Honor the Earth and Each Other – Notes on Earth Day, April 2021

gail louise Learning to Hope

From out of the earth
I sing for the animals;
I sing for them.

– Red Streaked Around the Face, Hunkpapa Sioux

Because my husband Jim and I limited our travel during 2020, I was delighted to discover acceptable flowering and foliage plants from local hardware stores. We selected two hanging baskets for our porch, identical baskets of flowering calibrachoa. Then, I could not resist two more plants: a type of sedum plus a sun loving coleus.

The calibrachoa, sedum and coleus all needed work. But each plant had promise. So I did what I had seen my father do so often. I pruned the plants … prudently and thoroughly.

Calibrachoa was just the ticket! Their flowers remind me of miniature petunias. They glowed in shades of coral, pink and red. Nature had sprinkled dabs of yellow deep inside each petal.

They thrived, and Jim affectionately named me “ The plant doctor! “

I thrived too. 

Nature can have a healing touch.

I prefer flowers, like other visual arts, to have an appeal from a distance and close-up. The bright colors of the calibrachoa beckoned to people walking by our home: Hey! Look at me! They were so intriguing I looked more closely than I intended. I peered into their depths and was rewarded by their subtle beauty.

Jim has a green thumb too. His thumb is green from raising vegetables. Wherever we lived previously, we had a vegetable garden. Sometimes a huge vegetable garden … with a rambling red raspberry patch as well! The blue jay will always remain the raspberry cane pruning bird to me. Whenever I pruned the canes, she scolded me insistently, every spring. Was I invading her space? Were her babies near?

Early each morning, you will find us sitting in our four season sunroom, observing the dawn of the new day. We follow the sun’s progress as she arcs across the eastern horizon. It is a sweet joy to attend to the unfolding season from the comfort of our sofa. The sun sweeps like a rainbow each day … everyday … throughout the year.

At twilight we walk the neighborhood, waving to folks while we witness the daylight slowly dipping westward. Each day, the sun “sets “ to brighten other continents, other countries, and other people.

Jim scans the sky nightly. Never does a day end without my husband walking outside, binocular in hand, to view the unfolding heavens.

Paul Goble describes our interaction with and responsibility for our Earth in his beautiful book “I Sing for the Animals.” As I reread his words, I am reminded what Earth and nature can bring to us, if we give her an opportunity:

“Plants and trees, birds and animals, all things like us to talk to them. They want to speak to us too, but it is not easy for them. We have to find a way to understand what they are saying to us.“

“We need not feel lonely in the fields and woods. Birds and animals, and the butterflies, speak to us. Often we are not really looking or listening. It is the same at night: the stars speak to us. We have to learn to look, and to listen. We are never alone.“

“Man’s world changes, and we hardly feel at home in the places where we grew up. The natural world is constant: the sun comes up and goes down, and the seasons follow one another and return again like a great circle. In our own changing world, it is these things which give us strength and stability.“

Let us preserve the great circle.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

The Personal IS Political!

gail louise Real Life; Real Challenges

Folks, data on women with depression is skewed. 

As I read the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, published in 2019, I was startled to learn women are prescribed antidepressants more often than men … Two and a Half times more often than men!

Why?

It is not that women report having depression more often than men, as many of us would assume!  A 2017 study discovered that men are more likely to report having symptoms of depression than women.

Even now in 2021, we assume women are the “ weaker” sex. Therefore, we assume they need treatment for depression and anxiety more than men. Physicians prescribe antidepressants, for example, for skin pain in women, where men will be prescribed pain medication for skin pain.

So why are women given anti-depressants when they are not depressed? Physicians are socially biased and influenced also.  

  • Women are prescribed antidepressants instead of pain medication for pain.
  • Women are prescribed sedatives for pain instead of pain medication for pain.

Yentl syndrome is at work. Still.

What is the Yentl Syndrome? The Yentl Syndrome describes the phenomenon whereby women are misdiagnosed and poorly treated medically unless their symptoms or diseases conform to that of men.

This is the heart of the matter: Research on most illnesses have been done on men. Female bodies are not afforded the same degree of medical attention as male bodies. 

