Depression Archives - Running for Autism

7 Misconceptions About Suicide That Have To Go

September 10, 2015 By Kirsten

By the time the clock strikes midnight tonight, between 200 and 250 Canadians will have attempted to take their own lives today. Eleven of them will have succeeded. Eleven families will have their hearts broken. They will go to bed and lie awake wondering if they could have done anything to prevent this tragedy. Eleven lives will be lost due to utter desperation, a bleakness and hopelessness that many people cannot understand.

It is all too easy to judge those who reach the point of taking their own lives. Judgment is wasted energy, though. It doesn’t help anybody: not the person doing the judging, not the loved ones of those who have committed suicide, and certainly not people who are inching closer and closer to the end of their rope.

Judgments and stigmas against suicide victims are based on misconceptions and misunderstanding. I want to clear up some misconceptions that really need to go the way of the dinosaur.

1. People who commit suicide are not selfish. Sure, it may seem that way. It may seem as if the victim has acted without thought or care for the people being left behind. People who have attempted suicide and survived will attest to the fact that they did agonize over what their passing would do to their loved ones. But in the end, they felt so trapped and hopeless that they could not see a way out. They truly believed that they were doing the right thing not only for themselves, but for the people around them.

2. People who commit suicide are not “taking the easy way out”. Let’s get something straight: suicide is not easy. It is not a snap decision that people make when they simply don’t feel like trying to live anymore. It is a point that is arrived at over weeks, months or years of desperation. Most suicide victims do try to keep going, but in the end, they just cannot see a way forward anymore.

3. Many people who commit suicide don’t actually want to die. This may seem counter-intuitive, but suicide is not driven by a wish to die. More often, it’s driven by a need to escape. A lot of people who commit suicide feel trapped in their own heads, and death is simply the only way they can get out.

4. People do not commit suicide in order to get attention. Some people self-harm because they really need help but don’t know how to ask for it. Or they have tried asking for help but they were not taken seriously. People who make serious suicide attempts are not doing it for the attention. They are doing it because life is excruciatingly painful for them.

5. Suicide is a result of mental illness. All too often, I hear people asking why someone with a great job and a beautiful family would kill themselves. That’s like asking why someone who exercises daily and eats healthily would die of cancer. Mental illness, like cancer, can happen to anyone. The difference is that when people get cancer, they are taken seriously.

6. People who are suicidal are capable of happiness. When an acquaintance of mine committed suicide several years ago, a lot of people were mystified. “She always seemed so happy,” they said. The thing is, at times, she was happy. Many people who feel that desperate need to escape from their lives have the capacity to experience periods of happiness. It is not sadness – the opposite of happiness – that drives people to suicide. It is depression. Depression and sadness are not the same thing.

7. People who are suicidal can be helped. I once heard someone say something along the lines of, “If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will find a way to do it.” I don’t remember the full context, but I do know that it was part of a conversation about suicide prevention. For most people, suicide is an absolute last resort when they believe that all other options have been exhausted. They want to be helped, and they can be helped – a fact that is borne out by the crisis helpline program that was implemented on all of Toronto’s subway platforms in 2011. In the first six weeks after the program was launched, the crisis helpline saved seven people who had gone to the subway station with the intention of jumping in front of a train.

Today, September 10^th, is World Suicide Prevention Day. If we all do our part to stop judging and start understanding, how many lives can we save?

This is an original post for Running for Autism by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Leticia Burtin. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: Bell Let's Talk, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Suicide Tagged With: crisis, desperation, escape, help, misconceptions, understanding, world suicide prevention day

Autism And Mental Health

May 20, 2015 By Kirsten

My son George hops off the yellow school bus and bounds up the driveway with his fingers in his ears – a throwback to last summer, when the sound of the tree-feller’s chainsaw hurt his ears. He shucks off his backpack, removes the hoodie that he will not abandon even during the height of the summer, and kicks off his shoes. Then, and only then, am I permitted to talk to him.

“How was school?” I ask him, as I always do.

“School was fine,” he says, as he always does.

“What did you do today?”

He doesn’t reply. Instead he starts peering at the brim of his hat, or running a finger along the edge of the door frame.

“George?” I ask, needing to engage him before he gets too far into his own head. “What did you do at school today?”

“School was fine,” he mutters.

“Tell me one thing you did today.”

“Played outside,” he says, after a pause.

“And what did you do outside?” I ask, hoping I’m accomplishing the tone of gentle persistence that I’m going for. He cannot feel forced, but he needs to know that I’m not giving up on this conversation. It’s a delicate balance some days.

