Things we never talk about...

This isn't my best writing, it's mostly just a stream of consciousness. But it's about something I care about more than anything...

IN THE LAST 10 YEARS I’VE HAD 6 PEOPLE IN MY IMMEDIATE CIRCLES COMMIT SUICIDE. I KNOW OF AT LEAST ANOTHER 5 THAT WERE FRIENDS OF FRIENDS. 

DEALING WITH IT NEVER GETS EASIER. IN FACT, I’M FINDING IT MORE FRUSTRATING.

FOR THE TOP 10 CAUSES OF DEATH IN CANADA, SUICIDE RANKS #9. WE TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE ON THE LIST - CANCER, HEART & STROKE, DIABETES… ACCIDENTS AND THE FLU ARE UP THERE BUT WE TEACH PEOPLE TO BE CAREFUL WITH THEIR BODY AND THEIR VEHICLES TO HELP PREVENT THOSE. WE ARE CONSTANTLY RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT EVERYTHING ON THE LIST - AND BELIEVE ME, I THINK IT’S WORTH IT. BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE DON’T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE.

I’M NO EXPERT, NOT BY A LONG SHOT. I CAN ONLY SHARE FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCES AND MY OWN UNDERSTANDING.

THERE’S A DARK PLACE THAT WE DON’T TALK ABOUT - 4 OF MY 6 FRIENDS LEFT US DURING SOME OF THE BEST DAYS OF THEIR LIVES. IT’S NO WONDER PEOPLE DON’T TALK ABOUT THEIR DEPRESSION BECAUSE IT’S HARD FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND. THEY THINK “WHEN I HAVE A BAD DAY, I THINK ABOUT THE GOOD THINGS IN MY LIFE AND I FEEL BETTER.”

I’M NOT VERY GOOD AT EXPRESSING THE DETAILS OF THIS, BUT ALLIE, OVER AT HYPERBOLE AND A HALF, WAS RECENTLY IN THAT DARK PLACE AND SHE SHARED WHAT IT FELT LIKE.

NO ONE CAN MAGICALLY SCOOP YOU OUT OF THE DARK PLACE, BUT SOMEONE BEING AVAILABLE TO TALK TO YOU IS MORE HELPFUL THAN ANYONE CAN KNOW..

ANDREA GIBSON HAS AN INCREDIBLE PIECE - THE MADNESS VASE - THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES TO ME. SHE SHARES THINGS THAT ARE SO IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER, BUT SO HARD TO KEEP IN MIND: 

“I HAVE BEEN TOLD SOMETIMES THE MOST HEALING THING WE CAN DO
IS REMIND OURSELVES OVER AND OVER AND OVER
OTHER PEOPLE FEEL THIS TOO.”

REMEMBERING THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE IS ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU’RE IN THIS PLACE. I KNOW THIS. ALL I CAN DO IS SAY - I’VE BEEN THERE.  AND IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE WHO SAYS “TALK TO ME IF YOU NEED” - DO IT. DON’T FIGHT IT. 

HERE’S THE THING… SUICIDE MAKES ME ANGRY. NOT AT ANY OF MY FRIENDS OR ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS TAKEN THEIR OWN LIFE. AT SOCIETY. WE FORGET TO LOOK OUT FOR ONE ANOTHER. WE FORGET TO TELL PEOPLE TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR HEART. TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR MIND.

IN SHANE KOYCZAN’S LET ME GO HE SAYS

“DEPRESSION IS DANGEROUS AND WE CAN’T AFFORD TO HAVE 9-1-1 DISMISS UNHAPPINESS
AS IF IT WASN’T A GOD DAMN EMERGENCY.
AND WE SHOULD BE SENDING OUT HUGS
AS IF THEY WERE BLOOD, FOOD AND RESCUE TEAMS.
AND WE SHOULD BE HOLDING THE HANDS OF THE COMFORTLESS,
TEACHING THEM TO WALK BALANCE BEAMS..”

…TO WALK BALANCE BEAMS. SOMETIMES THAT’S WHAT IT IS. AND SOMETIMES ALL WE NEED IS A SPOTTER.

