THE YEAR OF SAYING GOODBYE

“In the end, we all become memories” Heidi Thomas

I’ve had tragedies, heartbreak, severe depressions, and have been through more than I’ve told most people. But this year, the losses seemed to come, one after another. I’ve included four, but there were other long time friends who passed.  It’s just these four hit me the hardest.  I’m a writer, but the quotes I’m leaving here about each person who left my life say it better than I could. I did add a few of my own.  There aren’t enough words to say how much I miss them and how their memories will stay with me the rest of my life. May they all rest in eternal peace, but also fly free, be healthy, feel young, and experience the highest form of happiness…which is love.

Uncle Cliff Gaston

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Cliff was my half uncle on my mother’s side. My memories of him are fun, he came to stay with us when I was a child, and remember his sense of humor. He and Mom had the same strong personalities, which was a bit dodgy at times. I assume they both got this from their mutual father, William Gaston. Both loved a party. 

I think if you asked who he was, he would say, first and foremost, “soldier”. I chose Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as it mentions ” the last full measure of devotion”. All of our brothers and sisters know that they could lose their lives, and yet served their country. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy, and seemed destined to become a member of the elite group of soldiers.  He was an experienced pilot and a salesman, but later in life, he found great happiness with his wife, and as a devoted advocate of returning veterans with the Wyakin Foundation. He is buried in Arlington Cemetary.  Rest in peace, soldier and thank you for your service.

Johnnie Bolin 

August 17, 1954 — September 5, 2024

Johnnie was irreplaceable. I think he was one of those old souls that had a light within him. He struggled with his own demons, while showing the world his lighter side, his kindness, his curiosity, his wealth of knowledge about music, and his ability to see what was good in you. He was closest to my brother Norm, friends for over 50 years, and became friends with my husband Eric, who I decided would make the perfect rock and roll radio talk show hosts. And they were. His family died long before he did, so he became part of the Waitt clan. He teased and flirted with mom, who adored him, he was very close to Norm since high school, he was an “honorary brother to Eric”, and to me, he was part of my story for many years. Each holiday, particularly Mother’s Day, I would get a text and ending it with “Love yous guys”. That is not a typo. That was Johnnie.  So, I’m sending this to him as the holidays approach, “Say hello to the angels Johnnie, Happy Holidays, Love yous guys”.

“Some people arrive in your life and made such an impression, you can’t remember when you didn’t know them”

“The real secret to charisma is making each person you meet feel that they have your complete attention when they speak to you.” Nick Vujicic

‘ When I first met Johnnie in 1971, he was unquestionably rock star gorgeous. I think he knew that beauty was a gift given at birth, if he even thought of himself that way. As he grew older, his beauty remained, but it came from his friendliness, his kindness, and his ability to light up a room just by walking into it.

“Johnnie Bolin made Sioux City a little cooler” Reverend Jay Denne.

My mother Joan Louise Gaston Waitt

May 3, 1931 to October 18, 2024

I’ve chosen Byron, her favorite. It not only describes her physical beauty, grace, and intelligence, but her elegance and her almost childlike ability to love.

She Walks in Beauty

January 20, 1943  to May 24, 2025

“Kindness is like snow. It beautifies everything it covers.” – Kahlil Gibran

My aunt Nancy was a saint. I don’t say this lightly. She was. Our family says that about her. She could take the toughest times and challenging people and somehow remain firm, calm and she’d carry on.  I thought of her as a woman who probably didn’t think about how beautiful she was, but thought about inner beauty. She had that, always. She was a loving wife, mother, decorator, community volunteer and a woman who seemed to create beauty wherever she was. She had a great laugh, and I heard it often. My Uncle David is one of the funniest men I know, and though he wouldn’t be the easiest to live with at times, I think his big brain and his humor worked for her.  She was also wise. She could take challenging  times from her own life, and use those to give me advice, when I’d ask for it. Her dementia diagnoses came early, and lasted many years.  I always felt at peace in her presence, and glad she has now reached that peace.’

 

Gary Lipshutz  January 20, 1943- May 24, 2025

“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination” – Immanuel Kant

I first met Gary in 1978, through a mutual friend. I was newly married, with an English degree, but not a clear direction. I met Gary, the owner of the Sioux City Musketeers, who hired me to do press releases, and coordinate his schedule and his considerable amount of mail. He called it “Let’s play clean the desk”.  I had an absolute blast working for him.Gary was so many things, an entrepreneur, a community activist,  political being, a creator of fun and interesting things, and in my opinion, at heart, a philosopher.  We remained friends over the years. I could always count on Gary’s invaluable advice and his many bon mots. I never failed to laugh hysterically at his remarks.  Two of his best were, when commenting on my new husband Steve, “He’s a good looking guy, but he’s probably not going to host the tonight show”.  When I was feeling very unlovely, “Well you’re no Elizabeth Taylor, but you’re awfully pretty and usually damned cute.” He called us Harry and Sally, he the cynical but funny Jewish guy to my highly neurotic waspy girl. It was never romantic, just friends, an older brother figure in my life. He would end all our phone calls, with “Remember, your adored”. And Gary, to me, despite our difficult moments, you were always adored.

 

Jeremy Pigg September 4th, 1976 to June 1, 2025

 

 

He must have been about 21 when he wandered into my store, “Bell, Book and Candle” and became part of the family soon after. How could he not? He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known, with a wit, and a bunch of knowledge far beyond his years. He was a great writer, and eventually became editor of our monthly “Fourth St. Revue”. He loved the legendary Algonquin Round Table and loved Dorothy Parker’s famous quote, “What fresh hell is this.?

He used to muse that he wanted to be one of those old men, sitting on a chair on the front porch, saying “Where are my pants?”. That was not to be. What is strange is that even before he became ill, I never saw him as an old man. He had his troubles, and plenty of gifts to make you look past those darker places.  I became Wendy to his Peter Pan, the Prince of all the Lost Boys”. J.M. Barrie might have been writing about Jeremy, the quintessential Peter Pan.  That’s how I’ll always remember him. So, when I go, I hope I hear, “There it is, Wendy. Second star to the right and straight on until morning”.

Reba Gail Kevern May 20, 1952 to November 25, 2025

The Year of Saying Goodbye

THE THIRD ACT

“_{Life is about losing everything, gracefully.}“

— Mia Farrow

Ms. Farrow tells the truth. If we live long enough, the losses multiply. Yet, I am less graceful about the losing that inevitably comes with age.

Since Aristotle, playwrights have used a three act structure. The first being the introduction to the central character, the second the challenges, joys, actions, and interactions, the third is how it is resolved. Will the character triumph or perish? The three act structure gives depth, lessons to the arc of the narrative. One event must lead to another and then to another — this unifies actions and meaning and creates the semblance of a story.

Modern medicine has given us the gift of longer lives. It’s given us three acts, at least. So I imagine myself, like my mother, in my early 90s. I’m not confident I’ll get there, nor, at times, am I confident that I would choose getting there. I suppose it depends on the day, the week, the month, the year. A third act might have started at 50 not too long ago.

Supposing again, that I live to 90, my third act at 60, started about 7 years ago. I have a happy marriage, a son who thrives, a daughter in law who I adore, a family who sees me with all my flaws, but all my talents, I’m financially stable, and I’m doing what I think has been the strongest work I’ve ever done. So, what the hell would I have to complain about?

