mental health

An Article About Poetry

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I was scrolling my Twitter feed yesterday and came across this article, which happens to discuss one of my favorite poems, WS Merwin.

To participate in Mental Health Awareness Month last month, I read a biography of Sylvia Plath. This month I read a revised edition of her Ariel. What I did not know was that Merwin and Plath were contemporaries. And since I had the amazing opportunity to meet Merwin in 2011, transitively I also met Plath. It counts, right?

I digress.

The article analyzes one of Merwin’s shortest poems, “Elegy.” And author Devin Kelly hooked me with this gem:

I’ve learned things from poems for the same reason people learn about anything: because they’ve spent quality time with it. When you sit with a single poem for a long time, when you type it out, when you speak it, when you try to unpack a line or feel the way a phrase fills your mouth, you begin to notice more about what the poem offers outward. When you pay attention — to anything, really, that has also been paid attention to in its creation — then the act of attention does not serve as an act of narrowing. Rather, it’s an opening — a givingness, to use that word again. All these doors open up the more you pay attention. They open out to light. They open to other rooms, other floors. They open to a hidden staircase. Another door.

Quality time is one of my love languages. Sitting with someone or something and letting it unravel, or actively unpacking it is one of my favorite things to do.

And I haven’t come across a single poem in my very limited experience with them that hasn’t invited me to spend time with it. I wouldn’t call them friendly nor aloof, but perhaps … alluring. And there hasn’t been a single poem I haven’t learned from.

Poems offer a chance to choose your own adventure. Or at least to hang on for a ride.

Read the whole article. Pay attention. You won’t regret it.

More on My Mental Health

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Last night a friend texted me. She’s the kind of friend who composes lengthy missives describing what’s going on in her life. We don’t text every day, but when we have time. Or when we remember. Sometimes a week or two pass before one of us responds to the other’s most recent texts. Which is fine, because when we do text, we are thorough. She’s a much better writer than I, but I often reciprocate in length and efforts at thoughtfulness when I reply to her.

When I received a series of long texts from this friend last night, she asked how my June was doing, and that it took a long time before a certain difficult month for her became significantly less difficult.

That’s when it hit me.

My erratic sleep. My lack of motivation. My blanking out a lot of the time. My distraction.

I replied that she just might have gotten to the bottom of my depressive behavior.

My subconscious self still seems to be grieving.

Coming off that very first day of June–our wedding anniversary but also that extremely mournful day in 2019–a lot goes on this month that trigger layers of different feelings.

That’s the main cause, and that’s what makes the most sense. I generally love summer. The heat. The sunshine. All the quality time with loved ones. But June this year feels off. I don’t know if I’ve processed things enough, or if I have guilt from not moving on or moving on too quickly. Or that I have grief appropriation: she wasn’t my mom, but my feelings somehow can’t compare to Carla’s actual relatives.

And I know I shouldn’t be comparing feelings. And I have feelings about that.

Anyway, I guess sadness waxes and wanes, and this month in particular is waxy. And has a high pollen content.

I’m so exhausted.

I Don’t Know What to Write About Today

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Stumped. A zillion topics, and I can’t get my brain off the ground.

I’ve had a headache all day. I’ve drunk a lot of water, and I’ve made sure to take my allergy medicine. The headache has accompanied sneezing and some achiness. But I attribute that discomfort from playing the clarinet longer than usual.

The pollen count has been so high.

I very seldom get headaches. Most of the time I’m smooth sailing. I work straight through my day. Lots of water, enough food. Maybe rest? Is my rest lacking? Would that make a difference?

Maybe some stretching, too. Increase circulation.

Could have squeezed in a nap today. Perhaps I was also excited for a new clarinet barrel getting delivered today. Barrels are such interesting accessories, in that different ones affect tone in different ways. I put the new barrel on my Bb, and the cork is a little loose, so I wrapped some teflon tape around it to form a better seal. Which makes a big difference.

But yes: an early bedtime would be nice tonight.

So I won’t have to write about a headache and how my day has centered around it.

I mean, NOW I have ideas, but I’ll save them for later.

You know, when I don’t have a headache.

Mental Health Awareness Month

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Um, I got about three hours’ sleep last night.

Earlier this month or late last month I read somewhere that May, among other issue awarenesses, is also Mental Health Awareness month. According to Wikipedia, this month has been dedicated to spreading awareness since 1949. I definitely wasn’t aware of this. Does that reflect on the effectiveness of the campaign or my negligence? or both? Well, I’m trying to do something about it now. Know better, do better. Right?

