| |  | | | | October 25, 2016 | Letter No. 57 | | | | | | | | | | | | Dear Lennys,
I'm writing this on the morning after the final debate in this long U.S. election season. All fall it feels like we've been surrounded by free-floating racism, misogyny, anger, and despair that have fueled the past month of news. When I left my apartment this morning, the whole ground was covered in dead gold leaves, and the street smelled like their rotting.
Here's the thing: it wasn't necessarily a bad smell. I actually kind of liked it. I'm a Scorpio (like Hillary Clinton), and it's nearly Scorpio season. Probably the best thing about this misunderstood sign, and this misunderstood season, is how it teaches you to make peace with dark places. It teaches you to smell the rot and know that means that things — harmful, limiting things — are breaking down, about to leave us fertile ground to work with. But only if we know how to prepare for it.
So what if this all means an actual change is coming? And a change that, excitingly, thrillingly, we can effect? What rotting leaves promise is the eventual freedom to grow. Freedom is a word that's used so often it's become nearly meaningless. And if you've ever lived as a woman or as a woman of color, you know that usually your attempts to exercise freedom are read as gross injustices by those who have power over you. So how are you supposed to make freedom a reality? That question is one you have to continually answer for yourself, like most of the writers are in this issue.
Dianca Potts talks about the freedom of choosing Halloween over Christ in an essay that is as funny and wistful as the image of a toddler, dressed in a costume, ready to trick-or-treat for a day they do not understand but fiercely love anyway. There's Nicole Richie's call for the freedom to define oneself, even when confronted with all the selves of one's wild, public adolescence. Lizzie Gionfriddo's essay about mental-health awareness and treatment reminded me of the freedom to disclose one's illnesses without fear of repercussions or stigma. And Rachael Revesz's interview with Emma Donoghue charts an artist's decision to create the worlds and novels that she wishes, on her own terms.
Finally, there's Jackie Snow's profile of Daw Htar Htar and sex education in Myanmar. Snow tells us that in Burmese, there isn't even a word for "vagina." Yet Daw Htar Htar still tells her workshop participants that they have the right and the need to know and define their own bodies and lives.
So, Lennys, don't despair. This is actually a moment to be excited. Kick up the dying leaves and find the rich earth beneath. Don't be discouraged by the whirr of bad news that seems to now make up the background of our daily lives. Sniff harder, listen deeper, and you can hear things growing.
Kaitlyn Greenidge, contributing writer | | | | | | | | | | | | Untitled: and that's the point! | | | | By Nicole Richie | | |
I turned 35 last month. It wasn't what I had expected. I mean, we all remember watching Carrie Bradshaw turn 35 all alone in Il Cantinori. On the contrary, I had overwhelming feelings of excitement, gratitude, and eagerness for this next chapter. The next decade will be a time of growth, learning new things, meeting new people, challenging myself, and nurturing all the seeds I have been planting.
But a big birthday is also a great moment for reflection. And as firmly as I believe in the importance of looking forward, there are some moments when we should, and even have to, look back. Often for me those moments come while I'm on the couch with my girlfriends, or listening to my husband make fun of the younger version of me. The end result is sometimes smiles and laughter, and there are often moments of disbelief like I'm talking about someone else.
Other moments come when I'm out in the world, and that's a very different picture, one of danger, darkness, and shame. Moments of congratulation and celebrating who I am do not come without strangers pointing out how dark my life once was. I hear a lot of "Wow, you once looked like this, but now you look like this!" and "You once were wild, and now you're an angel!"
I was so used to hearing others' views of my life that I found myself believing them. I sat and wondered, Why do I laugh at home, but feel shamed out in the world? With my family and close friends, I am owning my past, relishing in the absurdity, slightly flinching at my own naïveté, and giving myself props for the unabashed bravery that streaked through my youth. But not trying to hide from it, not trying to change it, just allowing it to help propel me forward.
When I am out in the world naked and vulnerable, I acknowledge that I was young, had a lot of freedom, and made some "bad decisions" … but how bad are they if it's part of a journey to understanding who I am and what I stand for? I feel the need to support women loving themselves. It's by loving ourselves that we give permission to others to love us. Life is a roller coaster, and we all have had times where we need to get back on the up, but we can't do it alone. We need each other's love and support.