“Kicked the soccer ball,” he says.

“Wow, that sounds like fun!” I say effusively.

Sensing that he’s fulfilled his obligation to talk, he runs off to turn on his computer. I sit on the stairs for a moment, feeling both exhausted and elated by the fact that I actually had a conversation – albeit a brief one – with my son. For most kids, this kind of exchange would not be a big deal. For George, it is.

George, now eleven years old, was diagnosed with autism when he was three. We had him assessed because he wasn’t talking, and even though he has come a long way since then, his speech and communication skills are far below those of his typically developing peers. This comes with a number of challenges, but there is one challenge in particular that I have never really spoken about.

How do I know if he’s OK?

I’m not talking about “OK” in the physical sense. George is able to tell me when he feels sick, or when a part of his body is hurting. He has even started to identify emotions, telling me when he’s sad or angry.

What I’m talking about is whether he’s “OK” from a mental health perspective. With my younger son, who is typically developing, it’s fairly simple. I have conversations with him, I talk to him about how he’s feeling, and from his natural expressiveness I can get a sense of whether everything is all right or not. I am well aware that childhood depression is a very real problem, I know what signs to look out for, and I have a reasonable degree of certainty that I would recognize it in my younger son.

With George, it’s a little more complicated, and from a statistical standpoint, it’s more of a concern. Individuals with developmental disabilities are more likely than the general population to experience mental illness, but they are less likely to be diagnosed, because it’s less likely that the people around them will realize that something is wrong. George, with his speech delays, does not have the words or the cognitive functioning to describe depression in a way that would enable me to recognize it.

Even the behavioural cues present in typically developing children may be different for those with special needs. It is easy – far too easy – to blame everything on autism. When a child with autism has a meltdown, or starts to cry for no reason, or gets lost inside his or her own head, everyone assumes it’s because of the autism. That is not unreasonable: in many cases, it is because of the autism.

But what about those times when it isn’t? What about the times when a child is banging his head against the wall because his mind is in a dark, desolate place and he doesn’t know how to express it? What if the other-worldliness is not symptomatic of autism, but of withdrawal? What if no-one realizes that depression has become the child’s companion, because in their well-meaning attempts to manage the autism, they just haven’t thought to consider anything else?

These concerns are part of what drives me to try to have conversations with George. Every single thing he can tell me – no matter how small it might seem – is like a golden nugget that I treasure. I lavishly praise his attempts to communicate, and every day, I encourage him to tell me something – anything – that happened to him that day. It is my hope that if, at some point, anything is going on in his life or in his mind that he needs help with, that will be the thing he tells me about that day.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle, written for APA’s Mental Health Blog Day. Picture attributed to the American Psychological Association.

Filed Under: autism, Depression, Mental Health Blog Day, Mental Illness, parenting Tagged With: childhood depression, conversation, developmental disabilities, emotions, exchange, mental health, school, talk

Keeping The Conversation Going

November 14, 2014 By Kirsten

When Robin Williams committed suicide back in August, a friend predicted that everyone would post obsessively about depression awareness for a week before forgetting about it and moving on. Apart from the duration – the posts lasted for two weeks – her prediction was dead-on.

Three months after the death of Mr. Williams, Facebook and Twitter posts about mental illness had all but disappeared. Then a woman named Brittany Maynard started trending on social media when she chose assisted suicide over a horrible death from cancer.

Reactions to her death have been all over the place. There are those who believe Brittany’s decision showed courage and strength of character, and there are those who are convinced that she is burning in hell because of her selfishness and disobedience of God.

I want to make it clear that I am in no way equating the deaths of Robin Williams and Brittany Maynard. Robin Williams fought a long battle with depression. He felt desperate and hopeless, and when he looked into the future all he could see was a bleak, desolate landscape. Brittany Maynard was not suffering from depression, and she did not want to die. She simply knew that her death was both inevitable and imminent, and she wanted to spare herself and her family the ravages of brain cancer.

The only thing the two deaths have in common is that both individuals chose to take their own lives.

Whether or not terminally ill people are obligated to see their diseases through to the bitter end is a matter of personal opinion, and that’s another debate for another day. The thing that I took issue with after Brittany died was a comment posted by one of my Facebook contacts on a link to the story.

“Anyone who commits suicide is selfish.”

I was certain that I had seen the commenter’s name crop up in one of the discussions following the death of Robin Williams, so I started digging around in the bowels of her newsfeed. It took a while, but I found it: a statement to the effect that people really shouldn’t judge those to take their own lives without walking a mile in a depressed person’s shoes.

