Here’s the article referenced in the thread below: Managing the long-term effects of the pandemic on your child's mental health. Also, follow Dr. Lisa Damour on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Her website is drlisadamour.com, and she also hosts the Ask Lisa podcast.
united we heal
hard to turn the page
Mario Monday: hats!
what can we do about suicide?
how's your tote bag?
From Gemma Correll for Mental Health America: someone in the comments described this as a “magical survival kit, … a handy dandy tote bag full of such important goodies.”
How’s your tote bag? In its proper place and filled with the tools you need? Or chucked at the bottom of a closet somewhere?
(The wise commenter was instagrammer @takethedayofff, who describes herself as a budding mental health advocate. Check her out!)
books books books
princess peach makes a mother's day appearance
what's blooming?
wishing you a gentle mother's day
be happy on purpose
back to mental health basics
may the 4th be with you
hope is defiant
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I appreciate that TWLOHA has put some mental health templates on PicCollage. When I saw this frame, I wanted to find a photo of Rader to go in it, so here he is on his 15th birthday — his last one with us.
Maybe you think that’s incongruous with the “Hope is Defiant” declaration. I don’t, because *my* hope is that what I’ve learned from my loss helps save others.
If my work ever inspires you or connects with you, please share my posts. One thing I learned with Rader is that you might not be able to tell when someone has lost their last hope. What you share could be the lifeline they need.
invincible Mario Monday
may you be healthy, happy, peaceful, blessed
pace yourself
giving grief a say
My third and final poetry review for this last week of Poetry Month: John Roedel's collection titled upon departure.
Back on April 15 I posted a John Roedel poem, “The Anatomy of Peace.” I'm a new fan of his, so I don't know if it's actually his most popular/viral, but it is brilliant and has been shared widely. If you missed it, please read it or listen to him recite it.
After reading more of his work, I bought upon departure, his latest collection.
In the foreword he tells the story of his dad's death. Grief for the loss of his father is the foundation for these poems. This sentence rang true to me: "I was afraid that if I started crying I would never be able to stop."
After the foreword (not labeled as such; that's just what I'm calling it) — which is prose — is a prologue, in verse. The poems that follow are all numbered rather than titled. Number 4 is the one I read that convinced me to buy the book.
I’ve now read all of them, and #4 is still my favorite. The concept is that your loved one has not gone, they've simply changed forms: "it's just that they were the lake that eventually became the rolling thunderhead / it's just that they were the seed that eventually became the lush apple tree / it's just that they were the fistful of wet clay that eventually became the cup of eternity". It's a sentimental poem and I am all in on it, even though the concept of Rader NOT being gone is something I have never been able to embrace. I don't see signs of him or feel his presence. Part of me thinks that if I just believed in that stuff it might happen for me. Regardless, even though I don't believe it, this poem had me in tears. That seems pretty powerful.
Other points of appreciation:
💭 In #20, "you are not your heartbreaks / you are not your failures / you are not your tears / you are not your scars" reminds me of a song from Sonic Yogi (Jonathan Adams)'s new album, Breath into Being. The song is "I Am: Letting Go," and it's a must-listen. (Log in to Spotify to hear it in full.)
💭 An observation in #21: "everything in my life / has been a vehicle /carrying me from one moment to the next" after several stanzas following the structure "I'm still (__ years old) / and I'm riding (my bike)"
💭 In #39, Roedel compares death to being 'born' into the afterlife. "… on my last day / here on Earth // let me be as I / was on my very first // let me be // ready to see the smiling faces /of all those who have been /eagerly waiting to meet me"
💭 And #40 does actually have a title after the number: The SuperBloom. "… ecologists say that sometimes / when forests burn down / they can explode into thousands of wildflowers // they call it a 'superbloom' // - that's what grief is".
I was 10 and my family was living in Washington state when Mount St. Helens erupted; we heard the explosions from more than 100 miles away. Even though we moved to the east coast later that year, I was always interested in the aftermath. I’ve seen some impressive photographs of how nature reclaimed the desolate landscape, so this is what I imagine when I read Roedel’s metaphor for grief.