In addition, sometimes people say, women live longer, so women do not need the same amount of medical research. Check again. Mens longevity has increased along with their years of good health. Women live on the average only 5 years longer than men now. But those 5 years are often burdened with ill health and disability! Women are the sex as elders who more often need assisted health care

And even if women did live a lot longer than men, why would less research into women’s health and well being be justified? What !!!

We must all become more political.

During your health care appointments:

  •  Ask uncomfortable questions.

How much published research, not only clinical experience or reports, have specifically included women in all aspects of health, be it dental, physical or mental?

  • Go elsewhere if you do not have a health care provider who is willing to answer uncomfortable questions. 

I hope this is an option for you. 

Before your health care appointments:

 Research your health issue, be it something that needs addressing now or is a developing or a preventable condition.  

(It is strikingly obvious to me the more I prepare for my health care appointments and make it clear to the physician I am prepared by coming with written questions and background information, the more RESPECT I obtain from the physician. I get better treatment and more options presented to me. My goal is to be on equal footing with the health care team be it mental, dental or other physical health care. )

If we persist with less data on women’s health, things do not look rosy for women.

If we persist with less research into the health of Latina, Black, Asian, Indigenous and other minority groups, things are still darker.

— Let us remember and celebrate all of us —

Thank you kindly,

Gail Louise

  • The book Invisible Women, Data Bias in A World Designed for Men was the Business Book of the Year in 2019 by the McKinsey and Company Financial Times, the winner of the 2019 Royal Science Book Prize, a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and The Orwell Prize, and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellencein Nonfiction.
     
  • Antidepressants have been life-giving for me in the past. I advocate for antidepressants to be prescribed judiciously and for limited time periods. 

We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For … A posting for March 8th, International Women’s Day

gail louise Real Life; Real Challenges

International Women’s Day began in the early 1900’s.

Today is International Women’s Day, IWD, an official holiday in Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China ( for women only ), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar ( for women only ), Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zambia.

Notice the United States and the United Kingdom countries are not on the list. Neither are the often enlightened Scandinavian and other European countries. Nor Latin and South America. Nor Africa. 

Unbelievable. It is 2021 after all. Not the Dark Ages. 

Perhaps.

You may ask why I am writing about gender equity? 

For the good of all of us. You and me.

COVID has increased unfairness to and damaged the lives of women of all ages, all around the world.

  • Women account for 70 per cent of frontline workers, yet women are left out of many COVID-19 response and recovery plans, according to the World Economic Forum, 8 February, 2021 survey.
  • Just 20 percent of the WHO emergency committee are women. And there is other ongoing damage exacerbated by COVID 19:
  • Domestic violence is rising
  • Women are taking on more duties at home, again

47 million women worldwide fall into extreme poverty – living on less than $2 a day – in 2021 they are over-represented in hard-hit sectors, such as domestic and restaurant workers, per the UN. All this has been made worse by our global epidemic. 


How have the women in your life been affected by COVID?

How have the women in your life been affected by gender inequity?

What will be the consequences for  your children and grandchildren?


Women make up fewer than 10 percent of national leaders worldwide.  Behind this eye-opening statistic lies a pattern of unequal access to power.

Being elected and staying elected to leadership positions is paramount for positive change to occur in the lives of all citizens, for the good of all.

Women promote equal access and distribution of resources and better health care to all – medical, dental and mental. Women must design and conduct research to insure that research will be with women as subjects by women physicians, public health doctors,  and epidemiologists. 

Do you know that most research of disease has been done exclusively on men? 

Do you know that most research on other mammals, say mice for example, is done on male mice?

It is undeniable that the female body is different from the male body, functions differently, recovers differently, not just in regard to our reproductive health but we differ in other body systems as well.

So to learn more about gender bias and why there are not more women in leadership roles, I will be reading from my copy of Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons,  published in 2020, by Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia and Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela, Nigeria’s two term Minister of Finance.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela is now head of the World Trade Organization.

Other contributors are: Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister to three terms in New Zealand and still Prime Minister, who gave birth while governing, Thersa May, Christine Lagarde, Michelle Bachlet, Joyce Banda, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Erna Solberg and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The GOOD NEWS is the vast majority of men and women around the world expect their leaders to take action to advance gender equality.


