Looking Back on 2012

I did this last year, and this year has been another... eventful... life-changing... year... so I'm doing it again.  And praying that this time next year, when I look back on 2013, happy memories, not sad ones, are what come to mind first.

January
2012 actually started on the best note possible.  I hadn't seen my two youngest DBKs, A and AJ, in over four months.  I missed them terribly and I hadn't been feeling in the holiday spirit at all.  On January 1, 2012, I saw them again.  Watched them open their Christmas presents.  Held them in my arms, hugged them tight, told them I loved them.  It was a perfect day.

AJ, 2 years old

A, 8.5 years old

After that we had to slowly get back to reality.  It was tough.  I had my heart broken for orphans around the world with special needs.  I wasn't sleeping well at night, staying up late to pray for children according to events in their time zones.  I was having no success finding a job to aid in paying the bills, and anxiously awaiting tax refunds.  Even though it started so perfectly, January was a rough month... a month of wait and see.

February
In February things got a little better.  Taxes came through to pay the bills.  I started working on getting licensed to do childcare for my friend's kids.  It seemed like there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  I was also gearing up for two exciting trips - a statewide conference on Child Passenger Safety which would be held in April, and a national conference in Orlando, Florida on national highway safety priorities which would be held in June.  I had been granted a scholarship to attend both by our local Safe Kids Coalition.  I felt like things were going to be looking up soon - and they did, for a while.  Good news started coming down about the orphans I was advocating for.  More were making their way home.  Changes were being made in their home countries.  Families were committing to children.  I found myself more engrossed in the Reece's Rainbow community by the minute.

March
In March, the first thing that jumps to mind is something that happened one day when I was literally as far as could be from expecting it.  There was snow and ice on the roads, a rare occurrence here last winter.  It was late - 11 pm or so.  I was in my warm bed, under my electric blanket, writing about orphans, when my phone started to buzz.  Bill collectors, I was sure, but when I looked at the caller ID... it was the mom of my DBKs, whom I hadn't heard from since January 1.  I answered to find her distraught and needing me to come take the kids.  All I can say is that it was a miracle I made it the short distance to where they were living without incident on the icy roads, because I wasn't exactly taking it slow.  I was going to see my babies.  I picked them up.  They were excited to see me.  My heart was full to finally bring them home again, put them to sleep in their cozy, warm beds where they knew they were safe.

I had them for two days that time, and I never knew exactly why, except that it's likely tied up in what turned into a very large amount of police reports.  In any case, I was thankful to have them in my arms once more, even if I didn't know when the next time I would see them would be.

In March, I also began to share with my oldest DBK, M, who is not related to the other two, about the orphan crisis.  Poor sweet soul, it broke her heart to see all those children in such terrible conditions.  I found that we both needed to *do* something, and we also needed a respite from the pain we were discovering.  While my mind worked on what M and I could do together to make a difference for these kids, I planned a girls' night for us - we painted our nails, played games, stayed up late, and then went to a late showing of The Hunger Games, which was amazing and really played right into my determination to do something to make a difference.  M loved it and we began reading the books together, a couple of chapters at a time aloud, every night.  I'd already read them all - in three days, no less, because I'm one of those people who has to read books before seeing movies, but M, not much of a reader, wanted to read them and I thought it would be a nice way for us to bond.  And she only laughed at me a little when I couldn't pronounce 'muttations' correctly throughout all three books.  How do you pronounce it anyways?

As the month ended, I was feeling more at peace than ever... even if the future was unknown.

April
April is my birth month, and M's, and my mom's, so it was a big month around our house.  My birthday is April 6.  It was a Friday, and two days before Easter.  I'd been home all day, cleaning up so my friend's kids could come over while she went to work later.  It was when I noticed my 17 year old brother cleaning that I knew something was up.  I didn't dare to guess what.  I went on with my day.  My friend brought her girls over.  We all took a nap.  When I woke up, I went upstairs, where my mom was just getting home from work..... and had my babies with her!  My birthday presents were two big hugs from A and AJ - the thing I'd wanted most but hadn't even dared to hope for.  And we had another perfect day.  We played together, we braided hair, we ate cake and ice cream, and I was happy.  At the end of the day though, it became apparent that crisis had struck in their lives once again.  They had nowhere to go and would be staying with us, at least overnight, we'd discuss it more the following day.  Little did I know that when my mom asked for a couple hours with the kids for my birthday - she'd ended up getting me a couple months with them!  April found the kids moving back in most of the time, and many more happy memories being made.

M had her birthday party at Skate America - her mom went all out to make sure it was perfect.  I attended with A while my mom watched AJ, and both my girls had a blast, and I had a blast watching them.

At the end of the month I went to my statewide child passenger safety conference, which was great, but I definitely missed those goofy kids even if I was only gone for two days!

May
May was, most importantly, A's birthday.  Nine years old this year!  She didn't have a party with us this year (I don't know that I'm up to anything like her 7th birthday party... ever again) because she was getting something WAY better.  I was going to Orlando the following month for my national highway safety conference, and with my costs paid for, it cost me only a little more to bring her with me - and how could I not, with Disney World right down the road?  Pretty much everyone I know brought their families.  But since A's birthday was in May, it was a surprise super awesome present.  I wrapped up this big box full of balloons, travel supplies, and this sign:

She went to gymnastics that night so excited to tell all her friends and teachers that she got to meet the princesses.

The other thing in May that stands out in my mind is Mother's Day.  I honestly don't even remember what I got my mom, but I will never forget my very first Mother's Day gift.

Sweet A, when I picked her up from school that day, handed me this little sprout in a plastic dixie cup, and a carefully crafted card.  She handed them to me and said "Happy Mother's Day.  I just do love you SO MUCH, Katie!"

I nearly cried.  Later, after she was in bed, I did cry.  Because I'm not her mother, but I did a whole lot of raising her.  This was her way of telling me that she knew that, that she loved me like a mother just like I love her like a daughter.  The picture of the flower above was taken in the fall - it grew so far beyond that little dixie cup, we cared for it so well because that little flower meant so much to us.

June
Oh boy... talk about hot and cold.  June started out amazing.  Home with my babies.  Getting ready to go to Florida.  So much excitement.  On June 13 (a day which was formerly dark to me with history), I boarded the plane with my girl to go on our dream vacation.

We had a blast.  We met the princesses.  We played on the beach, swam in the ocean, saw family, went shopping, ate ice cream like there was no tomorrow, and took a million pictures.

Cinderella's Castle!

Beach for the first time!