This. My third act is on my phone. The contacts I scroll though, now dead. The texts and the emails show the roller coaster that has had less ups than downs since the final act of my life began. A sudden death, the pictures of a funeral I organized, coming out of a mind bending, soul crushing 6 month depression, pictures of a gaunt woman I hardly recognized with hair loss to fall from an illness that took many months to diagnose, another sudden death, my husband’s short but painful depression, a diagnosis leading to a major surgery. It’s all there in texts and calls and pictures. There were at least five more deaths of dear ones, three sudden, two long and lingering.

As of late, there is my husband’s near catastrophic fall. The ambulance, the weeks in hospital, up and down corridors, begging the overworked staff to help. I captured some of all that on that little phone in the closet of the room they put him in. The dingy room, the chapel, the bench outside the oppressive feel that hospitals have. Now the sudden change from a quiet house of sanctuary to a very active skilled care unit that was full of people and relentless construction to make it safe. The third act of my life so far is all captured in a little rose pink covered Samsung.

But, on that same phone, I saw how I survived. My husband survived. If he had fallen backwards into the concrete basement instead of up the stairs, he would possibly be dead. I have no pictures of my husband since his fall, he wouldn’t want that. He generally walks tall with long strides. That’s not the case right now But I do have pictures of all the grab bars, the new walk in shower, the expanded steps that are walker friendly.

I’ve had a preview of very old age. It took me from the beginning of the third act to the near end. My home is ready for the “dying of the light”, the frailty, the so called “Golden Years”. That’s a blessing. Or at least that’s how I see it, for now.

I have my son’s wedding pictures on the rose gold Samsung, the pictures I took when I began to see the light at the end of the long dark tunnel of clinical depression. I have joyful pictures of all my family together, celebrating my mother’s 90th. I captured a Malibu sunset, the ocean, a trip to the lake I love, the gorgeous flowers my family and friends sent when I was hospitalized, the acts of kindness to me and to my husband, my garden in May when the world goes from black and white to lush color. I have pictures of documentary posters and screenings of films I’ve Executive Produced, of which I’m proud. I’m privileged and I know it.

Three act plays usually end two ways. In triumph or tragedy. Some are meant to have no meaning. Yet, I’m drawn to the plays that tell a tale of a flawed character, like us all, and how we roll through, or get stuck and either endure or leave life itself. Hamlet was altered to be a five act play, instead of the original three acts. His tale did not end well. For all his youth, he chose to no longer navigate a cruel world. Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman suffered from a loss of identity. Romantic comedies are the simplified versions of the three act play… boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Happy and unrealistic endings please us. Yet, we are also drawn to the rougher more tragic figures as well.

A much younger friend is quite ill. I rail against that. Calamity shouldn’t reach someone at that age. A family member lost a 34 year old brother. Their third acts came too early. It shouldn’t be. But life is not that tidy. We lose young people, to accidents, to rare illnesses, to gun violence, to depression and suicide. Why is the play of their life just one act? Their fate should be ours, not theirs.

The use of flashbacks in plays, done through memory, that can go backwards and forwards, break away from the three act structure. I love flashbacks. I look for them through dreams, through memories, and now, my rose gold Samsung with Spotify, hooked up to my car, playing the music of the seventies from my 20’s, instead of the music of the 20s as I approach my own seventies, not too very far off.

If I could be assured that my son, my husband, my friends and my career were in my future, I’d go back in a second. When I listen to Hall and Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, CSNY, in my car, attached to the rose gold phone, even the one hit wonders take me into my past and bring up a time, a place that I’ll never see again. It cheers me… the going back. Is the feeling close to what Richard Burton felt, on reuniting near the end of his life with Elizabeth Taylor? He said, brutally, “what a terrible thing time is”.

Or should we be grateful for one more day, one more sunrise and sunset. The character Emily, speaking after her own death, from Thornton Wilder’s magnificent play “Our Town” has a beautiful, yet heartbreaking monologue about life that’s both sad and hopeful about the sometimes, just sometimes, sheer beauty of life.

“But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another .I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?”.

Or do we echo Fitzgerald’s Nick in his masterpiece “The Great Gatsby”

“And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

So I drive on, imagining my past, my first act, through the car and the music and the little rose gold phone, happy to be back there, if only for a moment. But the car is in drive, and forward is where I go.

The toughest, most magical Easter I’ve ever had

Easter is a time of miracles. Or at least that’s how I see it. We all have our own way of looking at life on this planet, and that’s just my way. I realized that this Easter day, marked a strange and mystical milestone for me.

12 years ago today, on April 4th, 2009, I entered a very well known facility in Tucson for anxiety and depression treatment. There is a sign on the way in that says, “Expect a miracle”. Very few see it.

How I ended up there and what the experience was like is a story for another day. The facility was a campus, it was lovely and expensive, but the program was tough as nails. My family and I didn’t know all of it when we decided I would go there. They tend to make it sound like a therapeutic paradise on the website, and on our phone conversations. We also had two recommendations from people we trusted. I soon found it about the 16 hour days, the rules, and how to survive the process and come out of it stronger.

I got better there, but it was one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had, and I’ve had plenty of difficult experiences.

There I was in the desert, 1,300 miles from home. The desert itself was both literal, and I suppose proverbial. Vast, stripped down, stark, and both dreary and beautiful, sometimes at the same time.

I knew no one and we were cut off from the world. Family could call and leave messages, could send flowers and packages, but as no cell phones, tv, books that we not treatment approved, newspapers, or internet were allowed, we were on our own. We could call friends and family during a phone hour. There were lines though, and for the most part, you usually ended up trying another day.

I spent 42 days there. We were scheduled from 6 am to 10 pm every day.

And yet, there was a sense of magic about the place that I didn’t see for at least two weeks. No one does, as they arrive traumatized and the shock of entry sets you back before you start to gradually improve. Survival shock mode lasts a couple of weeks, then you move into just a day to day get through it, but finally, if you’re lucky, you move from survive to thrive. Many didn’t last there and left. I stayed.

Easter that year was April 12th. I was still in the shock phase, imagining my friends and family happily celebrating. I was newly single, which was a very good thing, but I saw how it helped many patients who had supportive partners. I was lucky to have siblings who cared, but that Easter Day, I found little comfort.

After a walk around the campus using one of the rare free times that day, I thought, why am I here? Is it the right thing? It felt a bit like free falling with no where to land. I needed something, anything to ground me. I needed a sign. I needed a mystical message. I prayed.

In the cafeteria, they had an Easter brunch of sorts. I sat with a beautiful and warm woman from California that I had met in the first few days. We talked of our despondency in being there, feeling alone, feeling cut off. We decided to make a pact. We would each ask for a sign that told us, we were on the rocky but right path. Her sign was white roses. Mine was, as usual, a double rainbow, an unlikely sign in the desert.

About 5 minutes later, we heard banging on the roof, an extremely strong cloudburst. People, starved for rain, went to the window. It lasted several minutes. We stayed at the window. An enormous double rainbow just stunned us all. I have yet, to this day, to ever see one like it.

My friend did not receive her sign, but she had given it much thought and told me she had decided to transfer to another treatment center by the ocean. I hope she is well.