In closing, I offer a poem written in commemoration of the 40,000 women and children who, in 1956, marched to protest South Africa’s racist Pass Laws and presented at the United Nations, August 7th, 1978
A Poem by June Jordan ( 1938 – 2002 )

Poem for South African Women

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first women whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptisimal smoke where yes
there will be a fire

And babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open
eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea

We are the ones we have been waiting for

Let us all be the “Sweet Company ” 
Thank you kindly.

This poem can be found in “ We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner LIght in A TIme of Darkness ”  by Pulitzer Prize author and human rights activist, Alice Walker, 2006. 

Tips for Responding to Someone Who Tells You of A Sexual Assault

gail louise Beyond Recovery to Healing

There is no timetable when it comes to dealing with sexual violence. Remember it is violence. It is ugly, it is the gift that keeps on giving, if others are unwilling to be of real help. Men who are close to and love women who have been assaulted by other men can and should provide the comforts below. Regardless of how much time has passed, the feeling was recent. I sincerely hope and pray that those who read this post will respond to sexual assault victims with compassion. I invite you to be a person who responds compassionately. Compassion acts.

Follow the steps below.

*** What is essential is for the victim to be believed, to be listened to
and to learn how to get further assistance. ***

Since it is always difficult and challenging to talk about sexual assault, the listener MUST be as non-judgmental and and as supportive as possible. If you, the listener, him or herself has also been abused, raped or assaulted – please hold off telling your own story. You need to listen to the victim first and foremost.

Visit RAINN. Online at http://www.rainn.org ( Y en espanol a rainn.org/es)

RAINN is the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Netwtwork that has recommendations for assisting someone, a male, a female, off any age, no matter if the assault was recent or long ago.

Yes, I visited RAINN for an hour of online chat this week. It was helpful to chat with someone experienced helping people who have survived sexual assault.

It is free, anonymous, and can be private.

Say: “ I believe you. It took courage to tell me about this.”

It is extremely difficult for survivors to come forward and share their story. We can feel ashamed, be concerned we will not be believed, or worried we will be blamed.

*** Leave the “why” questions or investigations to the experts — Your job is to support the person. Be careful not to interpret calmness as a sign that the event did not occur — everyone responds to traumatic events differently.

The best thing you can do is to believe the person. Again: the best thing you can do is believe the person.

Say: “ It is NOT your fault. You did not do anything to deserve this.” Survivors may blame themselves, especially if they know the perpetrator personally. Remind the survivor, perhaps more than once, they are not to blame. I knew the criminal very well. He has not passed out of my life.

Say: “ You are not alone. I care about you and am here to listen or help in any way I can.” Let the person know you are there for them. Let the person know you are willing to listen to their story if they are comfortable sharing their story. Assess if
there are people in their life they feel comfortable talking to and remind them there are service providers who will be able to support them as they heal from their experience.

Healing is what my writing and recall is all about.
Healing. Healing. Healing. If the person, like me, does not get to discuss the assault with people she or he (RAINN was founded by a man.) he or she continues to relive the trauma, remains on high alert. I KNOW, for example I startle VIOLENTLY in dreams. If my husband wakes me to help, he must touch me gently, in an area that does not restrict my movements …. As in my violent dream I am fighting off the perpetrator. My husband must call my name quietly. I, for example, prefer during those times to be touched gently at the hip, not in the face, hands, or arms as was occurring in my nightmare – women who’ve been assaulted have a higher rate of lower arm fractures.

ALL this healing takes a tremendous amount of courage and energy. yet it must be done.

You can help!!! *** If you say, I will get back to you …. DO SO. ***

Say: “ I am sorry this happened. This should not have happened to you.”
Acknowledge the experience has affected their life. Phrases like “This must be really tough for you,” and “I’m so glad you are sharing this with me,” help to communicate empathy.

I prefer and recommend compassion over empathy, as empathy is so passive. It lets people off the hook. Instead do something … bring ready to eat healthy delicious food, flowers, a living plant, a small gift …
I see and witness people light up with small acts of compassion every day. I give people small acts of compassion myself, as often as my health allows. You will be at someone’s side when you give a reflection of your concern in an actual item.

