If Bears Could Talk

Trigger warning: mental illness, suicide, profanity.

If bears could talk, they’d tell you that your children are better off without you.

I’ve started and stopped this piece of writing about ten times. And only like three or four of those times are because I was interrupted to cut hot dogs/clean up a spill/wipe someone’s butt. 

I’ve started and stopped so many times because what do I have to say about suicide and mental illness that hasn’t been said before? Nothing. I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been said before, but truthfully, I don’t have anything groundbreaking to add to the rape culture conversation, or conversations about LGBTQ inclusivity in the church, or donut conversation (I haven’t tried Dipper’s Donuts yet) either but that hasn’t stopped me. I say all the things all the time and need some help not always saying all the damn things. Though, I firmly believe some of us (hi!) were called to be more vulnerable in order to help others with their pain, and while I may not have anything special or unique to add, maybe someone will see themselves in my story. And they’ll hold on “just a little while longer.” (Bunmi Laditan)

I have OCD, I had post partum depression and post partum anxiety, and in I hindsight have struggled with anxiety and depression most of my life. I say in hindsight because before it becomes so debilitating that you’re forced to get help, or before it kills you, you think mental illness IS you. You think that’s just who you are and who you’ll always be and you don’t know that the fucking liar in your head is just that. You think it’s you. Mental illness convinces you that you’re what’s wrong with you and if you are lucky enough to have the energy, resources, and clarity to seek out help, it takes your will to do so.

So for those of you saying suicide is the most selfish decision one could make, that they couldn’t imagine leaving their children behind, that money doesn’t buy happiness, please consider this:

Consider that you have a liar living INSIDE YOUR BRAIN that tells you your children are better off without you. 

Maybe you have no mental health coverage, live in a culture that shames anti-depressants or even alternative healing methods, and equates depression to “feeling sad” while at the same time, something in your brain is whispering or even shouting “you’ll feel like shit forever. This will rub off on your children. You aren’t capable.” 

You’re supposed to get up seventeen times a night, wipe butts and mediate fights over duplos, feed them all the healthy things ALL THE TIME (did you guys know Kids eat EVERY DAY? Multiple times a day, even), keep them from running into traffic and exercise yourself and protect them from predators and they can’t watch too much TV and read to them and do all the things - and your brain tells you every step of the way “you’re doing it wrong. Watch out for ___ over here, that might kill them, and watch out for ____, you’ll never be good enough. Why’d you even have children?” You are supposed to raise loving and kind children and your brain is telling you the most unloving and unkind things about your ability to do so.

Or, imagine that your life circumstances are as ideal as they could come, and yet that liar inhabiting a portion of your brain is telling you you can’t get out of bed, or that you’ll lose everything, or that you don’t deserve everything you have.

Now imagine less than ideal circumstances. Job layoff. Divorce. Special needs children. Homelessness. Hunger. Abuse. [not referring to my life with that list.] If that liar can convince you life is not worth living in ideal circumstances, what do you think that liar does in scary or uncertain ones? Thrives. Grows. 

When I type it all out, I’m reminded that it’s a damn near miracle that so many of us are still living with anxiety and depression.

When my PPD and PPA were bad, I remember thinking I wish I could just go to sleep for awhile. Not forever, but for like, a long time. And wake up and everything would feel ok. I remember telling my dad one time “I sometimes think they’d [my children] be better off without me.” I remember thinking of a friend who committed suicide and knowing without a doubt “this is what he felt like. I know without a doubt he felt like this.” There were days my anxiety was so bad I would stick my toddler on the couch to watch TV for 6 hours and when the fog of anxiety cleared, the depression would kick in and remind me I was a worthless, piece of shit mom who used the TV as a babysitter. I remember needing a break from my kids more than anything but my anxiety making it impossible to trust a single soul around them, let alone enjoy alone time away from them. I remember thinking “you don’t need help because you’re not actually making plans to kill yourself.” I remember debating whether the scar of having a dead mom would be worse than the scar of having an awful one.

It makes me sick to my stomach to type and reread that because in my healing, I see the clarity of how sick I really was. I have healed, but I will always have a mental illness. Depression and anxiety don’t ever fully go away; it’s more like a sleeping bear in the den of my brain. I’m afraid to wake the bear, so I avoid anything that might (triggers) and when the bear rolls over or snorts or is restless, I’ve learned how to pacify it. But every once in awhile the bear wakes up and I fucking hate bears, you guys. 

And yeah, it makes you feel less alone when you find out other people have lying wildlife in their head too, but when that bear attacks one of us...well, we fear it’s contagious. Like it’s spring, and all the bears will come out of hibernation for us all. 

The point of me sharing all this is, you don’t know. You don’t know what someone else is going through, and if you can’t bear the thought of leaving your children, well - thank God. Thank God that you don’t know the pain of loving your children more than life itself and at the same time, wondering if it was a mistake for you to have them. Not because they were a mistake but because you have a lying bear in your head telling you aren’t good enough for them.

I know, since the bear has been mostly asleep for a few years, that I am a resilient, capable, loving mama. And yet I still spend hours of my time and thousands of dollars on therapy for me to continue to learn tools on how to pacify the bear. 

When It’s said that people who commit suicide are selfish, what suicidal people hear is “one more thing for me to feel shameful about.” Let’s not add to their shame. Let’s be safe places for them to reach out for help.

And, for my friends whose bears haven’t gone into hibernation, yet - it gets better. It gets so, so much better. And it may get worse again, but for me, it gets worse a little less each time. It feels like the end right now but IT IS NOT. That bear lies, anxiety lies, depression lies, and YOU ARE NOT the lies. You are worthy and loved.  I know asking for help feels terrifying and the fact that you’re priceless isn’t believable when you feel worthless but I promise it to be true.