Mental Illness and the Great Need to Break Down Social Stigmas
Sierra Houk
March 19, 2013

Words like retarded, mental, nuts, and psycho are just a few of the countless slurs and slang words that have worked their way into our common vernacular. The stigma against mental illness is so far ingrained in cultures and languages across the globe that we have widely grown numb to its presence. There is a clear disconnect in the way the general public perceives mental illness and what mental illness truly looks like. Naturally, there are extreme cases of mental diseases which go untreated and unsoothed. Those are the example most people see and associate as everything under the giant umbrella of mental illness, which is an incredibly inaccurate view.

The misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding mental illness builds up a wall so high and so thick that there is no way around it. On one side of the wall is the mainstream, desperate to be blind to anything “wrong” or different. It’s hard for many people to try to understand something that they are told to be uncomfortable about. On the other side, people. People who are different and who are labeled as being wrong and as a result are isolated from the help they need. The time to break down that wall is long overdue. It would take a lot of hard work to overcome the stigma towards mental illness, but overall we need to try to understand its connotations, better serve those who live with it, and, in the end, become a healthier world by being able to talk about mental illness.

During a study conducted by Diana Rose, Graham Thornicroft, Vanessa Pinfold, and Aliya Kassam, published in 2007 in the BMC Health Services Research journal, nearly 500 14-year-old students were able to list over 250 different terms to describe people with mental illness. As can be imagined, the descriptive words they came up with were not greatly positive. In fact, nearly half of the words were categorized as “popular derogatory terms.” On the top of the list: disturbed, nuts, psycho, confused, and spastic, along with other terms like violence, dumb, scary, and unpredictable. 14-year-olds from recognizably good schools came up with these words time and time again. The results of this study, though it is over five years old now, still hold true. Too many people, young and old, refuse to trust or try to understand anyone with a visible mental illness.

The most common feelings about mental illness are that the mentally ill are threatening, harmful, and can’t be trusted. That exists in people’s beliefs–consciously or not– just as much as it appears in their speech. The way we talk about mental illness is the quickest way we alienate people with any kind of mental problem. From severe schizophrenia to mild depression, anyone with thoughts, feelings, and mannerisms dictated by a mental illness is forced into feeling shame about it. It’s understandable, then, that anyone with those feelings would do anything to hide them and fear needing help, let alone seeking it.

One of the biggest injustices about this stigma is how far reaching it is. Not only does it affect every demographic (admittedly, some experience this more than others), but it envelopes every type of mental illness– and there are of course many types. Though there are different causes, results, and duration of mental challenges, all of them are valid and deserve to be taken seriously.

Many people seem to forget the range of mental illnesses. There are situation-based afflictions, caused by a traumatic event like a breakup or a divorce, being evicted, losing a job, or the death of a loved one. This could include mental illness that is the result of a past trauma or a difficult childhood. Then there are other chronic illnesses, biologically rooted, that are not necessarily the result of an outside force.

There are many options for people seeking treatment, but it takes time to find a solution that works. It can require many doctors, lots of lifestyle changes, multiple therapists, and trying different medications before a person finds something that works for them. The most important thing to remember is that no one has to do it alone. Still, there are many reasons why someone would avoid getting help.

The inability to afford help is certainly a force that keeps people from seeking treatment, especially when low-fee services are not available (most major cities have therapy options which are income-based, but those resources can be non-existent in rural areas). It’s likely, though, that there are other factors besides money preventing someone from seeking help. Despite the years worth of improvements to mental health treatments, the stigma against admitting to mental illness has gone largely unchanged.

It’s fair to say that there is greater outward support for those suffering from mental illness in high-income, affluent communities. That’s not to say that people in such communities have it easy, but while while they have the help of friends and neighbors, a lack of community support is especially seen among minorities and people living in poverty. Conditions like depression and anxiety are seen disproportionately in women, namely in poor, urban, and ethnically diverse women. A study led by Mary Doornbos is currently in the process of determining what resources these women need most. Although seeking resources is a valiant and necessary mission, it is secondary to the need to overcome the stigma towards mental illness.

