#HoldOntoTheLight: The Bathroom Trick

Mom was a Jungian—sort of.

A World War II-era psychiatric nurse, she understood there are times when talking through a problem simply wasn’t enough. She knew the health of the mind was inextricably linked to the health of the body. She’d seen firsthand the devastating effect of shell shock, as well as the psychosis and personality changes suffered by her sister when a well-meaning fool burst a goiter on her sister’s neck. She also knew entire families could suffer with mental health issues, and it wasn’t a matter of fault. They were born that way.

To her way of thinking, we’re all born that way. Even people wired to be happy can find themselves devastated by circumstances beyond their control—the death of a loved one, terminal illness, injury and global catastrophe. Sometimes sadness or a feeling of utter powerlessness is the only rational response to a situation. As someone who’d experienced her share of tragedy, she knew grief was a natural part of the human condition. The trick was to prevent the sorrow from becoming more calamitous than its cause.

Safe, effective anti-depressants hadn’t been invented yet. So Mom and her colleagues explored other modes of treatment. Mom focused on the coping mechanisms developed independently by those who routinely struggled with depression. She was particularly struck by Winston Churchill’s way of dealing with his “Black Dog”. Whenever Churchill felt himself sliding into despair, he would go into the garden and lay bricks on a wall.

To a Jungian, the symbolism was obvious. The wall represented a physical and symbolic barrier between him and his troubles. But Mom took it further. Analyzing newspaper and magazine articles she found in the base library, she concluded Churchill’s deepest depressions coincided with moments where he felt most powerless. View in that light, the wall was also his way of exerting control over his world.

Few people in Mom’s orbit had the luxury of building a wall. Hell, if you were living in military housing, chances were you didn’t even have a yard. But control—Mom understood control. I used to describe her as a combination of the kinder, gentler qualities of Napoleon Bonaparte, Niccolo Machiavelli and Attila the Hun. Full disclosure: they didn’t have any. What they did have, however, was the ability to assess the available resources and apply them to the problem at hand.

Ultimately Mom decided the best alternative for building a wall was cleaning a bathroom. The two tasks shared many attributes. Cleaning a bathroom seldom qualifies as a daily necessity. It’s usually something you could choose to do. Or not. It involves manageable levels of physical labor (subsequently shown to help the body self-regulate its chemistry). It can be done in a limited amount of time. It offers tangible results. It harms no one, yet invariably leads to a sense of accomplishment. When I was young, she insisted it was the only viable therapy for a growing girl; a big, strong man like my dad could clean the stove. (What? You didn’t think she practiced her trade on Dad and me? See the historical role models listed above.) But later, after she finally sprang for a regular cleaning lady, she admitted any self-contained, productive activity could suffice, from washing the car to baking cookies for a friend.

Mom died twelve years ago, but I still use the “bathroom trick”. I don’t always clean a bathroom. Sometimes I don’t even bother with physical exertion. It doesn’t really matter what I do. The key is restoring a sense of control through a personal achievement, no matter how small.

Mom would have been the first to say the strategy doesn’t always work. Plus, it’s only a therapy, not a cure. But she believed that any strategy that took the edge off pain without causing harm should be shared. I share it in that spirit. If it helps anyone who reads this, I’ll consider it worthwhile. So would she.

***

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Home for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors, or reach a media contact, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/276745236033627/.

"Cat Pictures Please" with a side of Aeslin Mice

Don’t expect me to rip the bandage off any dark secrets in this year’s #HoldOntoTheLight essay. No, I’m not blowing off the campaign. Yes, there’s a blog ahead. But I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’m snuffling through the infamous Post Dragon-Con Crud (tm), and I lack the functional brain cells necessary for any kind of depth.

Which is the whole point. There are times even those of us blessed with a psychiatric nurse/expert Jungian for a mother and a personality default of Mean Girl can’t work up the energy for self-examination, much less meaningful social, political or emotional action.

And that’s okay.

Repeat those words. Say them to yourself and own them, because it’s not only okay, it’s important to your body and your soul to accept there are times when you need to be nice to yourself.

I won’t argue that disasters big and small crater the landscape—devastating hurricanes, earthquakes, political chaos, bigotry, war, famine, plagues, the fall of cultural icons and personal heartache. I also believe we need to throw our shoulders to wheel and do everything we can to address the problems we face. But not 24/7. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak, and trust me, the flesh will do everything in its power to drag the spirit down to its level. When that happens, you do whatever you need to keep yourself going, no matter how silly or frivolous it might appear.

2006 and 2007 were two of the worst years of my life. My dear friend and cowriter Teri Smith suffered a fatal embolism in 2006, and my mother died the following year. To. The. Day. I got through it thanks to three things: my husband, my dearest and oldest friend Cath, and Duzie, the cat Teri and I rescued from the halls of her apartment building a few weeks before she died.

Duzie was my first cat. A better teacher in the ways of cat could not be found. He was gentle and tolerant, allowing me to cry into his soft fur as long as I wanted. But he had very definite views on his place in the food chain (at the top) and in the house (wherever he damn well pleased).