I finally realized that taking on someone else's vision of you can be very dangerous. People attempt to categorize and label so they can feel upright and comfortable. If you are hard to understand, they don't feel safe, so they put you in a box that they recognize. I cannot tell you how easy it is to believe someone else's picture of you. Is it because it's easier to be agreeable? Partly. Is it because of laziness? Partly.
It is no secret that I have, at times, taken advantage of my time on this planet. And as much as I have to look at those moments and learn from them, as we all do, it's important for me to have gratitude for that time, too. Not shame. Being ashamed of your life is not OK. I realized I am actually extremely thankful I was so beastly in front of the world for a few reasons. It's so bad in people's minds that there's nothing that can embarrass me now. I got a little surprise gift of freedom! I also truly believe if I didn't have so many eyes on me, it would've been easier for me to slip back into my reckless behavior. I had people rooting me on and watching me at a time when I needed that.
Mostly, the utter freedom I experience from having all of my past out in the open allows me to truly accept and embrace my former self, allowing her and every subsequent version of me to know that we are going to be OK, because we are not static. And I don't have to worry someone is going to put an embarrassing picture up on Facebook — the worst is already in strangers' heads. How cool is that?!
I could fall into the role-playing that some people seem to want and say, "YES! I am so sorry. I was bad. I am good now! I promise." But I don't believe in that story of redemption, a good-prevailing-over-evil story. It's one I'm just not in. I am not going to apologize for being me so you can get your triumphant ending. I don't believe the world operates in absolutes, in black and white and short and tall — I like living in the gray, in the medium.
That's because all of these things I learned by being me in my teens and twenties are just more tools that allow me to live in a more peaceful, safe way. The simple yet difficult act of forgiving yourself is so powerful, because it's all within you. We have to embrace ourselves and hold every part of our journey in some type of light. Instead of reliving my past as a point of shame, I've embedded the lessons into my skill set.
The biggest lesson? How to have the confidence to just go in there and be my own version of anything. Not somebody else's, but mine. So as a mom at a school, as an actor on a comedy series, as a designer at Fashion Week, I don't have to worry that I won't fit into expectations, but rather, my inner acceptance and peace will allow my true self to shine through and carry me along. Because playing someone else's version of you all the time keeps you from actualizing yourself.
I've been given many titles: Wild child. Reality star. White-washed black girl. Skinny. Rich. (I guess the last two aren't so bad).
Now, at 35, the only titles I am taking on are the ones I give myself.
Nicole Camille Richie-Madden. Mother. Wife. Gardening extraordinaire.
And I'm out. | | | | | | | | | | | | “You Rather Owe Them a Literary Orgasm” | | | | By Rachael Revesz | | |
After a quarter of a century of writing, including 13 books, several essays, and plays, Emma Donoghue is getting the international attention she deserves.
The Dublin-born writer's screenplay of Room was nominated for an Oscar in 2015 (and Brie Larson won Best Actress for her role in the film). The movie was based on Donoghue's novel about a five-year-old boy, Jack, and his mother, Ma, imprisoned by a man they know only as Old Nick and plotting their escape. Donoghue managed to turn a best-seller that takes place mostly in a single room into a compelling and disturbing cinematic triumph.
I met with Donoghue in New York City before a reading from her new novel, The Wonder, at the Irish Arts Center. She delighted the audience with her warmth, her humor, and her singsongy accent — undimmed after eighteen years in Canada. She lives in Toronto with her partner and two children, Finn and Una.
Like many of Donoghue's novels, the latest book is inspired by historical events — in this case, the mysterious, centuries-old phenomenon of "fasting girls," who achieved notoriety by starving themselves. Some of the girls died while others lived on for decades, but the question of what makes a girl "good" and obedient still resonates.
During an hour-long interview, we talked about how she retained control of her Room screenplay in a male-dominated industry, her instinct to defend novels written about children, and how her label as a "lesbian writer" has affected her career.
Rachael Revesz: How did you manage to keep such a tight grip on your screenplay for Room?
Emma Donoghue: There had been attempts to film some of my previous books, and they had never quite worked.
Doing Room was an ideal experience in that it was a very unusual deal. I'd written the novel but thought, This could work on film. I didn't want anyone else to do it for me, tell me how to do it, or talk me out of it, so I just went ahead and drafted the script. Producers approached me, but I was wary. I didn't want to disappoint my fans and just create a money-maker. It was a bit like being an eighteenth-century lady, saying, "No, no, no!" all the time, as once you sell the film rights, you have no control. After several years, my partner said to me, "Are you ever going to say yes?"