I’m not usually one to start a fight, but one thing I cannot stand is hypocrisy, and as an advocate for mental health awareness, I couldn’t just let it go. So I went back to the Brittany Maynard discussion and replied to her comment, reminding her of what she had said when Robin Williams died. She didn’t respond. Unfortunately, her comment about suicide being selfish was far from isolated.

I am left feeling somewhat disheartened. Did we learn nothing from the Robin Williams tragedy? If, three months later, people are spouting those cruel stereotypes that they previously vowed to help fight, how are we ever going to move forward? Will we ever be able to continue the discussions, or are we going to keep having to start the same discussions over and over again?

I don’t expect everyone to start posting endlessly about mental illness, but I would love to see it consistently treated with the same respect that is given to physical illness. I would love for people to feel able to talk about their experiences with mental illness without fear of embarrassment or shame. I would love to see the judgments and blame replaced with understanding and support.

And I would love to see more meaningful conversations that are not triggered by tragedy.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Victor. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: Awareness, Conversations, Death, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Suicide, Tragedy Tagged With: assisted suicide, Brittany Maynard, cancer, depression, depression awareness, hypocrisy, judgments, respect, Robin Williams, social media, stereotypes, support, understanding

Robin Williams And The Tragedy Of Depression

August 12, 2014 By Kirsten

Last night, for the first time ever, I cried over a celebrity’s death. My tears had nothing to do with the loss of such an immense talent – although I have been a Robin Williams fan for decades – and everything to do with the fact that another life has been lost to mental illness.

I suspect that I am not alone. I suspect that right now, people all over the globe are relating to the drowning feeling of depression that drove Robin Williams to seek such a desperate escape. Several times since this tragic news broke, I have seen variations of one overriding question on my social media feeds: if a man with the financial resources of a celebrity could not find the help that he needed, what hope is there for the rest of us?

The truth is that while money can buy therapy, it does not buy the understanding of those around us. I started seeing my therapist four years ago, and although it has undoubtedly helped me, the benefits I have gained have been severely restricted by the stigmas and misconceptions that surround mental illness to this day. A number of conditions have to be met in order for therapy to truly work. The right therapist is one. Adequate support and understanding in your daily life is another.

It’s not to say that people don’t care – it’s just that many of them don’t understand. If I had a dollar for the number of times I’ve been told that depression is not a “real” illness, I’d had enough for an entire team of therapists.

I’ve written about the misconceptions surrounding depression before, but they are worth repeating, especially now that Robin Williams has put such a focus on it by taking his own life.

* When I am in the grip of depression, I cannot “snap out of it”. Asking someone to snap out of depression is like asking them to snap out of a heart attack.

* Depression is not to be equated with sadness. It cannot even be regarded as a severe form of sadness. Depression and sadness are two completely different things, in the same way that asthma and the common cold are two completely different things.

* Suicide is not a selfish, cowardly act. It is the act of someone who is desperate to get away from a terrible, desolate, frightening situation, and who sees no other escape route.

* Contrary to a popular Facebook meme, people with depression are not “focused on the past”, and they will not magically cure themselves by living in the present.

* Sometimes, for some people, the right medication can lead to dramatic improvements in quality of life, but it’s not for everybody. Someone who refuses medication is not being stubborn. They might be afraid, or they might have learned from experience that it doesn’t work for them.

* A person with depression is capable of smiling, laughing at jokes and having a good time with friends. If you see a picture of someone smiling, don’t say that they “can’t be that depressed”. Robin Williams himself is a perfect illustration of that.

This list is a drop in the bucket, but if we can shift peoples’ understanding on these few points, that will be a good start. If you suffer from depression, don’t be afraid to talk about it and ask for help. It’s really nothing to be ashamed of. If you know someone with depression, be there for them. One of the scariest things for a person with depression is the feeling of being alone in the world.

The death of Robin Williams is a great tragedy. It will be an even greater tragedy if we don’t learn something from it. If his death leads to greater awareness and understanding, and saves just one person from suicide – well, I think he would like that.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: BagoGames. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: Celebrities, Death, Depression, Loss, Mental Illness, Myths, Suicide Tagged With: desperate, help, misconceptions, Robin Williams, stigmas, therapy, tragedy, understanding

10 Ways To Take Care Of Your Mental Health

May 14, 2014 By Kirsten

1. Put yourself first from time to time. I’m not saying you should abandon your children in a deserted warehouse while you go off on a Mediterranean cruise. I’m just saying that sometimes it’s OK to take yourself out for coffee or go for a run – whatever it is that you like – even if it means <gasp> making your kids wait for whatever they want.