The three books of poetry I bought this month were all born from death (although that’s not something I was specifically going for). Jenny Qi and Stephen Sexton both wrote about their moms dying. John Roedel lost his dad. If you’re a writer — maybe even moreso if you’re a poet — when you have feelings, you write things down. Take a look through the “writing my grief” section to see how I’ve used writing to try to make sense of my own journey. There you’ll find the other book reviews I wrote this month, too.
jenny qi where art and science converge
[Note: I'm way out of my depth writing poetry reviews!]
I'm so glad I heard Jenny Qi's recitation of “Telomeres & a 2AM (Love) Poem” on The Nocturnists, which prompted me to buy her book, Focal Point. I love the intersection of art and science from which she writes.
Points of appreciation:
💭 The title of the first poem is "Point At Which Parallel Waves Converge & From Which Diverge," which is the definition of a focal point in optics.
💭 The beginning line of "First Spring, 2011": 'Everyone I love is dead or dying.' Yep.
💭 The poem "Possibilities," which is simply a numbered list of ways to die (excellent writing prompt, if morbid). Three of them, numbers 3, 5, and 7, are just two words: Brutal murder. Slow slicing. Live burial. Then number 9's irony made me laugh: 'Alone in the forest, mauled by a rare bear, the kind of bear you have spent your entire life studying.' Number 13 is blank.
💭 The language-play in "The Plural of Us" — which begins with 'The end of an us is a death without dying,' and ends by considering 'octopuses octopodes octopi' and the structure of plurality in Latin. '… think how the Latin plural of -us is -i.'
I was intrigued that both Qi and Stephen Sexton (author of If All the World and Love Were Young that I posted about on Monday) included a section of notes where they explain their inspirations and sources for some of the poems. Obviously, credit where credit is due, but also it was fun to get a glimpse of their processes.
All three of the poetry collections I bought this month came from the poets’ grief. Sexton and Qi lost their moms. John Roedel’s dad died (more about his book, and the general idea of grief poetry, in a later post).
Here’s a link to the writing my grief page, where you’ll find this review and others, plus poetry and essays.
what my bones know gets ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
When you spend hours and hours over a period of years listening to someone's voice on a podcast, especially if it's a podcast where people tell true stories about their experiences, you begin to feel very familiar with them.
It's called parasocial interaction and the concept is decades old, but it is being talked about much more these days — when you can follow those people on social media and develop an even deeper-feeling connection with them.
Rader and I heard Stephanie Foo frequently on Snap Judgment, a podcast we listened to weekly when we were in the car together. The public schools he attended were magnet schools, not near our house, so I dropped him off and picked him up daily; we had a lot of time. I believe we listened to every episode from when it started airing in 2010.
All this to say that when I sat down to read Foo's What My Bones Know, I didn't anticipate much in the way of surprising information. Was I wrong!
Other than the title of the book (subhead: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma), I had little indication that Foo's childhood had been so complicated. She had probably mentioned a few details here and there, but mostly on Snap Judgment she was helping other people tell their stories, not telling her own.
The book is divided into five parts. In the first, she shares the details of her childhood neglect and abuse, progressing to the point where as a teen she's eventually abandoned by both her parents. The other four parts detail the aftermath, in which after years of therapy she finally learns she's been diagnosed with complex PTSD. Once she has the diagnosis, she begins to search for whatever healing and resolution she might be able to achieve.
We learn about various types of therapy and medication she tries, some of which helps and some doesn't. She talks about the demands of the jobs she has held — sometimes immersing herself in work helped her avoid dealing with past trauma, but sometimes it brought it right into the spotlight. You'll read about her relationships: how she navigated interactions with family, friends, and romantic partners, and what she discovered about herself along the way.
It's asking a lot of this type of memoir to give you a happy ending, but as Foo says in the author's note at the beginning, that indeed is what you get. There's no miraculous cure, but she has managed to make a pretty great life for herself.
Naturally, parts of this book were tough to read. I don’t have experience with the same types of trauma as the author does, but I certainly could relate to her grief around her many losses. The way Foo tells her story moved me right along. I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen next. I give it five stars!
Here’s a link to the writing my grief page, where you’ll find this review and others, plus poetry and essays.