—-
 AS I NOTED NEAR THE TOP, I’M NO EXPERT. IF YOU’RE FEELING SUICIDAL, IF YOU’RE FEELING DEPRESSED - TALK TO SOMEONE. THE CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION HAS A LOT OF GREAT RESOURCES, PLEASE CHECK THEM OUT: HTTP://WWW.CMHA.CA/MENTAL-HEALTH/ 

Girl, look at that body...

Well hello there, beautiful,


I've been meaning to talk to you. For awhile now, actually.


But being me I had procrastinated to the point of writer's block. But then...


I found this awesome blog today (http://www.eatthedamncake.com/) and I'm so in love with it. Mostly because I found a line that brought me back to reality:  I couldn’t look like them, so I could look like whatever I wanted to. (yeah the link goes to The Frisky, but the piece is written by Kate, the writer of Eat the Damn Cake, and I got to this piece from her blog so... it counts)


Reading her blog posts made me want to write something for you...


For the past few years I've been pretty obsessed with body image. I think it happened around the same time that I was gaining a lot of weight and I was really unsure about how to deal with it. I felt really shitty about my body. I wasn't a very vocal advocate for body positivity at that time, mostly because I was dealing with how I felt about my own body and the only one thing I was totally sure about was that I didn't want other people to feel the same way about their own body. I didn't know how to formulate that into much of anything. Hell, I still don't!


I quietly waged a war (mostly in my head) against fat shaming and general body hate. Then I found more campaigns and blogs and social media pieces that helped me be more vocal (at least on social media and in conversations). And I feel like maybe it's helping, maybe things are happening. But then I run into women on campus, or on the street, or just in my Facebook newsfeed who are really quite terrible to their body. Even I am constantly harping on my own body.


Something that I find kind of funny (in an ironic way, not a haha way) is that one of the ways we try to make other people feel okay with their bodies is by comparing it to our own: "You think you have a belly? Have you seen mine?" "Oh no, your thighs are great... dude, look at this..." "You're gorgeous! It's me who has the problem..." I just did that very thing twice - that I can specifically recall - in the last three days. 


I have no idea what to leave with you, though. I could ask you to tell yourself every day that you're beautiful, or to remind others that their beautiful without tearing down your own walls, or to write down three things you love about yourself and remind yourself of those every day, or to reconsider why you think particular parts of you aren't beautiful... but I have no idea if those are things that work.


I read another  post  from Eat the Damn Cake where Kate said "I want the women who are differently beautiful to say, "I am gorgeous." I want them to believe it." 


and well... I really do want you to love who you are. I want you to love your body, and I know it's not an overnight thing - I've been working on this for about five years now. I just want you to try. I want you to feel beautiful. Because you are.


 P.S. I get that this can be a much deeper issue for many people, it isn't always as simple as "love yourself and all is better!" I get that. So if you are in a situation where it's beyond the need for a little self-love, at least love yourself enough to seek help. Or to accept help.

Just what you expected... Reflections on 2011

I started out writing this ridiculous blog post. It was sentimental in every way. I realized though, that all I really want to say is thanks.


My year consisted of learning these lessons:
1. Laugh it off
2. Breathe
3. Remember that you're not really alone
4. It's okay to ask for help
5. Take every opportunity to learn something new
6. Those people that tell you to live in the moment? They're right.
7. If you don't want to give someone your number you don't have to; if you do want to, you probably shouldn't ignore their calls
8. Remember how you got to where you are
9. Be grateful
10. Relentlessly pursue the higher road ;-)


Thank you to everyone who read my blog this year. I think next year will be a little more exciting.


Thank you to everyone who helped me get to the places I'm going.


Thank you to everyone who reminded me to stay calm.


Thank you to everyone who showed me kindness.


Happy New Year everyone, here's to an amazing 2012.

Gift giving

Lately I've been reflecting a lot on how various parts of life contribute to equality and while none of my reflections have turned up anything new I still think it may be appropriate to just throw onto the blogosphere my recent frustrations with toy options. And by "throw on..." I mean "rant". 

