Mental Health Questions

I've been posting articles I find useful and respectful about mental illness on Facebook in the wake of events at Sandy Hook Elem. This editorial, by one of the favorites, Andrew Sullivan, remarks on his own childhood with a mentally ill parent. Suddenly I am thinking of these recent Newtown CT events in a different light. As the wonderous Dar Williams sings: "Sometimes I think, my father, too, was a refugee. And though they tried to keep their pain from me, they did not know what it was for." What, indeed, is pain for? Perhaps for lighting the way to truth with all the questions that will help us get there.

We may not all have been refugees from the same kind of homefront battles, but most children suffer the greater or smaller pains of growing up with human (rather than perfect) beings for parents. I grew up with wonderful human parents, who grew up with wonderful human parents. My husband and I are doing the best we can to be human parents, wonderful more and less.

I liked President Obama's questions in his speech last night. Is this really the best we can do for our children?  I also like his assurance as he reminds us that we can't go wrong when we're showing acts of kindness. I don't think I'm ready to say this is the best we can do to be healthy and kind in our society. I'm already thinking about what I will change to make my contribution. Questioning the status quo will be the first step.

The Most Beautiful Song About Being Depressed Ever

Go ahead, push you luck, find out how much love the world can hold,
Once upon a time I had control, and reigned my soul in tight.
Well the whole truth, it's like the story of a wave unfurled,
But I held the evil of the world,
So I stopped the tide,
froze it up from inside,
And it felt like a winter machine that you go through and then,
You catch your breath and winter starts again,
And everyone else is spring bound.

And when I chose to live, there was no joy,
it's just a line I crossed,
It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost,
So I was not lost or found.
And if I was to sleep, I knew my family had more truth to tell.
And so I traveled down a whispering well,
To know myself through them.

Growing up, my mom had a room full of books, and hid away in there,
Her father raging down a spiral stair,
Till he found someone, most days his son,
And sometimes I think my father, too, was a refugee,
I know they tried to keep their pain form me,
They could not see what it was for.
But now I'm sleeping fine,
Sometimes the truth is like a second chance,
I am the daughter of a great romance,
And they are the children of the war.

Well the sun rose with so many colors,
it nearly broke my heart,
It worked me over like a work of art,
And I was a part off all that.
So go ahead, push your luck, say what it is you gotta say to me,
We will push on into that mystery,
And it'll push right back, and there are worse things than that,
Cause for every price, and every penance that I
could think of,
It's better to have fallen in love,
Than never to have fallen at all,
Cause when you live in a world,
well it gets into who you thought you'd be,
And now I laugh at how the world changed me,
I think life chose me
after all.

Dar Williams, songstress extraordinaire. From her The Green World cd, 2000. I couldn't listen to this song then, without weeping, and many days I couldn't listen to it at all. My husband was furious, but it wasn't about not loving the music. I think it's a measure of how much 'better' I am that I can listen to this song so happily, even eagerly now.

I'm not sure about the line breaks, but that's kind of the way it is in a Dar song.

Not Some Iridescent Grateful Butterfly

Change is hard and scary. Even if we know it's good for us, it still stings. Even "good change" can wreck havoc with mind, body, spirit, sense of self, sense of humor. I love Dar's song about change -- I love how she pokes fun at the "mystic" nature of change, how we can try to make ourselves feel better by trying to make ourselves and our experiences more important. I also love how her song isn't called "It Will Be Alright" -- as in, things will get better, you're going to be okay -- in the future. Her song is about now. You are alright now. You are safe, okay, alive, breathing, with the program, part of the universe, part of the flow of time, right now. Even if you feel like crap, even though it hurts (and some days it just does) you are okay the way you are. Feel bad, feel good, it's alright. Thanks Dar. 'Marching on with this target on my chest. Oh, yes!'

It's Alright

(Dar Williams, from Promised Land)

I know change is a bad thing,
Breaks me down into a sorry sad thing
Not some iridescent grateful butterfly.
I'll resist with defiance,
Not the valor of a mystic silence,
I will fight the dizzy spiral of goodbye.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

Please don't say you don't love me,
Never dangle any sword above me,
With the kind of change that severs me in two.
Give me amberizing glasses.
Could you slow it down like molasses,
As I salvage my old self away from you.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.

Because I have seen insane things,
All those grand, historic paintings.
Morning light on polished swords and burnished pride.
Anxious smiles encased in whalebone,
Spines of steel from head to tailbone,
Cannons poised to blast the turning of the tide.

It's a sad and a strange thing.
But it's time and I am changing.
Into something good or bad, well that's your guess.
I'm my own sovereign nation,
Dedicated to a transformation,
Marching on with this target on my chest, oh yes,
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.


Listen to this track on Rhapsody Music.

Change for me today looks like exercising, resting, being gentle with myself, letting go of control, all things that should be good for me, but are still scary because they are unknown. I dare you to look.