Mama's Gone Crazy

Hello Internet! 

I want to talk about something serious today. I guess that is no surprise coming from me, but I do think it is a very important subject to talk about. As many people can become triggered easily, I will give a trigger warning. I really hope however that you can take a moment to prepare yourself, and continue to read, because this is important. This post will talk about a tragic murder that happened 9 years ago, and about mental illness. 

Back in 2008 a tragic incident occurred in Canada. While riding a Greyhound Bus, 22 year old Tim McLean was tragically murdered by 40 year old Vince Li. The young man was stabbed multiple times while frightened passengers fled the bus. Li then continued to behead Tim, and started to consume parts of his body. Many were witnesses to this, including some RCMP officers who would later suffer from PTSD due to the horrifying nature of what they saw. The whole country mourned for the young man, and our hearts went out to his family.  During the time of the trial, Li was seen by psychiatrists, and pleaded insanity. His mental health was brought to the foreground, and it was revealed that Li suffers from extremely bad schizophrenia. He was unmedicated at the time and had no supports in place to help him cope with his condition. At the time of the killing, he had heard “The Voice of God” who told him that the young man beside him was a force of evil who was about to execute him. Fearing for his life, Li committed the heinous actions that ended Tim’s life. He was declared NCR (not criminally responsible) and sent to a mental institution, where he spent the next 9 years. During his time there, as he continued to work on his mental health, he was slowly granted more and more allowances, until very recently when he was released all together- being granted Absolute Discharge. 

Now, that is the backstory for anyone who hasn’t heard any of this in the news. Since his release there have been countless people on social media who are outraged. They call Li (who now goes by Will Baker) a monster, danger to society, and call for him to be locked up for life. I have even seen some people who call for his execution (because you know, we totally believe in Capital Punishment in Canada). I would like to take a moment to state on record that I am not talking about my personal feelings over the murder of Tim. It was tragic, and that fact is indisputable. By writing this post, I am not trying to insult any friends or family, and I am not trying to disrespect this young soul. I am simply going to talk about mental illness, and rehabilitation. I am talking about the present, and not the past incident.  Recently social media celebrated Let’s Talk Day, in which most people identified themselves as an ally to those who suffer from mental illnesses. Some even identified as someone who personally has a mental illness. However, from the comments I have read recently, they should have identified as an ally to people who have illnesses that are not super scary but enemies to those who are scary.

Schizophrenia is as important of a mental health issue to acknowledge as depression and anxiety. It is categorized as abnormal social behaviour, and a failure to understand what is or is not real. Suffers could have false beliefs, unclear thinking, and even see or hear voices that others do not. With the inability to tell that this voices are not real, they believe in them, and experience them as reality. It is not a “curable” condition, however can be managed through means of medication and therapy. At the time Vince Li was not on medication and was not seeking therapy. He was living life with this horrible condition and experienced everything around him as completely real. To him, God spoke to him and warned him that he was about to be hurt. That conversation happened to him as much as the conversation you had with the cashier at the grocery store happened to you. Once he was hospitalized, and started understanding and working on his mental disorder, he understood what he had done was wrong. But more than that, he felt remorse. He even begged to die, because it was so hard to live with the act that he committed. With doctors help, he has worked himself to a point where he understands what needs to be done to stay safe. Now, let’s look at a couple of the legal mumbo-jumbo that we need to understand here. First, NCR. Here is what the Canadian Criminal Code has to say about NCR. “No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.” It does not take away responsibility from the guilty party, but rather lessens the responsibility if they were not in a healthy enough state of mind. Someone with schizophrenia as extreme as Li’s was not mentally capable of understanding that he was committing a crime at the time that he committed it. He did not go free either, but was locked away for almost 10 years.  Next, Absolute Discharge. To receive a discharge from a crime, there are a large number of criteria that must be met. It is not a decision that is taken lightly, and is only done in cases where it is deemed appropriate to do so. In the case of Li, he was rehabilitated and released (which has nothing to do with the Absolute Discharge), however with the criminal record over his head would find life impossible to continue. Now, many people would say “Justice!” for his life not being easy, but remember that he did not ask for this mental condition, he showed remorse for what he had done, and he spent 9 years rehabilitating himself.  “Well, no one can force him to take his medication now!” Yes, that is true, however it also doesn’t mean that he will stop taking it, or stop working with doctors. All that it means is that he no longer has to deal with the legal system in regards to this crime. I would like to draw a parallel about the issue of taking medication. I am on a very large amount of anti-depressants at the moment. The last time that I was off of them, I decided that I was going to take a pill every time that my boyfriend-at-the-time insulted me, because I couldn’t live with the way he was making me feel about myself. I was close to killing myself. Since getting medicated, I have realized that all of that was my mental illness talking. The medication helps me not want to harm or kill myself (or others), but without it I am in danger. I do not want to be in danger, therefore I will keep taking my pills. It is really that simple, and can be that simple for Will Baker (fka Li). He doesn’t want to hurt people. The last time he was not on medication he killed someone. Therefore, he will stay on his pills.  The last thing that I want to talk about is the difference between “justice” “vengeance” and the ability to rehabilitate people. Justice, from a legal standpoint is defined as “n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/ her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal.” The system did actually give Vince Li his “due”. He was declared NCR (by the system), spent 9 years in a rehabilitation centre (by the system), and was deemed to be no longer a threat to society (by the system). So when you scream for “justice”, justice was actually served.  Vengeance is the word you are actually looking for here. First, it is worth noting that vengeance does not have a legal definition. So we will look at the standard definition: “noun1.infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge:But have you the right to vengeance?2.an act or opportunity of inflicting such trouble: to take one's vengeance. 3.the desire for revenge: a man full of vengeance.4.Obsolete. hurt; injury.5.Obsolete. curse; imprecation.” The desire for revenge. It is understandable for the family members of Tim to seek vengeance, however the rest of us citizens have no right to do so. Once we start seeking out or committing acts of vengeance we are really no better than the criminals themselves, and are in fact trying to live in an anarchy.

