my first video for wordless wednesday. this is one made by my friend carol during a lovely women’s weekend we both attended at cascadia retreats in roberts creek on british columbia’s sunshine coast. by luck, we chanced upon an up helly aa celebration which, i found out, is europe’s biggest fire festival.

that’s my kinda torch.

unhealthy habits and demographic changes are combining to place an unprecedented burden on the health-care system that may not be manageable, the heart and stroke foundation said in its 2010 annual report on canadians’ health.

so says the CBC about an alarming increase in heart disease and the potential for heart disease, adding `most of this is preventable.” the solution is

encouraging canadians to be more physically active, eat a healthy diet and be aware of their risk factors for heart disease.

“we all eat from stress, or because we don’t have time to prepare things,” said cheryl shapiro, a heart patient in toronto who was diagnosed with high blood pressure eight years ago.

she encourages people to read labels. “we don’t realize what we’re putting in our bodies.”

it is difficult to fit in the recommended minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise at least three times a week, shapiro said, but she does walk her dog regularly.

part of the solution is to create infrastructure to make it easier for people to walk to the store rather than driving everywhere to avoid exercise, abramson said.

“it’s easy to take shortcuts,” abramson said. “but in the long run, those shortcuts will be disastrous for our health.

there was a bit more about this on the radio but the gist was the same. what i found interesting – always find interesting about such news stories – is that obesity and being overweight is almost exclusively seen as a lifestyle choice. the equation of overweight = fat = out of control, unattractive, lazy, weak-willed etc. is not made explicitly but it’s really just three letters away. indeed, when i looked at the first five or six pages of the comments, i saw the word “lazy” six times. neither in the story nor in the comment pages did i see the word “eating disorder” or “addiction”.

i often get the feeling that in the world of psychiatric diagnoses, anorexia is much more noble than overeating. the overly thin person who uses her will power to deny herself a piece of broccoli is so much more appealing in our culture than the slob who sits in front of his TV, gobbling ice cream. of course both are caricatures and tell only a very, very thin slice of reality (for example, you could have two very similar looking people side by side, one of them struggling with undereating, the other with overeating. it doesn’t always show in the body size.)

there is controversy in the psych community over whether overeating is an addiction. i must say that i find NEDIC’s approach in can i be addicted to food? just as naive as the above article. it ends up saying “once we begin eating in a normal, healthy way again, we won’t have the same desire to eat as much high-calorie, high-carbohydrate food, or foods we think are “bad”.” that sounds really easy, doesn’t it?

now of course “addiction” is just a label, so let’s not split hairs here (although personally i am firmly on the side of gabor mate’s definition of addiction, which would agree with the use of the word in connection with overeating). rather, let’s be clear on this:

there are many people who eat much more than they want to and are unhappy about it. they try and try and try and nothing seems to work. they experience things like this: they cry during binges because they hate that they are eating non-stop. they go to bed night after night with terrible stomach pains because they have eaten too much. they eat out of garbage bins, eat frozen and spoiled food. they go to great pains to hide their eating from others, often ordering nothing but a little salad when they go out with others. they go from macdonald’s to burger king to wendy’s, pretending they are buying for a family. they spend thousands of dollars on diets that work for a while and then go back to bingeing. they commit suicide over the shame they feel over their out-of-control eating.

this is not a little lifestyle problem that will go away with a bit of education and an admonishment to use more willpower. many people who overeat know a lot about nutrition already and know they should exercise more, just like many people who smoke know what their lungs look like. they are deeply unhappy that willpower doesn’t seem to work. my best friend’s mother, an astonishingly intelligent woman, died of lung cancer, greedily sucking on a cigarette just before she went into her last coma. while not every person who is overweight suffers with such intensity, there are nevertheless similarities. overeating, for many, is a disfiguring, depressing, despairing dis-ease that is difficult to fight. i wish that this will be acknowledged more in the coming years. come to think of it, MentalHealthCamp, our second conference on the intersection between social media and mental health, will be a great way to address this.

