Jan202012

Thinking, tweeting, blogging

By admin on January 20, 2012

John Birmingham’s blog entry about about the incidence of suicide among soldiers and veterans is worth reading.

There is something about a soldiers experience that diminishes the will to live, something that’s unlikely to be physiological, something that’s taking a toll. Then there’s something fabulous about John Birmingham’s response to learning about extraordinary suicide rate among veterans, and the considered (thinky) sharing of his thoughts…

I don’t know which stats he read but I wrote about some figures a year ago, the suicide rate of veterans was estimated as between two and four times higher than the same population of civilians. I saw John Birmingham’s tweet and read his blog and reweeted his original statement, glad that the issue was receiving some mainstream attention.

Now I am writing a blog entry about his blog entry, I don’t know another way, maybe my blog should share a coffee with his blog… I do think a lot about how to lift the darkness around suicide and make the risks more visible. Silence keeps things invisible.

I wonder if the story of this american soldier, originally cited in John Birmingham’s blog might have played out differently if the silence were broken. I can only hope so…

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Jan162012

English football player talks of depression

By admin on January 16, 2012

Dean Windass is a retired English footballer, a striker. Last weekend he spoke publicly about his depression and recent suicide attempts.

In the newspaper article he says “People have this image of me as this big strong man who can take anything life throws at him. But I’m not ashamed to say I wanted to end it after a string of setbacks. I knew I’d been a fool but I couldn’t shake off the depression at feeling what a failure I’d become.”

He said “I have hurt the people closest to me, so I’ve come out today and admitted I need help.” The honesty of a man with what was regarded as a tough as nails demeanor is emotionally affecting. I know how difficult it can be to reach out for help and I’m filled with admiration for what Dean Windass describes as his coming out. I can see why he has been described as a sturdy leader.

We often regard sports stars as role models, in this case that’s undoubtedly true. Dean Windass is a stigma-busting role model. It is so fabulous to witness the strength of a footballer admitting to a simple human frailty, a debilitating condition, and asking for help.

Dean Windass, my hero.

If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

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Jan122012

Vale Sheniz Erkan

By admin on January 12, 2012

“Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me” I remember chanting that line in a sing-song retort to the neighbourhood bully and his taunting offsider. If only it were true…

The death by suicide of a 14 year old Melbourne schoolgirl Sheniz Erkan is a morbid reminder of the fatal power of bullies and their words. It was reported that ruthless and relentless on-line harassment had become too much for her to bear.

The words of a bully almost inevitably give rise to thoughts and feelings that create an inner turmoil in the bullied. It’s not always possible to maintain sufficient self esteem to ward off hurt. Sadly, we are often more open to hearing what is wrong us rather than what is right.

We can be our harshest judges with our insecurities fed by external evaluation. It is often easier to identify with faults rather than ones strengths, and that gives rise to an identity which does not reflect the whole person. A person can slip into the role of victim, defenses compromised and diminished, hearts vulnerable.

Research is finding support for the premise that the more frequent the bullying behavior,either as a perpetrator or the subject of bullying efforts, the greater the risk of depression, suicidal ideation, or suicide attempt. Those who are bullied consistently experience more depressive symptoms than those who are not bullied; they have high levels of suicidal ideation and are more likely to attempt suicide than adolescents who are not bullied.

The relationship between motives and wounds of the perpetrator and the subject of bullying is complex. There is another role, that is largely unexplored in the media, that of the bystander those who observe, read, witness or are aware of the bullying. Bystanders condone, if not explicitly encourage the transgressions of a bully. I don’t know why but too many of us are bystanders in schools and organisations, places where bullying can be endemic but unchallenged. We need to do better…

If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

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Jan062012

Miserable?

By admin on January 6, 2012

In my previous post I wrote about the UK based suicide prevention charity, Campaign Against Living Miserably, CALM. The acronym is not bad but I think the organisation’s name is dismally inappropriate for its worthy goals.

Campaign Against Living Miserably infers that someone living with depression is living miserably, and that may sometimes be true, however miserable is not a word often used to describe the experience of living with depression. Depression is depicted as something darker and more bleak than misery. I don’t know maybe ‘living miserably’ actually understates the unfeeling numbness that often accompanies depression. I don’t like the term or the images it conjures.

Miserable makes me think of a wretched pitiable condition, the word seems heavy with negative judgement. I don’t mean to say that depression is enviable or not in some ways a miserable state, it is just not helpful for someone to be labelled as miserable. It is dis-empowering to be pitied, I much prefer some kind of strength based perspective. I get caught up in the semantics of depression and suicide, and I do because ill thought-out language comes loaded with meaning and connotations that serve to reinforce rather than dispel stigmas.

Michael Leuning calendar April 2012

A foundation’s name has a lot of influence on community attitudes, and it’s not possible to convey the nuance of Michael Leunig’s work in a few words. Organisation names that are less judgmental and less negative than Campaign Against Living Miserably are possible:

- beyondblue
- headspace
- sane Australia

Woody Guthrie was “…out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.” Support efforts need to do something similar and not only be against living in a certain way but also be for something – for support, for growth, for living a different way. Rather than struggling against a darkness imagine gently amplifying and nurturing the tiniest, tenderest essential parts that lie quietly at the heart of even our deepest darkest being.

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Jan042012

Campaign Against Living Miserably – CALM

By admin on January 4, 2012

An article in the UK Guardian today describes the silence around suicide as deathly.