But for me, for whatever reason, I stayed, and in a sense, I shed parts of the old Cindy, and formed a new one. If some of us think of Easter Day as an ascension, I also look at it as a spiritual rebirth, a sign of hope, and a sign of transformation. and really, a miracle.

When I spoke to one of the group therapists the night before I left, I told her that I didn’t miss my destructive relationship with an alcoholic husband, who was a good person, but was drowning in depression and dysfunction. I had been back and forth with this for 24 years. It wasn’t all his fault, it was mine too. I was still fond of him, but I didn’t miss the dance we’d done all those years. She said, referring to the entry sign, “There’s your miracle, Cindy”. And so it was.

I’VE SURVIVED THREE CLINICAL DEPRESSIONS. HERE’S HOW.

“In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.”

― William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

I have had three major depressive episodes in my life, and several mild to moderate episodes.  Perhaps I’m writing this for me, but I hope that now, while I’m in remission, I’m writing this for you or someone you love.

First, the darker side.  When many hear the term depression, they may think about a person who is in grief, who suffers a chronic illness, someone who may be sad over a loss.  And indeed, some of those people will, under those circumstances, understandably,  be depressed or enter into an episode of major depression.

But what I have is different. It’s an illness. This is  a depression not only in the mind, but a depression that lives in the delicate chemistry that makes up our complicated human bodies. It’s real, it’s not imagined, and it’s serious. It kills approximately 45,000 of us per year, and I think that figure is low.

It can recede and remit, but there is no cure, only treatment. When treatment works, I’ve been able to go years between episodes. But it must be treated.

There are many theories as to how depression occurs. One interpretation is that neurotransmitters in the brain are out of balance, and this results in feelings of worthlessness and despair. Magnetic resonance imaging shows that brains of people who have depression look different than the brains of people not exhibiting signs of depression.

First, here’s just a wiki version of what this is:

A major depressive episode is a period characterized by the symptoms of  Major Depressive Disorder: primarily depressed mood for 2 weeks or more, and a loss of interest or pleasure in everyday activities, accompanied by other symptoms such as feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety, worthlessness, guilt and/or irritability, changes in appetite, problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions, and thoughts of or attempts at suicide. Insomnia or hypersomnia, aches, pains, or digestive problems that are resistant to treatment may also be present.

Here are some things that have helped me over the years. And remember, some things help for mild to moderate depression. If your depression is severe, you need medical treatment.

–Psychotherapy. It helps along with other treatments. For me, it’s an add on.

–Some nutritional supplements can help. Talk to your doctor or read up on supplements that show actual research on which supplements can help.

–Yoga and meditation have been helpful for me in lifting me out of the crippling anxiety that can come with depression. As I have an anxiety disorder as well as major depression, I continue to do this at least twice a week.

–Anti depressants, although this can take time and many get trapped into what we call “Medication roulette” My doctor did a test that matches your body chemistry to a drug that show which drugs you may metabolize better than others. It does not however, show efficacy. But it helped me understand why SSRI anti depressants didn’t work for me.

–A severe episode may require more. For me, twice, it required more. In more serious cases, hospitalization or intensive outpatient treatment may be required. My first two major episodes were assisted by the right medication and in one case, a treatment facility in Arizona.

–My third severe episode required another method. I did Ketamine in Los Angeles in 2016. It worked quickly, and though not without complications, it was amazing. However, it was short lived for me and I returned to California a month later for more and that worked brilliantly. Ketamine treatments are becoming more widely available now. Do some research on this.

–My moderate depression was helped tremendously by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. It’s a longer term process, but it did help. And TMS treatment centers are showing up across the country. I needed a special machine called the Nexstim, so I had to travel, but for most, other machines work well.

–Read up on everything, when you can concentrate, and that may be hard.  If not, have family members or friends research anything that may be of benefit.

–If you are feeling suicidal, you need immediate help.  Don’t keep that to yourself.  Reach out. I’m very fortunate to have not been suicidal, but I’ve met many who were at a treatment facility in Arizona I went to in 2009. I had no judgement of those who had attempted suicide. I understood them. The suicide prevention hotline is 800-273-8255

–While you are in the difficult process of waiting for the fog to lift, you may choose a number of options to get through it.  Some people literally try to sleep through it. I get that. I walk through it the best I can, while knowing that life as usual has altered.

–If you can, move your body. I swam every day during my 2016 episode. There were days when I’ve forced myself, but research shows that exercise can alter your brain chemistry and in a good way. It didn’t lift me out, but it can help a mild to moderate case.

–Spend time in nature and get natural sunlight every day, when and where possible.

–Talk to friends, family, and a therapist.  It can help to just express yourself and have someone telling you they love you and know you’ll get well.  Try to not isolate totally, keep talking to people who understand and will listen to you.

–For those friends who feel a party or large social event or travel might help a severe depression, set them straight.  At least for me, during those three horrific episodes, my time was best spent one on one with trusted family or friends or with people who understand depression.

– Throwing a severely depressed person in with a group who are not depressed and don’t get depression or what it is, and are just having a great time, can be harmful. That’s just my own experience, but many depressed people have told me they feel the same way.

–Even three to four people together can be stressful for me, and may be for you. Again, it’s different for everyone, but for me , the only large groups I could handle were people who were in a group therapy setting, who were experiencing what I did, and understood.

–When you find family or friends who don’t understand what you are feeling, perhaps share the opening quote above. It’s the darkest, toughest, but best quote I’ve ever read on depression by acclaimed author William Styron.You won’t always feel this way, the pain will end, but until you dig out, that’s how it can look.

–Try to do the smallest things that seem normal. Just a trip to the grocery store, doing a few simple emails, cleaning the house.  For some, it’s impossible or seems impossible. But give something a try daily.

–Avoid drinking.  I enjoy a glass of wine or so while I’m cooking or when out to dinner.  When the 2016 episode hit, I did what I’ve done the other two times I’ve experienced this.  I just don’t do it. If you choose, and things are stable, and you do it very moderately, there could be time for that when recovery happens and when stability comes back into your life. That depends on each person, their illness, and their history.

–Try something creative.  You may enjoy a bit of art, making a new garden space, re arranging a room.  I try to keep busy. It makes the days go by quicker, and believe me, when you are in this, you want the day to fly by.  If you can’t though, don’t beat yourself up.  You didn’t create this illness.

–Nutrition.  As I’ve experienced before and many do, the appetite can be gone.  I stopped cooking. I love to cook normally and I’m a “live to eat” kind of person.  First, eat what you can get down, even if it’s forcing yourself.  Later, do some reading on healthy foods that can help lift the mood.

–Have a complete blood test done, including vitamin levels. You may be insufficient in some areas and a course correction may help.

–Know that your gut bacteria can be related to mood. 

-If you can’t find the right treatment close to home, go elsewhere if at all possible.

–Remember, it’s hard to describe this to someone who has never had it.  The strongest quote I ever found on the depths of this is above, from author William Styron. It’s dark but brilliant. Have others read that so they just might get a glimpse of how the darkest parts can look to the person suffering.

–Know that it WILL lift.  There are treatment resistant depressions, but there are other methods that can be used that go beyond traditional antidepressants. 

–You may notice that after a period of terrible psychic pain, you may awaken to more clarity, a better day.  Take that as a sign that you are getting better, even if the days go a bit up and down.

You aren’t alone.  At one time, in any day, in this country, approximately 20% of us can be experiencing a mental illness. The term brain illness is a better one.