But he was also an old cat. He died in the spring of 2012 after a three-month decline. For those of you who don’t have pets, it may seem strange, but those three months were a nightmare flashback to the worst days of Teri’s and my mom’s death, with an added load of guilt, because I didn’t know what was happening, much less how to make it better. I should’ve been able to make it better. I was an educated human being, with all the advantages of 21st century veterinary medicine. Why couldn’t I help one small cat? And worse, the fear that whispered in the dark of night: Were my efforts to save him adding to his pain?

I quickly lost the ability to write. I expected that. It had happened before when my mom went on hospice care. So I knew the desire and ability would return once the worst of the grief had passed.

What I didn’t expect was losing the will to read. Oh, I could still make sense of words on a page. My comprehension was fine. But I lost all pleasure in the act. The lifeboat that had carried me through the worst of bad times was gone. Why? Because my emotional skin was too thin to suffer the conflict inherent in all good stories.

It took me a full two weeks after Duzie’s death to find something I could bear to read—Discount Armageddon, the first book in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series and the happiest, fluffiest novel she had published to date. I knew going in that everything would turn out okay. Along the way there was ballroom dancing, a found family of delightful oddballs, redemptive romance and, best of all, a colony of Aeslin Mice interrupting the action at the funniest moments to sing the oddest praises of the Price family.

Reading got easier after Discount Armageddon, but only because I didn’t push. I read for pleasure, not to impress anybody. If I felt like reading cozy mysteries or category romances, I did. Their formulaic structure was more than part of their charm; it was actively healing.

By the time Naomi Kritzer’s joyous short story, “Cat Pictures Please”, began collecting award nominations I was more than ready to vote for it. I had internalized the over-sized truth contained in its small word count: it’s the little kindnesses that make us whole. Share cat pictures or dog pictures or gifs of hamsters in hats, and you could ease someone’s (or something’s) pain just enough to save the world.

The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Life is a lot like airplane turbulence. You need to be sure you can breathe before you can take care of anyone else.

So cut yourself some slack. Pamper yourself with ice cream, cat pictures, Aeslin Mice or whatever soothes your soul. A little break won’t turn a mountain of problems into a molehill, but a little kindness just might make that mountain easier to scale.

You’re welcome. No need to thank me. As the lady and the AI said, payment is in cat pictures.

#

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment. 

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Hope for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK),SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors and blog posts, or reach a media contact, go to http://www.HoldOnToTheLight.com and join us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WeHoldOnToTheLight

I Thought I Was one of the Good Guys: a #HoldOntoTheLight Post

A blog post in support of #HoldOnToTheLight SF/F Authors and Fans for Mental Wellness

Everybody wants to be a hero. Finding our cause might take a while, but it’s always there waiting.

For me the epiphany happened when I was an intern at the old Army Development and Research Command. I thought my office was great. My colleagues were pleasant, respectful and never asked me to make coffee a second time. (Back then men never made their own coffee. In my own small way I helped change that. All it took was a little lemon juice.)

Then the excellent colonel who ran the office went away on an extended training course. His temporary replacement was a part-time lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves who thought his rank and gender entitled him to chase me around the office desks when nobody but the colonel’s secretary was looking. Accustomed to friendship and support from all the other women in the office, I approached her for help.

“Get used to it,” she sneered. “It used to happen to me all the time. Now it’s your turn.”

Her voice seethed with malice and a warped kind of triumph. What was wrong with this woman? Harassment wasn’t something you passed on like a family heirloom. It was something you fought, not just for yourself but for all the people who came after you. I resolved I would never be like her. I would fight for people being sexually victimized by their supervisors, colleagues, or anybody who thought themselves entitled to prey on others by virtue of their position or gender.

I was lucky. I found other allies, and together we encouraged the lieutenant colonel to return home seven weeks early. But I never lost my resolve to protect others from sexual predation. It led some interesting throw-downs with military officers, senior enlisted personnel and political appointees during my Pentagon years. But defending others made me feel useful and good, far beyond any of my bureaucratic achievements.

Caught up in my vision of myself as an anti-harassment crusader, it never occurred to me that I, too, could be a bully.

Don’t waste any sympathy the jerks who went trolling the interns, the summer hires and the secretarial pool. They deserved everything they got and then some. But the same ferocity that made me so good at fending off predators also left unintended damage in its wake. Government offices are surprisingly random. They bring together people of all backgrounds, education and personalities, and every single one of them has a breaking point.

Thirteen years after my encounter my life-changing encounter with the colonel’s secretary I was hired as the senior public affairs officer for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. The job entailed managing corporate communications and public relations for the agency’s headquarters, operating centers and field offices. My center staffs included some exceptional writers and publications people, and I held them up as examples to the rest. I had high standards. I wanted us to be the best public affairs outfit in the Department of Defense. But I liked to think of myself as fair. I never insulted or belittled my public affairs personnel in front of their colleagues and peers. I always praised them to their supervisors and center chiefs.