Fort at St. Augustine

Then, on our last full day there, the world stopped spinning.  Crisis began.  As we were sitting there packing up our bags, A told me a secret... a deep, dark one that she probably never told anyone else.  I fully believe that it is only because of how far from home we were, how relaxed our days had been, that she felt comfortable sharing it with me.

It wasn't a secret I could keep.

I didn't want to make the call.  I didn't want to set the cascade of events I knew would follow into motion... but I thought I had to.  Honestly if I could go back in time, I would change that decision.

A tropical storm, hurricane, something, was brewing off the coast.  The sky had darkened significantly.  The waves were huge.  Red flags were raised on the beach.  The last time we played on the beach, it was almost deserted.

A storm was also brewing within me.  I fought to hold back the torrent of emotions I was dealing with that day and give my princess the final vacation day she deserved.  I tried to enjoy every single little moment, push the dark thoughts out of my mind and just enjoy her... but my stomach was in knots.

I will tell this story in greater detail later, although I won't share everything because it isn't all mine to share, but to make a long story short, we flew home the next day... I kept the smile on my face... it'll all be okay....

and then it wasn't.

That was the day I didn't even get to say goodbye to A before she was taken from me.  The day I didn't know I'd never see her baby brother AJ again.  I only saw A one time after that... and I hope she heard me when I told her I'd always love her.

After June 21, I spent the rest of the month in misery.  I felt sick all the time.  Nothing could make it better.  I can truly say the week that followed our return was the worst one in my entire life.  June ended darkly.

July
July was the month I tried to put myself back together... put one foot in front of the other... keep breathing... try just to survive each moment when each day was too much.  We hired an attorney to try to help A after social services let us down.  It was a road I never thought I'd be traveling.  The 4th of July came and went.  It's my favorite holiday.  I went to four fireworks shows, went swimming, spent time with my friends, family and M.  I enjoyed those things, I always do, but this year they felt empty.  Something was missing.  Something really important.  Where was A?  Did she get to see the fireworks?  Was she happy?  Was she even safe?

I was starting to mend.  Just a little bit.  There was still a big piece of my heart missing, but I was learning my new normal.  Then the week from hell struck.  It only started in July, but the worst of it fell there.  On Monday, July 30, I woke up to find my 17 month old kitten, Boo, dead on the floor of my apartment.  I almost didn't make it through the day.  I held him until we buried him.  I couldn't cry a single tear for a long time, and then one day they just all broke free.  I'm crying again writing this.  Another of the worst days of my life.  He was just a baby.  My baby.  I couldn't even sleep alone for days.  And July ended as darkly as June.

The day before he died

August
The week that ended July and began August was horrible.  It was supposed to be a good week.  Olympics, the State Fair, friends, but starting with the cloud of my pet's death hanging over us, it was just bad.  I can't recall the details, but I missed my best friend Angie (who had passed just over a year prior) dearly, something had gone amiss with A's case, I got into a fight with a friend, I was discharged from my doctor's office over a $20 bill, and probably some other stuff I don't even remember... I just remember that it was a very bad, bad week.  I buried myself in mindless television shows, sleep, and orphan blogs.

After some time had passed, I adopted another cat - mostly black, just a tiny bit of white on his chest.  I called him 'Soft Kitty' or 'S.K' for a week, until I named him Marbles because when he purrs (which he does almost constantly), it sounds like someone's shaking a bag of marbles.  I love him!  He's six months old now. I spent some time in the hospital with a kidney infection (two ER visits in one week is never any fun) and had a bad medication reaction, so I was feeling a little worse for the wear even by the end of August, not to mention having to find a new doctor because I have any number of medical needs that have to be attended to regularly.  All I could do was hope it would get better when the school year started and routine set in more firmly.

Marbles, AKA 'Soft Kitty'

September
Finally, a month that started out well.  At the very beginning of September, my friend Faith got home from Eastern Europe with her two newly adopted children, both of whom have down syndrome.  Another friend and I went to see them that weekend and bring some clothes for the baby (she was around 18 months when she came home, but the size of a 3-6 month old).  We talked a while, played with the kids, and I got to hold her sweet and precious baby girl, who thankfully will never remember having been an orphan.

I look dumb in this picture.  But she's cute enough for both of us

I don't remember much about the rest of the month.  It must've been relatively unremarkable.  I did go to the Buddy Walk with Shannon and Faith's family, which was a blast, it was my first year and it definitely won't be my last.

October
October was a month I didn't look forward to... at all.  Halloween, pumpkins, hay rides, costumes... did you know I took A trick or treating every year between 2-7?  It wasn't a holiday I was used to 'celebrating' without her.  I remember being rather depressed.  I also faced a good bit of financial difficulty that I was working to resolve, and we had finally been given a court date, which was looming frighteningly on the horizon.  It felt like limbo - there's not really any other way I can put it.  Like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I was probably irritable and short with people I know and love, and for that I'm sorry.  I was under a lot of stress and I apparently didn't cope well.  As the month ended, my mind was occupied by nothing but what November would bring.

November
Not long passed before the tone for the month of November was set.  Our court date was early in the month.  We were in court for over two hours - which was nearly if not completely unprecedented for a case like ours.  And it was a rough two hours.  I will admit that I cried on the stand - to the point where my 'smudge-proof' (apparently not waterproof) mascara was running down my face in a raccoon-like fashion.  It was rough, and the other team didn't play fair, but I regretted nothing.  After social services let us down, it was the only thing we could do, the thing we had to do.

After court that day, I slept for two hours, spent some time with some good friends, and then slept for sixteen hours, straight and solid.  I woke up at 7:00, and thought it was morning (it was not.  It was the following night.)  But then I felt a sense of relief.  Not complete relief - we were still waiting on a decision, which could have said anything - but court was over and that in itself was a relief.

The decision, which, from my perspective was not favorable (although I will admit there are unknowns involved that could change my opinion) came just before Thanksgiving.  So much for being thankful.  I had my wisdom teeth out the day before Thanksgiving (we had our turkey early) and after 7 abdominal surgeries I thought it would be a cinch - I didn't even have to be in a hospital - but I'm definitely counting that as one of my worst surgeries.  I have serious dental fear and I do NOT like anyone messing around with my mouth.  It's actually still healing.

At the end of the month I picked up some extra work with a friend (I had already worked for one friend for the better part of the year) and things seemed to be looking up, teeth (or lack thereof) aside.