And then director Lenny Abrahamson sent me a ten-page handwritten letter. He was eloquent, spelt everything correctly, and was patently intelligent. Nobody else had tried that tactic. Usually people say, "Oh, maybe my agent could have lunch with your agent."
He flew to Canada and sat with me around my kitchen table for a week. I was really involved as an executive producer, which means you're kept in the loop on everything. I saw Brie Larson's audition tape. The thing I asked for most often was to film it in Toronto so I could still look after my kids and get to the set. Luckily they agreed.
RR: Did writing Room have any effect on your mind-set, being so engrossed in a dark subject?
ED: I think parents of small children know all the fears anyway. It felt like Room was a vehicle for all the thoughts I'd had about the vulnerability of my children.
The research was grueling. I read a lot about abused and weirdly neglected children or children that had been shut away from the world: a lot of that stuff gave me the woolies. But writing the book didn't depress me.
RR: You've said before that it was one case of a fasting girl in nineteenth-century Wales that caught your attention. Did you follow the real story through?
ED: Yes, but I didn't want to write about a child starving to death at the end. There are limits, even for me. I like dark [stories], but not nihilistic! I thought that I should do what other writers do — just make it up. It seems absurd that it took me twenty years to realize I could do this. [Laughs.]
RR: Was it the girls' decision to fast?
ED: It's impossible to know, but I think it was certainly connected to the rules of girlhood. What makes a girl "good" is to say no to appetites, to be pure, above sex, above need. So if you've got girls in sixteenth-century Italy and nineteenth-century Brooklyn and twentieth-century Belgium saying "I don't need food, I can live without it," alongside the massive phenomenon of anorexia today — I think that says something pretty strong about the way we have shaped girlhood.
RR: How has your writing changed since your first book, Stir Fry? It makes me think of a 1990s version of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, a coming-of-age story where women are having these really frank and powerful conversations.
ED: I do think more now about the plot of a story before I begin. I used to be very content to explore emotion and the subtleties of human relationships and have the story gently meandering. I'm not sneering at those kind of books at all, but I've come to really like suspense, not as a genre with strict rules but more like a tight thread that pulls the reader through.
I think I'm quite an old-fashioned writer. I like to give a sense of resolution at the end. If a reader is going to bother to commit their spare time to you, and you want to turn them on, you rather owe them a literary orgasm.
RR: Stir Fry was about a woman coming out in 1990s Dublin. Would it still be as hard today to come out?
ED: It depends on the community you set it in. I remember when I published Stir Fry, a New York reviewer said, very sneering-like, "This is coming out 101 — we were over this in the 1970s." Well, I thought, You were over it in New York, but not in Dublin. You could write many a novel like that set in conservative, small towns. The techniques of coming out would be different, but the agonies would be the same.
Being lesbian has made me very interested in outsiders, losers, and the culturally marginalized. If I ended up writing in Room about a woman and a little boy who are seen by many as freaks, I think it's a sympathy I extrapolated from having been a teenage lesbian myself.
RR: Do you mind being asked generally about being a lesbian writer and how it's changed your career?
ED: It's fine. Actually, the only question that's been irritating me recently is when people ask with an air of mystification why I am writing about a child again. "Didn't you do it already?" I'm beginning to feel quite defensive. Why should all novels be about adults? I sometimes think it's a sign of a traditionally male-dominated literary world that writing about children is some kind of weird, specialist female preoccupation.
But no, I don't mind talking about my labels. They can be limiting, but they can also be extremely helpful to help put your head above the crowd. My queer readers have been wonderfully loyal to me, so even if I don't write a book with overtly queer themes, they still read me and write to me.
RR: What are you working on now?
ED: The British producer Alison Owen [Saving Mr. Banks, The Other Boleyn Girl] has bought the script for [my previous book] Frog Music, and I'm working on that next. I also have a children's book coming out in the spring.
Frog Music is based on a real unsolved murder in 1876 San Francisco. I have 60 articles about this woman, Jenny Bonnet, who was shot through a window by persons unknown. She was repeatedly arrested for wearing trousers in violation of this anti-cross-dressing law, but my protagonist seemed to be the only person they were using it against. I have all these facts about her, but I have no idea how or when she met Blanche, the woman she was with in the room when she was shot. There are huge blanks in the story.
