although some will need it for the rest of their lives. Medication, though, will help regulate your mood and bring you out of your depression or reduce your anxiety while you learn new skills to deal with these things without medicine. I recommend finding a good psychiatrist (just like you found a good therapist for you in #1), rather than getting this medication from your primary care physician. General Practitioners are terrific, but they don’t have the specialized knowledge that psychiatrists do about medications for mental illnesses.
13. Have a happy place. A happy place is a place where you feel totally at peace and completely, unconditionally happy. Ideally, you can actually visit your happy place frequently. The second best solution is being able to go to your happy place in your head.
My happy place is the beach. I happen to live just a couple miles from the beach, so I can go there almost any time I want. But there times when I can’t do that. I can, however, tell you every single detail about my happy place. What it looks like. How it feels. The scents I smell. How it tastes. How it sounds. I can literally put myself in my happy place in my head in less than one minute.
When do I go to my happy place? When I’m having a particularly stress moment at work. When I step on an airplane. When I’m getting blood drawn. Anytime I find myself getting anxious.
14. Have only healthy relationships. Some of your current relationships may be toxic and unhealthy. End them. Nothing is worse for your general well-being than surrounding yourself with people who make you feel like shit. I recently wrote about developing healthy relationships in a post giving advice to new moms. The truth is that’s not simply advice for moms. It’s life advice for all of us. Read it here.
15. Practice your religion, if you have one and it helps. Religion isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t believe in a higher power and that’s okay. If you are a believer AND you find that it helps you, practice your religion. On the other hand, if you believe that your religion is at least part of the reason you are suffering so much, I give you permission to walk away from it.
16. Have an attitude of gratitude. Don’t you just love platitudes? Seriously, focus on what you’re grateful for each day. Some people make an actual list. Some people just sit down and make a mental list. It may feel unnatural at first, but eventually, it was be as natural as breathing and will help change your perspective on life’s challenges.
Finally, and most importantly,
17. Never give up. As long as you don’t give up, you can get better. I know what hopelessness feels like and, because I fought like hell and took every piece of advice I’m giving you, I know what a happy life feels like too. Just don’t give up.
Did you enjoy this post? Read my other posts about mental illness, 10 Things I Know About Mental Illness and End Mental Illness Stigma, Save Lives.
Like Little Merry Sunshine on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, and see my pictures on Instagram to keep up with the latest goings on.
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Advice to new graduates: A ChicagoNow series
Just like we did with the Letters to New Moms series, ChicagoNow bloggers have once again joined forces to share our life wisdom in a new series, Advice to New Graduates. One of the things I love most about being a CN blogger is that, although each blogger develops his or her own individual brand, we can come together to share our collective perspectives and create something greater than any of us could have created on our own.
Look! It my Nana, my mom, me, and my big ass hair (thank you Aqua Net!) on our way to my high school graduation. No, I don’t know why we all look so darn unhappy. Of course, with graduation season comes graduation speeches and lots of advice. Most graduation speakers are less than memorable. My high school graduation keynote address was delivered by a member of the school board and my college graduation address was given by Bill Kurtis. I have no idea what he said.
The memorable graduation speech advice I’ve ever heard, was delivered a couple of years ago at my alma mater Lake Forest College (I’m not biased). I don’t remember the name of the speaker, but he told the graduates, “Remember, Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. Be a Weeble.” He said this in the context that failure happens, but as long as we get up and learn from our failures, we don’t really fail.
The advice doled out to new graduates from ChicagoNow bloggers is truly life advice and applicable to all of us, no matter our stage in life. Fortunately, you don’t need to worry about forgetting any of this sage advice because it will always be right here.
Take a read of these tremendous posts. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.
And share your personal advice to new graduates in the comments below.
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Jessica L Gardner 