Parenting, personal peace, and politics.

So, I know that I talk a lot about, write a lot about, and get fired up about politics, social injustices, and everything associated with those things. I also know that there are probably people who just don’t want to hear it anymore, ignore it, or even just avoid me.

I understand. We may disagree, and I might feel that it’s so vital to the greater good that we should all care at a high level. But I truly do get that not everyone shares that feeling.

One of the reasons I often feel compelled to share my views is because in a lot of ways, it’s one of the few things I can do. I have been passionate about politics and making the world a better place since I was in third grade. Activism is a hands on, contact sport. It requires the ability to participate, help organize, and lend a hand. I’m not as able to do those things as I often wish I was. That frequently leaves me in the position of Internet warrior—signing petitions, sending emails, occasionally turning up at gatherings or marches, and making tiny donations to causes that truly help the people I see being marginalized, forgotten, or harmed.

Another reason is because even though it raises my ire, and there’s only so much I can actually do to effect change, it’s at least a subject I can wrap my head around. It’s an outlet for so many frustrations that I feel myself battling on much more personal levels.

I always thought that I would be teaching my daughter about empathy, kindness, equality, our role in the web of life, and our shared humanity. Obviously, I knew that I would be teaching her about these things in different ways, and at different stages. I thought that when I was going to a march or a gathering of some sort, I would be taking her along, and modeling the behaviors, values, and ideals that her father and I think are so important.

But I can’t take her with me. Not even when an event is not likely to last a long time. I love her. She’s the center of my life now, and she is my greatest challenge.

Since just before she turned three, our daughter has given us what feels like an endless roller coaster ride of ups and downs. She started having more frequent and substantial meltdowns that often lead to aggressive behavior, and other behaviors that astound us.

She throws things with intent to harm or destroy. She hits. She kicks. She name calls. She even very recently started threatening to pee during these episodes, and on two occasions, she has actually followed through. She frequently laughs during these episodes, which is almost worse than anything else about them. Today, she threw a hairbrush across the room and hit me so hard on the bridge of the nose that I won’t be surprised if I wake up with a black eye tomorrow.

I feel myself tense up, and tighten up, just thinking about leaving her with anyone. What will shedo when I’m not there? Will this situation go as badly as the last one? My husband and I have not had an evening or even an hour away from her in over six months.

She will will be a rockstar. 

I can’t take her to marches or gatherings, because if she strays, gets into mischief, or does something unsafe or inappropriate, I cannot be certain that I won’t have to drag her away—hitting, kicking, screaming, and now peeing. When I tell her to stop a behavior, she frequently ignores me, or looks straight through me. It makes me even more concerned that I might not be able to keep her safe. And so, I am an Internet warrior for justice, because I cannot be an active participant in all of the ways I would like to be.

I have spent hours reading, researching, brainstorming, and changing the ways I do things to more effectively parent. I have tried charts, rewards, timeouts, time ins, choices, consequences, love, logic, and even spanking. She’s been in play therapy for over a year, we talked to a psychologist, and she just qualified and started occupational therapy. This week, she qualified for speech therapy.

I spend a lot of my time feeling frustrated, inadequate, tired, overwhelmed, and stressed. The only thing that I have ever done that compares is working veterinary emergency, where I often felt I didn’t know enough, wasn’t skilled enough, and wasn’t even physically strong and fit enough to be of help to my colleagues, or my patients.

I know every parent feels like they fail at times. I feel it multiple times a day—everyday.

Her difficulty with self-regulation, and emotional regulation triggers my own issues with self-regulation, and emotional regulation. I’ve gotten some amazing professional, and medical help, but there are moments when I still blow it. 

I knew that parenting wasn’t a walk in the park. I just didn’t anticipate the kinds of hard that this last year or so has brought. I never imagined that I would be icing my nose because my four-year-old intentionally harmed me. I never imagined I would be seriously considering homeschooling her, because I am so uncertain that she can manage the social and behavioral expectations of a classroom.

I never want to seem to be complaining, or to be anything but delighted that she is here. We wanted her desperately. We struggled desperately to have her. We love her desperately. She is the most important thing in our world. There is nothing she needs that we won’t try to do for her.

I know she’s going to be alright. I know we are all going to be alright. And I know that all of the glimmers of joy, happiness, and amazingness I see in her are going to win out over the current madness.

So, yeah, I find myself looking for outlets—things about which I can be outspoken and opinionated. I cannot unleash about everything that I feel about my personal struggles each day. So, I give myself permission to breathe fire about everything else in the world that is out of balance, because so little in my own days feels balanced.