2. Stop and smell the roses. I mean that literally – if you see something beautiful, slow down and give yourself time to appreciate it. There is a small patch of tulips about three minutes’ walk from my house. Every Spring, my heart is lifted by the sight of them starting to bloom. Even on my worst days, when I feel horribly depressed, looking at the tulips has the power to uplift me.

3. Exercise, even if it just means going for a walk around the block. When you are in the depths of desperation, exercising might be the last thing you want to do, but it is almost certain to help. There are physiological reasons why physical motion helps people who struggle with mental illness.

4. Start your day with an accomplishment. For me, this means going for a run. For someone else, it might be finding a recipe for dinner or putting on a load of laundry. It doesn’t have to be big: for a period of time last summer, the simple act of brushing my teeth counted as an accomplishment.

5. See a therapist. Many people see this as a sign of shame or weakness, but honestly, it’s fine. Life sometimes throws things at us that we cannot and should not cope with alone. I’ve been seeing my therapist for almost four years now, and my only complaint is that I took so long to take that step.

6. Be aware of your self-talk. People who struggle with depression or anxiety have very strong powers of persuasion, and they persuade themselves to believe all of the wrong things. Negative self-talk can send a person into a downward spiral faster than the speed of light.

7. Recognize that sometimes it’s OK to fall apart. You don’t have to be strong and composed at all times. If life is overwhelming you, take yourself to a safe place and cry big, fat ugly tears.

8. Get enough sleep. This can be a tall order, since depression and anxiety seem to go hand-in-hand with insomnia. There are various strategies that can be used to help you relax. My therapist taught me the technique of tensing and relaxing all of my muscles, one body part at a time. That works quite well for me. Someone else might prefer visualization techniques, reading or listening to relaxing music. The point is that if you struggle with sleep, you need to try and find something that will work for you. The world is a frightening place: it’s even scarier when seen through the fog of sleeplessness.

9. Eat properly. Again, this means different things to different people, but you need to fuel yourself properly to function well both physically and mentally.

10. Know that mental illness is not a source of shame. It’s not something that you can just snap out of, it’s not your fault and it’s not something you should feel bad about. It’s an illness, just like any other illness, and it should be treated with the same respect. Recognizing that can help you come to a greater sense of acceptance for yourself.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle, written for Mental Health Blog Day.

Filed Under: anxiety, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness Tagged With: acceptance, accomplishment, appreciate, eat, exercise, insomnia, overwhelming, self-talk, shame, sleep, therapist, uplift

An Athlete’s Lesson In Self-Talk

February 10, 2014 By Kirsten

It looks pretty, but it’s not great to run in!

I have been struggling a great deal with my running lately. I had such high hopes, at the beginning of this year, that I would be able to stick to the training schedule I had set for myself – a schedule that was demanding but certainly within my capability.

I tell myself that the main reason for my struggling of late has been the weather, and it is true that Mother Nature has not been on my side. Temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius, snow and ice have combined to make running conditions very difficult. I have gotten around it to an extent by going to the gym and running on the treadmill. Like most runners, I intensely dislike the treadmill, but it is better than nothing.

Still, I have to be honest with myself and ask the question: to what extent have I been using the weather as an excuse? Yes, it’s been hard and I am sick to death of the treadmill. To my credit, I have not missed any of my speed training sessions. But I have missed two of my long runs, in two consecutive weeks. On both occasions, I had the opportunity to make up the run the following day, and I didn’t. Out of the four days – two Sundays and two Mondays – I can only claim prohibitively bad weather on one of them.

The truth is that in recent weeks, I have been walloped with depression. Along with depression comes low self-esteem and inevitably, negative self-talk. I’ve been telling myself that I’m just not good at anything, and I’ve been fulfilling my own words. This negativity has touched every area of my life, without me even realising it.

I got a bit of a wake-up call yesterday. I decided that, snow be damned, I was going out for my long run. I was quite excited as I dug out my winter running gear and put it on: it felt good to be doing something positive instead of making excuses.

Before I’d even run a block, I knew I was in trouble. My breathing was laboured and I was struggling to find any kind of rhythm. To be fair, the conditions weren’t great. It was snowing, and the ground felt all sludgy. Telling myself that this was just a part of winter running in Canada, I trudged on gamely.

