i had a flashback a
week and a half ago to a night several hundred Union alums will always refer to
as "The Tornado" night. the night when the whirlwind of unholy
terror ripped straight through campus tossing cars, building and trees aside
like a toddler throws cheerios, and then split off into 2 tornadoes so it could
come back again, just in case it missed something on the first walk-through.
the night where 1500 of us huddled in groups of 4 or 20 in commons halls,
classrooms and bathtubs hearing and seeing locked doors blown open, walls and
ceilings torn from over our heads and each other's faces in the light of cell
phones as they all simultaneously lost reception.
the night i looked down, saw that i was
standing on a pile of broken glass and debris in stocking feet, in what had
just weeks prior been my dorm room, and didn't even care.
the night downed power lines were crackling, the nearby
gas leak filled the air, and a pickup truck was plowed through the wall of what
i was pretty sure was my best friends' bedroom wall.
a night of fear like i'd rarely known
before.
the second night i
was finally reunited with my two best friends who, along with 20 other students
had crashed a professor's house and even long after everyone else had gone to
bed i lay on the floor, unable to do much of anything. i turned my head and right there on the
bottom shelf was the harry potter book series. i grabbed Year 1 and huddled in
the bathroom so i could turn on the light and i read for hours. Years 2 and 3 followed the next 2 days. for the rest of the semester, which continued
on amazingly enough, i divided my time between teaching myself the endocrine
system (because clearly, the teacher couldn't- those were the two weeks we were
on Tornado Break…), stress-eating animal crackers (16 pounds single-handedly)
and escaping reality through a young adult series about a physically, verbally
and emotionally abused orphan who somehow survives and escapes his prison as a fully functional, well-adjusted preteen. not a trace of psychological trauma to be
seen.
i'm sorry, but not
even Dumbledore is that good.
apparently, it's
world mental health day. now that the entire globe is FULLY aware of breast
cancer, it's time for some other issues to actually be addressed. yes, cancer
sucks and it kills people and more research is needed to find a cure. more research will always be needed. always.
but that obnoxiously bright color of pink also means other things.
it's the color of
paint one of my besties and i used to paint matching backpacks for an obstacle
course we did, the day before both of our lives changed. it's the color slathered all over 27 Dresses,
one of the movie choices we nixed at 0230 the following night in the hospital
when we were both too confused to sleep and too tired to move. it's probs the color of my face after
leaving/abandoning her at a closed in-patient unit, which felt like nothing
short of criminal-level desertion. it's
definitely the color of my face the day after, when at church i forfeited food
yet again and ran away from the people in Fellowship Hall because i was
physically unable to vocalize the reason my face was so blank and so wet and
why there was an actual damp spot in front of the altar in the sanctuary.
mental health
awareness doesn't mean dosing out sympathy like dropping coins in a street
musician's cap, nor like throwing roses at the feet of a great performer. we're not asking for pity; we're also not
asking for applause. we're just asking
to not be thought of as lepers or outcasts or a blemish on society that needs
to be covered up, hidden away and only talked about in whispers. seriously, the only other time or place that
tone of voice is used is in a funeral home.
we're not dead. stop it.
it's real. it happens a lot.
a lot more often, in
fact, than breast cancer.
i am NOT in any way
trying to minimize cancer. i won't downsize that struggle. i have 2 good, good friends who are fighting
cancer right now. i pray for them and
hold on to the hope that healing might come quickly. i'm using cancer,
specifically breast cancer, because it's October, and whatever is not covered
in orange is covered in bright pink.
cancer gets a whole month; mental health gets a whole…day. and a hashtag on facebook. so to recap:
NOT MINIMIZING CANCER. but please
don't minimize this one. even if it's not on purpose, as soon as you blow off a
struggle you don't understand, you take away my crown. some days, my only victory is doing something
other than watch netflix. or eating more
than 2 food groups. or even- on a really good day- calling someone on the phone. steal that from me by telling me how your
fight is harder and longer, and ….then i've got nothing.
chemo destroys your
appetite; i'm finally feeling hungry more than once a day, after 2 weeks of
eating barely anything and dropping at least 5 lbs.
radiation stir-fries
your brain; i survived 2 hours of teaching 18 pre-k students, as well as a full
week's worth of night shift work all while getting an average of 4 hours of
sleep and barely finishing sentences and not being able to go more than a few
hours without a breakdown.
cancer takes your
health, your weight, your friendships, your time, your energy, your interests,
your thoughts….so do mental health diagnoses.
when you struggle
with cancer, you get donations, cards, flowers, visits and 5k Glow Runs in the
park.
turns out when you
struggle with a mental health diagnosis, you [tend to] get jack.
i highly doubt that
the returning veterans from Normandy Beach scoffed at those coming back from
Iwo Jima, and vice versa. why can't we
be as understanding and supportive of each other's battles- the days we win and the days we lose? the ones you understand and empathize with, and the ones you can only try to? even if you're not there for the battle, you
can still be "there" for the one trying to fight it.
much of that is
simply because there's not often a whole whoppin' lot that can be tangibly
done. and that's okay. seriously, most of the time we just need to
know that someone cares. however that looks may change person to person, and
even day to day. one friend all but
force-fed me spaghetti one night, knowing i couldn't rationalize one way or
another. someone else came over at 2230
once with junk food and stayed on my couch for 3 hours just because she could.
there was some talking; there was a lot of silence. she knew next to nothing
and that was fine. she just cared. a
third friend took one look at my face and didn't even have to ask; we just both
broke down at the same time. she knew i
wasn't okay, and she was okay with me being that way for just a bit. a church member
took the house key and fed the cats for a week so that i could leave town
without a word of explanation, and weeded the flower bed as well.
on the other end of
the spectrum are the ones who tell me they don't understand- and then walk away
without even trying. the ones who can't
overcome their presumed sense of awkwardness and pretend that i'm not there, or
that i'm doing fine …simply because the words "i'm fine" came out of
my mouth. (we're not dead; we're also
not stupid. we know who actually wants
us to answer the question honestly.) i think the most hurtful right now are
those who have even now, turned someone else's major health crisis around so
that suddenly it's about them… like, i can't even fathom this.
my mountain is
chronic depression; i've literally never known a time without it. after 2.5
years of medication, i've been off it for just a few months. there's a decent chance that will change now,
given the past month, but it is what it is. i'm in the exact same spot as i was
after that tornado, just without the camaraderie of my classmates and not even
the ability to read harry potter. i
really thought i had this thing about beat, but this mountain has at least one
more peak before i reach the summit.
my bestie's mountain
is bipolar, a whole new world of struggle that i can only grasp the edge
of. there's a full list of mental health
diagnoses, and each one is valid. don't
compare the mountains. don't
"one-up" another person. don't
invalidate their issue to make yours better/cooler/more important.
so please, please,
please- run that 5k, win that t-shirt and salute the fighters who overcame
cancer or war or so many other incredible enemies against so many odds. donate to reputable organizations caring for,
treating, healing, and researching cures for the vulnerable. go ahead and wave
your pepto-bismol pink ribbon, if you think you might find the one, last homo
sapien who isn't aware that breast cancer exists.
but with the other
hand, consider waving one of these.