Morality and piety are not one in the same.

So, it’s been a rude awakening for a lot us to see children being separated from parents at America’s southern border. Many of us have not fully understood the history of our country doing this to families until this wave of separations occurred right before our eyes. We are learning.

Aside from separation en masse, as has happened so recently, deliberate separation was a big part of the slavery system in America, and while it is packaged in a different way, it still happens to families of color through the incarceration system.

There’s an inhumanity that many of us have never witnessed in family separation. Hearing the stories of toddlers being taken from their parents’ arms—even a nursing infant being taken away from its mother—has been especially unfathomable to many of us.

And so, we have raised our voices. We have gathered to rally. We have raised money. We have written emails, signed petitions, made phone calls, and we have worried about these kids.

Today, I saw a screenshot of a Tweet declaring that anyone believing abortion is okay should not speak about the current situation at the border, and now scattered around the country.

Piety and the judgment of other people’s choices or “sins” is a luxury of the privileged.

When I say it’s a luxury of the privileged, I mean that it is very easy to make judgments about reproductive choices, and the care of displaced or unwanted children when you were conceived and born into loving relationships, never questioned that you were supported, and never had to go without care or things you needed. It is breathlessly easy to judge the choices other women might face when you have never been in personal danger, or the victim of abuse.

For a lot of us, that just isn’t the case. 

I am the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy. I was born before Roe vs. Wade was decided, but it wouldn’t have mattered if abortion was legal, because my mom never could have made that choice.

My mom was sixteen, born to a poor, abusive, and uneducated family. If I can believe some of the things she has shared with me about her childhood, she wasn’t planned or wanted either.

My father, also a teen, was born into a slightly more affluent and respectable family. Without much effort, he was easily persuaded that my mom’s promiscuity made it pretty likely he wasn’t actually my father.

My mom had no education about reproductive matters, sex or anything associated with it. She was desperate for attention, affection, acceptance and anything that resembled love. I think that’s at least part of the reason she mistook sex for being cared about. And the combination of ignorance and desperation is what got her knocked up. She thought she would only get pregnant if she was thinking about having a baby when she was having sex.

My father walked away from the situation—completely free of consequences. He finished high school, married someone else, and had a child he wanted. I tried connecting with him when I was a tween. I just wanted to know him. I accepted he wasn’t interested, and I moved on.

Some might say that my mom made a “selfless” choice in deciding to have and keep me. She gave up a lot.

She did briefly go to a home for unwed mothers with the intent to stay through her pregnancy, and then to give me up for adoption.

She couldn’t do it. My mom doesn’t exactly have a high tolerance for uncomfortable situations. She lasted two weeks. I don’t think her heart was ever really in that option. And so, she decided to have me and keep me—much the same way a child chooses a stuffed animal to cuddle and love. I think she was looking for a kind of love she never experienced. Before becoming pregnant, my mom was already a high school drop-out. She had no skills, education, familial support or future.

My mom has never been selfless a day in her life. Lonely? Yes. Pragmatic? No. Self-sufficient? Not even now.

So, she brought me into a home of abuse and desperation. And only a few short years later, she did it again when she married an abusive husband.

Some might at this point look at me and say “Yes, but look at how fortunate you are! You got to be born! You have made the best of everything!”

Not many of us will argue that we would be better off if we had never been born, but those who would cheerlead you simply for making it out of a uterus are usually not people who have ever had to worry about the kind of decisions someone like my mom faced.

It’s easy to make blanket statements about the morality of people who make “wrong” choices when in almost any difficult situation in which you have found yourself, you had the support and resources to truly have options. It’s also easy to talk about someone needing to accept the consequences of their actions when you have just been lucky enough to not be caught under the same circumstances.

Most people who choose to end a pregnancy aren’t immoral. They aren’t selfish. They aren’t avoiding a consequence. It is irresponsible to have a child you do not want, and/or cannot care for. My mom was irresponsible. Her choices have impacted my entire life. And if every single child in foster care or in search of a forever home was suddenly placed in permanent homes, the argument that giving up a child for adoption is the only moral option might work.

That’s not the case.

My mom could have given me a better and safer life, but the circumstances that drove her to desperately seek love in inappropriate ways were the same circumstances that led her to make an emotionally immature and selfish choice. She kept me, simply because she wanted to.

I respect and admire any woman who faces the consequences of her actions by considering her choices with respect to what is unselfish.