This stigma is understood to be “a combination of inaccurate or distorted beliefs, negative attitudes and discriminatory behaviour [...] separation of ‘us’ and ‘them’, followed by discrimination and status loss” (Knifton, 2012). When admitting to a mental illness results in such severe social banishment, it’s no wonder why anyone who can hide their illness will do so for as long as possible. Sometimes that stigma is understood so deeply that people will live in poor mental health and never even allow themselves to realize it. They are not allowed to be so “weak” as to have a mental illness. It’s simply not an option.

This denial, particularly among minority groups, is articulated by comedian Anthony Griffith. Griffith performed for The Moth (an organization that presents live storytelling across the U.S.) in 2008 at the U.S. Comedy Arts festival. His story detailed two sides of his life. On one side, he was enjoying new success in his career as a stand-up comedian, appearing on The Tonight Show three times and receiving a total of 16 applause breaks. Alongside that joy, however, he was living with unimaginable sorrow. At that time, his two-year-old daughter was battling cancer and slowly dying before his eyes.

It would be an understatement to say that it was a difficult and depressing time in Anthony Griffith’s life. In his performance, he describes his feelings of hopelessness– how lost he felt. As could be expected, the trauma of this experience left him deeply depressed. If anyone needed to see a therapist, it was him, but he couldn’t get help. He acknowledged that getting help wasn’t an option for him because he’s black:

You’re not prepared for this. There’s no book, there’s no home ed class to teach you how to deal with this. And you can’t go to a therapist because in the black world a therapist is taboo. It’s reserved for rich white people. So you’re trying to figure it out. What did I do? Maybe it’s something I did. Maybe it’s something my wife did. Maybe my doctor diagnosed it erroneously. Something. But at night I still have to be a comic, I have to work on The Tonight Show because that’s what I do. I’m a clown. I’m a clown whose medical bills are raising, who’s one step from being evicted, who’s one step from getting his car repo’d, and I have to come out and make you laugh because no one wants to hear the clown in pain because that’s not funny.

Griffith’s struggles are an all-too-familiar example of someone denying themselves the help they desperately need because of the social structure they are bound to. Whether Griffith had been born with depression, newly experiencing depression as his daughter was dying, or still dealing with the grief years later, it would be unacceptable for him to seek help because of his race. That help is reserved for rich white people.

If we are ever going to help people get the mental health resources they need, we have to let them seek that help. Feeling shame, worrying about what other people will think, and accepting that there just isn’t help available or that help is off limits prevents people from getting better. The result: festering mental illness that grows heavier and heavier until it’s too much to carry around anymore. If we want to prevent the tragedies that come out of mental illness, we can’t allow mental illnesses to go untreated. Treatment needs to be prompt, personalized, and on-going. The only hope of that reality by is first breaking down the stigma against mental illness and allowing people to accept help.

Countless misconceptions about what causes mental illness are part of the problem. Sometimes everything can look right and there can still be something that’s wrong. Many people have a hard time recognizing that. In some cases, someone could have had a stable childhood, have a great job, be in a healthy relationship, have good overall health, and still experience depression or anxiety. Those negative thoughts and feeling are not less valid because someone seems to have a great life. Everyone deserves help, no matter what may be causing an illness or who the person is.

While there are ways to find help, there is still a lot that communities can do to improve the mental health of their neighbors, their friends, their families, and even themselves. Currently, there are programs which work to improve awareness, such as Mental Illness Awareness Week (the first full week of October) and World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10th). This is a good start, but we can always do more. There ought to be more effective and regular activities about mental health, not just one unit in a mandatory health class or on assembly out of the year during Mental Illness Awareness Week. Ongoing programs which show kids– and adults– what a typical therapy session would be like, group discussions, and presentations by people who struggle with mental illness themselves could be a greater help than what’s offered now.

