People keep asking me if I am still writing my blog.  I tell them yes, but only in my head.  I have written some really good stuff there, but it seems that none of it has made it on to the screen.  So when I was asked again yesterday, I decided I would give it a shot and see what comes out.  Here goes:

I have a few regular sayings.  You may have heard some of them.  One of them is “Therapy is supposed to make you feel better, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen today”.  I usually pull that one out when someone is in a really tough spot and I have no great fix all answer, or I have to deliver news to them that they would rather not hear.  Yesterday was that kind of day.

I sat with a young woman whose life is breaking apart from all that is familiar to her.  It’s painful.  I told her life is painful when you do dumb stuff and screw it up and then have to face hard consequences.  But it’s harder still when you feel like you’ve played by the rules, worked hard, and done it “the right way” and it still doesn’t turn out like its “supposed” to.  It seems unfair.  It seems brutal.  It seems pointless to keep trying.  Most people have this experience at one point or another.  Some people seem to have it at a level of unbearable frequency or intensity. 

So how does one find the energy, motivation, hope, courage or perhaps blind faith to pick themselves up and keep going?  Not everyone does.  Some people give up.  They end their lives.  And some people keep physically alive but they shut down to a level in which they merely exist, waiting for their time to on earth to come to an end.  Sometimes the latter is facilitated with an addiction that keeps one so numb, they are no longer aware of their original pain, but become embroiled with the pain caused by the addiction itself instead.

People in the throes of despair usually feel alone in a private hell believing that not only is their pain too great to bear, but that they are in a hole where no one else can or cares to reach for them.  They feel certain that ending or giving up is personal and won’t really matter to anyone else.  And that even if it does, another’s concern or misery will be short lived and forgotten sooner than later.

As Wally Lamb says “This much I know is true”.  I can only speak from my own experience, both my personal reactions and the stories told to me over the years.  There is a blue plaid teddy bear that sits on the bookcase in my office.  It was a gift I gave to a client many years ago.  It was returned to me a few years ago by her sister after my former client committed suicide.  In the time I had seen her she contemplated it many times and we always managed to talk it through.  When she was in despair, she always told me no one would remember her.  A few years after we finished our work, I learned she had taken her life.  I still remember her.  I don’t need the bear on my shelf to remind me but I keep it there as if to keep some part of her alive and to bear witness to her pain.  When she left, she may have ended her pain.  I hope so, but she also deprived the world of something good and strong, smart and creative, capable and wise in ways she didn’t know and didn’t live long enough to prove to herself.  And most of all, she left the potential of joys not yet known.

Last week I saw a different young woman.  I met her a couple of years ago and after only a couple of sessions with me she made a very real suicide attempt that she survived only by the grace of God.  Today that same woman is getting married soon; to a man that is her best friend.  She has a job she likes and hopes to have a family.  All of these are things she could not imagine when she was in despair.  Had her suicide attempt been successful, her best friend would be looking to a different kind of life ahead.  Her children would have no chance to be born.  Her mother would still be experiencing an unbearable grief and trying to remember how to answer the question “How many children do you have?”

Agreeing to try again provides no guarantee that you will win the prize.  It provides no promise that things will not get worse again.  Trying again only means that you fully accept being human and to fulfill the contract of being here to do whatever it is you are supposed to do, even when you aren’t sure what that is.  Just as your mind takes in a million marketing and social cues everyday unconsciously, so too does it take in interactions as small as a nod or a smile.  You may never know how you being where you are at any given moment affects another person and helps them get along more easily in the world.

So just as therapy doesn’t always make you “feel better” the moment you want it too, this blog, long awaited by some, won’t likely provide the “feel good” message they may have hoped for.  But I hope it will touch just one person who thinks trying again, doesn’t make sense.  More importantly, I hope it will touch people who are in a good place to use some of their grace by looking a little bit longer at the stranger who may be struggling and ready to give up and offer them a smile or an act of kindness.  There are so many ways to do this with so little effort on our part. 

When I drive through the McDonalds (yes I’m admitting this) in Eureka, the person who takes the money hands out a dog treat when I have my dog in the car.  She has done this for a couple of years.  I tried to give the manager some money to go towards the treat fund assuming the employee was paying for this with her own money.  The manager informed me that a gentleman who lost his own dog supplies the branch with treats and makes sure they never run out.  I’ll never meet him.  And it’s not that my dog can only get a treat if she goes to McDonalds.  But the act warms my heart and reminds me that there is goodness in the world and that we always have a choice to turn pain into something productive.

On a final note, I now have “What would Mary Say” bracelets.  Yes, for those of you who enjoy remembering some of the things I say or more realistically, they serve as a reminder to listen to yourself the way I listen to you, stop on by my office for yours.  They are silicone bands (like the Lance Armstrong livestrong).  If you are an out of towner, send me a note. 

And finally, I have a favor to request.  I am trying to be more mindful that we now live in the age of technology and that I should actually join that movement.  If you have something positive to say, I would appreciate a review at Healthgrades.com
If you have something not so favorable to say, I hope you’ll write that to me and give me the opportunity to address it first.