Our current legal system works to rehabilitate people. It is why there is a system of parole. Funnily enough, had Li not been deemed NCR, he would have been sent to jail for 2nd degree murder; in Canada that means life in prison with chance of parole between 7-25 years. Parole is granted based on a number of conditions, including chance to reoffend. Li’s doctors have released him based on the collected agreement that he is extremely unlikely to reoffend. So, he could have been released sooner if the “justice” system that people call for worked in their favour. 

TL:DR time: Unless you have a medical degree and have worked with Li for a long enough time that you know his condition, how it affects him, and his chances to reoffend, you do not have the authority to speak about whether or not “justice” has been served with his release. You also cannot claim to be an ally to people with mental conditions, and then treat someone the way that you are all treating him. He committed a terrible crime, but was suffering from a terrible illness that he did not ask to have. He has worked towards rehabilitation, and deserves the chance to live a life, however filled with remorse it is, as a mentally healthy man. 

Please, think before you judge. Research before you get angry. Think about how all aspects of this case are affected. Be an ally to everyone who suffers from any condition, regardless of the stigma attached to it. And until next time, stay crazy <3 

PS: Some of my sources for this post are listed below.  https://web.archive.org/web/20150716091637/

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca:80/eng/acts/C-46/

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs397/en/

https://web.archive.org/web/20080810005604/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080805.wbus06/BNStory/National/home

http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1086

Hello Internet!  So... I don’t know if I am ready to post this. I have been meaning to talk about this for a long time, but it’s such a scary topic that I keep putting it off. I have decided to try just biting the bullet, and this post will be scheduled for a day in the future. Hopefully that way I will be able to share my story, and will have the time to postpone it if I do not feel brave enough.  In many other posts of mine I have talked about the fact that I suffer from PTSD. I usually brush off the reason and say “that’s another post for another time”. Well, that time is now. Please note before reading any further that this is a very difficult topic. It has a high chance of being a trigger for people, so that is my disclaimer. If you don’t want to expose yourself to it, that is fine. Feel free to stop reading here, and maybe read my next post instead. 

There is no easy wording for this, so I will just come out and say it. When I was younger, I was the victim of a sexual assault, a rape. I was way too young, much below the legal age of consent, but had already had sex once before, so this is not a story about my virginity. I met this older guy at work (above legal age), and we started talking and got along really great. I developed a fast crush on him, and was very surprised when he said that he liked me too. He took me out to the movies and was a complete gentleman the whole time. We briefly discussed the age difference between us, and decided that “age is just a number” and we started our relationship. 

Everything was amazing. I felt like I was floating on air- not only was I in a relationship with this really cute guy, but he was older! Clearly, the fact that we could date meant that I was really mature for my age, and I felt so proud about that. Things were kept decently casual, especially at work, but still I could not be happier.  A couple weeks into the relationship, things took a drastic change for the worst. As most young people with hormones, the two of us had kissed, and had let things get slightly further then that. I was fine, happy, and consenting but not willing to take things further at that time. He invited me over one day, and when I got to his house he informed me that his parents were gone. It wasn’t a big deal, so we went to the basement and put in a movie. Only a few minutes into the movie, he moved to start kissing me. He then started removing articles of my clothing. I said “I am not ready to have sex, I really don’t feel comfortable right now, can we please just watch the movie?” He stopped momentarily, but started back up. I continued to express how uncomfortable I was with everything, and he continued to laugh off my concern. Eventually, he had me at a point where I knew what was about to happen. I once again, for probably the tenth time, said “I really don’t know... I don’t feel comfortable.” That was met with a sigh, and then a “you know, you’re the one who wants to be in this mature relationship... well this is just what people who are in mature relationships do.” I felt small, I felt afraid. All of my happiness was gone, and was threatening to “leave forever” with the sense of drama that all teenagers have about the ending of relationships. He informed me that he was getting a condom, took my clothes and placed them well out of my reach, and then disappeared. 