Possibly the most important goal is to create a dialogue about mental health. Talking about the issue and giving people accurate information is the only way to break down the social stigmas against the mentally ill. There are already some great models for this, and technology has been a large help in spreading information. Blogs and websites are natural places to find personal stories about people’s experiences with mood disorders and mental illnesses. One person’s story is the purest way to spread awareness; there’s no room for rumor or prejudice, just the truth about how one person lives their life alongside a mental illness.

One of the best forms of advocacy for mental health has come out of podcasting. There are many reasons for that: it taps into the centuries-old tradition of storytelling, it’s one of the only media forms without rules or regulations, and podcasts are fairly easy to produce and  access. Handfuls of podcasts have taken on a mental health focus, one of the more successful programs being The Mental Illness Happy Hour hosted by Paul Gilmartin. The intro to the show summarizes its content and its mission: “An hour of honesty about all of the battles in our heads. From medically diagnosed conditions and past traumas to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This show is not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling, this is not a doctor’s office, it’s more of a waiting room that hopefully doesn’t suck.” That’s exactly what’s needed. Easily accessible information about mental illness that anyone can access without risk. The show welcomes comedians and actors, listeners of the show, professional therapists, and just about anyone else who has a story to tell.

When we talk about mental illnesses, everyone benefits. The person living with the illness, the past traumas,and  the negative thoughts is able to talk and receive advice. When a problem is out on the air or even written onto paper the words lose a little bit of their power and the problem seems easier to tackle. The listener gets to offer support, hear about someone else’s experiences, and just maybe they are experiencing the same thing and until now they thought they were alone. Being able to talk about mental illness is the first and only step towards tearing down the misconceptions and getting help to those who need it– and everyone needs help from time to time.

This isn’t a call for every single person to have health care with mental illness services. That’s an entirely different argument with many more connotations and consequences. What this is, instead, is a declaration that we need to break down the stigma towards mental illness. Across the world, people need to be educated, need to understand the numerous causes, forms, and results of various illnesses, and we need to be talking about this. We can’t keep choosing to be ignorant and push the problem aside. Whether or not help is available is irrelevant when people are afraid to accept that help. Before we push for affordable therapy and psychiatry, we have to teach people that it’s OK to seek those resources, no matter what their circumstances are. Everyone needs help from time to time, and mental illnesses can come and go and take on many forms. We are all healthier if we feel comfortable talking about our problems and asking for help, but that can’t happen if we keep trying to do it alone.

Annotated Bibliography

Doornbos, M. (2013). Desired mental health resources for urban, ethnically diverse, impoverished women struggling with anxiety and depression. Qualitative Health Research, 23, 78-92. doi: 10.1177/1049732312465018.

This article details a study that is currently in progress (I included it to show what is currently being done for people with mental illnesses, specifically poor women). It’s widely known that women, particularly those of minority groups living in poor, urban areas, are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and many other mental illnesses. The purpose of this study is to survey these women and find out what resources would be the most help for them.

Griffith, A. (2008). The best of times, the worst of times. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBJ1X33rXM.

Anthony’s appearance on The Moth was recorded and made available both as a Youtube video and in podcast form. His story chronicles the period of his life when he appeared on The Tonight Show as a stand-up comedian, and at the same time his two-year-old daughter was dying from cancer. The effect the event had on his mental health as obvious even as he spoke of it after the fact, though social pressures kept him from seeking mental health counseling.

Knifton, L. (2012). Understanding and addressing the stigma of mental illness with ethnic minority communities. Health Sociology Review, 21, 287-298.

In this article, Knifton works to define the social stigma towards mental illness, and explains its prevalence in minorities. He explains that mental illness is more likely to exist in the groups that have the most prejudices and the least resources to get mental help.

