From New to Truly You

February 5, 2012 by ·

You know how when you start something like a new job you suddenly become totally aware of yourself and how funny you are (or aren’t) and how much you know (or don’t)? I think we all hide behind ourselves a little bit in those situations, sussing things out and trying to figure out who we are in that environment. The problem with that is, whoever we are, we aren’t our true selves.

I was certainly finding that when I started my new job in December. The first couple of days I felt like there was a microscope on me, except the person looking through the glass wasn’t my new colleagues, it was me. And then I read something that reminded me what those situations are really about.

I’m sharing that story on Just.Be.Enough. today. Come and read! 

 

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Filed Under: Be enough me · Tagged With: , , ,

Beauty in the Breakdown: TEDx – The Video

October 19, 2011 by ·

Early this morning I got an email from the organizers of the TEDx event I spoke at. “Your talk is up on the TED website,” they said nonchalantly, as though that one short sentence hadn’t just caused my heart to skip a beat.

Before I had even watched it, my husband had posted it on Facebook. I did sort of want someone to watch it and tell me what it was like, but that wasn’t quite what I had in mind…

“Did you watch it?! Is it awful?” I asked him.

“I saw it live. It was great,” he replied.

Husbands are so not helpful.

I was nervous. This is me crying on stage in front of strangers and it was posted on the TED website. I started to watch it, panicked, and stopped. I boiled the kettle and considered pressing play again while I was waiting, but wasn’t quite ready. Finally, with tea and toast in hand, I sat down to watch it.

I’m not sure how I expected to feel about it. Proud, I think, which is how I felt after the event. But I have to be honest: other things are outweighing the pride right now. I know I’ve written about all the things I spoke about  – the tears, the rage, and the accusations – but for some reason having this video out there is…different.

But I’m going to share it with you anyway.

It is what it is and this is my story.

(If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the juicy part starts at the 4-minute mark.)

And speaking of being enough… Did you see my piece on Band Back Together about the origins of Just.Be.Enough?

And next week I’ll be at Just.Be.Enough. on Monday hosting the Be Enough Me link-up. Join us!

Write, post, link-up, share your story and your voice.
Be part of carrying the weight of confidence and share our mission
to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children
that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!

Next week’s prompt: Five Things That Make You Smile

(Remember you can also write on a topic of your choice.)

 

Filed Under: Be enough me, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , ,

Walking the TEDx Talk

September 11, 2011 by ·

Yesterday I presented at a TEDx event – the locally-organized versions of the well-known TED conferences. I’d like to share that experience with you and have been trying to figure out how best to do that. I was inclined towards a humble description of how it went, as in:

It went really well. 

It was a great experience. 

It was fun, and I’m really glad to have done it. 

You know what? Screw it.

Instead I will tell you this: I got up in front of a theatre full of people I don’t know – people from my local community who I might very well see on the street tomorrow – and told my story about postpartum depression and how blogging, with brutal honesty, about my breakdown not only helped me but helps others. I shared some excerpts from my posts here. I cried – not a little, a lot.

Here’s how it went: I got a standing ovation. And I am really damn proud of that.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the event and I certainly wasn’t sure about my place in it. I was honoured and totally excited to be asked to speak, and I was less nervous than you’d think about telling my story. What I did worry about was whether people would connect with it and whether I would be able to offer something for them to take away.

The organizers were supposed to give me time cues and they chose not to, so I went, er, slightly beyond my allotted six minutes. Judging by the response, the people – including men – in the audience who were crying, and the incredibly generous comments I got afterwards, I think I can safely say I managed to get my message across.

That’s not the only reason I’m proud of how it went. I’m proud because I did it in a way that was true to who I am. I knew I was going to cry – I couldn’t figure out any way around it. And I actually didn’t worry about it. My story, and my message that it’s okay to be a little bit vulnerable, it’s okay to remove our masks and be honest about our struggles, and that, in doing so, we might actually make the world a better place – that’s an intense sort of topic. You want people to be emotionally invested in what you’re asking them to do? Make them cry.

Making people cry wasn’t my goal, obviously. Making it okay for me to cry was my goal. Because that’s what happens when we open ourselves up to people and share the stories about the hard stuff and reveal that maybe – just maybe – we’re better off for having dealt with something difficult. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable. I was never okay with that before. I am SO okay with it now.

Those of us who put our words to these pages – who tell those hard stories and reveal our tears – know there’s beauty in the breakdown. We know we’re not alone. We know we will get support and that those who don’t support us perhaps just don’t understand.

I’ve seen this countless times on other blogs. My friends’ blogs. Your blogs. I’ve seen you share stories about hard things I never would have suspected had you not written about them. I’ve seen you be bravely, beautifully honest and then, just when I think all your cards are on the table, you lay down your hand and say, “This is what life dealt me. It’s not the hand I’d have chosen, but there’s no point hiding it so I’m going to play. I’m going to stay in the game and play, and if you care to read along with me I’ll share my strategy and you’ll see that you can win even when you get dealt a bad hand.”

That’s why I believe bringing together writing and technology is more than “blogging” and think those who dismiss what we do here underestimate the power of this art. This art has the power to break down barriers and borders. It has the power to make life better. It has the power to make lives better.

