Change

Our society has been eroding since the start of our country when we chose to keep distinctions in the value and the rights of one person over another.

This is just another moment of anger and pain in the USA that has been erupting since the revolutionary war. Where we fought against England saying that the needs of England and the wants of a king were more important than colonies of citizens.

The longness of this battle has made me feel sad and a little hopeless. It's been 244 years and we still haven't fixed these problems of freedom and thousands of years if you look at the start of civilization. Why can't we get it right?

But now, as I write this, a ray of hope emerged. We are getting closer. It is taking generations, but progress is being made. There are times when that change need a battle, like the civil war, and times when it need a movement like the marches for women's right to vote and the civil rights movement, but those movements and battles did make a lasting difference. Yes, things still need to change and movements are still needed, but it is working we are getting better. But sadly, lives are still unequal.

That being said here are the changes I hope from this movement:

1. That people serving in public office automatically face maximum sentencing plus extra for crimes committed while in office/working. Having protections for those in office doesn't seem to be working to increase accountability and honest reporting. It should be scarier for an officer or public official to commit a crime and come with a very steep cost. It is not fair that a person who steals public funds or betrays public trust almost always gets less punishment than a lower income thief or for an officer that murders a defenseless citizen to get less punishment rather than more when by virtue of the officer's position they did more damage and should have more accountability.

2. Police officers, in addition to training need more support. Not meaning people 'supporting' them but in more funding to public services. A family dealing with a violent episodic family member due to a known mental heath condition should have an emergency service to call that is NOT the police. Law enforcement should not be handling our plethora of mental and social emergencies. They should be handled by mental heath experts. Social services should have the resources needed to handle non-criminal emergencies and also be able to fully support ongoing situations. Additionally, police offices should all have a mental health counsellor staffed who police officers check into (in private confidential meetings) before and after a shift and who can provide extended consolations for free as part of their job. We can't expect police to be able to process the constant stress and horrible situations they see in a heathy way without sufficient help.

3. Having police officers from diverse neighborhoods (and ethnicities) and living in various neighborhoods has been proven to be super effective. (Affirmative Action) What if we went further and said that the police force ethnic diversity needed to reflect not only the community as a whole, but also the local prison population? For example, if the local prison is mostly hispanic then a greater portion of the active police force needs to also be hispanic.

4. Less idolization of the capitalism as an innately good thing that doesn't need to be monitored and reigned in by society. I hope that we move away from idolizing the accumulation of wealth to deploring it. That is not to say that I don't want us to stop striving to have and make beautiful things and nice homes and communities, I want those things, but I want us to praise and reward shared art and advancement more and distain the hoarding of progress to the few. This requires a balance of respect for innovators, the educated and those who are wise with their money and the needs of the communities at large and the finiteness of resources we have. I don't know how this looks for sure, but I imagine making post high school education free or at least less costly and bolstering public heath care is a good step.

Fires

The world around me is burning and I am far from the flames.

I thought the world would burn at once

Not so, 

not so.

It burns like ants scattered then swarmed, then gone.

It affects only business, 

friends of friends, 

not really me or us.

I breath in the smoke 

It destroyed their homes 

lives 

and  I drown in the ripples.

Waiting for the wave that finally singes my skin.

Until then I tread our lives to where we can breath

Trying to ignore the mounting sorrow,

the gasping

coughing 

of watching the world around me burn.

What I learned from postpatum depression

The death of Robin Williams and all the talk about depression has motivated me to want to talk about my own brief experience with Mild Postpartum Depression and address what helps and doesn't really help someone like me. Mostly, I got worried by the amount of people I saw posting things about being sure to let those you love know you love them and wishing that Williams had had more hugs.

That worried me because while hugs and love are great and necessary, they aren't a cure all for depression. Sadly, love does not “Always, concur all.”

When someone is going through depression, a hug and saying "I love you" might help, but it is seldom enough to break through the barrier of emptiness.

For me the worst and most emotionally damaging part of postpartum depression was not feeling of deep sadness but rather the lack of being able to feel anything emotionally, even when love was being poured out to me. I mentally registered that I was loved, but I could not feel it. The problem was not the sincerity or amount of the love being given but rather the biochemical reaction that usually accompanies expressions of love were not occurring like they should.
So in my moments of deeper depression when my husband would hold me and say how much he loved me, guess what I felt? Guilt and grief.

I felt guilt because I knew I should be feeling loved and happy and I wasn't. I knew my husband was doing all he could to make me feel happy, So I felt guilty that he was putting all that effort just to end up with a wife who didn't see the point in going on other then that I loved him and my new baby and felt it would be wrong to stop trying to get over the depression. Although, my husband said he needed me and loved me, I would think of how much easier his life would be without me. At the same time I was grieving over the lost feelings of joy I used to have, and because I wasn't feeling anything, I wasn't feeling hope that those feelings and zest for life would return. I really felt like I was never going to be happy in general, again.

Okay, now that I have said that, on to what helped me out of the depression cycle

1. I was taught that suicide is wrong and I believe in a God who cares about me and will answer my prayers. Also, I believe your spirit is eternal and that you don't change magically into some perfect being when you die. I also believed that I could be healed from what I was/was not feeling through the Atonement of Christ.

2. My case was biologically temporary (i.e. my hormones and bio-chemical reactions balanced and normalized over time). It was Postpartum Depression and went away completely after a year and became less frequent and in shorter cycles even before then. (I was only really bad for a six week stretch, then a one month stretch, and then a later two week period
3. I did know I was loved and cared for by my family, even when I couldn't 'feel' it.