The organisation described in the story is Campaign Against Living Miserably – CALM – a suicide prevention charity. They ran a “poll [in November 2010] and it showed that nine out of 10 people haven’t a clue that suicide is the biggest killer of young men. [The unawareness is] deeply shocking. Awareness is even worse among young men themselves…”

I struggle with suicide prevention efforts in general, but my thoughts are jumbled and I can’t exactly explain what irritates me about suicide preventionists, but something troubles me about prevention being a focus for intervention. I am not sure someone can be saved by someone other than themselves. I am not convinced that we be saved from ourselves?

Awareness – yes – of course greater awareness around depression and suicide is needed, I didn’t know the condition and I underestimated the risks…

My own knowledge may or might not have made a difference but awareness by me, people I know and everyone generally would have helped. Specifically I think that would mean having less stigma associated with depression and emotional well being, and being able to confide or even broadcast how you are feeling with impunity, without risk or favour. It is hard to imagine a work environment where Mottsu may have been able to admit to his deep depression, find acceptance, and not have suffered from some form of ongoing stigma. He didn’t even feel able to take time off work, he didn’t perceive sufficient tolerance to allow him to be open about his well-being back when he could have used understanding, and maybe not today but I hope the future will be different.

Awareness and prevention sound like very different efforts to me, the intent behind each seems quite different. To me awareness could be more achievable than prevention per se, although inevitably one would lead to the other. Wouldn’t it?

CALM is here and their helpline within London is 0808 802 5858. If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

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Jan022012

2012 and I just don’t know what to do with myself…

By admin on January 2, 2012

I am standing at the front door of 2012, the new year begins. The threshold I describe, the start of another year, is a just a dot on the time continuum and even so days ahead feel full of possibility. Jung used a phrase I liked when he said he was living, “an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities”. Anything is possible, and I am not sure what to do…

I find it increasingly uncomfortable to be asked what I do, it always a polite inquiry but the question confounds me. I respond by talking about what I have done in the past, I don’t know what will come next, I expect to work it out.

I have a compass, in that directionally I am pulled in certain ways. I have no path, the beginning of January is a starting point but I don’t have a fixed destination. I’m looking to myself for something more or different this year, more than before, and it hard to know what I moving towards.

“Are we there yet? Are we there?” I would ask my Dad from the back-seat of the car, when I got impatient with the trip. This journeyman has spent a long time travelling, and I am still trying to determine who I am and how my life will be made most meaningful- in an ongoing curious sort of way.

The things that excite me are are also the most scary, the unknown and the unexplored and so it’s easy to feel daunted before even trying anything.

I keep thinking back to a favourite quote “Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we don’t know what it is….” from Russell Hoban’s book, Riddley Walker. It reminds me of how little of my life to now has been planned or, if I did sketch out a plan at any stage, how little I have kept to plan.

I’m heartened by Julie Diamond’s New Year reflection, she is looking forward to a year living selectively: “Choosing what’s meaningful and letting go of what’s not central…”

A friend also wrote about how much courage it takes to step in the direction life pulls us in, how much awareness it takes to understand if it is or isn’t your path, and how much courage it takes to walk your own uncharted path. I hope I am brave.

I expect to find my way in 2012 one tentative step at a time…

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Dec312011

Learn people better, Dream good, Stay glad

By admin on December 31, 2011

Woody Guthrie was an American folk singer, most renowned for his songs penned and sung during the Great Depression. New Years Rulins were found in one of his journals and dated January 31st 1942.

I’m adopting many of Woody’s resolutions as my own, so many things I would wish to anyway do in 2012.

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/newyearsrulins.htm

“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built.

I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.”
Cray, Ed (2004). Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie. New York: W. W. Norton & Company

..and I am out to dream good. Thanks Woody Guthrie.

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Dec292011

Vale Joe Bodolai

By admin on December 29, 2011

This is a link to Joe Bodolai, a comedy writer’s, last blog entry before he died by suicide. I hope the site is taken down in time and I guess he left it to be read…

Included in the posting is a list of things he regrets, including “That I am no longer able to withstand any more of life’s pain.”

On Dec. 23, he posted on Twitter: “If you for some reason care about me. Stop caring.”
And on Dec. 24: “Godbye” – unfortunately that last tweet has been mis-reported in various news sources as Goodbye and that’s not what he said.

If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

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Dec252011

Happy Merry

By admin on December 25, 2011

This is the third Christmas time I have written as Wonderersheart, and I am wishing a Happy Merry to all. I also want to acknowledge that the Christmas and holiday time will be a confronting time for many.

Punishing more than merry is how it can be.

The astounding Terry Gilliam of the Monty Python team created this greeting in 1968, capturing some of the perversity of the season, while bringing joy to the world.

I hope all is calm if not bright. Happy merry.

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Dec232011

Moment to moment

By admin on December 23, 2011

It’s the time of year for reflection and dreaming, where have I been and where to next? The latter is more intriguing, the where to question holds possibilities. What next? What does the next year hold for me? What might turn up?

My 2012 desk calendar, a gift from a friend, sits on my desk ready to flip to the first new month. The calendar maps out weeks and days within each month and I find myself wanting to hold on to moments as being most valuable. I want to grasp the hard to describe fleeting seconds that are often nothing more than smiles and looks, moments where I feel met by another. Wordless and brief but meaningful encounters, usually unaccompanied by a soundtrack or by a greater narrative script. Words when they follow those instances take me further away from contact on dreaming level and back to a more mundane association. I’ll clutch at moments of connection with another and each moment caught will be savoured for the brief instance it’s present.

I not wishing for surprises, big events or particularly significant achievements but for many transient insights and I’m hoping to make tiny contributions or connections to those I encounter, at least as many as I receive.

Life is too long not to be appreciated moment to moment.
All I want for Christmas is to be present.

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