I am just pulling out of a grey hibernation.
Almost three weeks ago, the 14 year old daughter of a friend from home committed suicide. Her demons caught her.
I didn’t know Maddie. She was the daughter of a friend, a woman I once worked with, but like every mother I have spoken to about this, it all feels deeply personal: like Maddie could be any daughter, every daughter. I feel such deep sorrow for her mother and can’t begin to imagine what lies ahead for her. She is on my mind nearly always. They both are.
I wrote to her recently extending our condolences, falling over the few words I could get down knowing that each was failing me. She wrote back that she was taking her journey minute to minute – such a tiny measure of time. I had never heard that before – day to day, yes. But minute to minute and I realized how unaware I am of such a spec in my day, how wide my lens has become and what a distraction that can be.
Mindfulness is the new buzz in mental health. As someone who has always and forever lived with anxiety and mild depression, I have remained vigilant in keeping my toolbox current mostly because I am ever aware of how my mood affects my family and what a difference it makes for me to be in a good mindset. I want my children to see strength and vulnerability. I want them to know it is ok to be sad but it needs to be managed. I want them to find joy in the minutes of the day, to feel grateful and balanced. I want them to put less value on what others think and everything into who they want to be. I want them to live their truth – whatever that may be and however that unfolds.
This living in the moment is such a critical part to finding happiness. It is the looking ahead and the dreaded looking back that mops us up into those dark places.
But beyond that, there needs to be greater compassion and understanding for mental health. There are campaigns internationally that have attempted to draw mental illness into the mainstream – give it a face and a name, make it about the girl sitting next to you on the bus or a loved one. It is that compassion that will make the girl on the bus put her hand up and ask for help.
And while I am on my soapbox, social media is killing our children. It used to be that you just had to pretend to be happy and confident in person – now you have to carry that shit on online by proving how many friends you have and how pretty you are, how you are liked and how smashing your life is. It has suspended this generation from reality in such a digging way and has disconnected them from each other. Our concerns have definitely started a discussion in this house.
We travel a lot here – even just road trips to the coast – and I have taken to leaving a small monument to Maddie where ever we go, the girl I didn’t know. I guess I think they are places she will never see so I take her with me. She is remembered and has become my reminder to be ever more vigilant.