Could I care for a child properly? Could I commit to healthy choices during a pregnancy? Am I in an unstable or dangerous living situation? Could I be strong enough, and unselfish enough to complete a pregnancy and give that child away? Was my pregnancy the result of irresponsible behavior, or was it a failure of my contraceptive? Was I raped?

My younger sister is one of the strongest women I know. She became pregnant, and due to a very mixed bag of circumstances and no true support, she hid her pregnancy and nearly died giving birth. She is one of the kindest, most loving, and caring people I know. And I know she still loves the little girl she unselfishly gave to a couple who could give her all that she could not. Even if she had not gone on to have a second child, my sister would always have qualified as a fantastic mother, because she was able to summon the strength to love that child more than herself.

If, however, she had chosen to end her pregnancy—as her then boyfriend pressured her to do—I would not think any less of her strength, or her morality. As long as it was a choice she made in the interest of not bringing a child into an unstable, unsupported, and ill-prepared existence, I would still be proud of her.

I don’t claim a faith. I do believe in acceptance and love. I believe in body autonomy. I believe in privacy. I value life. I fought hard to have my own daughter. I wanted the baby I miscarried.

I don’t think that my respect for another woman’s beliefs, realities, circumstances, and choices makes me less moral than someone who does not respect or understand those things. And it certainly does not make me less qualified to speak out and cry for a sobbing toddler who does not understand what is happening to them because of a truly selfish and immoral policy implemented to manipulate, and pleasure a monster’s base. I’ve been a crying child in dangerous circumstances I could not understand at the hands of a monster.

The child in front of me will always command my attention. The child suffering in front of me will always mobilize me to action. I believe in family—probably even more than someone who has always been part of a stable one—because that just wasn’t a luxury afforded to me at birth. It wasn’t a luxury throughout my childhood.

Life is more than being born. It doesn’t stop when a baby pops out. It doesn’t stop when that baby is brought to an invisible line in the dirt. Anyone who has never had the luxury of privilege understands that piety has no place in arguing for the life of a child. Morals are not defined by recognizing another woman’s circumstances and choices are not the same as mine.

I will hold the hand of any woman facing the consequences of her actions, and the tough choices that might come along with that—not because I approve of her actions or choices, but because I understand the consequences of being a product of those choices.

We are not our labels.

So, I am white. I am middle class. I am a mother. There are a lot of words that can be used to describe things that I am—labels.

Language is important. It’s how we interact at a level more sophisticated than body movements, or primal grunts. It’s one of the things that separate us from other species. It helps us build deep relationships and connections with those we care about, but language can also divide us from each other.

I love language. I love words. I like the way they can be strung together in ways that new people, places, and stories can be told. I like when they turn into songs, poetry, and funny jokes. I like their strength, their occasional subtlety, and I like their vulnerability.

Words can be victimized by their users. They can be turned into things they were never intended to be. As Michael Hutchence of INXS wrote: “Words are weapons, sharper than knives. Makes you wonder how the other half dies.”

I think people who have found themselves deeply hurting at one time or another have a relationship with language and words that is different from the relationship most people have. We often feel we have to craft our thoughts so carefully when we share them, that they cannot do us more harm, and they cannot be dismantled.

I had an amazing thought yesterday when I was driving. I don’t have a lot of self-confidence. I often doubt my abilities, and my capacity. The thought I had was magical. It was like my inner voice wanted to share a secret with me.

“You are who you are, and you are so good within that space that you never need to worry about being better or more for someone else. There is nothing incomplete, wrong, or inadequate.”

I don’t know where it came from, but it felt amazing. The words had nothing to do with any labels I normally wear. It doesn’t mean that I woke up today feeling like a brand new person. I didn’t. But I still have that to carry.

Most of today, I continued to be white, middle class, and a mother. I fit under those labels and categories—among others.

Not everyone is so lucky to have the kind of labels that fit me. And that is where language and labels come in. The labels that most people use to define me are like soft, warm blankets. Most of the time, I am treated with respect, dignity, and kindness. Only my four-year-old doesn’t seem to understand my labels.

There are other words—other labels—that aren’t as lucky. Black. Mexican. Trans. Immigrant. Illegal. Muslim.

Nobody questions my humanity. My labels don’t erase my species, my DNA, my physical makeup. They don’t turn me into something else.

Today, I saw a post on social media about a woman who had a cake made to honor the deaths of 77 transgendered women of color who were killed because of hate. One of the first comments was by a man declaring that “blacks” kill other blacks, and anything else that moves. For the last couple of years, our country has been divided over what should happen to people who come here illegally, or as refugees. “Illegals” need to do things the legal way. “Illegals” need to stay in their own countries and work to make them better instead of coming here. “Refugees” need to stay behind and fight for themselves. “Refugees” aren’t our problem.