Rose, D., Thornicroft, G., Pinfold, V., & Kassam, A. (2007). 250 labels used to stigmatise people with mental illness. BMC Health Services Research, 7, 97. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-7-97.
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925070/

This study, uploaded on the Web by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, surveyed 472 14-year-old students from four schools in England about their perceptions of mental illness. 400 of those students brainstormed adjectives and descriptive phrases which they associate with mental illness. The study concluded that young people are under-educated about mental illness, and misconceptions need to be cleared before any of them who may be suffering mentally are likely to seek help for themselves.

It was the kind of cold that threatened to freeze the wetness of your eyes if you kept them open for too long, and the bus was late. Only six or seven minutes late, sure, and it was probably delayed by the reportedly icy roads, but she had arrived a little earlier than normal and it felt like she had been sitting alone at the bus stop’s one bench for over an hour. She could take the phone out of her pocket. Any refuge that phone offered was forbidden by fingers that were unwilling to leave their pocket warmth for the cold air. The cold seemed to have the same effect on time as it did on the city; everything went a little slower, or had gained a complete stillness. And it didn’t help that there wasn’t a single noteworthy thing to look at.

The bus stop was familiar, she used it almost everyday, and the buildings had become too normal to consider anymore. Bare trees and windows with the curtains drawn matched the monotone, overcast sky and the quiet of empty streets. Everything might as well have looked this way for a thousand years because it felt like this block would be the same for the rest of time. But one thing had changed recently. One of the houses, the one across the street two down on her right, was missing. The structure had been taken out the week before and now only its foundation remained.

Since she arrived too early to the stop, she had drained the scene of anything engaging it had to offer. There was a discarded towel or piece of cloth on the frozen lawn, a forgotten tool against the foundation. The foundation had become boring her.

At first, the bareness of the lot caught her eye. What was left of the house felt exposed, torn open, and out of place between the two homes on either side. But that unsettled feeling wore off as she traced the shape of the house’s old foundations from her spot across the street. Maybe the cold was getting to her. What started out as near-polite curiosity turned into frustration with its sameness.

The only redeeming part of it all was the mailbox. They had taken out the house but left the mailbox. It felt wrong. It was a toy in the middle of a sidewalk with no child in site to return it to. It was a lost wallet with no clues at who it belongs to. She got to wondering, like a mind wanders when everything is out of its control and all it can do is wait for something to happen, who did the box belong to now that its home was gone?

There are a lot of movies with mysterious mailboxes. Donnie Darko, with the crazy old woman who checked her mailbox but never received mail, or that lake house movie she never bothered to see. Although she didn’t care to use this mailbox to talk to some feigned love interest, it seemed like mailboxes were always used to communicate through time in those movies. That was worth considering, at least at a time like this with a late bus and no one else around.

Why not put something in there? Maybe someone, probably some kid with a better imagination, would find it. Maybe they would write back. A bus stop pen pal.

From the bag beside her a spiral notebook gave up a page for a simple note, Hello?, and after checking to make sure the bus still wasn’t coming and that she was still alone, she begrudgingly gave up the small square of warmth she had made on the bench just long enough to cross the street to the box.

The mailbox’s handle was freezing, and protested being pulled, but she threw it open and placed the letter in. Without thinking about it she turned up the flag on the side of the box as she closed its door. She did all of that with the kind of muscle memory you have when you lock the bathroom door, and it’s not until you’re sitting with your pants around your ankles and you hear footsteps approaching the door that you panic trying to remember if you turned the lock.

Then it was done. She went back to her spot on the bench– it had practically frozen over in her absence– and soon her bus turned down the street, tardy but welcomed. The interior was only slightly warmer than it was outside, and she climbed on with just one glance at the mailbox’s flag sticking up onto the air.