Speaking of mental health, I’ve been reading a recently published biography, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. I’m about a third of the way through and the author discusses Plath’s depression in detail throughout the narrative: history, behavior, effect on her work.

I have many friends and some family members who are very open about their mental health. They will discuss their anxiety, depression, ideations, therapy sessions. I’ve come not to expect immediate responses to my texts or calls or emails. In fact, I’ll receive a text and feel a twinge of anxiety and wait until I can handle writing a proper reply. I’ll fight the urge to stay in bed. I’ll set a reminder to turn on my therapy lamp for a few minutes a day, especially in winter months. Still, this is nothing compared to what my friends and family experience.

These loved ones wrestle with themselves constantly. They’re brilliant, creative, deeeeeeply empathic. They care about the world so much.

Along with all the other things to think about this month, remember various communities that we should be supporting also have members whose mental health deserve our concern and attention. If you know them, check in on them. If you don’t know them, don’t be that weird person that interjects and invades and magnifies awkwardness and discomfort. You know how to be resourceful.

Spot the Difference

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I hung up the hammock today! Felt symbolic.

Not in an overly deep way. The weather is finally warming and keeping relatively steady. And Z really likes the sensation of lying and swaying at the same time. Very soothing.

Both Z and Reilly get the summer off at the end of the school year, and so much relaxing and playing will happen. These summer months are often pleasant.

Got a text the other day from a friend. She and her husband are both fully vaccinated, and she told us as soon as we say the word, they’re game for hanging out.

We are, too.

When people have come over in the past year, they’ve worn masks, and they didn’t stay very long. How will it feel to loiter for hours with friends again? Maskless, even? Will it feel…wrong?

Speaking of, I’m cooking up a post about masks. Not sure if it’ll be indignant or not. Just kidding, I’m pretty sure my thoughts will be carrying some heat.

Anyway: warm weather, friends, so much time in the back yard. Reading, gardening, snoozing.

That’s the hammock.

It’s back up, everyone.

From the Instagram Archive: November 12, 2018

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I’m exhausted, so I’m recycling content from another social media platform. And maybe because I’m so épuisée, I’m especially emotional. Which is okay to be. But I’m seriously about to fall asleep. Good night.

This is a newer article than the original post. It seems a pretty good general overview of stuff I read for work. This image links to the PDF of the article, if you’re interested in reading.

Helpless.

I read about cancer every day.
It’s my job, curating data for a database for an app that pathologists use to help diagnose cancer.
I hate cancer. I hate what it does to families, friends. I hate how it crushes them. I hate how helpless I feel, when I see friends whose parents have passed on because of it; when Reilly’s mom feels so nauseated and has to stay in bed after a round of chemo. That it has become a new normal over the past two years. But she gets up and lives the best she can. She takes a deep breath and finds the strength to smile despite everything. Nausea. Weakness. Mouth sores. She makes Sunday dinner and we eat together and laugh. And before we head home we ask about the upcoming week’s treatments or tests—another new normal. We make sure to pray for her.

While my job has no direct impact on her situation, I make sure to do my best at it. It’ll help someone.

So, not completely helpless.

Feelings Friday

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You know when you’ve slept well and you awake refreshed and it’s gonna be a great day, no matter what? That’s today.

Like it’s mostly puppies and rainbows today, but layers of the other stuff, too. The add-perspective stuff. A cross section of all the strati is beautiful, and it’s important to see.

Reviewing posts from the past couple of years has revived my desire to write as an outlet. To journal feelings for my own mental health.

From June 2019 I began documenting some grief, which still isn’t complete. Which also isn’t a thing that doesn’t really arrive to completion. I’ll definitely revisit that.

Then: a long break to November 2020, when I got upset because it was the election, and emotions were running so hot, both from my cozy echo chamber and friends whose opinions differ, and I didn’t know how to navigate certain relationships. And the immediate reaction was to withdraw from facebook, and unfriend toxicity. I still think that was the right thing to do.

Then this month. With Hilary Hahn’s new album release, and me being a total fan. And today I’m being an unapologetic fan. This album is the bomb. Do they still say that? This album is the shit? That feels weird, though I have taken to swearing more. My official review: Paris is perfect.

AND, my little Zinger’s birthday is coming up next month. My brother’s, too. Gosh, my heart is so full.

See you soon.

Desuppression

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Seven hours of sleep, and the alarm sounds.

Seven hours of sound sleep. I could keep sleeping.

I press snooze.

Anticipating the snooze alarm.

I do not keep sleeping.

Waiting.

I could sleep like this every night.

Coughing gets in my way. It feels like a month of coughing, my abs punching my lungs to expel air at random times, at inconsistent forces. Attempting to tame a lingering tickle in my throat.