Needless to say, I did not get my clothes back. Once he got back, I blacked myself out and honestly can’t remember much after that point. I went home that day and didn’t even cry, I just felt empty, small. We dated for 3 months after that. The entire time I felt uncomfortable with things, and I kept having emotional threats or abuse to keep me staying. “This is what you wanted” I was told for every single instance. Rules were implemented, such as me not being allowed to wear a shirt if we were alone together. I kept on blacking myself out in order to cope with what was happening.  Eventually, I did flat out say “absolutely not” to something he wanted. He argued, and gave me some more emotional abuse about it, but it was something I was putting my foot down about. He left me where I was and I didn’t hear from him for days. After a few days, I was told “yeah, I don’t like you any more”, and he broke up with me. I was filled with this odd sense of security, as well as grief. I felt immature, like because I refused to do what he wanted, I was not a strong enough person to be in a relationship. I felt ashamed about how I was tossed aside. I felt relief that I didn’t have to deal with being forced into situations I didn’t want to be in anymore. 

Any dignity that I held onto after that breakup was important to me, but was soon crushed. I learnt that he was telling all our coworkers that he had “only ever dated me because he thought I looked easy”, and “I was no longer of any use”. That destroyed me, and all of my self confidence. I believed what he said, that I was only useful for sex. From there on, I hated myself.  The first time I acknowledged that he was wrong in that relationship was a year and a bit later. A friend from work messaged me and said “I demand to know what he did to you”. When I asked why, I found out that he had tried to rape a friend of this coworkers at a party. I told my story, and this coworker asked if I would testify if it came down to it. It never came down to it. From then on, I had to deal with the questions “was I raped? I never said “no”. I must be to blame”. I got all of the emotional pain of having been raped, but all of the guilt knowing that I didn’t do more to stop it. A few years later I found out he was dating another friend of mine. I warned her, but didn’t give details. Later, she told me that he did the same stuff to her. There entered the guilt of knowing I could have saved my friend if I had just done something back then.  The whole experience shaped who I was for the rest of my teenage life, and the beginning of my adult life. If someone wanted sex, I blacked out and would let whatever happens happen. I cheated on many guys that I was dating because of this. I didn’t know that I had the ability to say no. I didn’t know that I was worth more. Some guys wanted to save me from myself, so I would ruin those relationships too, as I was not worthy of being happy.  It wasn’t until I met D that things turned around for me. As with most people that I met, we were in an intimate situation and I was ready to just let it happen. Suddenly, he stopped and said “No. I really like you, and I don’t want to jump right into things like that. You mean more to me than that.” I started crying my eyes out, and opened up about everything that I had kept silent about my whole life. He reacted amazingly, and took care of me in that moment. From there, he helped me get the help that I needed, and I have been working of self-recovery ever since. 

Now, I am happy to call D my husband, and we have our beautiful baby girl. I am able to admit to myself what happened, how awful it was, and work on ways to recover. I’ve also been working on ways to help other victims, as I know how easy it is to blame yourself for everything. 

Still with me? If you are, I am almost done, so you don’t have much more to read. I would like to say that I don’t pity myself, and for the most part I don’t blame myself. I still have weak moments. I hear people saying things like “well if girls didn’t dress a certain way, or get drunk, these things wouldn’t happen”. Many times that I was forced into things, I was wearing a work uniform, and was too sober to deal with it. I don’t let those types of accusations give me any more blame, because it wasn’t my fault. I said that I wasn’t ready, which should have been respected, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t me, it was him. 

If you are also a victim of a traumatic event like this, I want you to know that it does get better. It is not your fault, and you deserved so much better. You can get the help you need, and if you even just need someone to reach out to, feel free to message me and we can chat. Don’t give up, don’t give in, you are beautiful, strong, and amazing. 

Hello internet! I wanted to talk a bit about my disappearance, and also about the thing that us mothers need to work on but often feel guilty about. As I have talked about in previous posts, I suffer from really bad depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and most recently have been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The thing that I noticed the most since T came into my life is that having a baby really makes all of these mental issues come up to the front. I have struggled more over the last 7 months than I ever have throughout the rest of my life. 

I am on a journey of self-healing. I have been on this journey since meeting my husband, and him helping me find the courage to say “I have had a huge trauma in my life. I am suffering, and I need help.” At that point, I started taking anti-depressants, got my prescription for an anti-anxiety medication, and started some Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy with a weekly counsellor. My school was awesome and funded that for me, which I unfortunately lost when I moved cities. 

Knowing that I have these issues, my OBGYN referred me to a Perinatal Mental Health program that my city offers. The city I live in takes amazing care of new mothers, and I was set up with a psychiatrist. She has been working with me on a medication level, and set me up in a group therapy for mothers with PPD. 

I could go on for days about the amazing things that this group does for me. We meet weekly for 2 hours, bringing the babies with us, and talk about the stuff that is going on in our lives. We work on strategies and similar experiences to help each other cope with the hectic nature of raising a tiny human. One of the big things that this group has taught me so far is the importance of taking care of myself. It’s constantly repeated that when you are on a plane and the oxygen masks fall down, you need to put the mask on yourself before you can help the people beside you. 

Now, I don’t know about any of you, but for me this is an extremely difficult thing. I have always been a fixer, right from childhood, and frankly would throw myself off the plane before I let someone else get hurt. I don’t know if this is related to any of my mental conditions, or just my personality, but I absolutely hate the idea that someone is in trouble, and I could help but I chose not to because I needed to take care of myself. Everyone in life has troubles, everyone in life needs help. For most of my life I have taken it as my personal duty to be the person to help and save everyone. 