She rode the bus again the day after, and many times after that, getting on and off at that same old familiar stop. The empty lot across the road remained empty, the mailbox stayed alert with its flag turned up. There were only a few times after that when she thought about her note. They was always fleeting, popping up as she was washing dishes or typing out an email. It didn’t take long for her to completely forget that one cold day, it was so much like all the other cold days that winter, and soon the raised flag, the forgotten mailbox, and her note inside all became one more thing in that neighborhood that you could look at a thousand times without actually seeing it. Just another piece of the scenery.

I feel like anyone who reads this will think I’m just looking for attention. Of course that’s true. I know that all of this is dual purposed: I need to get all of this out and know how therapeutic journaling/blogging is, but I also hope someone will read it and tell me that it’s OK. Or, even better, that this helped them. Bully-Me thinks that’s self serving. I also know that it’s 100% acceptable to talk about this, despite my fear that anyone on the receiving end will decide that I’m way too negative, which is why I instinctively keep this all to myself. I almost dread any response to posts or conversations like this, positive or negative, but I also believe in their importance. So there’s this mess:

-> Negative thoughts

-> Hating myself for believing negative thoughts even though I know they’re contrived and exaggerated

-> Hating myself for hating myself when there are so many things I should be happy about– things that I work really hard for and deserve to enjoy

There are countless moments,  people, and achievements that I have to be grateful for. But my dumb brain sees the pointless and exaggerated negative side of that happiness, along with returning to actual mistakes and failures, and I let myself half-believe it.

• I live in an amazing, beautiful place where there is so much to do and see. [I spend too much time inside.]
• There are a lot of things, big and small events, I have to look forward to. [I'll embarrass myself in any social situation I'm in or I'll be too afraid to make a fool of myself and miss out on things because I wasn't outgoing.]
• I get to be at a great university. [I'm wasting time getting a useless degree while burying myself in debt. All of my intelligence in contrived and if anyone actually pays attention they'll realize how dumb I am. Nothing I say, think, or feel is worth bothering other people with.]
• I get paid to write and can make enough to pay off school bills without relying on my parents. [I'm hardly saving anything, I waste money on dumb things, and if a big expense comes up unexpectedly there's no way I'll be able to handle it. I need to get a real job at a real place instead of doing silly freelance writing that could theoretically end at any time.]
• There are so many things I can do with my life and so many careers I could pursue. [...And I have no idea what I want to do so instead of choosing something and giving it the time and energy it deserves, I'll stay noncommittal until every opportunity will have has passed me by. (I also can't blame my astrological sign for me being this way.)]
• I’m in a supportive, loving relationship with someone I trust and know likes me for who I actually am. It’s something I’ve ever experienced before. [He's too good for me and will eventually realize that.]
• My family and friends love me, are proud of me, and are always there if I need them. [I'll ignore everyone and eventually grow too far apart to salvage what's left of our relationships. Instead of making new friends, anxiety will always prevent me from making deep connections with people.]

All of this looks and feels just as ridiculous written out as it does in my head, which I guess is helpful? Things are actually really great right now and I love my life, it’s just that this junk comes along with it.

1. Caleb Groh and Friends – “Casey Jr.”
2. Jeff Pianki – “I Wanna Be Like You”
3. Craven Canary – “Oo-De-Lally”
4. Moor Hound – “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”
5. JT Royster – “Cruella De Vil”
6. Kelsie McNair – “Baby Mine”
7. Joe Hertler – “My Own Home”
8. French Films About Trains – “Not in Nottingham”
9. Carter Moulton – “Heigh Ho”
10. Caleb Groh – “Colors of the Wind”
11. Lilah Rose – “Love”
12. Jack Sjogren – “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”
13. Kiersten Holine – “Wish Upon a Star”

This album was released October 2011 and each song was recorded separately by the artists.
Also cool: The cover art was painted by Mary Blair, who worked for Disney.

[A side note to pull the heartstrings: When my dad asked me to pick up Grace from the bus today he also asked that I give her a hug for him. When we are witnesses to such a great loss, at least it can remind us all to show the people in our lives that we love them and we're always there for them. That seems to be the simplest and most effective way to honor victims and help prevent history from repeating itself.]