You know it, and I know it.

And I think it’s an idea worth spreading.

[Update: The video of my talk is now available.]


This is our very last week to make an impact for Be Enough Me 4 Cancer. Last week we had 45 people link up an enough-themed post in our Be Enough Me for Cancer campaign and I’d love it if you’d help us boost that number again. For every 20 linked up posts, Bellflower Books will provide a memory book to a woman fighting breast cancer through Crickett’s Answer for Cancer, and help bring a smile to courageous women giving it their all, every single day. The link-up remains open for three days. No blog? No worries. You can also comment on the post or on the Just.Be.Enough. Facebook page with your own story and be counted.

 

Filed Under: Be enough me, Better world, Happy things, Hello, Inspiration, Postpartum depression, Writing · Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Four Weeks

April 18, 2011 by ·

Two weeks and three days ago, I started a week of vacation. Just a random little break after a busy few months.

Two weeks and two days ago – a Saturday – I had a breakdown. A day that was finally – truly finally, in the etymologic sense, i.e. in a final manner; conclusively or decisively – enough. Enough. I was staring at what might have been the end and I’d had enough.

One week and six days ago, I asked my boss for a leave of absence. It has taken me this long – nearly two weeks – to admit this here. Emotionally it feels like admitting defeat, even though intellectually I know it doesn’t and I haven’t. My fingers have hovered over these keys, waiting for the words to admit to this as one of the latest pieces of my story. The other admission will follow when it’s ready, but for now I need to get this out.

I am taking time off work because my PPD is not under control and I’ve had enough and I need to fix this. There. I said it.

I asked my boss for some time off and he said yes, which I knew he would because that’s the sort of person he is. He’s always been supportive, and especially so since a little over a year ago when, after hiding it for a long time, I tearfully told him I was cracking up. When I finally admitted to my struggle with postpartum depression, he understood and has let me do what I need to do.

Despite that support, asking for time off was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to ask for from a boss. Thank God for instant messaging, because I cried through the whole conversation.

A couple of days later I went to see him to do a hand-off of some of my work. He kindly agreed to let our team know I was going to be away. He even gave me the words when trying to figure out what to tell people made it feel like I couldn’t breathe. I chose the cowardly approach and he told them I was spending time with my family.

I suspect everyone knows it’s a crock. I’ve had several “I hope you are well” messages and I honestly don’t know how to respond. I am less well than I have ever been in my whole life.

In writing about my experience with PPD I have embraced honesty. I have told friends and family. I have been a guest on a radio show to talk about it. But I cannot bring myself to tell my colleagues – 10 or so of whom report to me – why I am not at work. Yet.

I know it shouldn’t matter, but it does. It weighs on me. I want it to be okay to admit that I’m struggling with depression – the postpartum sort or the capital D sort or whatever. I want it to be okay for those on my team to know that sometimes things other than work matter and we need to set work aside.

I also dread returning to work and facing the “how are you” questions from people who are very well meaning and genuinely caring but who don’t know if I’m dealing with cancer or a mental health issue or carpal tunnel syndrome.

Credit: szczel on Flickr

For now, however, I have let it be. I will deal with the why at the right time, whenever that is. When I saw my doctor and told her what had happened and how I was feeling, she asked how much time I thought I needed. A month, I said. Four weeks.

She paused and looked at me. Then she ticked the 1-2 months box on the doctor’s certificate and told me to come back in two weeks.

“We’ll see,” she said.

We’ll see.

 

I’m linking this post up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can’t Say because, for some reason, it makes me feel better about saying it.

Update: Yes, it was longer than four weeks.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , ,

Behind the Mask

March 8, 2011 by ·

At some point, many months ago, I put on a mask. I’m not sure exactly when I put it on. I don’t even know where I got it, and for a really long time I didn’t realize I was wearing it.

This mask covered up everything I had become and tried to turn me back into what I’d been before, even though I wasn’t that person anymore.

This mask, through some cosmic power I didn’t know I had, is invisible. It manifests in a hundred different ways, all of which hide what’s actually beneath it.

The mask is a smile when the person behind it wants to shut her door and cry.

It’s my outward I-can-do-that-attitude when the reality is that there have been days when the logistics of getting from my house to my office seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

It’s a calm demeanor that hides the tightness in my chest that’s been there so long sometimes I don’t even notice I’m not breathing properly.

It’s the cheerful mama voice – that one that can multitask with the best of them – trying to redirect a frustrated toddler while at the same time calculating how long it is until bedtime and wondering how she got to this place.

I’m a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister. I’m an employee and a supervisor, a colleague and a friend. The mask pretends this space is hidden, that these words are just for me. It makes me wonder, every day, what those people I know, those people I see every day, will think when they read these words. If they read these words. Because here I am not hiding. Here I can set my mask aside.

Outside this space I haven’t quite managed to take it off. Recently I experimented with taking it off – putting myself out there in a place more people I know might find me – but for the most part I still wear it. It reappeared in full force this week, covering up a wave of reality I didn’t see coming.

For a long time, this mask has defined me. I have to have faith one day that won’t be the case anymore.

 

This post is linked up with The Red Dress Club’s memoir prompts.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With:
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