With my novels, I tend to put my historian's hat on and take the facts as far as they go. Was there a train that afternoon at three o'clock? What was the name of the bird that would have been flying by? Then I think, Great, whip off my historian's hat, put on my fiction writer's hat, and I'm thrilled to be making it all up again.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Rachael Revesz is a writer living two parallel lives in New York and London. | | | | | | | | | | | | Hallowed Hell House | | | | By Dianca Potts | | |
The year was 1989, and I was a jack-o'-lantern. Wearing the costume equivalent of footed pajamas and a hat with a stem and felt leaves, I gripped my dad's hand as we walked down the carpeted hallways of our apartment building. I remember the weight of my plastic candy bucket as I held it outstretched toward Frankenstein's monster, witches, and ghosts sporting penny loafers and house slippers. Later that night, I sorted through my sugary loot and decided that Halloween was my favorite day of the year.
The following year, I was a witch. I wore a cape and striped tights. I trick-or-treated with my dad, adjusting my pointy black hat and practicing my cackle before we knocked on each door. I sunk my teeth into spider-shaped cookies alongside my neighborhood friends while our parents chatted and the flicker of crudely carved jack-o'-lanterns cast shadows against the wall. I bobbed for apples with a princess and a Ghostbuster, unaware that this Halloween would be my last.
Something changed in the months that followed. My parents started going to church again. They rededicated their lives to Jesus and became followers of the Word of God. They weren't merely "religious." They became devout. We attended church every Sunday and spent Wednesday nights at prayer meetings. My Disney VHS tapes were replaced by The Greatest Adventure series. My dad started listening to gospel music instead of jazz, and my mom got rid of her Nefertiti necklace in order to adhere to the Second Commandment. They explained that all of this would bring us closer to God, that it would allow for us to guard our ears, our eyes, and our hearts from worldly distractions and sin. Their reignited passion for Jesus meant that I would attend Christian school. It also meant that Halloween was no longer a day of fun. It was unholy, pagan, a doorway to the occult.
Soon after, I started kindergarten at a Fundamentalist Baptist school. I learned the pledge to the Christian flag and memorized Proverbs by writing them in cursive. As September eased into October, there was a division among my classmates: those who would spend the 31st as trick-or-treaters and those who would not. Before that I assumed all Christians had the same stance on Halloween — it was a blasphemous day. When I asked my parents about it, they reminded me that not everyone lives according to God's will. "Their ways are not our ways," my mom said before quoting Philippians 4:8. Despite what they told me, I still didn't see any harm in carving pumpkins or going out to trick-or-treat.
The next day, my dad handed me two cartoon Tracts, "Boo" and "The Devil's Night," telling me in a warm but stern voice, "This is why."
Both books recounted the history of Samhain, an ancient tradition described as "a night of terror," filled with "human sacrifice" and "death demons" that could only be warded off by the light of jack-o'-lanterns. "Satan loves Halloween," read "Boo!" "[It] draws little kids into his camp." I put down the comics and sighed. My parents and teachers are right, I thought. Halloween was evil, which meant that I couldn't love it anymore.
For the rest of elementary school, I spent Halloween at late-night worship services. I sang hymns and read Bible verses about righteousness and the importance of being set apart from "the world." When friends offered to share their trick-or-treat candy with me, I declined, using the moment to share with them the true meaning of Halloween. I told them that their deeds glorified the devil and that their actions put them in league with him and his followers. Each year when the streets filled with trick-or-treaters, I silently bowed my head and prayed for their immortal souls. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Despite my pious passion, my distaste for worldly distractions faded as junior high drew nigh. Being a proselytizing outsider since kindergarten had taken its toll on me. After years of Christian school, Bible study, and going to church from sunrise to sunset, I'd had enough. I was tired of being a square and tired of not being able to go to the same movies and listen to the same music as my non-Christian neighborhood friends. The looming threat and immortal danger of secular culture made it all the more fascinating to me and eventually, like the Old Testament's Eve, I reached for the forbidden fruit.