Friday morning I read the Metro and I was a little more than outraged, and let's put aside the fact that it's a piece of junk sometimes anyways and focus on the point:
Metro had their gift-giving guide and they had some interesting, to say the least, options for kids. Let's play a game of spot the difference... For the girls they had a Hello Kitty guitar, dolls, a teacup piggie thing, a LeapFrog Discover House, a jewellery making kit, a hair accessories kits and a little mini kitchen. Meanwhile the "Toy story for boys" had a LeapPad explorer, gross-abulary (a game designed to help your child learn new words), a bicycle, books, Smart Labs Weird & Wacky Contraption Lab, Songs Just for Me Personalized CD, a Cranium brain teaser and then some general toys such as a Star Wars Lego character encyclopedia, some RC animal toys, cars, and Angry Birds plushies.


While I appreciate the guitar and the Discovery House, why are we not able to suggest the same number of toys that have educations qualities for girls as we can suggest for boys? Or maybe I should ask why there aren't more toys that have been specifically designed for and targeted to girls that offer similar qualities. How can we expect our girls to be on equal footing if the toys we offer them don't have the same brain-training capabilities that the boys' toys do? Why is this still appropriate?
The documentary MissRepresentation briefly discussed the fact that at 7 years of age the same number of girls as boys want to grow up to become President, but if you ask the same question 15 year olds, the gap between boys and girls is dramatic. This may have more to do with all of the media messaging and crap being thrown at them on a day-to-day basis that says girls will still be judged by their looks before their intelligence. I feel like more people will question this practice if we can get them all on the same page to start out. We need to encourage our girls just as much as we encourage our boys to be as bright as their potential. We need to change what's currently set out for them.


I know it's less than a week to Christmas so it may be too late but if you haven't finished your shopping yet do me one solid: promise that you'll break the gender norms and encourage your kids (and any kids you buy for) to play with all the toys. Your sons should feel just as comfortable in a kitchen as with a toolbox and your daughter should feel just as comfortable playing with science goo as they are with redressing their dolls. And they should all be given books, bicycles, cool science experiments and awesome music things.

A girl watches Miss Representation...

I always believed that the media had very little effect on me; the images that were put before me rarely actually made me want to buy the crap they were toting, movies don’t make me think I need a relationship to be whole and I don’t strive to be the characters put before me – I never have, thanks to my mom instilling certain values in me.

What I didn’t realize is that I didn’t get the idea that I couldn’t do everything – work on things I care about, be a successful student, spend time with friends AND maintain a relationship – from myself. I got it from movies. I’m a sucker for chick-flicks. Like I said above, though, I was under the impression that I would think critically about the message they were portraying. I was pretty sure that one message I thought critically about was the “need” for a relationship: you would see successful female protagonists who had everything going for them but no relationship and they weren’t really complete until they had a partner. That part I legitimately wrote off as bullshit.

But then we have the set of successful women portrayed in these films who put their personal life to the side so that they can rise to the top of their professional life. These characters are seemingly content without a romantic partner and they have reached their professional goals. They are ambitious and confident. To me, they have it all. What I didn’t realize about these movies is that they were also telling me that to be a successful woman I have to be a robot; I can’t have time for getting to know someone because I need to get ahead. Romance will only hold me back.

This is so very wrong.

It’s ridiculous to teach girls that they “need” romance of some sort in their life to be complete, and it’s also ridiculous to teach girls that they can’t get ahead in life if they take time to build relationships – any type of relationship. In the last year and a half I feel like I’ve become some sort of robot. I took part in things and related it to how it would affect my professional life – hell, I didn’t take part in things because I considered how they might affect my professional life. I spent less time with people I really cared about because I wanted to make sure I was on top of my game for work or any political thing I wanted to get involved in. I did not take the time to get to know people that I could’ve potentially cared about, and I had a lot of “Yeah… see… I don’t really have time for a relationship” type of conversations. And the annoying thing about these actions is that I didn’t think critically about why I was participating in life like this. I can’t put all the blame on movies because movies and other media haven’t given me eating disorders, haven’t made me buy outrageous items and haven’t made me a “mean girl” (as far as I can tell). I know I have the ability to see things, to know what message their sending me and to understand how that affects my life.