I had underlying guilt as I posted dumb, lighthearted things online among the multitude of sympathies, frustration, and opinions regarding the shootings. Even though I don’t have anything new or revolutionary to say about the event, or violence like this in general, talking about things like this and sharing thoughts, whether conflicting or affirming, will do more good than harm in the end.

As far as I can see, the solutions that are up for discussion are changes in gun control (both increasing and decreasing guns within communities and seeing weapons as both the problem and the solution), and an increase in mental health resources and treatment.

When I left the house earlier to pick up my sister I stopped by the hardware store to get some art supplies (because what business do I have going to the hardware store for hardware?). Even though I expected the outside world to be a refuge from the onslaught of shooting-talk, a very agitated man in the store was loudly hounding an employee (who was too polite to ask him to stop) about his opinion on the topic. I didn’t hear the entire conversation, but in a very well-spoken, if aggressive, way he was basically advocating for teachers to be trained to keep guns in classrooms and use them if needed.

Somehow more guns wouldn’t make me feel safer. No matter how many precautions are taken, humans are still flawed and accidents are inevitable when the components are there. And although it seems overly drastic to demand that all guns are removed from the possessions of private citizens (I think it sounds unnecessary and unfair), the constitutional protection of the right to keep arms isn’t 100% relevant to our culture anymore. I’m obviously not completely sure where I stand on how we ought to approach of gun control (so feel free to disregard me completely), because it’s not the biggest issue to me.

Controlling who has guns can only help so much. If someone wants a deadly weapon, intangible laws and regulations aren’t going to stop them from getting one and using it. Rather than focusing all of the energy and effort we can on controlling weapons, we should put just as many resources, or more, into treating the people behind the weapons who are using them in ways they clearly shouldn’t. It’s not so much increasing or decreasing the number of guns, but changing a culture that is prone to loneliness, has a stigma against mental illness, and so easily lets people fall through the cracks. Controlling the tools people use to commit crimes only treats a symptom to the problem of people committing preventable acts of violence. (“The fish rots from the head, as they say, so I say why not cut off the head?” “…Of the human race?” “It’s not a perfect metaphor…”)

We should be able to take this event, and all of the past events similar to this one, and use it to gain awareness of the need for accessible mental health treatment. Some of the best tweets I’ve read today say something along the lines of “if only mental health resources were as accessible as guns are in our country” (other good tweets were people confronting large broadcasting networks about interviewing the children involved– there’s no way that they could have the best interests of those kids and their families in mind when they do that).

In a perfect world, I think, everyone would have access to therapy and whatever prescriptions they need. And maybe it’s not too much to ask that anti-depressants are only used to correct an imbalance in the brain, not when other lifestyle changes and regular counseling can be used as a long term solution instead. Breaking down the stigma against seeking help for mental illnesses has already started, but it needs to be accelerated if we are going to prevent future acts of senseless violence. Such severe actions like the one in Connecticut can only be the result of years worth of festering mental instability going untreated (whether it’s from a history of abuse and neglect or a disconnect in the brain, or both), alienation, and loneliness. Lacking social interaction can wreak havoc on anyone’s health– both mental and physical. Refusing to let people fall into that will not only prevent violence but help decrease the fiscal and spiritual poverty that’s found in every part of our country. It’s a huge, lofty problem, and dealing with it is overwhelming, but we all have a responsibility to each other to do the best we can. The solution starts locally in our respective cities, communities, and homes, and can be supported by changes in our domestic policies.

OK. I’m exhausted and feel like I’m going in circles over this. Best for us all to take a break and spend time with people we like to be around, but not to give up on talking about this.