I managed about three kilometres before giving up. I kept slipping in the snow, and I just didn’t feel that I was in good enough shape to last for 18K. Bailing on the run was the right thing to do from a safety point of view. If I had continued, there was an excellent chance that I would have turned an ankle. Knowing that didn’t make me feel better, though. I felt that I was failing as a runner.

As I spent the afternoon brooding over how hard it had been for me to run those three kilometres, I thought of how poor my diet has been lately. I have been doing what I usually do when depressed: eating very little, and eating absolute junk on the occasions when I do eat. It’s no wonder that running has been such a challenge, that yesterday’s short distance proved to be too much for me. I haven’t exactly been fueling my body properly.

These thoughts were swilling around my head throughout the afternoon. I told myself that of course nutrition has been a problem. I’m a person who has been going through depression, and I have a messed-up relationship with food at the best of times.

You’re an athlete, piped up a little voice in my head, out of nowhere. Eat like one.

Well. That shut the negative part of me up. It derailed a train of thought that badly needed to be derailed. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that little voice, the one that has confidence in what I can do. That little voice, in addition to reminding me that I am, in fact, an athlete, made me realise just how unkind I’ve been to myself lately.

In a sudden flurry of activity, I attacked my fridge, throwing out junk and old leftovers, getting rid of vegetables that I had bought and let go bad. And then, armed with a shopping list containing healthy foods, I corralled my family and dragged them to the grocery store with me.

Last night I cooked a healthy meal with a touch of carbo-loading. I ate it and went to bed feeling better than I have in ages. When I woke up this morning, I had peanut butter toast instead of breakfasting solely on endless cups of coffee. And then, once I had packed the kids and the husband off to school and work, I went for a run.

It was hard going. For about ninety percent of the time, I was running on snowy sidewalks and streets that hadn’t been shoveled or plowed. In addition to running, I had to work hard to keep my balance, and I had to push off from a slippery, slushy surface. I worked muscles that I didn’t even know I had, and the last couple of kilometres were excruciatingly difficult.

But I did it. I finished 18K.

Because I am an athlete.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.

Filed Under: Depression, Eating, running, Snow, Training Tagged With: athlete, diet, excuse, fueling, self-esteem, self-talk, slipping, struggling, training schedule, treadmill, weather

2013: Memorable Moments

December 26, 2013 By Kirsten

With just a few days left in 2013, this seems like a good time for me to take a look at some highlights of the last twelve months. The word “highlights” is a bit of a misnomer, though – a large portion of the year was filled with the most mind-bending stress. To be completely honest, I am ready for the year to be done. I am ready to wake up on January 1, 2014 looking forward to a year of new beginnings.

Not a lot happened in the first three months of the year. I was working overtime on a massive project, so for a while I didn’t really have a life. From time to time I went running, and that was going great until the day I gave myself an injury by doing a long run at race pace on icy sidewalks. As far as common sense goes, that was not one of my shining moments. I had to pull out of a half-marathon that I had registered for – not the greatest start to my season.

In April I ran a ten-mile race that can only be described as my worst race ever. It took place on a golf course, which was very scenic but had a scary number of hills. If the weather had been nice it might not have been so bad, but it was cold and windy, and it was raining. Instead of feeling down about my dismal finishing time, though, I was surprisingly upbeat. I had run this brutally hard race in terrible weather, and I had crossed the finish line. It was a testament to my determination. The hard-earned finisher’s medal I got that day is one of my favourites, just because of how hard I had to work to earn it.

In May, my life kind of spiralled out of control a little. Things were going reasonably well at the time: my running was back on track and my big project was a whisker away from being closed after a successful implementation. A few days from the end of that month, I got the shock of my life when I was called into a little office in the HR department and informed that I no longer had a job. I had seen it coming – much change was afoot at my place of work and they had been downsizing people for a while.

Something else happened in May that shook my foundations quite badly. One of my best friends, who I had known for seventeen years, passed away after a lifelong battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Fran was just shy of her 41st birthday when she died, and years of knowing that I would in all likelihood lose her did not make it easier when it happened. I have so memories that include Fran, including her first race and my wedding. Seven months on, I’m still having trouble adapting to a world that she no longer inhabits.

In June, my family and I went away to Niagara Falls for a few days. It was a break I desperately needed, and it included the Niagara Falls Women’s Half-Marathon. I had a fantastic race – although it was not my best-ever performance, my finishing time was respectable enough. The race was a perfect opportunity for me to run off a bit of stress.

July kind of passed without me noticing. I was worn out from stress and grief, and I was fighting what felt like a losing battle with depression. I applied for jobs without getting any responses, and my spirits sank lower and lower with each passing day. Ultimately, what got me through was running.