(this is another post for national eating disorders week)

one of the things she talks about in that book is her run-ins with eating disorders. in the chapter BMI (body mass issues) – depression in my thighs she mentions a number of writers in the field. for example cherry boone o’neill and her book starving for attention

in my early years i equated my worth as a person with the level of my performance and i felt that the love and approval of other people would be conditioned upon my perfection. therefore, i expended every effort to be the best i could possibly be in any given area of endeavour, only to repeatedly fall short of my goals and risk losing value in the eyes of others. trying even harder, only to miss the mark again, resulted in compounded guilt and self hatred.

therese then draws the connection between eating disorders and depression, citing dr. raymond depaulo from johns hopkins who observes that young women with eating disorders also tend to suffer from depression. it’s interesting to hear therese compare the two experiences:

i asked a veteran nurse which illness – an eating disorder or a mood disorder – is harder to overcome.

“an eating disorder, hands down,” he said. “because you have to eat to stay alive, and so it’s always there. you are always confronting your behaviour.” butter, flour, and friends are always at the table sprouting horns.

depression has bullied me much more than an eating disorder, and i’d take anorexia or bulimia any day over the intense suicidal thoughts i experienced for eighteen months later in life. but before giving birth and whacking out my brain chemistry, i did get to enjoy several years symptom-free of depression. there were many days i didn’t even think about my mood! but to this day the eating disorder is still there. at every meal.

in the next chapter, she talks about the perfectionism that we mentioned earlier.

like practically every other depressive i know, perfectionism can cripple my efforts to live freely and happily, not to mention plague me with writer’s block. left unattended, perfectionism will build a prison around me so that every shot at expressing myself is thwarted by the fear of not getting it right.

one of the people who helps her with that is her editor. she reminds her of something that goes for all of us, whether we’re depressed, deal with eating disorders, are writers, or whatever else. she constantly reminds her to

to write from wherever i am, not from where i want to be, because the journey – full of backward steps – is what makes material real and most helpful.

finally, she quotes anna quindlen:

perfection is static, even boring. your unvarnished self is what is wanted.

and the lyrics:

you are not alone
music & lyrics by bob gray © october 22, 2003

there is a light, beyond the darkness
there is pain, inside us all.
sometimes we trip, on the roads we travel
as we reach up, sometimes we fall
and though sometimes, i know you’re lonely
with all my heart, i need you to know…

chorus:
you are not alone… i stand by your side.
with so many others, who hide, as you hide.
with all my heart, i hope you will hear me
you are not alone… you are not alone…

there is a peace, that you can get to
it will be hard, but you’ll be fine.
i’ll walk with you, in case you stumble
reach out your hand, i’ll give you mine
and though sometimes, you may be frightened
with all my heart, i want you to know…

repeat chorus:

bridge: (with choir)

but, beyond the hurt… beyond frustration…
beyond the mountains, we all must climb
there is the dawn, of a new tomorrow
the dawn of hope… i hope we find…

repeat chorus: (with choir)

“the only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well,” said alfred adler, a colleague of sigmund freud.

“most people live in a myth and grow violently angry if anyone dares to tell them the truth about themselves,” said robert anton wilson, the devoutly agnostic author of the illuminatus trilogy and many other books that have been banned.

there you have it: people don’t talk about nuttiness because they’re afraid that their experience with it will be noticed. they avert their eyes from nuts because, to every single one of us, a nut is a mirror. they don’t do anything about nuttiness because to do something about a problem is to admit you’re afraid you have it or will have it. so precious little gets done about nuttiness.

if you’ve stopped being afraid of your nuttiness then you probably want to see something more get done about it. that’s not going to happen until more people stop being afraid of their nuttiness. there are a few ways to show people that nuttiness is nothing to be afraid of:

lead by example. let your nuttiness out in non-threatening ways. i introduce myself as “the barking unicorn” and nothing bad happens. (i don’t actually bark unless asked for a demonstration.) i casually mention my past lives and don’t spill food down my shirt. people are reassured by such things. they open up and reveal their nuttiness to me, and to themselves. then we can start doing something about it.

let normal people see you hanging out with nuts. don’t hurry past on the street; stop and get to know them, and don’t mind who sees you doing so. i spent half an hour on denver’s 16th street mall discussing deep dharma with bill, a red-eyed scarecrow who swilled hot sauce right out of the bottle and let it dribble into his dirty-grey beard. you know what? a few other people stopped to join us, because if i wasn’t afraid of bill then it must have been all right. “tip this guy, he’s a holy man,” i barked, and they did!