If I really don’t have time for relationships, or if I really do need to stay in because I have an early morning, or whatever… well that’s all fine. As long as I’m actually putting myself in control of these situations. The second that I’m allowing these outrageous view of what a successful woman looks and acts like get in the way of me being well… me, that’s when I’m letting media skew my vision. Let’s be totally honest here: 80% of the times I say I need to go home, I really do have the time, I can stay up the few extra hours, I can get to know someone. I like being surrounded by people, and I do like romance, so why do I hold myself back? I care infinitely about the causes I’ve taken up but all of the aspects of life can come together, I don’t have to leave anything out, despite what characters in some of my favourite movies have taught me.

I want to challenge each and every one of you (am I still at like, 5 readers?) to look at how you live your life and to decide: is it because somehow the media has told you something you do should be that way, or is it because you have made your own decision?

We all know how the media can affect us; let’s remember to understand how it’s affecting us.

Be thankful; Love always

Today I am writing a very specific piece about a very specific issue to some very specific people.

Maybe it is shitty of me to do bundle these people together into one giant thank you, so for that I apologize.

For anyone who reads this you may have followed the KSA saga. And you'll know that I have a fair number of friends who have worked to unearth some of the gems that have made the controversy possible. You'll also know that I have a good handful of friends who work for the KSA and are stuck in a weird realm of keeping the KSA services booming while having to be the ones to answer students' questions. Furthermore, these staff people are all working on keeping their sanity and every day I'm sure many of them are questioning what the whole situation means for them. And every day it tears me to pieces to know that they are seemingly hopelessly unhappy.

So today's blog post is about thankfulness and love.

It's possible that we're not thankful enough on a day-to-day basis. My mom sent me a cute chain e-mail about a week ago that pointed out a bunch of "crappy" things that happen in life that really are nice little reminders of how life has actually gone well (and really, if you think further on it, how life could be worse). And so...

I am so thankful for the people I know. For the people that this blog post is specifically about, I want you to know that your drive and your willingness to fight makes me feel exceptionally blessed. I don't think you realize how much so many of us owe you. Actually, I don't think many people even realize that they owe you. You are all amazing.

Love

Love love love. All I really want to say is that every day I want to send you all reminders of how awesome you are and how much I love you because I hope you never stop being you. But I don't, mostly because you already think I'm a little crazy. So I'll keep it cool. But I want you to know that I absolutely adore all of you. As mentioned above, your drive and your fight make you absolutely incredible. The world is so lucky that people like yourselves exist.

I hope this helps you feel a little better because I don't know what else to do. I mean, I know some things to do but for instant morale boost? Not a clue...

It's okay to be scared... There is only now...

Sometimes I am a bad friend.

Not in the backstabby way or in the selfish way. Crappy things happen (or really good things happen) and I always say, "I will spend more time with my friends. I will reach out to them more. I will take the time!"

...and then I don't.

I have this tendency to put up walls because I'm so scared of saying the wrong thing. I don't like messy. I try to avoid messy as much as possible and when things get uncomfortable my mind becomes a tower that I'm not willing to step down from and I spend a lot of time at home.

Rarely do I reflect on my commandments, in which I included "It's okay to be scared" and "There is only now," but right now I decided to check back on what I had told myself to do. When I wrote the commandments I was in a very different place; many of the commandments meant something so different from what they mean now.

It's okay to be scared

When I first included "It's okay to be scared," I really just meant it in a cease-the-day-be-adventurous-love-life kind of way. But over the past year it has definitely evolved.

Like I mentioned, when things get awkward, messy, "bad" or whatever you want to call it, I try to ignore it. This is something I've done since I was little - it would drive my mom nuts when we would have a huge fight, I'd go to my room and pass some time. I'd come out of my room a couple of hours later acting like nothing happened (internally I knew I screwed up and was just trying to make the situation lighter). As time has worn on I've somehow gotten worse at social interactions and have instead been working on avoiding them. I don't want to be that person. I am likely among the most social people you know. I thrive on interactions so I need to remember that it's okay to be scared, that's life. You screw something up, that's fine; don't make bad situations intentionally and apologize when you do create something negative. Because really there is only now. Life can sometimes take a toll on your happiness but if you spend all your time making perfect situations, you're not going to have a life. And that's just lame.

Oh and still.. you know... It's okay to be scared to try something new, cease the day, etc etc.