December
Through December I continued to work for friends and fundraise heavily for Reece's Rainbow's Project Angel Tree.  It was a tough month, mostly because of financial difficulties, but we made it work.  At the end of the month, I came upon the opportunity to work for a friend who I met through Reece's Rainbow close to a year ago and has three adopted children with down syndrome.  Her family was in need of a home health aide, I was in need of a job, and a wonderful organization locally agreed to employ me to work for her.  I've been doing that job just about a week now (officially - this is one of the friends I was working for unofficially previously) and I just absolutely love it!

I missed A and AJ a lot this month.  It was truly my first Christmas without them since A came into my life all those years ago.  I walked through stores, by the sections of little girls' clothes, touched the ruffled skirts and commented to whomever I was with how I would most certainly be buying this if I still had A.  Girly girl if there ever was one.  But I appreciated the time I had with M, we celebrated Christmas in the usual manner, just unfortunately less two kids.

I look weird because of the lack of eyebrows.

On the very last day of December, the little boy whose Christmas Warrior I was through Reece's Rainbow met his goal - meaning I had to make good on a promise I made at the beginning of Angel Tree - that if both Brett #19 and Elden 14G met their goals, I would shave my head - and that is how I would start out 2013... and I smiled on the last day of 2012 - not only because I was glad to see it go, like last year (and I was, considering some of the year's happenings) but because I was thankful, too, to see another year and have hopes for more good and even better things.

Because that's the kind of perspective spending a year advocating with Reece's Rainbow gives you.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Dear sweet Alivia - this post is for you - someday.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on 
Our troubles will be out of sight...

Let your heart be light, princess.  Take that joy you have deep down inside you and don't let anybody take it away from you.  Believe in magic.  Believe in love.  Believe that someone out there is thinking of you tonight.

I can't promise that our troubles will go away.  I tried to make them go away and I couldn't.  I'm sorry, princess.  But hold that light in your heart and let it burn so bright that it chases away the shadows.  It is my prayer that your troubles flee your sight.  Someday we will be free.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on
Our troubles will be miles away...

Stop giggling, goofy pants.  They mean gay like happy.  ;)

Once, our troubles were miles away.  Remember?  It was so perfect.  Don't lose those memories baby.  Let them be the light that shines inside of you.  No one can take them away from you.  Someday, we'll be there again... our troubles miles away.  Someday.  I promise.  And I'm keeping this one.

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Here we are in our 'olden days' (no, contrary to what you might think, the 'olden days' were not the time when I was a little girl!)  Those were truly happy, golden days.

Days with our faithful friends, our little patchwork family, gathered together, year after year, thick and thin, through the best and the worst of times.  Someday we will all be together again.

2006

2009

2010

Through the years
We all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.


Through all these years we have been together.  Six years together.  Six Christmases.  Birthdays.  School days.  Snow days.  Hard days.  Perfect days.

This year we're not together.  The 'fates' did not allow.  It will be our first real Christmas apart... the first year I don't get to see that smile on your face with every present you open, the first year you don't grill me about Santa, the first year I don't agonize over making sure your holiday is perfect.  I don't like it, not one bit.

But someday... we have lots more years... we will all be together again - if the fates allow.  I think they will.  We're family, kiddo, we may not have started out that way, but we are now, and you can't keep family apart.

Until then... enjoy yourself.  Hold onto the magic.  I hope somewhere you have a tree to hang a shining star on (even though ours always had an angel).  If you don't... imagine it, in your mind.  Like in A Little Princess - do you remember when we watched that movie?  How they imagined all the riches and fine foods they would have if they could, and then they woke up and it was all there?  I hoped you remembered that scene.  Imagine it, and it will be real inside of you, sweetie.

I miss you.  I love you.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

We're still waiting... we'll never stop.  Elephants never forget, you know.

Christmas Magic and The Year That Santa Came

In the past few weeks, a few different people have shared their Christmas traditions with me and others via social media.  Why they do Santa, why they don't do Santa, what variations they may have on traditional themes, what special activities they do together as a family, on and on.  More than once, it has brought me to tears - for many of these stories reflect the true nature of giving that is so vital to the Christmas spirit.

All this made me reflect on the Christmas traditions I grew up with... and the new meanings that came to them in recent years.

My childhood Christmas traditions were pretty typical.  We went to the mall to see Santa.  We baked cookies - chocolate crinkles and chocolate chip and peanut butter and sugar cookies shaped like stars, trees, bells, snowmen, wreaths, etc.  My parents taught me the true meaning of Christmas - why we celebrate - the birth of Christ, we went to church on Christmas eve, we read the story of the first Christmas, but our holiday always included both religious and secularized elements.  I was a stickler for the Jesus aspect of Christmas growing up - I remember one year as a child, we were making Christmas cookies and I realized there was no baby Jesus, which was just wrong in my eyes, so I set to work with construction paper (blue), drew and cut out a Jesus-in-a-manger shape to use as a cookie cutter.  And my mom, bless her heart, didn't tell me that logistically, you couldn't make a cookie cutter out of paper, or suggest we look for a cutter to buy instead... no, she took my paper craft and carefully traced around it with a knife to cut out several hunks of cookie dough that, by my estimation, looked exactly like baby Jesus.  I was so proud of those cookies.

But I digress.  What I mean to say here is that my Christmases were full of magic - both in the childish sense (that I was determined never to outgrow - my mom had to tell me the news about Santa when I was eleven) and the true sense of the season of Christ.  I never wanted for anything.  I'd go through catalogs before Christmas and circle everything I wanted (might as well have just circled the whole catalogs), I ran to my mom after every commercial and cried "Mom!  I want that!  I want that!"  Big tree- always real - decked out in colored lights and tinsel and garland and ornaments that had been in our family for years... And on Christmas morning, I woke up to piles of gifts that spread out far past 'under' the tree.

We had celebrations with both sides of my family, celebrations with my best friend, cards from far away family members (and sometimes special gifts), and boy, I was probably the most spoiled kid who ever lived. But I was thankful.  I used to write in my letter to Santa "Here are some cookies and a carrot for your reindeer.  I have been good and thank you for the presents I haven't recieved yet" (that was not a typo - I couldn't spell received until eighth grade).  One year, 'Santa' wrote back that one of his reindeer (I forget which one) liked his carrot dipped in peanut butter - so I left peanut butter out every year too.  And my mom didn't neglect to let me know that Santa really preferred Dr. Pepper to milk.  ;)

I was really a lucky kid.  Even as I got older and our Christmases became a little more modest and more about giving than receiving, I still never had any idea what it was to go without, especially on Christmas.