 You aren’t a bad person, you didn’t make this happen to you, and that fact that you’re alive and still moving forward is a testament to your strength.

For times of recovery, I choose to look at brighter themes, more clear cut, not perfect, but hopeful like an early spring.  I return to Styron, who ended “Sophie’s Choice” this way.  He said and I end with this,  “This was not judgment day – only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

For you…to the morning and the light…you are a precious soul and you can survive.

Baby Blues

“Princeton-educated and seemingly savvy about all sorts of things, she still never knew that feelings of shame, secrecy, helplessness, and despair — the classic signs of postpartum depression — may affect as many as one in 10 new mothers within six months of delivery, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. More incapacitating than the “baby blues,” postpartum depression is marked by severe sadness or emptiness, withdrawal from family and friends, a strong sense of failure, and even thoughts of suicide. These emotions can begin two or three weeks after birth and can last up to a year or longer if untreated.” Denise Mann “Out of the Blue” on Brooke Shields post partum depression

I didn’t know what hit me. I had no words for it then, in 1981. No one did. I was a healthy 25 year old mom, with a college degree, a nice husband, a beautiful son, a supportive family…and I was in hell.

It didn’t start right away. In those days, your hospital stay was around 3 days or so. The first few days were happy, my parents were thrilled with their first grandchild, my husband was over the moon with happiness, and after a difficult labor, I was excited and proud that I’d gotten through a difficult labor with a healthy 9 pound boy.

Looking back, although I’d never experienced depression before, the triggers were there. Ben was large, overdue, and I had many sleepless nights for a few weeks. I know now that can be just one of the triggers that precede the light going out in my mind.

They also did things differently then. My doctor did not deliver my son, it was someone else in the practice I didn’t know. Perhaps they used an on call system. And, because due dates were less precise then, the practice made the decision that I should be induced.

It began at around 7:30 the morning of October 21st, 1981. I was checked by a nurse, who had orders to put me on what they called a “Pitocin drip”. Nothing much happened for a few hours except for some minor cramping. The nurses weren’t around much, they would just check in about every half an hour and perhaps add more of the pitocin. Around 11, I could feel my waters breaking. And then all hell broke loose, by 11: 30. I was having no breaks between contractions. None. Transition phase of labor is the hardest, but there are some breaks. I had none. I kept telling them that but nothing was done. In those days, doctors were rarely questioned, particularly by women. I just went along with everything. I found this gem of an understatement online, but yes, this is correct. No one stopped or slowed it down. I got so bad, I could barely speak.

Pitocin: Pitocin can cause harder, more frequent contractions than a woman might otherwise have. As can happen in natural labor, very strong contractions might be stressful for the fetus. This may require temporarily stopping the Pitocin.

https://www.southshorehealth.org/wellness/blog/when-your-labor-needs-be-induced

In any case, someone, most likely my husband, asked for help. They let me know they were going to call in an anesthesiologist. But no one came. I heard the nurse saying that they were having trouble locating him.

Eventually, they came back in, sat me up, and shot me full of blessed relief. I had labored so quickly, that they were shocked when they checked me. I was ready for delivery. I could feel nothing. There was no pushing, but an episiotomy was done (meaning a cut). Forceps were used and there he was.

He was perfect and absolutely beautiful. I was in heaven and I was in love at first sight of this robust little thing. The name Ben just fit him perfectly.

But a day or two later, I began to feel odd. I felt out of sync, depressed, agitated. I’d been sad before, as we’ve all been, but this was something far worse. I spoke to a nurse, who cheerfully said, “It’s no big deal, it’s just the “baby blues”. It will go away. I kept telling her that I wasn’t crying, wasn’t sad, this was a different feeling. She again cheerfully said, “You are making a big thing out of nothing. Looking back, although I’m a non violent person, I could have cheerfully strangled her.

It was just last year when I ran across this.

” Synthetic oxytocin (Pitocin) is widely used in obstetric medicine to induce and/or augment labor and reduce post-delivery bleeding. A study published January 30 in Depression and Anxiety now suggests women who receive synthetic oxytocin during childbirth may be more likely to experience postpartum depression or anxiety.”

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2017.3a17

I could still look at this beautiful boy with wonder but something had shifted in my brain and the fog wasn’t lifting. And even as I went home, a home I loved, it got darker and darker.

I tried to pretend. It didn’t work. I tried to speak about it. Although everyone loved me, no one knew what to do. I had a hard time being alone. I was beginning to be scared, really scared, that I would feel that way forever. My doctor said it would pass. And, still, it didn’t.

Then a bad thing turned into a stroke of luck. I developed an infection where they had made the cut and had to return to the hospital. I felt relieved as I was barely functioning, and as my husband had to work, I moved into my parents home.\

The infection was handled, but speaking to the doctors and nurses on a general floor I was told that my “baby blues” would pass. Thinking back, I could have cheerfully strangled them too. But finally, we found the right person.

His name was Dr. Brooks. He walked into my room, listened to what I was feeling and said the magic words, “I know what you have and we can treat it”.

To be believed, to be helped, to be understood was a godsend.

It took about 2 1/2 months, but I recovered. I never thought it would happen again.

Thankfully, people are talking about this now. They weren’t in what I refer as the dark ages of mental health awareness almost 40 years ago.

It took 27 years for the next episode to show up. It caught me by surprise and as bad as it was, it did change my life, and for the better.

“Cuckoo’s Nest”

Beloit Wisconsin, New York City, 1972 to 1980

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” Aeschylus

Note from Cindy

Eric has filled me in on what he remembers from 1972.  Some are horrific and too painful for him to write, even today. Memories can be triggering for me, and for him.

His are particularly frightening, and I can only imagine him being in a place filled with inmates, a place perhaps similar to the atrocities that Ken Kesey wrote so brilliantly about in what I consider his finest work. It might have been a nice place. He doesn’t remember.

Depression ran in Eric’s family, and he’d had problems with hyperactivity as a child, but like many of us in the 70’s, we tried drugs. In college, he tried them too often. Perhaps it was self medication. Most of us do it in some form.

Triggers aside, we proceed in documenting them, perhaps to exorcise the horror of the dark times and be grateful for the times we can again see the light, and  we are well.

Below is what he was able to write and remember.

Jump cut now to 1972, my 20th year…

I was attending Beloit, when perhaps too much LSD with my fraternity friends landed me in two psychiatric hospitals, one in Illinois, and one in New York

I spent two years medicated by Thorazine and Prolixin while receiving weekly doses of electric convulsive treatments (shock therapy) all with the aim of arresting the illness, then diagnosed as major depressive disorder. 

But when I say, “thanks for no memories”, I really mean that, due to the way ECT was done then, huge parts of my childhood and younger years are blocked out. Gone.

But, through someone’s grace, it worked. 

A wave of good things followed, as they sometimes do after living through years that were so dark.

A note from Cindy. A poem he wrote later speaks to the darkness he felt... The darkness we all feel when we are deep in the rabbit hole

I was then able to recoup my sanity, work six years in a neighborhood butcher shop and then resume my college career, which included a 3.87 undergraduate grade point at Hunter College and acceptance into the graduate school of journalism at the University of Texas.

I also was married and had a daughter Niki, born in 1986.