August started off on a note of terrible tragedy, when a friend’s seven-year-old son drowned in a river. He hung on in hospital for a couple of days, but in the end, his mother had to make the heartbreaking decision to let him go. I felt the kind of sadness that threatens to engulf you, like a heavy blanket that suffocates. I started worrying a lot – about my kids, about the twists and turns of fate that we have no control over, about friendship and whether I was doing enough for the people in my life, including the bereaved mother.

Luke

In September, I was supposed to travel to Ottawa to take part in the Army Run, a majestic half-marathon in the nation’s capital city. Due to illness and circumstance, the trip had to be canceled at the last minute. The disappointment was excruciating. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal, especially when looked at beside all of the other stuff that had been going on, but at that point my coping skills had been eroded to the point of nothingness. I turned to my trusty method of stress relief and threw myself into my running.

A month later, my training paid off when I ran my main race of the season: the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront half-marathon. For the fifth consecutive year, I ran the race to raise funds for the Geneva Centre for Autism. Inspired by my son George, I ran my way to a personal best time. It was a truly fantastic race, and that day marks the point at which I finally started to claw my way back from the terrible depression that I had been going through.

In November I signed up for a novel-writing challenge called NaNoWriMo. I decided that what I really needed was a goal, and writing a book in thirty days seemed like a reasonable one. Every day when I woke up, I sat at my laptop and hammered out two thousand words, and by the time the end of November rolled around, I had a completed manuscript of almost 60,000 words. It was a first draft, meaning I would need to do a whole lot of work to make it fit for public consumption, but I had done it. That achievement did wonders for my confidence.

December has, for the most part, been kind to me. Yes, we had a pesky ice storm that cut out power for a few days and left a mess of fallen trees and broken branches all over the neighbourhood, but we got through it. Although there was the obligatory family drama, we enjoyed Christmas. We even got a picture of Santa that involved a lot of fun and no autism meltdowns.

Over the next few days, I will be setting some goals for 2014. I have lofty plans that include running a 30K race and getting my book published. For now, though, I am enjoying time with my family, and in spite of the more stressful things that have happened this year, I am feeling grateful for what I have.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-marathon picture: www.marathon-photos.com. Photo credit for all other images: Kirsten Doyle.

Filed Under: 2013 Year In Review, Christmas, Death, Depression, family, Friendship, Job Loss, running, Stress, Writing Tagged With: autism, cystic fibrosis, downsized, drowning, geneva centre for autism, goals, grand scheme of things, half-marathon, NaNoWriMo, personal best, sadness, work

On Running

June 6, 2013 By Kirsten

With Running Room founder John Stanton, right after one of my autism runs

My friend Phaedra posted some running reflections on her blog today. She ended her post with the question: “What has running brought to your life?”

I started to draft a reply on her blog, but it started to get kind of wordy, so I decided to just make a blog post of my own on the topic.

The first time I start running seriously, I was a 26-year-old couch potato with a 30-a-day smoking habit. I didn’t really care for the idea of exercise very much, but I wanted to quit smoking, and instinct told me that in order to accomplish that, I would have to fix other aspects of my lifestyle.

So I cut back on the caffeine, traded junk food for healthy home-cooked meals, and started to ~~run~~ shuffle along at a snail’s pace. A few months later, I smoked my last cigarette and my shuffling started to look like actual running. To my surprise, I discovered that I actually liked it. My dad, a former elite athlete who had long suspected that there was a runner lurking somewhere within me, merely said, “Told you so.”

During that time in my life, running was much more than just a means to quit smoking. I badly needed some self-affirmation back then. I had no self-esteem to speak of. I felt completely worthless, and when I started running, I realized that I had found something I could actually do. I didn’t claim to be particularly good at it, but I wasn’t looking for something to be good at. I was merely looking for something that I could do without failing.

The combination of stopping smoking and starting running allowed me to start feeling as if there was some validity to my existence.

The second time I started to run, I was a 39-year-old mother of two and I hadn’t touched a pair of running shoes in over six years. Some aspects of my life were very similar to the way they had been the first time round. Although I was no longer a smoker, my lifestyle had become sedentary, and once again, I was grappling with severe depression.

This time round, it was the idea of running for a cause that gave me the kick in the pants that I needed. The Geneva Centre for Autism had decided to enter a team in the charity challenge of a major Toronto running event, and they were looking for parents to participate. And somewhere deep inside me, underneath all of the layers of depression that were crippling me, a flame was lit. I registered for the half-marathon there and then, without giving myself time to think about it.