My dear borrowed kids came to me in high school - at least the girls - my Junior year.  AJ wasn't born until I was in college.  What became clear right away is that the kind of Christmas I'd grown up with, was something they had yet to experience.  When they were 3 and 7 years old, we had our first gift exchange - and oh yes, you'd better bet we went overboard, especially after hearing that A's big gift the previous year had been a new coat.  I have the cutest pictures from Christmas that year, my two girls dressed up in the outfits we carefully picked out... and of course balanced with an equal number of toys, because what kid wants clothes for a gift?  (Well, it turns out, these ones do.  Neither one of them has ever had that 'eh, clothes' reaction.  They were thankful for each and every article.)

A couple, just for cuteness' sake.

M, age 7

A, age 3 (love how this one captured her silliness!)

Girls by the tree

Every year after that we had our own little 'Christmas' with the girls.  Some years one or both of them didn't get much else, because times were troubled at home.

But as A got older, she started to ask a whole lot of questions - wanted to know if Santa was really coming, how would he know whose house she was at, would he really bring her what she asked for, would he come to my house, Mamaw's house, mommy's house?

A had so little real 'magic' in her early life, I wanted her to have 'Santa'.  I wanted her to believe in magic, to have that childlike wonder and joy and just get to be innocent for a time, and so when she asked me, I assured her that Santa was coming if she made good choices (we do not say "good girl/bad girl in this house).  I knew it couldn't last forever, only as long as I could keep the promise to her myself, but I wanted her to have it for however long she could.  M actually believed for a while too, even told off her classmates a couple times over it!

We'd always done our Christmas in the evening one day, because that's when I usually had M, although in later years we took to having sleepovers for Christmas because the girls always wanted to play with their new toys together (and no, they are not sisters).  A was usually here over night for one reason or another anyways.  The year A was six, I had almost thought we weren't going to be able to spend Christmas together.  Prior to our celebration, which occurred the weekend before Christmas, I hadn't seen her in seven weeks.  That was the year the second Ellfant was born.

It was one of the happiest Christmases I could remember, because my little girl was home.  I remember we got her 'Elefun' that year, and after we made gingerbread (okay, graham cracker) houses and opened presents, we all tried to catch those crazy little butterflies until the three of us collapsed in a giggling heap on the floor and my heart was so full I had to hold back tears.  Then we went out to look at Christmas lights in the car and eat candy canes, and these sweet little voices were singing Christmas carols from the back seat the whole way, eyes lighting up in wonder at the most elaborately decorated houses.

Just... happy.

The fun of that year, and how neither of them wanted it to end, and all the questions A started asking about Santa, made me think a little harder about the following year.  It would be AJ's first year of celebrating Christmas with us, since he'd only been less than two months old the previous year.  M was through her Santa days, but had experienced plenty of magic thanks to her wonderful mom, who did everything she could to make Christmas special for M every year.  A, though... that year she was six, when I asked her what she did on Christmas day (I saw her the next day), if Santa came to mommy's house too... "No, we just didn't do nothin'.  Santa didn't have a tree to put presents under so he just brought them all to your house."

It was then that I realized the one bit of the magic she was missing.  The sleepless night on Christmas eve, startling at every noise, thinking you heard reindeer paws on your roof, checking the clock every hour, looking out the window for the first hint of dawn that meant it was okay to wake up the adults, coming downstairs and seeing the house instantly transformed to a place of magic over night because Santa had been there.  So the next year, I resolved to give her the whole experience.  It turned out to be easier than I thought because she wound up living with me on and off that year anyways.

I sat down with M and explained that even though I knew she didn't 'believe' anymore, I wanted this to be special for A and I needed her help.  I told her what my mom told me about Santa - it's not that he's not real, because he is.  He's not a fat guy in a red suit who comes down your chimney, but 'Santa' is the spirit of giving, the little bit of magic in us all, the effort we put forth every year to give our kids that magic - and now that she was big enough, she was part of 'Santa' too, and I couldn't do it without her help.  Sweet M took the words to heart and helped me make the year magic.

We did everything 'by the book'.  The girls wrote letters to 'Santa' and left out cookies, a carrot, and some peanut butter.  I showed them the letters that Santa wrote back to me as a child, especially the one about the peanut butter.  They drew pictures for Santa too.  We all hung our stockings by the fireplace.  We sat by the Christmas tree before bed and read 'The Night Before Christmas', and of course the story of the first Christmas.  Then I put little one year old AJ to bed and the two little girls (one of whom I'm pretty sure was actually bouncing off the walls) in their BRAND NEW Christmas present room that we'd painted and decorated just for them (the following picture is the looks on their faces the moment they saw it).

I'll translate those expressions for you:  "This is for ME?!"

Now, the thing of it was, I had quit my job just a few months before that Christmas.  I was a full time student, caring for two little girls and a baby whose formula cost TWENTY SIX DOLLARS A CAN.  O, alimentum, how I loathe thee.  I was commuting a half an hour each way to and from school every day, with detours thrown in to pick up and drop off kids at school or childcare arrangements.  Things were tight.  The reason we decorated their room for a gift was because we already had most of what we needed and the rest we bought with gift cards that had been sitting around forever.  It was most costly in labor, which we did ourselves.  Other than that, I only had a couple presents for each of them - but I was doing stockings for the first time, and fruit is cheap and fits well, so that helped.  Still, though, I felt like we'd set the bar too high on the gift front in previous years, and while I knew they'd be happy, when all the presents were bought and then A chose to ask Santa for things she hadn't even told me she'd wanted - I didn't know what to do!  Santa couldn't let her down, not this year!

I remember crying to my friends one night online - friends I knew from a message board, mostly, only a few of whom had met me or the girls.  A wanted a pillow pet.  Those stupid things were twenty dollars.  I'd had the 'Cinderella dress to match my shoes' since Halloween - but the kid sprung the pillow pet on me at the last minute.  I racked my brain for how to get her one.  Then M showed up wearing her mom's (far too big) coat one day, saying she didn't have one.  Another thing I hadn't planned on buying.  I looked for that one in a swap section of our board.  It had to be bought, she needed it.

Eventually I swallowed my pride, planned to wrap everything separately and fill in with homemade gifts.

Then Santa came.

First, he came in the form of a friend, who sent me a message to tell me she was going to be in my area soon, and her son was just a little older than AJ, would I want some of the toys he had never really played with for AJ's Christmas?

Cue tears.  She presented me with two BIG BAGS of gifts, including a coat that HE desperately needed.

Then came the friend who wrote to tell me after Thanksgiving that she'd been at her pastor's sermon on random acts of kindness, and as she sat thinking of whom she could be kind to, A's face popped into her head.  She had some credit at gymboree, and she loved buying girl clothes but she didn't have a daughter, would I please let her send something for A?