take a nut to work; if your enlightened employer allows dogs and invader, mind-controlling space monster “cats” to wander around the office, he shouldn’t have a problem with nuts. if this practice needs to be established, talk to hr about sponsoring just one bring your nut to work day, for the favorable publicity the company can get. “look, we can attract more and better qualified job candidates if they know they don’t have to leave their nuts at home.”

most importantly, stop treating nuttiness as if it’s a problem. that’s where most nut advocates go wrong. they draw attention to the downside of nuttiness: chronic unemployment; homelessness; alcoholism and drug addiction; physical harm done and suffered by nuts, etc. well, normal people don’t want anything to do with problems, especially other people’s problems. (normal people “aren’t nuts,” remember?) they want solutions to their problems. give them one in the form of nuts, and they’ll give money to support nuts.
spirituality is a popular solution to many problems today. people are searching high and low, and paying good money, for the key to getting in touch with their higher selves, or some higher power. basically, they’re not happy with the results of what they’ve been told to do all their lives, and they’re desperately looking for different things to do. doing things differently is a nut’s forte. play to that strength instead of the weaknesses of nuts. history proves that nuts make good money when marketed properly.

the oracle at delphi made a mint, and she was high as a kite constantly. nobody could figure out a damned thing she said, but people came from miles around and stood in line to hear her spout nuttiness.

rasputin acted nutty all the time, even letting food and drink dribble into his beard just like bill. but the russian imperial family kissed his ass.

drukpa kunley became tibet’s patron saint, and never lacked for booze or sex, even though he was nutty as a fruitcake. to this day, he is revered as “the divine madman.”

native americans revered “sacred crazy people”. their nuts were fed, clothed, excused from almost anything, and consulted on important tribal affairs.

there’s a whole school of shambhala buddhism called “crazy wisdom”. bone up on it. find the crazy wisdom in the nuts you want to help, and market it. people will pay for any kind of wisdom.

i needn’t mention any contemporary western rock stars, televangelists, or political leaders. they’re all egregiously nuts and people throw money at them like rice at newlyweds. it’s all in the marketing.

so that’s why people don’t want to talk about mental “illness” and what to do about it. if you believe me, then you can do something with what i’ve explained and that will make you happy. if you don’t believe me, then you just wasted your time and that will make you unhappy.

now you have to decide whether to be nuts enough to choose to be unhappy.

the barking unicorn
“your work is to discover your world and then
with all your heart give yourself to it.” – buddha.
mine is to help you.

i understand why people who haven’t experienced severe depression believe that a mother who commits suicide is extremely selfish and totally careless in leaving her children to deal with that ugly and permanent baggage. but the truth is that i envisioned my suicide as an act of love for them. i was sure that by removing myself from the picture, i was affording david and katherine a chance to lead a normal life, as they would be no longer victims to my moodiness and despair. the way i saw it, if eric remarried a nice woman, my kids would be far better off than if i stuck around. so i began to search for a suitable bride and mother. i felt pressured to execute the plan as soon as possible, before david and katherine formed memories, before my depression shattered their innocent lives.

i tear up whenever i write this, but it was BECAUSE of, not despite of, my ferocious love for my children that i wanted to disappear.

i think we need to read about things like this more often. have you read about the common suicide myths? two of them are

talking to someone who is suicidal about suicide just makes the urge even worse

and

suicidal thoughts need to be kept secret so as not to embarrass or upset anyone.

such myths contribute to people keeping mum about the topic. they help bolster the feeling of discomfort or panic that many people feel when the topic is raised. “do we really have to talk about this?” “this is not the right time to discuss this” or “now you’ve spoiled the mood!” are typical reactions, uttered aloud or under the breath, when the word “suicide” rears its supposedly ugly head.

i’m so tired of mental health being a non-issue, and of life-and-death matters like suicide being brushed under the carpet because they’re not pretty. that’s why i’m glad that people like therese borchard lay out her suicidal thoughts for all to see. because you know what? bringing them out in the open goes hand in hand with her talking about how she made it out alive, how her children can keep hanging out with one cool mama.

in recognition of the importance of opening our mouths about this, versus keeping nice and quiet, raul and i have decided, in our limitless hive-mind wisdom, to dedicate this year’s MentalHealthCamp  to “stigmatization through silence”. neat, huh? (only we’re looking for a catchier phrase. can you think of one?) oh, and the camp will take place on july 10.