From the side of a building in Dublin.

We use other language and labels, too. We need to help our “own people” first. We need to take care of our “vets.” People on welfare are “lazy.” They should get jobs, and work like the rest of us. She was dressed like “a slut,” no wonder she got raped. We conquered the “savages,” and built a great nation. The “blacks” are better off here than if we’d left them in Africa—never mind that not all blacks actually came here from Africa. That’s another way we dehumanize people—by refusing to learn or know anything about them.

Words are weapons. We use language and words to dehumanize people, and that dehumanization makes anything we do to them all right. We use language to justify our personal greed, and to find someone to blame for our feelings of disenfranchisement. We use language and labels to take what we want from people who have less than we will ever have, and from people who have already been robbed.

Right now, there are around 2,000 children in cages, because their “illegal” parents came here in search of safety, security, and to escape violence and oppression. There are a fair number of people who think this is okay, because “illegals” need to do the right thing. They need to come here legally like the rest of us.

We have a history of taking words, language, and labels and twisting them to our own advantage. Maybe that’s human nature. I don’t know. But I do know this. I take the label of “mother” very seriously. I take the label of “child” seriously. There is no such thing as an “illegal mother,” or an “illegal child.” There is no such thing as an “illegal” human.

This is our work—our blackness, greed, sadistic, and inhumane nature. If we can look this thing in the eyes, and give it a label that makes it all right, we earn whatever hellish words others will use to describe us.

Words and language are my drug of choice. They’re what I use to sift through all the scattered clutter, and disarray that lives within me. They’re what I use to figure myself out, and where I fit in the wider world. I don’t care about my labels—what words people use to describe me. I know who I am, and even with all of my flaws, foibles, and failings, I can look at myself and know that I am no more human than anyone living across an imaginary line, or possessing a different level of melanin. I am no more human than someone who wears a hijab, or who wears a cross around their neck.

I am no more human than anyone else. And being able to recognize that feels like truth, faith, love, and all of the things that are hard to claim. Any one of the kids in those chain link fences could be my child. Any one of the young black trans women who have been murdered before the age of 35 could be a friend of mine. Any one of the mothers holding their children in fear of what they left behind, and in fear of what lies ahead could be me.

Knowing all of that is what earns us one label—one honor—humanity. That’s the only label we should be striving for.

Sometimes, you really can’t make it on your own.

So, twice in the last week, the worst possible result of mental illness has taken the lives of people who seemed to have it all.

Most of us would have identified Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain as people who had built lives that were grand, strong, and in many respects, untouchable. We didn’t know them, but their presence in our lives for their respective reasons gave us license to feel connected to them—even if only loosely.

I never owned a Kate Spade bag or accessory. I have liked some of them, and even coveted them a little, but even when I made my own money, I never would have indulged myself at that level.

I only occasionally watched Anthony Bourdain’s different series over the years, but his rock ‘n’ roll approach to travel, exploring unique cuisines, and other cultures always left me a little in awe.

I knew absolutely nothing about Kate Spade, other than her relationship to David Spade, and the fact that she had lived in Kansas City. I didn’t know her story.

I knew that Anthony Bourdain had stumbled down a checkered path with substances, and due to his chosen profession, he had probably sustained plenty of scars, some of which didn’t come from a gas burner or careless knife handling.

Both of these celebrities had so much to “be happy” about. They were well-known, well-loved, wealthy, untethered to so many of the anchors that most average people feel in their daily lives. They had so much going for them.

But here’s the thing: Mental illness does something to us that most people don’t realize. Mental illness—depression, anxiety, addiction, post traumatic stress disorder—perpetrates a crime. It steals our identities. It steals the part of us that we identify as ourselves, and leaves behind something very different

Sometimes dress up hides our pain.

. Feelings of sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, despair, or lack of control don’t necessarily infiltrate our lives everyday, but at times, they can surface so fiercely, and without warning, that we find ourselves spiraling when yesterday we were fine. And it doesn’t necessarily require a trigger. It can be cumulative, and we can reach a breaking point at which the load is just too heavy, and it’s suddenly a lethal combination.

Many are quick to label those who commit suicide as being selfish. After all, the deep void they leave behind is often deeper, because unless you’ve been suicidal, it’s very hard to fathom. It’s hard to understand that when you spiral into this abyss of despair, you’re not always trying to relieve your own pain, but instead, you are frequently trying to unburden those you love by lifting your weight from their lives.