Let her?  I cried again.  Told her she didn't have to, but that we were struggling and if she wanted to buy girl clothes, A certainly needed them.  Yeah, I made sure she had sufficient clothing, but, you know, my girly girl... she always wanted more pretty things.

Then came the friend who sent me a picture of a coat, and did I think it would fit M?  I told her yes, I thought it would, and asked her how much she wanted for it.

She put it in the mail and told me not to worry about it.  She didn't need it anyways, she said.

Tears again.

The straw that broke the camel's back though... was maybe a week before Christmas... just after I'd had the breakdown over the pillow pet situation... and lo and behold, one day, a package came addressed to me from Amazon... but I hadn't ordered anything.  I opened it... and I thought the tears would never stop.  Not only the coveted pillow pet, but the perfect one for A, and not just that, but a gift card, so that I could get something 'for me or for the kids'... from another friend.

Here I'd resigned myself to having to explain the absence of the pillow pet... and it shows up unexpected at my door.

Tell me that's not 'Santa' in the truest form.

When it came time to wrap the gifts, some of them were from me, and I wrote that on the tags.  But some of them weren't from me.  They were from the collective kindness of a world who wanted to help me make the kids' Christmas special.  I couldn't take credit for that.

Those tags read 'Santa'.

After the kids were in bed that night, I stayed up late arranging the presents just perfectly, stuffing stockings, eating cookies, and of course writing a note back from Santa about their good choices.

When A saw this, she shouted "HE ATE THE COOKIES!"

Michael's, one dollar, and glitter glue.  Awesome.

Didn't turn out too shabby at all.

When M questioned me about it in private later about the Santa gifts, after the discussion we'd already had about keeping up the pretense for the little kids, I looked at her straight faced and said, "No, those really did come from Santa.  Remember what I told you?  I didn't buy those things.  They came from people who just wanted to give - and that's what Santa is."

I took picture after picture of that year's magic.

The one everyone commented on though, was one I didn't even realize I was in until later.

Why?  Surprisingly, not for the cute little girl in the foreground... but for goofy old me in the previous day's clothes in the background...

They all said I looked so genuinely happy and that they could just see how much I loved those kids.

And they were right.  Because the biggest present Santa brought that year was for me... the perfect Christmas with my babies.

Oh, and this.  Best gift ever.

So, when people ask me if we 'do' Santa, I tell them yes - because he's real.  And most adults look at me warily, like I might start speaking in tongues or something, but if they'd been there, the year that Santa came, they'd believe too.

The Truth About Mental Health in America

This post is hard to write.  No - not hard to write - most of it I wrote down a long time ago.  It's hard to share.  It's hard to share because of the stigma associated with mental illness, because of how difficult it is to be honest with myself and with the world... but those same things make it so very important to share.

On the heels of last week's horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, people around the country and around the world are talking about gun control, and about mental health.  I won't pretend to be an expert on gun control or gun violence and I don't feel I have anything to add to that discourse that someone else can't state better - but on the topic of mental health, I can't be silent, because I do have a perspective that not everyone shares.

I want to be very clear about something.  I do believe that the Sandy Hook shooter, and anyone else who commits similar acts of violence, is mentally ill.  I believe that their actions alone make them mentally ill.  Anyone who thinks something like that is ever okay, who would ever perpetrate such horrors, has a very serious problem.  HOWEVER - I do not believe, and I hope that others do not believe, that all mental illness causes people to become violent or even unstable.  Thousands of people manage mental illness successfully every day - I am one of them.

Mental illness is like any other kind of illness - except that the research is so relatively new and the brain is so difficult to study that we know little about it.  Like cancer, it manifests in different ways.  Not everyone who has cancer has a brain tumor.  Not everyone who has a mental illness exhibits violence.  Like heart disease, it varies in severity.  Sometimes it can be managed with a few lifestyle changes - sometimes it is serious enough to require hospitalization.  People with mental illness, like people with diabetes or people with osteoporosis, live otherwise normal lives.

Sadly, mental illness is not treated the same as these and other medical conditions.  Because it is misunderstood, it is seen as something people need to 'get over', something to be feared, something hush-hush that no one wants to talk about.

This is not okay.

Go back to the hardest time in your life, the worst thing that has ever happened to you, and imagine if the entire world made you feel ashamed to express your feelings about it, judged you for having experienced it.  Imagine how that would magnify your struggle.  This is what people with mental illness face every day.

It's okay to throw "oh yeah, I take medication for diabetes" in conversation, but the room suddenly goes quiet if you admit "I take Prozac for depression".

It's time to change that status quo.  The stigma associated with mental illness is one of the most serious barriers to successfully treating it.  Who wants to go to their doctor and admit to suffering from a type of illness that is still largely considered socially taboo?  Who wants to have to explain therapy appointments to friends and coworkers?  What parent wants to admit that their child's mind is sick?

If it was socially unacceptable to have a mammogram, wouldn't breast cancer become deadlier?  If testing your blood sugar was something not to be done in public, wouldn't it compound the problems associated with diabetes?  So why, then, would we not expect the stigma associated with mental illness to change its impact on society?

This is the first thing that needs to change.  It is an attitude, and the only one who can change it is you.  The power is in your hands.

Now, here is where this gets difficult to share.  The second thing that needs to change is the actual treatment of mental illness.  I'm talking about doctors, hospitals, medications, laws, procedures.

Decades ago, the mentally ill were imprisoned along with violent criminals.  Any form of treatment was nonexistant and little or no differentiation was made between the mentally ill and those guilty of criminal activity.  Then a woman named Dorthea Dix, among others, witnessed this inhumane treatment, the suffering endured by the mentally ill at the hands of penal institutions, and a call for reform came about.  Dix is now famous, her name in history books, for her reform of the mental health system in America.

But as is often the case, change was slow to come.  If not imprison them, what could society do with the mentally ill, who were still so badly misunderstood?  Psychiatric institutions sprung up around the country - supposedly specialized hospitals that were intended to care for the mentally ill in a residential setting, removing them from prisons but providing them the day to day help they were perceived to need.  It was, in theory, an excellent plan.  But in practice, it was a flawed plan - a first step in a long process.  Because in order to be a 'specialized hospital' for the mentally ill, specialized knowledge of mental illness was necessary, and the research just wasn't there yet.