Coughing annoys, distracts. Steals sleep. I feel the tickle right now.

Breathing has been shallow lately in this past month. This morning I exhale deeply, and my ribs tighten. Sometimes the spaces between the ribs cramp. Like I have been running and I get a stitch in my side, but I cannot run through the pain until it subsides.

I am not running. I just lie here. Not sleeping.

But the cramps. Am I out of oxygen? Has it been so long since inflating my lungs through deep, meditative breaths? Have my ribs forgotten how to expand, to compensate for my body’s deficit in breathable air?

What is breathable?

Winter sits on the air, spits in it. Sometimes she brings snow and wind and chilled rains and replaces the air.

Winter is heavy and often merciless and stingy, not only with the air but also the sunlight.

I realize more than one cause facilitates my suffocation.

This early in the morning headlights slide across closed blinds: One thousand one, one thousand two. I try breathing again, and it still hurts.

Darkness penetrates the room. Darkness is space, but it does not expand. It constricts. I cannot breathe the space, but it breathes into me, occupying too much of my lungs. The pressure also surrounds me from the outside, hugging my ribs tight.

Darkness leaves just enough air in my lungs to cough. Cold medicine suppresses the cough, helps me sleep.

Now, if only I could breathe more than a teaspoon at a time without pain.

Yet when my child and my husband cough, all I want to do is absorb their coughs. They need to be cough-free more than I.

Ten minutes later. The snooze alarm sounds. I turn it off and sit up. I could keep sleeping. I could keep overthinking this cough. I slip out of bed and begin getting ready for the day, grateful at least to be breathing, albeit heavy, dirty winter air.

Grateful for the full night’s sleep.

————-

Disclaimer: Obviously I’m rusty with writing, but bear with me. I should be doing this more often and finding my voice. Beneath the coughs. Fingers crossed.

For Crying Out Loud – Two Weeks

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Hey, you.

Oh, Zingerita. Look at the time flash by. It’s only been two weeks.

It’s already been two weeks.

You get cuter every day. And smarter. And definitely more vocal. The early morning cries have become routine, but I appreciate the communication. Please be patient as  your dad and I continue to learn your language. I hope we’re catching on fast enough for you.

Your crying has several levels, according to just how annoyed you are. Of course you have basic needs that you try to convey:

  • burpy
  • poopy/pee-y
  • hungry

But there are multiple levels to each of these states. For example, let’s look at hungry, which seems to be the most common cry:

  1. I’m hungry: whimper [ehhh] *squeak*
  2. I’m hungrier than usual: [waaah, waaaah]
  3. Are you guys ignoring me?: [WAAAAAH! WAAAAH! HUHNNNNNGH! NAY! NAAAAY!]
  4. GIVE ME SOME [BLEEP] FOOD NOW! : [WAAARRRRGH!] *bottom lip tremble* [WEHHHH] *open mouth with no sound and really red face and teary eyes* [WEGGGGHHHHH! HENGGH-HENGHH-HENGGHH! HEEP?! HENNNNGH!]

We try to catch you in the first two levels of any of the above states, though while we were in the hospital with you we got to hear NAY! NAAAAAY! a lot. This may as well be your first word, because you have cast a dissenting vote since the day before you were born. You quite clearly said NAY to pitocin when your heart rate dropped from the strong contractions.

That’s right, girl: just say NAY to drugs. I’m proud of you.

I’ll always be proud of you.

Speaking of crying, only a handful of people (maybe +1) have actually acknowledged and asked about my emotional state. The hormones are rampant and my emotions are everywhere. Over half of that handful are healthcare providers, and one of them isn’t even my own doctor. The hormone effects are one of the most significant parts of the postpartum experience, and it’s surprising that not more people talk about them. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Of course we want to coo and be excited and grateful and happy, but there are also a lot of tears.

When we were in the hospital and the doctor suggested supplementing breastfeeding with formula, I cried. Over the course of our three-day stay you’d lost 10% of your birth weight. You’d latch on and suckle only to get colostrum, which is good for you but doesn’t help you gain weight, and I was worried that milk wouldn’t come soon enough. The lactation specialist came in and coached me on latching; a night nurse came in and tried to force feed you with the brute strength of her man hands smashing my breast toward your mouth while you cried at level 4 and her commanding you to eat. Then the penultimate day of our stay, Nurse Candice calmly informed us of your weight loss and suggested a breast pump to help stimulate milk production more quickly. She said it almost in passing, but it was something I paid close attention to.

We kept track of your diapers and feedings throughout the week. It was breaking my heart to think that I was starving you, and all my inadequacies and insecurities from 37 years of life pre-you snowballed along with my doubts  of whether I could be a good enough mom to you.