By the time I was in eighth grade, I had developed a crush on a mall goth and fallen in love with "the darkness." I hid copies of Stephen King novels behind my Bible during study hall, started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and drew hexagrams on my homework. I listened to Antichrist Superstar instead of hymns. I became a backslider, and my parents noticed. They attempted to shake some sense into me. So that Halloween, I was dropped off at church to attend a hell house, the evangelical version of a haunted house, with my youth group.
Squished beside my church friends, I pressed my forehead against the minivan's backseat window as we drove through winding country roads toward a mega-church that our youth pastor, Stretch, enthusiastically swore had the best hell house in the state. Once we were inside the gymnasium-sized sanctuary, Stretch waved his arms to get our attention. "All right, kids," he shouted. "Follow me!"
I fell in line with the rest of the group as he led us into a dark room. Then I heard the click of the door. Eerie music swelled as an angel appeared. She told us that she would be our guide, that we would witness the horror of a life without God. "Remember," she told us, "the wages of sin is death." She led us to a series of rooms where we watched a girl and her boyfriend drink beer, a group of kids play with a Ouija board on All Hallows Eve, and a group of jocks take hits from a communal bong. I rolled my eyes.
Then our angel guided us toward the last scene of the play, her crooked wings tilting with each step. The final destination was a red-lit room. At each corner stood men wearing monster masks. They hissed as we passed them, their hands gripping plastic whips and Styrofoam chains. We were reunited with the pot-smoking jocks, the boozy lovebirds, and the Ouija-board-toting campers. Their faces were covered in soot, and their hands were shackled.
Nearly in unison, they bellowed, crying out for their parents, pleading for salvation. "Behold, the fruit of the flesh," the angel stated, gesturing toward the shackled sinners. Soon after, the devil emerged. Painted red from head to hoof, he stalked through the room, laughing at his prisoners. "Welcome to Hell," he shouted, walking closer to the audience. "Your God can't save you now! It's too late!"
As he inched near us, the girl beside me started to cry. Our angel kneeled beside her. "Remember," she whispered, "we are called to be in the world but not of it. Resist the devil and he will flee." She stood, the lights came on, and we were ushered out of the room into a parking lot filled with concession stands, youth pastors, and pamphlets on the dangers of drugs, sex, and Halloween.
I sat on the ground, eating funnel cake with my friends as Stretch devoured a hot dog. "So, did you guys learn anything?"
During high school I became a full-blown doubting Thomas, and, as my mom would say, I hardened my heart toward God. I listened to death metal and hard-core, watched R-rated movies without guilt, and ate my meals without saying grace. At this point in my life, the divine love of Christ didn't feel like it was powerful enough to soothe the sting of my teen angst. I got sick of turning the other cheek and following the golden rule. For years I'd put up with racist behavior from classmates and prejudiced judgment from my teachers. My faith had been a source of hope—but it had begun to leave me feeling hollow and cold. I hung up my halo, and Halloween became a catalyst. It wasn't just an act of rebellion, it was self-preservation.
A decade later, I'm standing in line at a crowded Spirit Halloween Superstore. "The Monster Mash" plays in a loop from a crackling pair of speakers. I place a glow-in-the-dark plastic skull, a tube of black lipstick, and a bag of witch fingers on the counter. I smile at the cashier before asking if they have a student discount. They answer, no. After making my purchase, I head back to my apartment to help my roommate cover our walls in fake spiderwebs and orange string lights. We listen to The Exorcist soundtrack on vinyl and discuss our plans for costumes. That weekend, I dress as a zombie one day and Wednesday Addams the next. I go to parties, eat candy, and drink beer out of plastic skull cups until the witching hour. On my way home from the subway, I spot a Tract on the ground. It's printed on orange paper with a clip-art image of a witch on a broomstick hovering above its title, "The Truth About Halloween." I pick it up, brush it off, and smile before cramming it into my bag between candy wrappers and a plastic hand.
Dianca Potts is an assistant at Lenny. | | | | | | | | | | | | Educating the Women of Myanmar | | | | By Jackie Snow | | | |
Myanmar is a changing place, a country tentatively opening itself up to the rest of the world. The military has stepped back from its total control of the government, after a half-century of rule that sanctioned the murder and rape of opponents and minority groups. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize–winning activist — known simply as "The Lady" in Myanmar — is now the state counselor, a role akin to prime minister. It was unthinkable ten years ago, but the government is starting peace talks with opposition groups and sent a solicitous delegation to hear out Myanmar women's concerns at the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
Shifts in the culture, however, can be slower. In Myanmar, women still deal with the stigma that their bodies are dirty, with periods being especially taboo. Sex education is considered a Western practice, but one social activist and her organization are trying to change how women think of their bodies and empower them to take on traditionally male jobs.