For decades, patients were treated with lobotomies, blood letting, organ removal, electroconvulsive therapy and hydrotherapy (which then was less like a class at the YMCA and more like torture).  "Insane Asylums" became places to be feared, places where not only were people imprisoned against their will, but they were subjected to inhumane "treatments" and the violence of other "patients".  Abuse and overcrowding became rampant.  Children with disabilities were abandoned to institutions, considered 'defective'.  America's mental health climate looked much like the orphan crisis in Eastern Europe, which I have shared often, does today.  You've seen those pictures.  Would you seek treatment if the answer was to be shut up in one of those institutions, where abuse, starvation, and filth are the norm?

So, as many Eastern European countries are currently trying to do, America went through the process of deinstitutionalization.  But what to replace it with?

By this time, research had come along a bit and doctors were realizing that mental illness could be successfully controlled, even treated, with medication and therapy.  Finding the right medications proved to be a delicate balancing act that the medical community is still figuring out.  What type of therapy was best is still a topic of debate.  But the days of cutting out body parts in hopes of getting the "bad" part were falling by the wayside.  Another step forward.  Insane asylums were renamed Psychiatric Institutions and then Mental Hospitals.  Later, psychiatric wards were added to mainstream hospitals as professionals sought to treat mental illness based on a medical model.

As people were treated successfully, they were often able to live on their own or with minor assistance, and the need for psychiatric institutions dissipated.  The doors of most of these places closed for the final time in the 1980's and 1990's.  Not so long ago, huh?  Some of you might remember, in the preceeding decades, that each county had a specialized hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis called a Sanitarium.  Where was the last Sanitarium you visited?  Our knowledge of TB and its treatment grew with leaps and bounds, and eventually patients were treated in mainstream hospitals, and today, many of them are medicated at home.  Still though, our local health department has a special department for managing tuberculosis.  The Sanitariums have disappeared, but the problem has not.

So why would we think that since the Insane Asylums have disappeared, that mental health problems no longer exist - or that they are somehow less deserving of our attention?  And yet, every year, funding is cut to mental health services at every level.  With few resources and little support, what is the medical community to do about the still existing - no, increasing - problem of mental illness?

If you don't personally struggle with mental illness or are not intimately involved in the care of someone who does, I bet you don't know.  I'm sure most of you have a cursory knowledge - psychologists, psychiatrists (quiz time - do you know the difference?), medications, suicide hotlines, school services, occasionally hospitalizations.  But what does that look like from the inside, and if the barbaric mental institutions of our country's past are gone, why do so many people still avoid seeking treatment?

The answer is simple, but horrifying.  The large scale use of 'insane asylums' may be gone, the terminology may have changed, but like the illness they were designed to treat, the abuses that occurred there have not gone anywhere.  It's simply not as visible as it once was.  You'd never know it, unless you'd been there yourself - and let's face it - once you're labeled with mental illness, who's going to believe you?  I'm sure we'd all like to think that society does not judge the validity of a person's word by whether or not they struggle with a certain issue, but it does.

How do I know?

I've been putting this part off because it's so difficult.

I've been there.

When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with depression and panic attacks.  Doctors noted that some of my behavior exhibited a tendancy toward obsessive compulsive disorder.  I was treated with therapy alone for a few months, until I started high school and started having paralyzing panic attacks several times a day.  It was then that I began treatment with medication.

For the most part, my early experience with the mental health system was exemplary.  My therapist was excellent, understanding and kind and helped me work through a great deal.  The addition of medication to my treatment was successful and I got my life back.  For a while, I'd been unable to function, barely getting out of bed in the morning, not eating because panic attacks are hard on your digestive system, not accomplishing anything, coming home and crying for hours, afraid to be alone.  For most people, it's natural to want to ask 'Why' when someone makes an admission like this - but I cannot give you an answer to that question.  Why is a person diabetic?  Why does a young child who has never engaged in any risk behaviors develop cancer?  Answer for me these things, and I will tell you why a person struggles with mental illness.

So there it was.  I was treated successfully for many years.  Then, when I was 21 years old, I began to feel like the medication was not as effective as it once was.  My doctor and therapist agreed that it could be losing effectiveness since I'd been on it for so long.  The doctor decided to try a new medication.

I will not share the details due to their personal nature, but let it suffice to say that the new medication did not work for me.  In fact, I had what is called a paradoxical reaction, meaning that the medication made my depression and anxiety worse.  Though I have chosen not to go into detail in such a public arena, you can all rest assured that I was never 'psychotic' and I never hurt anyone or even wanted to.  I simply struggled with myself, as I had done before I was treated, only it was magnified by a medication with which my body chemistry was incompatible.

By the time this became clear, it was a Friday afternoon and I was unable to obtain treatment from my doctor's office.  I felt that it couldn't wait until Monday, I had already suffered long enough trying to give the medication 'time to take effect'.  I chose to seek treatment in the emergency department of a local hospital, which is the recommended course of action for anyone experiencing a psychiatric crisis when they cannot be seen by their regular doctors, whether they are violent/dangerous or not.  Again, I was not.  All I wanted was help.

My treatment was grossly mishandled by hospital personnel.  I spent an entire day in the emergency department while they called all the local hospitals with psychiatric departments to see if they had a bed, after I agreed to be admitted for treatment.  Having no prior experience with psychiatric hospitalization, my expectations of what to expect were very wrong.  I'd visited my best friend in the hospital when she was on chemotherapy.  She was in a room with a bed and a couch, checked periodically by doctors and nurses, given the medications she needed when she needed them, brought meals, and visited by family and friends day and night.  This is what I expected of modern day psychiatric treatment - after all, like most of the hospital's other patients, all I needed were medication and therapy.  This is why I agreed to be admitted.  Why I chose to seek treatment (and, up until that point, didn't understand why anyone would choose otherwise - why suffer?).

Unfortunately, I was very wrong.  By the time they found a location with a bed, it was after dinnertime.  They came to me and told me that the only bed was at a local psychiatric hospital.  I hadn't even known hospitals still existed with the sole purpose of treating psychiatric patients.  I was nervous, having already learned far too much about the history of mental institutions in this country, and I didn't want to go.  I asked if I could wait for a bed in the regular hospital's psychiatric ward.  I was told no.

This entire time, the patient in the alcove next to me, who seemed to be experiencing a more severe psychiatric crisis, shouted, swore, and eventually was restrained to her bed.  I was scared.  Would they do that to me?

I didn't want to make a fuss.  I didn't want them to treat me like that.  After a few tears, I willingly took the medication they gave me and waited to speak to a social worker about my concerns with going to the psychiatric hospital.  What I didn't know was that the medication they gave me was a powerful sedative, and by the time I saw the social worker, I was in no condition to refuse the admission.  I was transported via ambulance to the other hospital.  I was scared, but I still thought I was making the choice to do the right thing to help myself.