4. I had a great friend who was happy, laid back, and accepting that invited me over to her apartment to just sit and visit, while I nursed and she went about her normal day of cleaning and caring for her kids. Having a place to go and just get out of the house and be in someone else's daily life really made a difference for me.

5. I started to get out more and get better sleep over time.

Now for what would have helped me to know and hear when I was depressed and what has helped me from falling into depression traps

1. Depression is not you! I wish I had been told that what I was feeling/not feeling was the result of my body adjusting to rapidly changing hormone balances and that me 'thinking happy thoughts' or just 'making a choice to be happy' wasn't going to magically make my endorphin receptors start working like they used to. For me I just need time.

2. Get out of the house. I wish someone had told me, “You are dealing with something more important than having a clean house. Going on walks and meeting with friends so you can get out of the depression zone is more important then any chores you have. A sane mother/wife means more then a nice looking home. (yes, a clean house is nice, but honestly when your depressed you aren't going to clean anyways, but rather cry about how your house is a mess and you are too useless to even clean it)

3. (This one I did get) I just wanted someone to hold me while I cried. No words. No “Its going to be okay.” Just “Let me hold you” and afterwords hearing “Thank you for letting me hold you.” For me I just wanted someone to hold my hand through the dark spots without bring attention to it

4. Finding out that not only have others dealt with it, but people I know and respect that don't fit the fragile, weak, always sad stereotype of a depressed person I conjured. People who deal with depression are not always sad and brooding. In fact, they can actually be emotionally strong and upbeat when you see them or even most of the time. Dealing with depression does not mean you are a weak person or a mental case. It mean that for some reason you brain is have trouble receiving some chemical messages you normally would receive. It can be fixed and will not last forever.

fates

Dear Husband

I’m falling or maybe not.

I can’t decided what is best if I’m really  not

Meant to be the mother

Of such wonderful kids

I guess its better stated I can’t tell if I’m downing

Or swimming

Or flying

Its so hard to tell

What’s expected

When you sitting

Trying to get your daughter to be asleep by wishing

And pretending you don’t hear her cry and playing with the blinds

Looking out the window

To what might be a better world.

I don’t know if I’m falling

But  I feel weightless inside

It’s consent fear that my end isn’t well

I tremble that the story is not comedic, but tragic and I

Like Macbeth am the villain

Who darkens the lives around him

Please dear Dios

Free my soul from this lacking

Let it be a fairy tale ending

Not in some future that I can not see

But now around me.

Turn me to the fairy, who makes lives better

Instead of running and hiding

causing pain

Dearest Lord,

God of my youth

Come to my soul again

Light it with fire with what is True

If I am to be blinded let me be blinded by light

That I may not feel dark clouds about be

Please, let me taste, let me touch

That it is good, one sense is too uncertain.

I like a sheep can’t tell when it’s astray

Make me an under-shepherded who can see there’s gate

I fear my fire is dimming

It’s too far to see on barrowed light

Lead me dear God to where  your oil is storing, that I may fill and never thirst anymore

Dear Father in Heaven,  here we are sheep

We can not find the way by ourselves.

O Come to my heart, Thou Prince of Peace

Let me know in thee I have place.

As I sew my daughter’s Christmas dress

As I sew my daughters Christmas dress,
The cloth died red
Turns to blood
When it meets saline drops
That darken the festive cheer.

I think of the mom wrapping a gift,
Made useless in one day.
I wonder, how it feels
to have that joy ripped away?

The call that tells her,
He is not coming home
But is gone further than away.

How could that woman stand?
How can the father breath,
With bowling balls strapped to his chest,
And his child bled away?

Soon there is anger,
And instant social disdain,
Some analyze,
Some sympathize.
Some shout revenge again.
Some accuse,
Others kneel to God and pray,
But the parents will stop,
And wish the ‘some’ away.

They will enter or close the room
Where they’re baby laid.
And perhaps, throw the dress,
For their daughter made.
A life protected, done away.

A little child, just five.
Two years older than my son,
Is gone from loving arms.
So I too wish the some away.

God, please, help the hearts of those families who lost there loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting, especially the parents of those children.

The Colors There

Rose and green and blue
and gold-
Circling in the air
I would have taken a step to see
but I feared finding nothing there.

others passed, and ‘Ooow’ed and ‘Awh’ed”
or sighed a wondering sigh.
still, Still I felt I should stay,
content it was a lie

For even if the rainbow,
stays-
still no gold I’d find.

So I walked back
to a dimmer place,
warning passers by
that, that lure of lights
may not be,
all you had in mind.

Now I think no colors,
Ever danced in the sky
t’was a trick and nothing more,
I won’t believe it until I die.

I’m content, in the dark,
Where nothing satisfies.
for if you never have it,
it’s never left behind.

Feelings unsaid

We keep quiet because we fear to hurt,or more likely fear to be hated by one we strive to make happy,someone we long to call friend.
They talk in daggers, kick the ideas we hold, but they are our friend so we stay silent until the end.

It is hard sometimes, living in a place where your values and thoughts are either dismissed as the minority, a special case, or worse that you as a person don't really even have those beliefs in and of yourself and through your logical, emotional and spiritual development but rather that those beliefs are thrust upon you or part of a mass mind set that you just fell into in order to fit in the group.
There is I guess another option to, shared by someone dear to me that I am just ignorant.
I was going write more, but the fact is I still can't. I wish there was a balance in the world, but there is not.