Six months later, I stood at the half-marathon finish line with a finisher’s medal around my neck. I had gone the distance, all 21.1km of it, and every inch of it had been for my son. It was an intensely emotional experience and the tears flowed unchecked.

Since then, I have run six more half-marathons and a number of races of other distances. One half-marathon each year is dedicated to my son and other children with autism, as I fund-raise and strive to make my small contribution to the autism community.

Once again, running has been a salvation for me, a form of self-affirmation, and a way for me to feel truly alive. When my running is going well, I feel as if I have it in me to get through any challenge and achieve any goal I want.

And when it’s going badly, all I have to do is think of my son. If he can live his entire life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the challenges of autism, then I can run for a couple of hours to make the world a better place for him.

Filed Under: autism, Depression, running, Running for Autism, Wordcount Blogathon Tagged With: charity challenge, couch potato, geneva centre for autism, half-marathon, lifestyle, running reflections, self-affirmation, smoking habit

Guest Post: Surviving Post-Adoption Depression

April 15, 2013 By Kirsten

Today is Guest Post Swap Day at the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge! I am delighted to have been paired with Becky, who looks at the world of adoption from a different vantage point to me. I am an adoptee, and Becky is the mom of adoptees. In her blog, Lessons from an Infertile Social Worker, she writes about her journey to motherhood and her life as a parent. Today, she shares an aspect of adoption that really needs to be given some attention.

When I think about adoption, there is so much to say; I find it difficult to narrow down the topic. Do I talk about how we came to the decision that the way our family would grow was through adoption? Do I share my journey to breastfeeding my two sons, both of whom we adopted? Do I discuss open adoption, why we chose it, and the challenges and blessings it has afforded me? Do I educate about proper adoption language? Do I ponder how adoption has changed my parenting philosophies? There are so many possibilities.

In my professional life, I’ve talked with hundreds of pregnant women and new mommies about postpartum depression, the feelings, the red flags, how to recognize it in themselves, how others around them could recognize it and be supportive, what can help, etc… I could assess whether a new mommy was experiencing symptoms, and I could diagnose it. I knew how to talk to her about it, and what resources to point her towards. What I never knew was that it was something I could experience. I’d told women for years that a big part of postpartum depression was their out-of-whack hormones. I knew that I wouldn’t have to deal with that thanks to adoption. I was wrong. I did experience it, even without the hormones to blame.

I can’t imagine any child being more wanted than my son. We tried for years to get pregnant and I was thrilled beyond belief when we were chosen by his birth family. I was thrilled to take him home, to put him in his bed, to cuddle him, to nurse him, to rock him, to read to him… But somewhere along the way things changed. Really, it may be more accurate to say that things didn’t change, at least not how I thought they should and would.

I told moms all the time that “over half of new parents don’t fall head over heels in love with their babies right away. You didn’t experience love at first sight with your partner, so why should you expect it with your baby. It takes a while to get to know one another. It will come in time. Don’t feel guilty if it doesn’t happen immediately, but don’t doubt that it will come”. I never even considered the possibility that I wouldn’t experience that all-consuming love for my baby immediately – I wouldn’t have the hormones going crazy, we were prepared, we were ready, we knew what we were doing, we wanted him so much.

I stayed home with him for about 8-9 weeks after he was born. Though hubby shared nighttime duty with me, I was taking 2 graduate level classes and I was still exhausted. In truth, I was at times a little jealous that hubby got to leave during the day (not to mention got to shower and brush his teeth before 3pm). I was rocking the baby one afternoon – it had been a difficult day for me and the 4 week old – when hubby came in from a great day at work. He leaned over the side of the rocking chair and tenderly said, “I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you, but I sure love this little guy a lot”. I could see he had tears in his eyes though I couldn’t bring myself to really look at him. Because all that was running through my mind was, “well big deal for you. How wonderful for you to get to feel that way?!!!”. All I said out loud was “yeah”.

I was furious. At the time I thought I was angry with him, but I realize now I was angry with myself. Angry that I didn’t feel that way about our son, the baby I had so longed for, the baby I had waited and prayed about for years. Angry that hubby got to feel that way first. Angry that I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth that day.

But mostly I felt guilt. Guilt that this child deserved all-encompassing love that I wasn’t sure I could give to him. Guilt that I was angry which surely he could sense. Guilt that by not feeling that intense bond and attachment he would be permanently scarred. Guilt that obviously I wasn’t worthy to be a mother, which was maybe why God hadn’t *let* us get pregnant. Guilt. Dark, ugly guilt.