This is something that I need to work on in my life. It is why I took a step back from writing- The world needs fixing and my voice could help that, but I had no energy to do it when I was fighting my demons. It is why I don’t want to make any more promises about how often I will post things, because I don’t want to break them. It’s also why some of my friends have noticed that I have been disappearing lately, or not responding to them when they message. 

Yes, since having my baby, I have noticed my mental conditions take a turn for the worst. However, I have also noticed that my determination to get on a better track is stronger. In case anyone else who needs to work on some self-care is reading, I’ll share my current strategy with you all, and maybe you can work some of it into your own lives and hopefully it helps you as well.

1) Don’t push to help a situation that can’t be helped. This applies for things that people either need to work on personally (friends with depression, family members in trouble, other peoples financial issues, etc) or when people just push back and refuse to accept your help. There are times where you need to say to yourself “I have done everything that I can, said everything that I can, the rest of it is up to them” and take a step back from the whole thing. 

2) Don’t strive for perfection but instead learn that what you can do is good enough, which makes it perfect. This is a huge one for me right now, especially when it comes to the state of my home. I have gone through many anxiety attacks saying “the house is not perfect”. While it still bothers me to see the dishes not done, or to know that I haven’t swept the floors yet today, I try listing the things that I have done instead: “Today, I made T 3 healthy meals, played with her for hours, cooked supper for D and I, played with the dog, and folded the laundry. Tomorrow I can do dishes” Now, I am not saying this makes everything okay, but it relieves a bit of the pressure. 3) Make time for yourself. Over the past 3 weeks I have set a personal rule. Between 6:30-7:00, I make T her supper and feed her solids, then it is bath time, bottle, and bed. After she goes to bed (usually around 8) I take my pills, and am not allowed to do anything else that requires worry or effort. No cleaning, no cooking- just time for myself. This might be knitting, or catching up on a TV show, but whatever it is has to be relaxing for me. Once my pills kick in, I go to bed. This has helped in huge volumes. Setting these boundaries gives me something more to look forward to in my evening, and allows my brain time to calm down before sleep. I have noticed a distinct improvement with insomnia since I came up with this rule. 4) Be healthy. 3 times a week I go to the gym for exercise. Once the air no longer hurts to go out in, I will start taking daily walks again. I have cut most extra sugar from my diet, and am working on eating a more balanced variety of foods. I allow a “cheat day” where I can splurge, but otherwise I think about all the ingredients that are going into my food. It is amazing how much difference paying attention to your physical health can make on your mental health. 

Those are just a few of the things that I have worked on lately to take care of myself. My eventual goal is to be at a healthy enough state of mind that I can feel happy, guilt-free (which will be a huge huge deal, as I have had chronic guilt over everything since I was 14), and more energetic. Once I can get those things implemented into my daily life, T will start benefitting, as she will have a Mama that doesn’t cry when she can’t find a good onesie to put her in, or doesn’t track the amount of times and consistency that she poops and go insane over it. She will have a Mama that will be a good example as to how to live a happy life, and really, her happiness means the world to me. That’s all for today. Like I said earlier, I don’t want to make promises about how often I will post. When I am feeling good, I will try to schedule a few posts in advanced so that there is at least something on the days I need to take just for me. However, I am here, and will come write about things as often as possible. Thank you all for reading, understanding, and I love you all! 

Hello Internet!  I’mmmm backkkk... That’s right, after a long couple months without doing posts, I am back from the shadows. I mean that quite literally, and I would like to apologize for disappearing. Let’s just say, post partem depression is a bitch in a half. Over the last couple months I have been on an emotional rollercoaster of craziness, as my depression, anxiety, and newly diagnosed OCD try to take over my mind. In an attempt to survive it, I took a break from things that weren’t as much a priority in my life, in order to have time to take care of myself and my family. However, in light of everything that is going on lately, I feel like it is time for me to come back out and chat with everyone about society type stuff. 

I’m not going to play around here and pretend like you haven’t heard what’s going on. The Women’s March of 2017 was one of the largest (and most amazing IMO) gathering of people together with a shared purpose in years. Now, there is a lot of material there to talk about. However I want to talk about one of the main issues: Abortion.  Yes, I am back and starting strong with a super controversial topic! For this, I would like to share my own experiences in pregnancy that made me double think the right to choose to be pregnant.  First off, I would like to put on the record that T was a planned baby. My husband and I decided on our honeymoon when we were going to start trying. We didn’t expect it to happen as fast as it did, but we were trying, hoping, and excited when I got that “Yes” on my test. I spent every minute of my pregnancy dreaming of the day that I would meet my little Spud, and so ecstatic at the idea of raising my own child. However, that’s where the fun ended. You know those rainbows that pregnant women live on in TV and movies? Yeah, that rainbow is a lie. Instead, the realities of being pregnant are difficult and painful. Let’s look at a few of them, shall we?

1) Morning sickness... except that is the second biggest lie, right after the rainbows. It is not just being sick in the morning. For me, it was being sick for 14 weeks straight. It was not keeping down 90% of what I ate. It was taking twice as long at school to get things done and missing most of lectures, because I was busy throwing up in the bathroom. It was ginger candy... all the time. I gag at the taste of ginger now. 