In 2008, Daw Htar Htar had a chance meeting with an Israeli tourist who was a sex therapist. She was 35 and a mother of a nine-month-old, but Htar realized how little she knew about her own body.
"That was a turning point of my whole life," she said.
In 2010 she started Akhaya, an organization that offers sex-education workshops where women can talk with one another about their bodies and sex. In the workshops, women are told they aren't second-class citizens and are encouraged to feel proud of their bodies.
"We tell them, 'You're valuable, you're not dirty, you're not low,'" she said.
Akhaya has a lot of work to do. Women aren't taught about their bodies or sexuality in school or at home. There isn't even a word for "vagina" in the Burmese language, one of the most common languages in Myanmar (they use a word that means "women's body" when referring to it). Women keep their sarongs and underwear separate from men's clothing when doing the wash and hang them on lower lines. There's a whole industry surrounding this idea that women are dirty. There are ads around the country for a product called Kathy Pan, which supposedly cleans vaginas. Some women have tried to use Kathy Pan to end pregnancies since abortions are generally illegal in Myanmar.
"There are a lot of myths and prejudices around sex and sexuality," Htar said.
The workshops, run over four days, cover a lot of territory, with attendees ranging from fourteen-year-old girls to menopausal Buddhist nuns. Women are sent home with mirrors so they can look at their vaginas. Htar said many women did not know what that part of their body looked like.
"I think a few look," she said with a laugh.
Akhaya is part of a blossoming of women's groups that sprung up after the end of military rule in 2011. There are at least 170 organizations working on getting more women elected so they can prioritize ending domestic violence.
"We have a very vital and active women's-rights movement in Myanmar now," said Jo Hayter, the chief executive officer of International Women's Development Agency.
For Htar, the next step after teaching women their worth was to put equality in practice while taking into consideration what is considered taboo. She started SHE-smiths to train women in the craft of silversmithing, a job until recently done only by men. Smiths, who often handle gems that are used in jewelry that carry religious significance for the wearer, haven't been women because they are viewed as unclean and unworthy to touch those gems when they are on their periods.
One such piece is the nawarat, which is a ring or pendant set with nine gems: a diamond, pearl, cat's eye, zircon, emerald, topaz, blue sapphire, coral, and ruby. Some people believe the nawarat brings fortune and power to the wearer, and there are many rules surrounding how and when the gems are selected and set. The SHE-smith trainees are learning to do it all.
The inaugural class of three women started in May; they will graduate at the end of the year.
One of the trainees, Betty Millar, had already done the workshop at Akhaya and was eager to join the silversmith program. Millar, 30, said she hopes to stay on as a trainer after she graduates. Her family supports her, but that hasn't always been the case in SHE-smith's short existence. Another trainee had to leave when she wasn't able to balance the program with the chores she was expected to fulfill at home.
"This is one of the key challenges for women," said Anne Kennedy, Akhaya's social business mentor. "Actually doing something for themselves outside the traditional role and outside the family at home."
SHE-smith is the latest effort by Htar to improve women's roles in Myanmar. Htar said that societal change will come when women are empowered, whether through job training or learning that they are not dirty.
"After learning their worth," Htar said, "women are brave. They talk differently."
Jackie Snow is a multimedia journalist based in D.C. with dreams to visit Myanmar again ASAP. | | | | | | | | | | | | We're Survivors, Not “Sickos” | | | | By Lizzie Gionfriddo | | |
I was a junior in high school when I started to notice something was wrong. I would get overwhelmed for no reason, or look at a cloudy sky and have this vague premonition of disaster. I would worry my parents would be involved in some horrible accident, or I'd worry something bad would happen to me. I was young and healthy — a pescatarian since birth and something of a jock — yet at the slightest bit of feeling unwell, I was certain I would have a heart attack and collapse. I assumed that I had some form of a terminal illness that my doctor could not possibly detect from a routine physical.
Then I started spending money on things I didn't need or even want. During the holidays, I would buy gifts for multiple people, classmates I didn't even spend time with outside of school. I was experiencing extreme anxiety all the time, and so my doctor put me on an antidepressant, and I started to feel better. Until I felt much, much worse.