My mom followed me there in her car and sat with me while I signed papers, my head still foggy from medication.  Then, a woman prompted me to say goodbye to my mom - that she could come back the following day during visiting hours - and led me through a locked set of doors.  Red flags went up in my head - the short 'visiting hours' described, the locked doors to the rooms which my mom was not allowed to accompany down, the loud noise that echoed from beyond those doors - but in my sedated state I simply thought "I'll talk to someone about that later".  I was led to a room containing two twin beds, a desk, two dressers, a sink, and a heavily plated window.  A woman put sheets on one of the beds and told me to rest.  The loud noise from the hallway filtered in, but I was too tired to think.  I lay down and fell asleep, the last thought in my head 'whatever's going on, I'll work it out after I take a nap'.

I lost my chance.  Somewhere along the line, something in my paperwork was changed without my knowledge or consent, and instead of being there voluntarily (which everyone indicated that I was - and the fact that I'd walked into the hospital of my own volition and signed all those papers seemed to express), I was placed on a mandatory 72 hour hold.  But I didn't know.  I tried to give this place a shot.

I asked where the doctors were.  I was told that they were home, in bed.  It was Saturday night, didn't I know?

Wait.  Hospitals had doctors 24 hours a day.  What was going on here?

Where was my nurse, then?

I had to wait, she would see me later.

I waited hours to be met with a dismissive woman who had little power other than to get me a cup of juice and a sandwich "because you missed dinner".

I couldn't sleep.  It was noisy.  Other patients were milling around the hallways in various states of dress, visiting each other's rooms.  A loud television blared in a common room filled with hard plastic molded chairs.  There were no clocks.  There were no mirrors.  Most personal effects were 'locked up' upon admission.  There were no visitors... only harried nurses in blue and grouchy orderlies in green scrubs who barked orders with a strange accent.

A scuffle occurred in the hallway.  One woman who seemed to suffer from some type of developmental disability was wailing in the next room.  An old black man in a hospital gown wandered around grumbling, occasionally stopping to shout expletives.  I didn't belong here.  I tried, I gave this place a shot, but there had to have been a mistake.  I wanted to go home.  I asked to leave.

No.  You can't go home.  You are on a mandatory hold.  We will talk to someone tomorrow, maybe then.  Over and over I was lied to.  You can go home after you talk to the director.  You can go home if the doctor releases you.  You can go home on Monday, then your three days will be up.  Nevermind, only court days count.  We don't know when you can go home.

Why am I on a mandatory hold?  There must be a mistake.  How can I clear this up?

Someone will be in to talk to you.  We'll discuss this in the morning.  The doctors will be back on Monday.

Out of sheer naivety, I believed them.  Only a little longer.  If I could just get through the night.  Then - it's only one more day, you can do it.  Then Monday came, and I was up early waiting for the doctor.  I tried to choke down some powdered eggs in the cafeteria.  One woman, who'd seemed relatively normal to me up to that point, dumped hot coffee in the lap of the old black man, who'd taken to shouting "KILL THE WHITE BITCHES!" at random intervals.  Two nurses called in sick.  One nurse was assigned to guard the perpetrator of the coffee incident one on one.  This left one more nurse.  There were at least twenty of us, male and female, ages 18 to 65.

After breakfast I waited in the hallway.  I didn't want to miss the doctor.  Where was she, I asked the passing nurse?

It's only 10 AM, she's not here yet.

Only 10 AM?  So much for doctors working crazy hours.  10 AM on a Monday and the rest of America was at work... but not the only doctor who could see me at the hospital.

The developmentally disabled woman scratched the nurse.  The nurse scratched her back.  She screamed and bit the nurse.  The nurse retrieved her partner and forcibly gave the woman a shower.  She screamed the entire time.

Finally, as I sat in my room alone, an older woman came in.  The doctor.  A psychiatrist.

I tried to explain the mistake to her, like the director had told me, so I could go home.  It was Monday.  All I needed was her clearance.

She told me that I could not go home and she wanted to change my medication.  I started to cry at the thought of another day at this place.  She took this as a refusal to comply with her medication suggestion and made to leave the room.  Sobbing, I called for her to wait and agreed to the medication, thinking that at least if I was cooperative, I'd go home sooner.  I was given no information with which to make this decision.  I didn't care.

She left.  A nurse brought my medication.  I vied for the one phone in the ward, trying to get a chance to call my own therapist, my own doctor, to help clear up this mistake.  Apparently everyone wanted the phone.  Someone tried to hide it in their room and it was confiscated before I got a call back from anyone.

I was given a roommate.  A girl my age, maybe a little younger, who told me she was schizophrenic and this was her third time being hospitalized, but that she had never been to this place before.  She was nice enough.

An orderly called us all together in one of the common rooms and handed out papers.  It was like the first week of home economics.  "Say one thing about yourself.  Change the following statements to "I-statements" statements - for example, instead of "Christina, you always tell me what to do!", how about "Christina, I feel (frustrrated) when you (tell me what to do)"?"  The doctor was not there.  The nurses were still with the coffee girl and the developmentally delayed girl.  The orderlies ran the "therapy" session.  The angry young white man who'd walked around all night with a boombox blaring, demanding painkillers, shared his "I statement".  He said, "(Other patient), I feel pissed off when you are such a bitch."  Laughter.  An elderly black woman clued me in that she was making sexual advances toward a new patient because he had smuggled in some marijuana.  (As a side note - these seemingly judgmental or gender/race descriptions are here only because everything was based on perception and a person's willingness to share details about themselves.  The names I knew, I am choosing not to share for the privacy of those involved.)

My parents came that morning to try to get me out.  They met with the director and the doctor.  The doctor told them lies about me and refused to release me.  When my parents became angry and threatened not to leave without me, they were told that if I left the facility, the police would be called to bring me back.  I got into trouble for trying to signal to them out the window as they left - just to ask if they were coming back later for visiting hours.  I was so scared, I thought the orderly was going to hit me.  I was left staring out the window crying as my parents drove away.

After lunch, I settled in my room to chat with my roommate.  We were talking quite amicably about Buddhism.  The orderly with the strange accent came in to yell at us for not being more social, and told us that we would never get out if we weren't more social.  The girl and I looked sideways at each other, as if to say, 'Who, exactly, are we to be social with?  The man shouting obscenities, or the girl throwing coffee?'.