2) Back pain. For me, back pain started nice and early. It was pretty much the day after I started feeling better from the morning sickness. See, where the baby is sits right near the main nerves in your pelvic area. With my bone condition and the nerves being hit, my back couldn’t handle it. Sometimes I was not able to leave bed. I was given special instructions to take it easy, not allowed to lift more than 10 lbs at a time. Luckily my bosses are amazing people and created jobs that I was able to do. Not everyone as lucky as me. 

3) The rest of the pain (not including labour). Round ligament pain, baby kicks bladder pain, baby kicks feet through rib cage pain, baby causes acid reflux pain. Literally, being pregnant is being in pain for 9 months straight, and not a thing you can do about it, as medication is off the table. 

4) Money, money, money. Not including things for the baby afterwards, there is a lot of expense to being pregnant. Pre-natal vitamins (which need to be taken daily for healthy babe) cost 30 dollars for 90 pills. Maternity clothes cost roughly as much as 2 months rent. Nursing pads (which if your boobs leak like mine did are a must). If you don’t have the joy of free health care, you also have doctor appointments (minimum 3, however I had 2/month). It costs a lot just being pregnant. 5) Becoming a tiger. As your body stretches out, stretch marks start to appear. I originally thought that they only came on your stomach. Nope! I have stretch marks on my stomach, on my breasts, on my hips, and on my thighs. These marks will be on my body forever. 

6) Labour. Now, granted my labour was atypical. However ask any mother “was labour hard?” and she will say “fuck yeah!” Your body is trying to kill you. Your stomach is tearing itself apart. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you don’t do anything other than try to survive. This can go on for upwards of days (mine was 2 weeks!). When it comes to actually “giving birth” you have so many strangers shove their hands up your vagina that you have lost all sense of dignity. Your body is twisted in many different ways to see what the best way of having a watermelon make its way out of you will be. You poop on a table in front of said strangers. If you’re lucky, you are able to “just give birth” with no extra difficulties. If you are not lucky, you could need medical stuff to happen including a catheter for peeing, a physical cut just below your vagina, or an emergency surgery. All of this happens before you actually get to meet the baby. 

7) It doesn’t end there. After birth, many fun things still happen. You bleed heavily from your vagina. Taking a poo becomes the second most painful thing you’ve ever experienced. Your hormones are all over the place. If you don’t breastfeed, your milk still comes in and then you get engorged (which feels like a million tiny demons beating your breasts to death)

This is only a small picture of how difficult pregnancy, birth, and aftercare is. There are other complications that can happen, different circumstances that could take place. I remember one time in the middle of it all thinking “If I was not excited for this baby, could I go through all of this? If I was just going to hand this baby to someone else, would I be able to handle it?” I hate to say this, but I would not be able to. So, I considered the idea of an abortion. I considered the idea of the physical torture that I was going through for a baby that I love, and the thought of how it would work if I didn’t love this baby. If I didn’t, and I was forced to go through with the pregnancy because some guys in suits decided they should control my body... I would have killed myself. That is not me saying it in jest, or as a joke... I seriously thought about how I would kill myself if I was tortured like this for 9 months and didn’t have that light at the end of the tunnel that was T. 

Now, I can hear the criticism. “Well, if you didn’t want to go through all that, don’t have sex! Use birth control! It’s called a condom you murderous idiot!” Human beings by design are very social creatures. We connect with each other, and one of the ways that humans do that is through sex. It is in our biological make-up. It is the same with other primates. And dolphins, interestingly enough. It is just a fact of the world. I am not saying everyone does, asexuality is a valid thing too, but for the most part it is just how people connect. As long as it is consensual, sex is completely normal and moral, as it is just a way to comfort your biological need for connection. 

As far as birth control, well condoms are not effective 100% of the time. Neither is hormonal birth control. There are also circumstances where a woman can be allergic to birth control (another post for another day) and can’t be on it. 

At the end of the day, this all boils down to the fact that all of this is happening to a woman, a person who should have a choice as to whether or not she is forced to go through so much difficulty and pain. Yes, the fetus will eventually become a baby, which will eventually become a person. However, as long as it is unable to sustain life on it’s own, it is not (which has been defined by doctors and medical experts). By the time that it is able to self-sustain, it is too late for most abortions, and would only be aborted in the event that the mothers life is at risk. To say that it has more rights than the mother is just insulting towards the mother as her own person. 

In the end, if you do not agree with abortion, it is very simply... do not have an abortion. You are entitled to your own opinion, however you are not entitled to someone else’s opinion, life choices, or to be an asshole. 

That’s all for tonight everyone! I will be trying to write a bit more often now, as I finally feel a little bit more normal. I truly do enjoy writing and sharing my views, and hope that you all enjoy reading them. If you have any questions, feel free to message me either here, or on my Mama’s Gone Crazy Facebook page. 

Hello Internet,

I am so sorry. I did it again. I disappeared. I know I said I would try to post more often, and I really don’t mean to keep coming and going, as I truly do love writing on here. So, I would like to take the time to write about the thing that has been keeping me away. The giant monster that has been haunting me since I was 14 years old. Depression.