There was someone I liked, and I thought he liked me too. It turned out he didn't. I remember crying and crying, feeling totally unmotivated and not wanting to go to school or see my friends. I began skipping meals, and I lost weight. I started hinting to my mom that I might abuse my antidepressants — I felt terrible and just wanted to feel better and stop the emotional pain. My mom was beside herself. She knew something was taking hold of me that was beyond my control and hers.
So she took me to the hospital, which was terrifying: giving up my clothes, being put in a room with no windows, no TV, nothing to read, and listening to the screams from the rooms nearby. I had emotionally been feeling alone; now physically I was alone. I was expected to stay in my designated room and not leave it unless it was to use the shared bathroom. Nurses and doctors would come into my room, check my vitals, and ask me a seemingly simple question: "Why are you here today?" And I couldn't answer them, because I wasn't sure I belonged there. At that age, I thought people go to the hospital because they are sick or in pain — they had a heart attack, or broke an arm — and then magically, when they exit those same doors they had entered, they feel better. I didn't understand it then, but now realize I was where I should be. I was sick. I was in pain. It was just invisible.
The doctors there told me I had bipolar disorder, which is categorized as a severe mental illness. I didn't know what to think. How do you process that you have a mental illness that will affect the rest of your life when you're only eighteen years old?
That was almost ten years ago, and I'm really proud of how hard I've worked and how far I've come since then. I still experience the highs and the lows. I always will, and I can't afford to be in denial about that. But I've come to be self-aware, so if I begin having certain thoughts or behaviors that could be detrimental to my well-being, I can take action to prevent them from getting worse. I've learned the importance of routine — exercising, eating a balanced diet, having a consistent sleep schedule, and having open communication with my therapist and psychiatrist. With all of this in place, I was able to graduate from college. Now I have a great job with a company I love, doing work I'm passionate about to expand renewable energy.
I've still told almost no one that I have bipolar — just my family, my managers at work, and a few best friends. Ever since I've been diagnosed, it's like I'm carrying this secret, because I'm so afraid that people will find out and think I'm not smart or competent.
But today, I'm telling you. Because we're just a few weeks away from an election that could change the way we deal with mental health in this country.
Only one candidate — Hillary Clinton — actively recognizes that we need to do more not just to treat mental illness, but to eradicate the stigma around it. She understands that mental illnesses so often begin in childhood and wants to help people get diagnosed and treated before they're in crisis, which would have made a big difference in my life. She wants to integrate physical-health and mental-health services so that people with mental illnesses don't end up in the criminal-justice system and, when they do have encounters with law enforcement, she wants those police officers to have been trained to de-escalate situations without the use of force. And she wants to make it easier for people with mental illnesses to get jobs and housing, because she knows there's more to our lives than access to treatment.
The other candidate? He calls us "sickos." He's actively perpetuating the myth that people with mental illnesses are violent, and that's not true at all. The truth is we're more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. I am disgusted at Trump's statements about mentally ill women: he has said that "deeply troubled" women are more sexually gratifying to men. This talk is offensive and should be denounced. I am appalled by the way he speaks about veterans who have PTSD. He claims they're not "strong" and they "can't handle" combat.
This kind of talk just perpetuates the stigma that's already attached to mental health, and I believe stigma is deadly because it prevents us from talking openly about the issue, even though it affects almost everyone. Nearly one in five Americans will experience a mental illness in any given year.
What's more, suicide is the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States. By not addressing the stigma and not continuing to make health care more accessible and affordable, we will keep losing people.
I am fearful of a Trump presidency. With the Obama administration, we have made progress on mental-health issues — those of us suffering can no longer be denied health-care coverage due to preexisting conditions. While Hillary Clinton will continue Obama's legacy, Trump has vowed to do away with the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions of mentally ill Americans vulnerable.
Donald Trump thinks having a mental illness is a sign of weakness, but I believe that's the furthest thing from the truth. I have days when this internal voice tells me, You're stupid, no one likes you, you're ugly. I have to fight with everything I have just to make it to tomorrow. And my ability to fight for my life is a strength — it is admirable and should be applauded. Knowing that my president is cheering me on helps this disease feel a little less lonely.
Lizzie Gionfriddo is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University and works at C-TEC Solar. She formerly worked for Mental Health Connecticut. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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