I also judged everyone’s products—news releases, publications, outreach initiatives—against the best of the best. When asked for my opinion, I gave it. In detail. How would those who didn’t excel at writing, design or programming improve if I didn’t tell them when they got it wrong?

In case you haven’t noticed, I can be rather…forceful. I grew up on Army bases where even little skinny little girls in glasses learned to be wicked fighters. As an adult, when I finally graduated to the government’s version of the grown-up table, I was frequently the only woman in the room. I learned to pitch my voice low and hard, and to stare down men twice my weight. As a result, scary became my default setting.

I didn’t realize how intimidating I’d become until we held a conference for center public affairs officers in Indianapolis. Whenever I staged an agency-wide conference, I always scheduled a “fun event” where participants could mingle without worrying about official directions or agendas. At my request, the Indianapolis center made reservations at a restaurant/magic museum the evening before the conference’s official start.

Everyone arrived on time except one center public affairs officer. We waited for her until the group nearly lost our reservation. She still didn’t appear. We double-checked her hotel and the restaurant—it was a magic museum, after all. But she wasn’t in her room or in collusion with the magicians.

Since her boss, the center director, could be capricious, we figured it must be something work-related and settled back to enjoy the meal and the show. Recovering reporters and marketing types have a reputation as heavy drinkers, but we all went light on the alcohol. The night was pouring rain, and all of us out-of-towners had gotten lost at least once on the way to the restaurant. We didn’t want to risk something worse on our way back to our respective hotels.

By mid-meal I was worried. Where was the missing public affairs officer? Yeah, her boss could’ve sent her on a snipe hunt, why didn’t she call and tell us about it? We had some of the best public affairs officers in the department at that table. Between us we could fix whatever her director might have broken.

This was in the Dark Ages before cell phones, so I couldn’t call more than a couple of times from the restaurant. She didn’t answer no matter how long I let it ring. I returned to my hotel and called again. She still wasn’t answering. Now I was really alarmed. I decided to call every hour until midnight. If I didn’t reach her by twelve my next call would be to the police.

I finally connected around eleven. She sounded groggy and upset, like I’d woken her after she’d cried herself to sleep.

I asked her what was wrong. Why hadn’t she come to the restaurant? Everybody missed her.

“Really? Really?” she practically shrieked. “Well, I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the damn place. I got lost downtown. In the rain. I wound up going the wrong way on a one way street. Then this cop pulled me over. And…and…” Her voice broke on a sob.

“Oh no, [Name Redacted], are you all right? Do you need me to pay your ticket?“

“No, I’m not all right! My husband’s in the hospital for a double bypass, and I’m here in Indianapolis for this stupid conference, and a cop pulled me over and now I’m going to lose my job.”

“Your husband’s in the hospital?” I repeated stupidly. For a double bypass? My mind boggled. “What are you doing here?” Why didn’t you tell me?

“Why do you think I’m here? I’m attending your stupid conference. My center director told me I had to come. He said it was important. You could get me fired. I can’t get fired. My husband has a bad heart. I need this job.”

Your center director said what?

I wouldn’t…

I never…

But in a way I had. This public affairs officer had come up through the secretarial ranks, which gave her a distinct inferiority complex with respect to those of us who’d always been classified as professionals. She never worked on newspapers or studied publication design, which meant she bore the brunt of my “helpful” opinions. I’d never given her a reason to trust me or believe I had her best interests at heart. To her I was an unfeeling, judgmental harpy who kept shoving her into a mold she couldn’t possibly fit. I never praised her for all the things she did right. Hell, I never bothered to find out what they were.

I spent the next fifteen minutes apologizing and trying to find some way to help. Had she received a ticket? Did she need me to pay it?

No to both. She was already crying when the cop pulled her over. He let her go with a warning and drew a map to get her back to the hotel.

Did she want to go home? I’d clear it with her center director. Hell, I’d figure out a way she could stay with her husband for the duration.

No, she wanted to stay. She wanted to do her job.

I was humbled. I was horrified. I was sickened by the unintended consequences of my actions. I was disgusted with myself in ways I hadn’t been disgusted by anyone since that long-ago secretary refused to help me with that jerk of a reserve lieutenant colonel. How did this happen? I thought I was one of the good guys. Yet I behaved like a bully. I terrorized a colleague into abandoning a desperately ill spouse out of fear for her job. She was so afraid of me and what I might do, she couldn’t bring herself to tell me what was happening until it was almost too late.

The experience changed me in many ways. Most importantly, I learned it wasn’t enough to prevent others from doing harm. We need to police ourselves. We’re all heroes in our own minds, but nobody gets a pass for good intentions. The road to Hell is paved with them, after all. What matters is our actions and how they affect those around us. Or to quote an instruction more venerable than any contained in the U.S. Code: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Speaking from personal experience, it’s never easy. But it’s always worth it.

#

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Home for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors, or reach a media contact, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/276745236033627/.