I don’t want to get too much into what happened to start my depression. That is a different post for a different day when I am feeling a lot braver than I am now. Let’s just say there was a trauma when I was 14. From there, I let myself become overwhelmed with emotions. Rather than dealing with things that happened, I started a spiral of self-destruction. 

Overall, I always had some small handle on things which stopped me from completely losing myself. However, I purposely got myself into bad situations. I dated the wrong people, put too much of myself in it, and failed my grade 12 year of high school. I hung out with the wrong people both times that I moved away from home and ended up spending my days crying in my apartment rather than going to school. Even once I finally got myself on a really good path, I kept toxic people around. More than one occasion I almost messed things up with the man who ended up being my husbands. I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am for him never giving up on me. 

See, people think that depression is just a bad case of the weepies. You cry for awhile, and then you get over it. In our super progressive society, we still treat depression like it’s a paper cut- yeah, it hurts, put a band aid on it and suck it up. That’s not even close to the reality of it. (Disclaimer: this is my experience with depression, everyone experiences mental illnesses differently)

Depression for me has personified herself. I say her, because any of the nasty things that I hear in my head are always in a female voice. This isn’t the same as hearing voices, as I know that they are a twisted version of my own voice. However for purposes of this, I will speak about Her. She is dark, She is relentless, She is loud, She is hurtful. She is as attached to me as my shadow is. 

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I see is Her face. She comments “You woke up. Today isn’t going to be fun. You are going to break. We should just stay in bed.” Then I hear T call out for me, so I climb out of bed. She follows. I look at T and T looks and me and smiles. It makes me happy. “I can’t believe the baby woke up. Can you imagine if she would have died in the night?” Then She presses play on the little movie player in my head. In a matter of seconds I can see the whole situation play out. I witness what it would be like to find my baby gone. 

That is how I spend my day. Throughout the whole day, I spend countless hours with Her finding the thing that is making me happy and finding a way to ruin it. Play with T and make her giggle by kissing her stomach? “If you kiss her like that around anyone, they’ll think you’re trying to hurt her, and social services will come take her away. Want to watch?” T is having a great time eating some rice cereal? “She could choke and die all because you wanted to give her something solid to eat. Want to watch?” T is refusing to nurse and wants a bottle? “You’re not good enough for her” T is nursing? “Remember last time when she wouldn’t? She won’t next time either.”

It extends past the baby too. Pretty much everything is a trigger for Her. Even my husband watching a game on his computer- if he doesn’t look like he is “happy”... “You are not making him happy. You are not a good wife. He is going to leave you. Want to watch?” These images play in my head over, and over. It is worse at night, when I am sleep deprived and I can’t get T to stay asleep. “You’re a terrible mom. You can’t take care of this baby. Things would be better off without you. These are all the ways you could leave. Want to watch?” 

I would like to quickly say I would never hurt myself. I care and love my family way too much to put them through that. 

She is this dark cloud that is always there. I have been on medication, I have seen a therapist... I keep working as hard as I can, fighting as hard as I can. T deserves a happy mom, D deserves a happy wife, my parents deserve a happy daughter... and I deserve to be happy. I won’t give up this fight, no matter how difficult it is.  I talked to a friend of mine about depression and how I survive it. The best advice I would give to anyone going through depression is to find a Reason. Let that Reason be your light, the thing that makes it possible to go on. For me, my Reason is my family. T, D, my parents, my sisters, and my best friend in the world... even my puppy. I know how much pain they would be in if I gave up, and I won’t put them through that. They mean so much to me. 

I hope that this gives a good understanding to why I might disappear from time to time. I do promise that I will post as often as I can, but it’s just not always easy to deal with everything and still have motivation to do anything extra. However, I will never be gone forever. 

Hello internet!

Anyone who has been following the details of my surgery or bone condition will know that with MHE there is a chance of the tumours being malignant. Every time that one of them are removed, it gets sent to the pathologist to determine if it was cancerous or not. Today, I got the results from my recent hip surgery, and I am just so excited by it that I’m going to say it now, and then get to the rest of the post... BENIGN!!!! It was not at all cancerous! That means that I was, and am, cancer free (as far as we know). 

It feels like such a big weight has been lifted from my chest. Since we first saw the X-ray of my hip, I have been extremely worried. See, most of the tumours that grow out end up being a fairly straight shape. Sometimes they might look like a rod, or a paddle, sometimes just a tiny bump, but for the most part they are a normal shape. The X-ray that showed us the hip tumour however looked like a giant mass of bumps on bumps. It was the size of an apple, but looked like the apple had rotted and died. It didn’t look typical. That worried me. It also worried my doctor for the first time in the 17ish years I have known him- which I think scared me even more. 

I drove the twoish hours home right after that first appointment, with T sleeping soundly in the back seat. I couldn’t shake the image of the x-ray from my mind. When I got home, my husband and I put babe to bed, and went to bed ourselves. I broke down. Both of us were scared... what if it was cancer? 

See, cancer is a big scary thing in my family. Over the past 5 years, I have lost 1 Aunt, and 2 Uncles to various forms of cancer- and another Uncle a few years before that. It has blown through my family and beat us as hard as it can. The one who has struggled the most is my Aunt, who lost her sister, brother, and husband and took care of all 3 in their final moments. Still, she remains one of the strongest women that I have ever met. Her faith keeps her going when many would have fallen. She was my maid-of-honour at my wedding, and all I could think was “I can’t... I can’t go tell her that I have cancer too,” Luckily, I got to send her a message today with good news, something she desperately needs. 