Note from Cindy…..He was on his way, but with these illnesses, they can rear their ugly head at any time. But it must have taken tremendous courage to recover slowly, painfully, and then fully re engage in life.

But for Eric, as for many of this in this hideous club of mood disorders, all good things must pass.

“You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught”

“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught” Richard Rodgers from “South Pacific”

Update February 2nd, 2021- I wrote this nearly two years ago. This was before the election of 2020, the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol, but in the middle of what I saw as a huge divide in this country, cyberbullying by adults on a level that was the worst I’d seen. I feared what came next. I wrote this for adults with kids, but it’s essentially it’s for all of us. My niece getting cyberbullied today triggered me to revisit this piece. I grow weary of the hate.

As school bullying became a hot button issue and one that was vital to address, Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention supported the 2012 documentary “Bully”, as well as ramping up our anti bullying and anti violence programs on the ground.

The adoption of many excellent programs across the country may well be working, as we’ve seen incidents of on site school bullying decrease.
The percentage of 12- to 18-year-olds who reported bullying incidents in 2015 was 20.8 percent. That’s nearly 11 percent lower than the 31.7 percent of students who reported bullying incidents in 2007.
https://www.k12insight.com/trusted/report-bullying-in-schools-on-the-decline/

But America, we’ve got a problem.

And it’s us. It’s not just in school. It’s not just kids. It’s everywhere and adults are joining in in full force, online and elsewhere. And for the first time in my 25 years of violence prevention work, it’s scaring the hell out of me.

What I wrote in Huffington Post in 2012 is this “That the Internet has come to represent our world, both at its best and at its worst, this isn’t surprising, but couldn’t we raise the level of the discourse beyond targeting each other? ”

For some, apparently not. We haven’t taken discourse up a notch, we’ve taken it down. Cyber bullying of youth, on the rise in the past 7 years, can and does harm and even kill children. No one wants their child harmed in this way, but while we want this to stop, we’ve ratcheted it up as adults and the targets are other adults.

In an excellent piece by Dr. Glenn Gaher in Psychology Today, he uses data to support just how polarized we’ve become.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201808/the-polarization-america.

Not surprisingly, hate crimes are on the rise as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html

It’s a mean, mean, mean world out there right now, and it doesn’t seem to be getting kinder any time soon. So, what can we do?

We can do this, for one. Ross Ellis states” Parents also play a role in preventing bullying behavior by modeling empathy, respect, and kindness toward others. Parents first model how to treat others by how they treat their own children. “When kids know they can count on their parents and caregivers for emotional and physical support, they are more likely to show empathy to others,” (Ellis, 2016).
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-keep-children-from-modeling-aggressive-adult_b_58239031e4b044f827a7973d

And this.The same piece also states “In addition, children are more likely to mimic a behavior if they see the behavior positively reinforced (Rymanowicz, 2015).
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/monkey_see_monkey_do_model_behavior_in_early_childhood When a negative behavior is rewarded over a positive behavior, the negative behavior is reinforced. For instance if a child hears an adult making a racial slur, and another adult laughs, what has the child learned? In contrast, what if the child hears the second adult calmly respond that the slur was offensive and ask the person to not use that language?”

Parents and mentors can do much. But we can’t control how some of our leaders and some in the media name call, demonize, belittle, obstruct, and through psychological and emotional abuse, become cheerleaders for anger in America.

I’ve heard stories of families no longer speaking to each other because of political party and ideology. I’ve seen old friends who have protracted and disturbing battles with each other ad nauseam. Chances are, you’ve seen it too.

We can look away. We can refuse to join in. We can recognize that children follow our lead, and be more careful.

Or we can be left, as I am right now, in a place I’ve rarely found myself, wondering if it will ever get better before it gets worse.

Cindy Waitt, a former social worker, is the Executive Director of the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention and the Executive Producer of the Emmy nominated “Bully”, HBO’s “Private Violence” , and the award winning “Audrie and Daisy’>

.

IN THE BEGINNING

Sioux City, Iowa 1956-1974

“My Anxieties Have Anxieties.” Charles M. Schulz

 As far back as my memory will stretch,  I can’t recall a day or time that I didn’t have a bit of fear riding alongside me.   It seemed to always be with me, sometimes it was less, sometimes more.  There wasn’t always an absolute reason for that fear.  It was just there.

I didn’t have the language then to call it what it probably was- perhaps “free floating anxiety”.  If I had, I wouldn’t have called it that.  Free floating is something you did on a raft in a lake, or on a cloud. “Free floating” sounds like a good dream.  Anxiety is like a waking nightmare.

It wasn’t until the mid 2000’s, when I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, that I knew that it wasn’t going away.  It can be treated, but sadly not cured. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/generalized-anxiety-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20360803

It wasn’t always that way.  From what I’ve been told, I was the first one up the high diving board, the risk taker, and someone who in 1958, at the age of two, tumbled off a dock only to be found paddling happily towards my frightened parents.

Not much fear indicated here by the lake in 1957.  I must have been aiming for the dock.

Escaping my mother’s grasp as she must have known I was heading for something dangerous.  

There are stories of my older brother Norm going into our house and telling my soon to be panicked mother, “Look how high Cindy climbed up that tree”. 

When that fearsome bravado changed, I don’t recall. 

Maybe it was when I became increasingly afraid of the dark.  Apparently as a very young child, I insisted on being surrounded by a legion of my dolls, teddy bears, and other soft creatures before going to sleep.

Hugging tight to one of the legion of comforters, perhaps 1959?

Perhaps it was the first day of a new elementary school in 2nd grade, when I was taken out of the familiar surroundings my smaller and closer to home school.  I wasn’t afraid of the children, I never have been afraid of meeting people, so that piece of social anxiety didn’t land on me.  But most everything else did.  Familiar surroundings increasing became important to me.

I think it happened slowly and didn’t completely start spiraling until my later teen years.

Oddly, I performed in front of groups.  How, I don’t remember.  I began ballet lessons at 5, excelled, and continued until junior high school.  I then performed as a flag twirler through middle school and part of high school.

I may have been petrified with fear but just got through it.  I took risks, which became harder and harder as I grew into middle age.

High school graduation, “A” student, outgoing….still a risk taker, still not paralyzed by it all.  But the anxiousness was increasing by that time

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, GAD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder may indeed creep up on us.   And there are a lot of us.

“GAD affects 6.8 million adults, or 3.1% of the U.S. population, in any given year. Women are twice as likely to be affected.

The disorder comes on gradually and can begin across the life cycle, though the risk is highest between childhood and middle age. Although the exact cause of GAD is unknown, there is evidence that biological factors, family background, and life experiences, particularly stressful ones, play a role.”

Biology? 

It seems to be hard wired into me or became that way.  I once had a neurologist in L.A., where I was being treated on an outpatient basis for depression and who had ordered the ketamine treatment for the same, tell me after a brain MRI, ” Good news, your MRI shows that you’re depressed and anxious.”  No shit?  Really, that’s the good news? More on that in later chapters.

Was it the family background?

My mother has experienced anxiety and has spoken about it to me.  She calls it her nerves.

My father had mild depression at times, though no one knew it but me.  He told me, he’d had it as had his mother.  It was later in his life that he shared this with me, when we spoke of my depression, which  my brother Ted  astutely calls  anxiety’s evil twin. 