Your dad and I were already pretty sleep-deprived. The effects from the IV drip were taking hold. I wanted to be able to sit up and gaze at you in the clear plastic crib-thing on the stainless steel wheelie cart without staples from the c-section poking me. You were sleep-deprived. We were all worn out.

You were patient from the beginning, though, faithful one. You kept latching on with the expectation milk would come. I didn’t want to let you down.

(That last sentence was sort of a pun about breastfeeding. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain.)

Not even an hour later on the same day Nurse Candice talked to us, I called her and told her I’d like to learn how to use a breast pump. She brought one right away. I’d use it after feedings every two hours or so, and by the next day somehow I filled a 12mL syringe of the creamy stuff, not just the thick, clear colostrum. Nurse Candice saw it and brought back only four small bottles of formula to supplement breastfeeding at home. Because she was so hopeful, I became more confident.

Right now I thrive on that kind of reassurance. The doctor weighed you last week, a mere six days since our discharge from the hospital. You gained over half of the weight you lost at the hospital. We were thrilled at the good news. Because you could now eat until satisfied, your mood improved, and you could sleep better. Your father and I were so thrilled.

One particularly powerful experience happened over the weekend. Even with our little victories that I’ve mentioned, I still could not control my mood swings well. I was having a hard time trying not to feel insecure and like I was always doing something wrong. We were out and you had started to get fussy. It was getting late and we headed back to our apartment. The car ride usually makes you sleep, but you amped it up to level 4 for nearly the entire way home.

When we finally got home, you and I had a skin-to-skin feeding session, which never fails to calm you down. Your dad and I talked while you ate. After you fed for a while, I got up to use the bathroom. I laid you down on the bed so that your father could watch you. As I walked past you, your dad said that you were reaching for me.

Man, I love your dad so much.

I turned around and paused. Your big pleading eyes looked right into my eyes. Your body formed a slight curve, and your arms stretched toward me.

When I returned from the bathroom, I picked you up and held you. I recalled the image from just a few seconds before and cried.

As a new mom I’m beginning to understand that parenting is more than keeping you alive, though I can’t help my anxious wakings to check to see if you’re still breathing. Though I try to be prepared as I can, sometimes I feel I have no way of knowing that I’m doing anything right.

But when you looked at me and turned toward me and reached out to me, you also validated me. There’s a very instinctual relationship between newborns and their parents, but you seemed very consciously to acknowledge me as your mom. You seemed to know that’s what I needed.

Those eyes.

I just wanted to thank you again for your patience. For understanding my tears.

And for a truly meaningful two weeks so far.

And for repeatedly forgiving me.

I hope one day to make you proud.

Love, Mom

Object Lessons and Objections

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Object lessons are incredibly effective teaching tools, especially in religion.

There’s the one about nailing a board to a wall or a tree. If you put one nail in the board it can still spin around; the board is unstable. But if you put a second nail through the board, the board becomes anchored. This object lesson often taught the importance of the Book of Mormon, the second nail that goes with the Bible.

There’s the one about sticks or pencils. You can break one or two or four at the same time, but if you gather 10 or 15 pencils, they’re much harder to break altogether. This object lesson illustrates the importance of unity or contributing talents or time to a single purpose. Strength in numbers.

An especially popular object lesson is where the glove represents your spirit and your hand represents your body. Without your hand, the glove can’t do anything, but when the glove is on your hand, the glove becomes animated. The combination becomes a living soul.

I remember these object lessons from when I was a child. While they tend to be taught in cycles, my ability to remember them pretty well demonstrates their effectiveness.

Elizabeth Smart recalls an object lesson pertaining to sexual purity. About a used piece of chewing gum. She spoke about it at a conference about sexual trafficking, and the Christian Science Monitor reported the story.

On Facebook over the past few days, many people provided links with important conversations about sexual purity, abstinence education, and reassuring victims of sexual assault that they are not sinners/dirty/impure. Here are a few of the links I happened to click on:

Religion Dispatches

Blogs: Flunking Sainthood

Experimental Theology

I’ve read these articles and many of the accompanying comments. Being a victim of sexual assault, I think back to the object lesson with the chewed gum. I wonder what specific connections I made when I was a young girl. How could I have made sense of my worth when the person who had supposedly “taken away” my virtue was the same person who presented the object lesson at a family home evening nearly 30 years ago? Would I have been able to overcome my confusion without therapy?

That reminds me. Because I am May, and this is my month, I should remind you that May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. Maybe we can come up with different object lessons that help and inspire instead of harm and instill fear.