The kind of cancer that can form in these tumours is a relatively simple and not overly aggressive type. As long as you catch it early, the treatment is simply to have it removed. They only do chemo or radiation for ones that have had the chance to start spreading. My doctor is amazing, so I trust that he removed it completely. Even if it had been cancerous, I would probably be fine.  However, thinking “maybe I have/had” cancer is a really scary thought. My mind went to “I’d probably be fine, but what if another tumour has it too?” I started making plans in my head about how I would take care of my family. I tried to light a fire in my mind and heart that said “T needs you, D needs you, Arco needs you... so whatever it is, fight it... for them.” 

All signs pointed to this tumour being cancerous. It was atypical in size, growing, atypical in shape, and even had some odd “fluid” in it according to my doctor. All of these things point to cancer. Yet, I am healthy. I was healthy and safe. Any thoughts, prayers, or well wishes worked, and I have a long life ahead of me. 

"But we can't do it that way. We gotta do it a different way. We have to use our anger to help each other... Get ready to be vocal, get ready to get involved, please be proactive... What can we do to channel pain and anger and resentment into something positive for the world, each other, and the future, into the next four years and beyond"

Hello Internet! 

First, I am really sorry that I have been gone the past few days, and haven’t posted. I am having a lot of issues with breastfeeding right now, and it has caused a really, really bad depression. I’ll make a post about it probably tonight, or tomorrow night, but lets just say I haven’t really had the heart to do anything over the past few days, let alone come here and talk.  So... Tuesday night happened. Donald Trump is now the president of the United States. If you know me personally, you will know that I am extremely Liberal. I celebrated Justin Trudeau’s win in Canada with a bottle of wine (cheap, sugary, juice like wine, but hey still counts in my opinion). I am very open about my stances on political and social issues, and will talk about them to anyone who will listen. That being said, I do try to leave myself open to have someone change my opinion. Despite being on high levels of painkillers that make me tired, and knowing I had to be up in the morning with my baby, I stayed up Tuesday and watched as one by one the little Google map turned red. I won’t lie, I cried when I saw Trump winning. I had to get up, hobble with my crutches over to T’s crib, and watch her sleep, so I could look at something that gave me hope for the future.  It’s been a couple of days, and the initial pain has worn off. I’m still not happy about the results, but they are what they are. Donald Trump made his whole campaign based around hate, fear, racism, sexism, and bullying. I honestly thought that he would lose, as I thought better of society to give into that. However, he revealed to the world exactly how dark society is, despite us all saying racism and sexism is dead. To quote one of my idols Laci Green “Donald Trump gave a voice to darkness... but we don’t have to listen.” I do think that we should try and give him the chance to prove us wrong. Maybe, he won’t be as bad as he has been acting, maybe it was just a campaign strategy. I’m not super hopeful, but everyone does deserve the chance. So, Mr. Trump, it is up to you to prove the world wrong. Please, don’t let us down, don’t destroy the hard work towards equality that we’ve done over the past 60 years. Recently, a friend of mine on Facebook posted saying how she is fed up with how everyone is attacking people over their opinions, regardless of what they are. This is a huge trend in society, and I completely agree with her. No matter what you say, people have something negative to say back. If you say “I think that ‘fed is best’ and formula feeding is great!” breastfeeding activists come back and say “You’re stupid and a terrible person!” If you say “breastfeeding is the best way to nourish your child” than Fed-Is-Best activists will come back and say ‘wow, what a jerk, some people can’t breastfeed you horrible monster you’. There is literally no winning, for some reason our society has developed into one that can’t just talk, but needs to attack and insult each other at every possible chance. 

This is a key issue in society. I truly believe that conversation is the only way to move forward in society. Conversation is what brought us things like women being able to vote, or people of colour getting equal rights. If people didn’t discuss Rosa Parks, her refusing to give up her seat on the bus wouldn’t have been as affective. We need conversation. However, changes gets lost among insults. 

It does bring up the question, at what point does it change from “the right of free speech” to crossing the line. It is a very faded line, and extremely hard to see. Unfortunately, the closer you are to a topic, the less visible that line is. I know women who have had abortions, and I know women who have had their baby when they had the opportunity to not continue the pregnancy. Both sets of women are so emotionally attached to the situation that it becomes difficult to have a conversation. The second someone feels like they might become the victim of attack, they fight back and it becomes a huge vicious circle.  I think that a good place to draw the line is when we start insulting people on a personal level. I am very ashamed to admit that I gave into the dark voices and insulted someone based on their political opinions. I let my depression cloud the usual way that I handle things. I do plan on apologizing to this person, but it showed me how easy it is to give in to that. Everyone has the right to free speech... but no one has the right to be an asshole and cause harm to other people. 