They were not only functional, they always seemed to do everything perfectly. They weren’t perfect, and I knew that, but they were damned good at holding it all together.  And they looked good all the time too. 🙂

Anxiety and depression seem to go together for many.  For me, anxiety is at the top, with depression being rare and usually with episodes that are years apart, but when it hits, can be severe.

Stressful life events?  I’ve had my share, some would say more than my share, but there have been many good life events.

But over time, over the years, the anxiety didn’t let up.  It didn’t get better.  It increasingly got worse.  And then, in my early twenties, the evil twin showed up just in time for the birth of of my only child.

THANKS FOR NO MEMORIES

Upper West Side of Manhattan  1952-1969

By Eric Blumberg

One aspect of the human condition is the ability to remember.  Most people can regale others with poignant stories of their childhood.  Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

Chapter Two and the treatments I was given after my college years at Beloit will explain why.

Above….sometime before the fall.

Sure, there are glimpses, which adhere to my mind.  For example, I remember growing up on the Upper West Side in New York, playing stickball, stoop ball, and Chinese handball. 

However, if you ask me about anything specific, I turn into a witness who can only say “I don’t recall”. 

I remember going to P.S. 75, the Emily Dickinson School, and on to McBurney private school, however, ask me to tell recite many of the names of teachers or pupils (with the possible exception of my classmate Richard “John Boy” Thomas and singing in the all boys choir, all you’ll get is a shrug. 

I do, of course, remember my parents and siblings, but ask me to talk about particular incidents or interactions, which are so often on most people’s top of mind, all you will get is a blank stare.

I do remember that these two, who met as agent and actress, were my parents. 🙂 She saw a psychiatrist for many years.  He suffered from depression. 

There is one part of my young childhood which has stayed with me even today.  There was something wrong with me beginning at approximately age seven.  What is was precisely, I can’t tell you.  Regardless this was my time in life where I was in need of some medical assistance.

It wasn’t a deadly illness although I was nearly killed when I ran out in the middle of the street and was hit by a taxicab. 

No, the illness wasn’t life threatening, at least for me, wasn’t caused by the accident, but it was chronic.

For some for far too many in this country and around the world, the mood disorders that I was later diagnosed with can be and are life threatening.

My parents, who were both in show business, and therefore familiar with the world of psychiatrists, came to the conclusion that I was slightly different from the norm, and sent me to see a child psychiatrist named Dr. Friend (seriously).  He, in turn, prescribed a popular tranquilizer called Miltown. 

Not yet on Miltown above, perhaps needed to be.

Miltown. Not sure, but I looked happy

I’m on the left with my brother Robert, early 60’s. I looked calmer then. Perhaps the Miltown was to blame for the blank look.

Consider this foray into the realm of brain science as as a foreshadowing of the pain and suffering both my parents and I would have to overcome before I could set out on my own life’s evolution.

It started early for me and took several mind bending twists and turns until the solution or at least the right treatment, could be found.

The mind bending part reared its ugly head as I approached adulthood as ventured off to Beloit, Wisconsin. 

Depression His, Depression Hers… Introduction

A likely story…and probably true” Groucho Marx

As I emerged from a severe depression in 2017, I asked myself what the lesson was for me in that particular mind bending, long, and horrific episode.  Perhaps there was no lesson, or perhaps we are given challenges to make us more aware, more awake, and more compassionate.

Usually, when I come out of a terrible experience, the lesson involves doing something positive for myself and for others.  I hope this is a piece of that.

I asked my husband Eric to join me in this.  We are both writers, and we both have much to say.

So many of us in America with a mental illness live in a great big closet, a large walk in closet probably about the size of Texas.

Eric and I lived there too….for many years.

He came out very publicly around 2005 in Austin, where he was well known from his 20 year career in broadcast journalism, including a long stint as a radio talk show host.  A feature story was done in the Austin American Statesmen about well known Austinites who suffered from mental illness including singer Shawn Colvin, retired football player Hollywood Henderson, former Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, and Eric Blumberg.

Eric in the 90’s on the radio, Austin Texas

It took me longer.  People knew but I didn’t write about it until 2013.  It’s more comfortable in that big closet, but I gave myself a push and haven’t looked back since.

We are many things.  Our illnesses don’t define us.  Between us we have a son and a daughter from previous marriages. Both in their 30’s are kind, intelligent, and creative people.  We have a few college degrees between us as well which led to my career in social work and philanthropy, and his in teaching and journalism.  We’ve had some awards for work well done.  We have friends and family who care for us, as we care for them.

The two of us, Sundance Film Festival, 2014

I remember coming out of the brilliant film “Silver Linings Playbook” about two people with mental illnesses who became a couple.  As we walked out of the theater, a dear friend of mine said she was worried about them. How would they cope?  She had a point.

We do cope. Sometimes exceedingly well, sometimes not well at all, but on balance, it works.

These little pieces start in Manhattan in the late 1950’s, and end in Los Angeles in 2017, with some  stops in Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas and Arizona.

We hope this helps someone. Or lots of someones. We hope, also, that it can help us untangle the web of two lives, both separate and together, that have been sometimes magical and sometimes a horror show.

We also hope to show that there is a brilliant light and much, much joy at the end of a long dark tunnel. That is our greatest hope.

Clinically Depressed? You can get well. I did.

My son and I at his wedding 2017 after I survived a 6 month depression.

“

― William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

I have had three major depressive episodes in my life, and several mild to moderate episodes.  Perhaps I’m writing this for me, but I hope that now, while I’m in remission, I’m writing this for you or someone you love.

First, the darker side.  When many hear the term depression, they may think about a person who is in grief, who suffers a chronic illness, someone who may be sad over a loss.  And indeed, some of those people will, under those circumstances, understandably,  be depressed or enter into an episode of major depression.

But what I have is different. It’s an illness. This is  a depression not only in the mind, but a depression that lives in the delicate chemistry that makes up our complicated human bodies. It’s real, it’s not imagined, and it’s serious.

It can recede and remit, but there is no cure, only treatment. When treatment works, I’ve been able to go years between episodes. But it must be treated.

This is  a depression not only in the mind, but a depression that lives in the delicate chemistry that makes up our complicated human bodies. It’s real, it’s not imagined, and it’s serious. It kills approximately 45,000 per year, and I think that figure is low.

There are many theories as to how depression occurs. One interpretation is that neurotransmitters in the brain are out of balance, and this results in feelings of worthlessness and despair. Magnetic resonance imaging shows that brains of people who have depression look different than the brains of people not exhibiting signs of depression.

First, here’s just a wiki version of what this is:

A major depressive episode is a period characterized by the symptoms of  Major Depressive Disorder: primarily depressed mood for 2 weeks or more, and a loss of interest or pleasure in everyday activities, accompanied by other symptoms such as feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety, worthlessness, guilt and/or irritability, changes in appetite, problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions, and thoughts of or attempts at suicide. Insomnia or hypersomnia, aches, pains, or digestive problems that are resistant to treatment may also be present. 

Treatments for a major depressive episode include

Psychotherapy. It helps along with other treatments. For me, it’s an add on.

Some nutritional supplements can help. Talk to your doctor.

Anti depressants, although this can take time and many get trapped into what we call “Medication roulette”

In more serious cases, hospitalization or intensive outpatient treatment may be required.

There are new treatments that I have tried, with some success. I elaborate below.