I don’t know when my love for my son became “big”, though I do remember when I realized that it had. When he was about 4 months old, we both had a nasty stomach virus. He vomited in hubby’s mouth (I know, gross, but I warned hubby not to play rough with a baby who had been puking all day) and I thought, “You show him, kid”. I realized we were a duo then, this adorable baby and I, we had something that was just between the two of us, and it was strong and intense. We had that bond. I hadn’t completely failed.

It took me a long time to recognize myself what I was experiencing after my son was born, and quite a bit longer to admit to it to anyone. I’ve now read research and talked with other parents through adoption and I know I’m not the only one to experience post adoption depression. I still carry some guilt about it, but I realize it’s nothing I can change. I also know I have the most awesome son with whom I now have an intensely strong bond. I know he wasn’t harmed by the natural progression of our relationship. I’m trying to forgive myself, which I know is silly because, as I would tell any of the hundreds of mommies I worked with, it wasn’t my fault.

Post adoption depression is real and it is no more a mother’s fault than postpartum depression. It’s not something to be ashamed of and it isn’t a dirty little secret. And, just like postpartum depression, it’s something we need to talk about so that no one else has to feel guilty or alone.

Filed Under: Adoption, Becky, Depression, Guest Posts, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, Mental Illness, Post-Adoption Depression Tagged With: angry, attachment, bond, guilt, hormones, new mommy, postpartum depression

Parenting and Mental Health: A Tough Balancing Act

February 21, 2013 By Kirsten

When it comes to parenting my kids, I say all the same things that most mothers say. Everyone has Bad Mommy Days. I’m only human. I have to take care of myself in order to take care of my children. Even when things aren’t going so well, I need to remember that I’m a good mother.

But who am I kidding, really? Like most mothers, I expect myself to be perfect at all times, and I take the concept of guilt to a whole new level. Even more so than the Catholics do.

I pile one thing after another onto my plate, and somehow I manage to keep all the balls in the air most of the time. In the event of me dropping a ball, it’s always one that pertains to my own physical or mental health. In other words, I make it a priority to take care of everyone else, but I just kind of accept that it’s OK for me to neglect myself in the process.

This does not make me special by any means. Most mothers do this, and we all know that we’re not supposed to. We all know that the world won’t end if we take a bit of time to ourselves instead of putting on that load of laundry so that Little Johnny can wear his favourite shirt to school tomorrow. But we head right on down to the washing machine anyway.

Let’s face it, this whole equation is grossly unbalanced. I mean, here I am, a mom of a kid with autism and a kid who’s just a little – you know, spirited. I work full-time, freelance on the side, help the husband with his business and take care of household finances. That’s before I even get to the laundry.

It gets really tricky when it comes to my mental health. This is a subject that I am generally not comfortable talking about, but I feel that it’s important. Many, many mothers – myself included – have to deal with the reality of coping with mental illness while being the best parents they can possibly be. And it’s hard, because as scared and vulnerable and anxious as we may feel, it is our instinct to be strong for our kids.

This week is particularly tough, and here’s why. At this week’s therapy session, me and my therapist started the process of delving into a part of my life that was, to say the least, traumatic. I was describing a specific event – not glossing over the story, but describing everything in detail, and reliving the whole mess all over again.

A process like this comes with a certain amount of psychological fallout. My nerves have been in tatters and my emotions are raw. I am not sleeping, because all of a sudden my mind is being forced to try and process stuff that I’ve been keeping buried for the last twenty years.

And I am a mom. I have kids to take care of, autism meltdowns to deal with, boo-boos to kiss better, hugs and affection to bestow.

Being a mom and dealing with mental illness are not really activities that complement one another. And when I have to choose between taking care of my kids and dealing with my issues, guess who wins every single time?

While I’m putting on a brave face for my kids, though, my feelings are still there. I am still feeling the stress, the trauma, the anxiety, and depending on the day, the depression. I am still staying awake until late at night because I’m afraid to go to sleep and face the nightmares.

But I do what I have to do for my kids, because no matter what weirdness is going on inside my own head, parenting will always be the most important thing I ever do.

I know that I am not alone. I know that there are other moms out there who live with mental illness. I would love to hear from those moms, to find out if – and how – they keep things balanced.

(Photo credit: darcyadelaide. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Depression, Mental Illness, parenting Tagged With: balance, balls in the air, guilt, mental health, therapist, trauma