As I have said, we need conversations. We need to discuss controversial topics amongst each other. We also need to have the right to talk about things in a safe environment. If you start to feel the need to insult someone, please, take a step back from the conversation. Take a deep breath, and approach the conversation from a different angle- something I should have done yesterday. If you feel you are being attacked, don’t strike back, but call the person out. Maybe they aren’t aware that they are hurting you, so simply saying “You’re not talking about the issue, you’re insulting me, please stop” might help to get the conversation moving in a positive direction again. If you feel the need to comment, or to defend someone, please, do so in a positive way. Let’s not give into the voice of darkness, but use our passion to make the world a better place.

Hello internet! Have you ever had a situation where you got extremely comfortable in a lifestyle and suddenly it had to change? Times where you know how you do things and are only calm when things are done those exact ways? That is the experience that I am currently having, and I think is the most difficult thing about this whole “have a surgery and raise a baby” thing I’m working on.  A little background: I am crazy... or I always used to just think that I was crazy and really weird, most of the time keeping it to myself but occasionally letting others know my thoughts. Since I was younger I have these weird tendencies in my life where I become very obsessed with a concept or a thing, and once I become obsessed it is almost impossible to change a behaviour. A big example would me an obsession with time. At some point growing up, something clicked in my brain where I had to make rules as to when I could arrive to things. For my music lessons, I had to arrive exactly 2 minutes early. Any different and I would go through a massive panic. I drove my parents crazy making them drive around the block over and over until it was the perfect time to pull up to my teachers house. At work, I have to have an extremely organized work station, with everything in a certain spot. God forbid I open a till and even a single bill is facing the wrong way. These are just things that I grew to say “This is how I need things.” and would expect people around me to adapt. 

Anyone who has ever had a baby would know that you cannot be strict with trivial things. Babies are just too unpredictable, and do what they want when they want to do it. I tried my hardest to get into routines with T, but she never wanted to do what I wanted. So instead of my brain focusing on being obsessed with time, it found new ways to cause me difficulty. Her nails can’t grow past a certain point, or it will drive me crazy until I cut them. If I see a booger in one of her nostrils, all I can see and hear is “booger” until I use the sucker to get it out of there (which she hates and generally results in us both crying before I get it out). The absolute worst thing that I have obsessed over is T’s bowel movements. Since she was born, I have had a running list in my head with information on her past poopy diaper. What time was it at (exactly)? What was the colour? What was the size? What was the texture? If it had been too long between a particular pair of poops, I would panic. Why hasn’t she pooped? Is she sick? What could be wrong with her? Is it all my fault? I must be such a terrible mom! and I continue to obsess until she does her business, and then its a restart on the poop clock. Apparently, when talking to my psychiatrist, she said this was definitely not normal. It is normal to worry a bit and be a bit concerned, but to lose sleep over the fact that she hadn’t pooped in 26 hours, or my husband changed a diaper so I don’t know all of the details, is not normal. She asked me if I had ever been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and was surprised when I said no, no one has. 

As per the stigma behind mental illnesses, I do not want to say I have OCD. That thought lingered with me for some time, and in fact still does. I have depression. I have an anxiety disorder. I have PTSD. Why do I not want to add another label? I am not someone who is ashamed by mental illness, as I know that it is no more something that can be controlled than a flu or asthma. For some reason though, I am hesitant to actually look into whether I truly could have OCD and it might be treatable or if I am just an odd duck like I always assumed. It is something that I need to ponder for awhile and decide what I want to do with,  Either way, it gives a nice answer as to why I parent the way I do. See, I tend to be a bit of a control freak when it comes to how things are done with my daughter. I never mean it in an offensive way, like no one else knows how to take care of babies, but instead it is a way to keep my mind as cleared as possible and not have extra “mom guilt” hanging around. I have a specific way that I bathe her (complete with a tooth-brushing song!), a number of times I let her fuss with something before I give up and try something else, a specific angle to hold her and a bottle when feeding... basically, if there is something to be done, I have a very specific and methodical way of doing it. These methods don’t come from nowhere, but rather from the past 4 1/2 months of studying her behaviour and coming up with the best way to do things. And from that, I have a very easy, happy baby 90% of the time. 

However, with this surgery, I am not able to do most things with her anymore. The only thing that I can really manage is breastfeeding, and even that is with a mountain of pillows. I definitely can’t bathe her, I can’t go see her in the night when she cries, and I can’t hold her if she is squirming too much. I am relying on the AMAZING support network I have to help me out with absolutely everything, and none of them do things the way that I do. It has been really hard to adjust, and try not to step on toes when I say “that’s the third time she’s protested, you really need to go see her now” or “she naps best in her swing, with her soother and holding onto her bunny blanket, and she is going to try to fight sleeping and won’t let herself look tired but trust me, she is tired, I know her tired signs”. I’ve had to sit back and try to let things go on around me with 0 control or ability to do anything in most situations. 

This has been one of the most difficult mental challenges that I have ever had. I am trying my best to breathe and relax through it. Tonight, my husband gave T a bath. I doubt that he did it the same way that I do it, but I am trying to be okay, and say “she’s clean! that is what really matters!” It is a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and a lot of rerouting anxieties into other things (like writing this when I hear her giggling with him and get jealous over it!)  If anyone has any other advice for me, I would love to hear it! What are some methods I could use to ease the painful little creature named OCD, and relax to allow myself to heal for the next couple weeks?