First and foremost, treat the depression with the help of a professional. This is imperative. Your doctor, a psychiatrist, or therapist can help. If necessary, and it usually is, try an anti depressant. It can be maddening to find the right one, but eventually some can land on relief.  If not, do the research.  There are new methods available where a doctor can match your body chemistry to a drug that show which drugs you may metabolize better than others. My first two major episodes were assisted by the right medication. My third required another method.

1. Read up on everything, when you can concentrate, and that may be hard.  If not, have family members or friends research anything that may be of benefit.
2. If you are feeling suicidal, you need immediate help.  Don’t keep that to yourself.  Reach out.
3. While you are in the difficult process of waiting for the fog to lift, you may choose a number of options to get through it.  Some people literally try to sleep through it. I get that. I walk through it the best I can, while knowing that life as usual has altered.
4. If you can, move your body. I swim twice a week, and walk three times a week.  There are days when I force myself, but research shows that exercise can alter your brain chemistry and in a good way.
5. Spend time in nature and get natural sunlight every day, when and where possible.
6. Talk to friends, family, and a therapist.  It can help to just express yourself and have someone telling you they love you and know you’ll get well.  For those friends who feel a party or social event might help, set them straight.  At least for me, my time is best spent one on one.  Large groups can make it worse for me.  Even three to four people together can be stressful because maybe for the first time in your life, you don’t care what they are saying.  When you find family or friends who don’t understand what you are feeling, perhaps share the opening quote above. It’s the darkest, toughest, but best quote I’ve ever read on depression by acclaimed author William Styron.You won’t always feel this way, the pain will end, but until you dig out, that’s how it can look.
7. Try to do the smallest things that seem normal. Just a trip to the grocery store, doing a few simple emails, cleaning the house.  For some, it’s impossible or seems impossible. But give something a try daily.
8. Don’t drink.  I enjoy a glass of wine or so while I’m cooking or when out to dinner.  When this episode hit, I do what I’ve done the other two times I’ve experienced this.  I just don’t do it. If you choose, and things are stable, and you do it very moderately, there could be time for that when recovery happens and when stability comes back into your life. That depends on each person,their illness, and their history.
9. Try something creative.  You may enjoy a bit of art, making a new garden space, re arranging a room.  I try to keep busy. It makes the days go by quicker, and believe me, when you are in this, you want the day to fly by.  If you can’t though, don’t beat yourself up.  You didn’t create this illness.
10.  As I’ve experienced before and many do, the appetite can be gone.  I stopped cooking. I love to cook normally and I’m a “live to eat” kind of person.  First, eat what you can get down, even if it’s forcing yourself.  Later, do some reading on foods that can help lift the mood.
11. Know that your gut bacteria can be related to mood.  In this case, in this episode, I was given a strong antibiotic for a condition it turns out I don’t have. It was a guess on the doctors part. But in the best scenarios, anti biotics can destroy not only the bad stuff, but the good as well.  You might need a strong prescription strength probiotic if you have to go on antibiotics for any reason. Know that there’s a link with these.
12. I went a bit beyond my medical community here in Iowa. If you can’t find the right treatment close by, go elsewhere if at all possible. 
13. Remember, it’s hard to describe this to someone who has never had it.  The strongest quote I ever found on the depths of this is above, from author William Styron. It’s dark but brilliant. Have others read that so they just might get a glimpse of how the darkest parts can look to the person suffering.
14. Know that it WILL lift.  There are treatment resistant depressions, but there are other methods that can be used that go beyond traditional antidepressants.  Look into Ketamine and TMS treatment. Though not without some complications, both Ketamine and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) for me have helped tremendously.
15. You may notice that after a period of terrible psychic pain, you may awaken to more clarity, a better day.  Take that as a sign that you are getting better, even if the days go a bit up and down.

You aren’t alone.  At one time, in any day, in this country, approximately 20% of us can be experiencing a mental illness. The term brain illness is a better one.

 You aren’t a bad person, you didn’t make this happen to you, and that fact that you’re alive and still moving forward is a testament to your strength.

For times of recovery, I choose to look at brighter themes, more clear cut, not perfect, but hopeful like an early spring.  I return to Styron, who ended “Sophie’s Choice” this way.  He said and I end with this,  “This was not judgment day – only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

For you…to the morning and the light…you are a precious soul and you can survive.

Tale of Two Documentaries

By Cindy Waitt and Dr. Alan Heisterkamp

See the piece from Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-waitt/tale-of-two-documentaries_b_8153700.html

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

On September 28th, we’ll be attending the 36th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards  in honor of two very different films that we supported from their inception, “Bully” and “Private Violence”.

“Bully” opened the PBS Independent Lens season and “Private Violence’ bowed on HBO, both in October of 2014. As early supporters of both, we at Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention couldn’t have been happier about that.  But their road to the finish line couldn’t have been more different.

Lee Hirsch and Cynthia Lowen’s  “Bully” had the “buzz’ from the beginning. It struck a powerful chord, in its riveting and authentic footage of children and families devastated by bullying.  Kids tormenting kids hits us at a basic level, and it’s a powerful punch. It was a perfect meshing of the right time, right place, and right issue

“Private Violence” was a very different story.  Cynthia Hill’s direction, Kit Gruelle’s voice and vision throughout, and Deanna Walters’ frightening and extraordinary journey weaves the experiences of domestic abuse survivors and advocates, as it challenges, and consequently explodes the myths behind domestic violence.  It suggests some answers to the age old question, “Why doesn’t she just leave’?

While both documentaries were driven by the same hopes, concerns, and passions, the production and postproduction of “Bully” took about two years to fund.  “Private Violence” was started more than eight years ago.

We think it’s time to move past the national disconnect and acknowledge how intertwined these two issues are.  As early backers of both films,  we believe that violence in the home and bullying in school must be treated as co-equals.  They are inextricably linked, and the data backs it up. A 2011 CDC study told us that kids who witness violence in the home are more likely to be bullied, and more likely to become bullies themselves. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6015a1.htm

It’s time to  see that the first time some children see or witness violence is not in the school yard.  It’s where they live. Over 8 million children were exposed to family violence in the last year alone.

As we advocate that prevention should start with kids, let’s not forget that bullying prevention education can be paired with the critical piece of age appropriate relationship violence awareness programs  and can change the attitudes and behavior of young people as they enter adulthood.

Research now  looks at possible links between bullying and dating violence. Prevent

Connect cites the following, “Young  adolescents who perpetrate bullying become involved in romantic relationships earlier than those who do not bully, and are more likely to report verbal and physical aggression in their earliest intimate relationships” (Josephson and Pepler, 2012)

Bullying is universal and non- gender specific. Who doesn’t relate to being bullied at some time in their life? Family First Aid reports that about 30 percent of teenagers in the U.S. have been involved in bullying, either as a bully or as a victim and we’ve all seen it, either as a victim, a perpetrator, or a witness. That’s a frightening number.  Too many children are a part of this.

However,  according to partners at Futures without Violence, “approximately one in three adolescent girls in the United States is a victim of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner – a figure that mirrors victimization rates for other types of violence affecting youth.” http://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/resources-events/get-the-facts/

Gloria Steinem, an early supporter and Executive Producer of  “Private Violence”, has suggested that the term “domestic violence” should be changed to “original violence. “ It’s what makes people feel that it’s inevitable or that it’s normal or both”, she said. “If you have violence in the home then it normalizes it everywhere else.”