So to start, life has become very different and very wonderful in a short time. Any personal or internet friends will probably know that the time leading up to moving north was drawn out and arduous and gave me plenty of time to indulge in anxiety about what was to come, along with the regular self-depreciation and the like that we all seem to be very good at. It wasn’t a fun time, to put it very simply. But since moving to Seattle and starting classes again I’ve been feeling really good.

Of course everything is still overwhelming and from where I am now the upcoming years of debt from student loans and likely struggle to figure out a career and a life is gross and looming. Real life is scary, you guys, but I love it. At any moment I’m either absolutely terrified or very aware of and thankful for the support and safety nets from friends and family, which I am unbelievably lucky to have. There are a lot of new people in my life here who are all lovely, creative, and talented in a way that pushes me to become better in the things that I do. That was all super airy and genuine and dumb. I’m sorry? (I’m not sorry.)

Here’s what I was aiming to get at but so far haven’t done a great job of doing so. Even among all of the fun and general wonderful-ness of the last few months there have been just as many difficult times and lots and lots of feelings– both good and bad. I’ve kind of been thrown into a lot of weird (maybe unique or unconventional are better words for it) and difficult situations, the most recent a result of the suicide of a local comedian, Tristan Devin. I had only met him twice, but some of the people I’ve grown closest to while being here have been really affected by it. Just from hearing everyone remember him and share stories with me, it’s really easy to see his talent and I’m left feeling like I missed out on knowing a truly incredible person. The whole thing really sucks to say the least.

My perspective on this event isn’t the most emotional or the most important by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not unfamiliar to me. <– That’s a weird thing to say, I know. Backing up, and explaining: When I was growing up, from being a toddler until I was about 4, I lived in a fairly secluded cabin in Sunriver, outside of Bend, OR. My dad worked in Bend, so days were spent with my mom. Now I’m able to realize how grateful I am for that time because the attention I got from my mom kickstarted my creativity, love of reading, and imagination– all things that I genuinely love about myself (that’s seems like a dumb thing to say about yourself, although it really shouldn’t).

When I was four, we moved from Sunriver to an apartment in Bend to be closer to my Dad’s family because my mom was pregnant with her next child, a son named Dylan. Obviously if you know me then you know it’s the three Houk sisters and no other siblings. Dylan’s birth clearly didn’t go well and they lost the baby (I never really got or asked for the complete details, mostly because they never seemed terribly important to me). Although I was only four I still comprehended what had happened. But I was at the age where I believed everything adults told me, and everyone was telling me things like “everything will be OK,” and “Dylan is in a better place.” I was comforted by their reassurance but couldn’t completely understand why they didn’t seem to believe it themselves.

This isn’t the kind of thing I tell even my closest friends, by the way, not because it’s hard for me to talk about but because I don’t like making others uncomfortable by telling them about this part of my past. And honestly, even though it has had such a huge role in making me who I am, it’s not something that’s on my mind very often. I’ve only been thinking about it recently because of the parallels between it and Tristan’s death. In both situations, from just this week and over 14 years ago, I’ve been almost indifferent to grief.

It’s a bizarre position to be in. When everyone else is having such pure, sincere feelings and pain and I seem to be the only one with an outside perspective. Being on that side of things as a four year old certainly shaped my personality. There’s not a lot of doubt that it forced me to grow up a lot before I was necessarily ready to. To some degree, there was almost a role reversal between my parents, who were hurting immensely, and I, who felt the need to take care of my parents. I wanted to fix things for them. I’m still a complete people pleaser, ready to listen to other people’s problems and offer help and support but will do anything to avoid asking others to so the same for me. Being able to open up to people rather than keeping everything hidden is hard for me, but I’m also really aware of that and I go back and forth between wanting to get better at it.

I don’t know how to end this, but I’m now over the 1,000 word count, so it’s definitely time to wrap it up. There’s a lot about me that you wouldn’t always get in real life. OK, I’m going to go eat a bowl of cereal and hope this post improves my site stats after I tweet it (But that’s selfish and meaningless, Sierra. I know, but it’s true,).