Then an alarm sounded.  I didn't know what to do.  What kind of alarm was it?  Fire alarm, it turned out.  But what to do?  The doors were locked.  We were herded into a hallway to wait while someone fetched a key.  Then we were led out to an enclosure fenced in with tall barbed wire, at the greatest distance maybe three yards from the building.  My roommate and I watched as young children were herded into a similar enclosure.  My heart broke as I realized that these little kids were in the same prison I was.  Then one of them, a boy maybe 7 or 8 years old, gestured as though he was shooting us with an automatic weapon.  "Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch", he went.  Later, I asked the nurse how young the children were.  She told me they were as young as five.

In the evening, after visiting hours (the one time I got actual food to eat - my family brought it to me.  Let me just say this - powdered eggs are an abomination that should not exist.) the grouchy man in green ordered us all up against a wall.  Apparently, since they were short handed and hadn't been supervising visitation, someone had been trying to smuggle in cigarettes.  They made to search us until the perpetrator came forward, then they let us go reluctantly.  Again, I was scared.  But later, I was sorry they hadn't searched us, because the angry man with the stereo was whipping out a lighter to show off.

I couldn't sleep again.  I had a sinus infection and asked for some benedryl or robitussin for my cough and sleep.  I was given an unidentified pill 'for sleep' - and at that point, I cared so little what happened to me, I took it without question.  Apparently I slept through another episode with the developmentally disabled woman next door, until a woman came and pulled me out of my room.  A doctor, but a different one from the day before, and she seemed to listen to me more and did not lie or make false promises about when I was getting out to coerce me into submission.  She changed my medication again, but with an explanation this time.  Then she told me that if she, a social worker, and the director all agreed, I could go home that day, or maybe the next day.  I hesitated to believe her, and I hadn't seen a social worker in three days, so I wasn't sure when that was going to happen.  Later, other patients (who weren't violent or frightening enough to be noticed) told me they'd been there over a week and still not seen a doctor.

After breakfast, a nurse brought a young black girl into the ward.  She introduced herself to me and told me that she was there because she had run away from her foster home, that she'd been there a week, but today was her 18th birthday, so she'd just been transferred from the juvenile ward.  As we talked, the old black man in the hospital gown ambled down the hallway and sat on the ground near us, his hospital gown coming open and revealing that there was nothing underneath.  Yeah, there are things I just didn't ever need to see.  We went into the new girl's room to talk.  I asked her why she still had to be here if she was 18, so she should've aged out of the foster care system.  She told me that she was awaiting a competency hearing to decide if the state could keep her in their custody longer.  She told me about abuses she'd witnessed in the juvenile ward.  She told me the only way it was better there was that she felt safer because she was the oldest.  She and I were both intimidated by the residents of the adult ward - and I felt for her that her 'birthday gift' was this demotion.  At lunch, I sat with her, my roommate, and the elderly black woman.  We tried to ignore the fight that broke out right under the noses of the staff as the meal ended.  And by under their noses, I mean they watched.  Laughed.

I did manage to speak to the social worker after lunch, and she saw no reason to keep me there.  I was told that I would be discharged as soon as my papers were in order.  This took hours, but I got to go home after dinner on Tuesday.  Finally.  And the only way I was better than when I came in, was that I had a newfound sense of appreciation for my freedom.  I remember telling my mom "If you weren't crazy when you went in that place, you will be by the time they let you out."

The medication they put me on turned out to make me physically ill and prone to crying jags.  This time, I avoided seeking help.  Seeking help is what got me locked up like a criminal, or an animal in a cage.  I suffered for nearly two weeks before I saw a new doctor who finally straightened out my medication.  By the time I was back to normal, my life had been near completely derailed for almost a month.

I realize that my description of my experiences is long and contains what seem like insignificant details, but I shared it this way because I want you as a reader to understand as much as possible about the experience of actually being there, without having to go through it yourself.  I wouldn't honestly wish that place on anyone.  My point here is that I sought treatment - did the right thing - and for my trouble I was locked away like a criminal in a place that made me fear for my safety and where I witnessed abuse and gross medical neglect.  I told my therapist later (who was disgusted by every detail) that it was as though I'd walked into a scene from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'.  I filed a complaint with the state board of medicine.  I called two news stations, both of whom told me they'd been contacted about that hospital before, even about a rape that occurred a year before I was there, and were unable to report on the conditions because it was a closed facility - meaning the only way in is to be admitted.

I can honestly tell you that if I were to experience a psychiatric crisis in the future, the hospital would be the last place I'd go.  It's easy to say 'seek treatment' if you've never had to do it yourself.  It's easy to expect people to give up their freedom, subject themselves to the unknown, if you haven't seen these things for yourself.  It's easy to think that the days of abuse of psychiatric patients passed along with the 'insane asylums' (which, incidentally, were mostly just relocated and renamed and kept hush-hush.) when you haven't been personally faced with that abuse.  How can we ask people who are struggling to seek treatment, if this is what they can expect when they do?

If we, as a country, as a people, want to fix the mental health system in this country, we must first recognize all the ways in which it is broken.  Abuse.  Neglect.  Misunderstanding of medical conditions.  Coercion.  Judgment.  Fear.  Stigma.  Lies.  Do not fool yourselves into thinking these are things of the past, or things that happen 'somewhere else'.  They happen here.  In your own back yard.  To your own friends and family members, who, for the most part, are too ashamed to ever speak up.  And even when they do, no one believes them, or no one is willing to take 'meaningful action' (in the words of the President).  This place I was imprisoned?  It's less than two miles from my house.  I never even knew it existed.  When I got out I was overwhelmed for a while with guilt for the people still there, the people who had suffered along with me, who might not have had the resources to get themselves out of the clutches of the system and on to better treatment.  As I write this, there are still people in that place, no doubt suffering the same way.

I don't have the answer to the mental health crisis in this country - only my personal experience, which has told me what the answer is not.  And the answer is not caging up people who seek help like animals and mistreating them.  If we want things to change, this has to end - now.  I urge all of you to support mental healthcare reform, to be a voice for the voiceless in these institutions in our own back yards, and not to tolerate the culture of exploitation and abuse of the mentally ill that grips our society despite reform attempts reaching all the way back to Dorthea Dix.  Be the face of change.  Take meaningful action.  Don't wait for someone else to do it.  It's up to us.

I left twenty people in that ward.  I promised some of them that I would tell the world the truth.  I promised them that I would try to help them.  This is me trying to make good on that promise.  I'm sorry that it took a tragedy like Friday's shooting to encourage me to speak out above the stigma.