Dickens’  quote “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” could describe what we, in the violence prevention movement, feel today.  As many strides as we’ve made, we still have a long way to go. Linking violence in its many forms and helping kids, educators, and families connect those dots is vital.  As a Futures Without Violence ad campaign suggested, “Teach them early, teach them often.” With dating violence and bullying prevention, teach them together.

Three Women and A Documentary

“Some things are destined to be — it just takes us a couple of tries to get there.”

― J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

This lovely painting of three women came to me in the 1990’s and I remember wondering if that was me and two other women I hadn’t met yet.   It hung in my living room for years, but when I redecorated, I put it away. When I stumbled across it recently in the basement, I realized that I did meet these women, around 10 years later. And when we met, we had work to do.  And as it turns out, we had a film to make.

I loved the image of these women, dressed up but navigating what seemed to be a difficult and winding climb up a narrow staircase, and navigating that climb in heels. When I saw it again, a couple of months ago, with fresh eyes, the woman in the middle of the group seemed like Kit Gruelle, in her signature purple,  who is the guide, teacher, and advocate in the film “Private Violence”.  Kit is also a survivor, and she became my friend.

The woman with the long blond hair reminded me of Cynthia Hill, the director of the film. We are now more than colleagues; we’re friends as well.

I’d always thought of myself as the woman in the green dress, simply because I liked the dress, I love green, and it looked like something I’d wear.  The painting, by a wonderful  artist named Earline McNeil Larsen, is called “Conspiraling Women”.

I met Kit Gruelle, in Del Mar, California in 2005.   Cynthia Hill came later, in North Carolina. There was a immediate familiarity about both of these women. It was that click that goes off in your head or the shivers that go through your body when something significant happens or is about to happen.   These two mainstays of the “Private Violence” feature film and documentary project stood there talking to me prior to a 2010 fundraiser in Chapel Hill, where Gloria Steinem, one of our early supporters was to speak. Those shivers came on even stronger.  I thought at the time about the power of the number 3 (three women, the triple goddess symbol) and hoped that that unseen power could move this film forward.  At that point, we knew it would take a long time to get the whole thing launched.  And it did.

There were times when it seemed like letting it all go might be easiest.  The other film, “Bully”, that the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention supported took about two years from start to launch at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011, and the funding came in quickly once it got going.  That didn’t surprise me, as bullying had become a high profile topic, and that story needed to be told.  I’m glad it was.  But it was a tougher go for “Private Violence”.  That didn’t surprise me either.  The title of the film tells why.  It’s something we still tend to keep in the dark, hidden away.

Along the long path to getting it done, though, more and more earth angels, women and men,  kept appearing showing up at the right time and right place with perfectly timed grants, encouragement, connections and support that  we desperately needed.  I can’t name them all here, but each one provided vital support.

The three of us have been through a lot together, and separately, in the years that it took to complete the story.  We each have been through challenges, both in life and in getting the film to its January Sundance opening.   Cynthia has given birth to two daughters since we all met.  We come from three different worlds, and sometimes meshing those worlds isn’t easy. We laughed together, and cried together, but we’ve stuck together and I’m glad we made it up that narrow and winding staircase in those high heels. We know that at the top of that staircase is another, and another. The film is only a small part of that work so many people do every day, but it felt good to be able to pause, and know that we’d made that first climb.

As I was writing this, I remembered that I had bought two paintings, and went down to the basement and took this shot of the companion piece to “Conspiraling Women”.

It turns out that the name is “Triple Alliance”.  I don’t know who the women in this painting are, but that doesn’t matter.  When I see the title and the image, it reminds me of the alliance of all the women who came together for this. Perhaps the three above symbolize the extraordinary trifecta of three of the women featured- Deanna Walters, Stacy Cox, and Jean Kilpatrick.  They demonstrate the strength of survivors and advocates, both in the film, and in their lives.  Or the piece could stand for the three women who founded Chicken and Egg Pictures, who believed in us at a crucial point.   I don’t know, because there are so many more who over the years found us, joined us, and reached out. Both paintings remind me that women are strong, but even stronger when we come together. We’re stronger yet when we don’t give up on something we need to do or say.  The paintings are both upstairs now, in a favorite room, full of light.  I think they’ll stay there.

Dear Media, Can We Quit Saying “Domestic Dispute”?

Updated March 18, 2024

“These aren’t domestic disputes, they are about criminals attacking crime victims”    Anne Jones, Author of “Next Time She’ll Be Dead“

This caught my eye a few years back.

The  headline read, “MAN ARRESTED IN DOMESTIC DISPUTE“.  

It went on to describe the case of a 30 year old man who strangled his girlfriend until she passed out several times over a two day period, and left her hospitalized with numerous internal injuries and bleeding.

Is this a “dispute?”  And is this type of headline unusual?  Not so much.  The word is still used widely, as are the equally bad terms “domestic disturbance”,  and”domestic altercation”. Even worse is “crime of passion” or my personal non- favorite “love triangle”.

I’m with the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Alliance when they say this in their site’s media education literature, “A dispute is akin to a disagreement or argument; it implies equal power. Intimate partner violence, on the other hand, is a serious, cyclical pattern of abuse and unhealthy behavior meant to control an individual. Referring to such incidents as “domestic disputes” takes away from its seriousness. It also implies an isolated incident, rather than a pattern of abuse. Call it domestic violence or intimate partner violence.”   

Here’s just a sample of headlines I’ve run across in the past 24 hours from March 17th and 18th 2024: The first from Clarendon Hills, Illinois was just about the worst. “A person died in a domestic disturbance”. No, the person was murdered.

Dolphins star Tyreek Hill had alleged domestic dispute in January, vows to clean up off-field behavior

Madison Police Dept. arrest suspect for alleged domestic disturbance involving knife

There are hundreds, if not thousands of those headlines and leads to be found.   These are not bad people writing these stories.  My husband, a former journalist, tells me that he was trained to use the term “domestic dispute”. as are many print and broadcast journalists who could use some additional education in how we refer to the hundreds of thousands of incidents and the thousands killed each year in this country alone.  These are violent crimes and some are murders. Some facts…

Safe Horizon | Domestic Violence Statistics & Facts

National Domestic Violence Statistics

• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. (CDC, 2017)
• 1 in 10 women in the United States will be raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime. (CDC, 2010)
  • Approximately 16.9% of women and 8.0% of men will experience sexual violence other than rape by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime. (CDC, 2010)
    • Data on sexual violence against men may be underreported.
  • An estimated 9.7% of women and 2.3% of men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime. (CDC, 2017)
  • Nearly half of all women and men in the United States will experience psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime. (CDC, 2017)
  • Over half of female and male victims of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner experienced some form of intimate partner violence for the first time before 25 years of age. (CDC, 2010)

Knowing that, can we move to writing and reporting about it with the harsh reality in mind?  There is a good bit of material I found today from the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance that could help.  http://www.vsdvalliance.org/#/public-policy-media.

As my friend and colleague Kit Gruelle, a subject, advocate, and special adviser to the HBO documentary “Private Violence” said to me in commenting on this story, “Using the proper terminology, even if it is difficult to do, will force us to grow up and see this violence in all it’s horror.”  Amen to that, Kit.