Mental illness is a great deceiver. It whispers lies that twist inside your darkness and make sense when nothing real does. It tells you that those you love are better off not having to worry about you along with their other troubles. It tells you that when people are kind to you, it’s not because you are worthy of that kindness, but because they feel obligated, or they’re just being polite. It finds all the holes in your confidence and sense of self, and it gnaws away at them, until you are filled with doubt, and who you are is both shredded, and unrecognizable.

Not knowing anything about Kate Spade, I wasn’t aware that she had actually sold her brand just over a decade ago until I read an article about her after her sudden death. She had recently changed her legal name to Kate Valentine, and had launched a new brand called “Frances Valentine.” Her new brand hadn’t performed as well as her original effort.

But aside from whether or not her new venture was as much a success as her original venture, can you even imagine what it must be like to find yourself in a position where you can’t even call yourself, or your work by your own name? Sure, selling her company was her choice, but for someone who battles mental illness, struggling to find an identity in a chaotic emotional state can make you a much easier target.

And that’s why it happens. 

As for Anthony, a couple of articles I read today discuss his openness about struggling with addiction and depressive episodes. On at least a couple of occasions, he talked about the kinds of things that would trigger him. One really struck me.

In an episode of his show “Parts Unknown”,  he talks to a therapist about something that had triggered a near breakdown. He and his crew were preparing to film a staged fishing scene. Dead squid were being tossed into the water around him. In the therapy session, he reflects on the event.

"For some reason I feel something snap, and I slide quickly into a spiral of near hysterical depression. Is this what it's come to, I'm thinking as another dead squid narrowly misses my head,” Bourdain narrated. “Back in the same country almost a decade later, and I'm still desperately staging fishing scenes?”

He also talks about a nightmare in which he is in a hotel, but cannot check out, and cannot find home. He doesn’t know where to go to get home.

Sense of integrity and grounding seem very apparently to have been traits Bourdain strived toward in his work, both in the kitchen, and on his shows. I could easily imagine a staged scene making him feel like a fraud—and I can also easily imagine how bad that taste would have been in his mouth. Having a home—a place to ground yourself and regroup is a basic necessity, and not just a physical home. Being set apart from others can prove so isolating that you are left to look at yourself, and your life from a distance.

Again, a loss of identity, connection to self, and who you are as a person is the crack in the armor even someone as seemingly strong as Anthony Bourdain has trouble fighting.

We’re living in a tough time. There’s a lot of crazy swirling around in the world. It can be difficult to process all of it without some of it sticking to you. It doesn’t take much to trigger deep pain, especially if it’s not buried as deeply as you thought.

I would never discourage anyone from checking in with a friend if you suspect they’re in trouble, but it’s also important to understand that when they respond, the part of them reassuring you that they are “just tired,” “just busy,” “a little stressed,” and any number of other things we say to persuade people that we are fine may not be the person you think you know.

It’s hard to ask for help when you are swept away into the maelstrom of nonsensically troubling, but deafening thoughts and emotions. Being strong enough to ask for help when you need it is an Olympic level feat.

Helping someone who can’t ask for help, and who cannot let you in is also an Olympic level feat. Does that mean you shouldn’t try? Of course not. It might mean that we have to do something really hard. We might have to connect more deeply, and more honestly with the people we love, so we can better perceive when something feels “off” with them. It may mean that we have to be willing to take risks with the relationship in order to lead them to other loved ones or professionals who can get them the help they can’t ask for.

The loss of Kate Valentine and Anthony Bourdain in this way seems like a wake up call to those on the outside of mental illness, and recovery. But for those of us who have fought demons, and who occasionally find ourselves chasing them away again, their loss is a chilling reminder that things are not always what they appear to be, and no matter how beautiful the “picture”, not being able to connect with your real identity can pull anyone under.

So, I will never own a “Kate Spade” bag, because in the end, she was struggling to find herself as Kate Valentine, and if ever I am lucky enough to indulge myself with such a bag, I will choose to honor her struggle for self by choosing a Frances Valentine bag.

Th next time I travel, I will try to get out of my own comfort zone at the table, and take a few more chances to live a bit on the edge. I will honor the spirit of reckless grit that Anthony Bourdain brought to every table upon which he broke bread, and raised a glass.

And in the meantime, I will try to be kind to myself in my own struggles, and I will try to be on the lookout for those I love who seem to be lost at sea. When we are feeling strong enough in ourselves, we need to be willing to carry someone who is not.