Kindness is everything. Kindness and compassion.

CONTINUED SUPPORT IS ESSENTIAL:

There is no timetable when it comes to recovering from sexual violence.
If someone discloses the event to you, consider the following ways to show your
continued support.

● Avoid judgement
It can be difficult to watch a survivor struggle with the effects of sexual assault. for an extended period of time. Avoid phrases suggesting the person is taking too long to recover. Avoid the phrases, “You’ve been acting like this for a while now.” or “ How much longer will you feel this way?”

● Check in periodically
The event may have happened a long time ago, but this does not mean the pain has gone. Check in with the survivor to remind them you still care about their well-being and believe their story.

● Know your resources
RAINN. Online at http://www.rainn.org ( Y en espanol a rainn.org/es)
National Sexual Assault Hotline number 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)

You are not alone.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

A Measure of Our Success

gail louise Beyond Recovery to Healing

For children and young adults faced with mental illness, mental health challenges, and for children and young adults who are abused, forgotten and alone, I offer a poem by Ina J. Hughes:

We pray for children
   Who sneak popsicles before supper,
   Who erase holes in math workbooks,
   Who can never find their shoelaces.

And we pray for those
   Who stare at photographers from behind the barbed wire,
   Who can’t bound the street in a new pair of sneakers,
   Who never “counted potatoes’,
   Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
   Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
   Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those
   Who never get dessert.
   Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
   Who watch their parents watch them die,
   Who can’t find any bread to steal,
   Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
   Whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
   Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
   Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food.
   Who like ghost stories,
   Who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
   Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
   Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
   Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
   Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
   Who will eat anything,
   Who have never seen a dentist,
   Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
   Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
   Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried
   And for those who must,
   For those we never give up on and
   For those who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother … and for those who will
   Grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Let us heed the admonition of Marion Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, who directs us to insert the promise, ” I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR “ every time the phrase, “We pray”, is issued above.

Please offer your hands to all children, so that no child is left behind because we did not act.

Thank You Kindly,

Gail Louise

 * This poem excerpted verbatim from the last essay, entitled “If The Child Is Safe,” in Marion Wright Edelman’s book:  The Measure of Our Success, A Letter to My Children and Yours, 1992.

Wisdom from The Mouths of Our Youth

gail louise Beyond Recovery to Healing

Children often see, hear and intuit more than we grown-ups are aware.

When I was asked by the founding teachers of CCS ( “Children’s Community School”) – a Montessori preschool and kindergarten our two children attended – for a humorous anecdote from our children, I offered the first quote that came to my mind:

“My dentist laughs when I fart, but he doesn’t laugh too much because I don’t fart too much.”

   The quote was published.

In fourth grade, when the teacher asked if anyone knew what a loon sounded like our daughter said “yes!”  The teacher replied: “Oh, really?” Challenged, our child perfectly vocalized the call of the loon, a boisterous loud and long tremolo.

   The loon has outlasted the dinosaurs. …. So far.

Our second child, returning home from 1st grade, pronounced: “Mom, when I grow up I want to be a professional football player, so I can afford to be an artist.”

   Wow, he understood how the world works.

Greta Thunberg, the world leader from Sweden drawing attention to planet earth’s climate crisis – and it is a crisis now – was young when she began her work.

  Now, young women from the United States have joined her.

   Other teens are mobilizing for strict gun control reform.

Mental illness often starts young. Often, younger than we realize.

My Dear Mother, in her last years, called out to me one day. “Gail Louise, come here and sit on my lap.” She rocked and held me tenderly. My mother said, “I am so sorry we missed your mental illness when you were young.”

ALL of us need to learn from children and change our priorities.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

Reality

gail louise Real Life; Real Challenges

Some people say they are Christian and attend church, but that does not mean they practice the teachings of Christ.

Some people say they are family men, but if their super bowl team does not win, they bash their wives, partners, and/or children after the game.

Some people say “I’m just joking”, but the jokes are at the other person’s expense. Witnesses are silent.

Some people say, I love you, or sign their cards, Love …. But their love is conditional. Their love has terms, expectations, and demands.

Some people say they love their spouse/partner then criticize what the person wears in clothes, the color of their hair, and what they say and do. In front of others. Sometimes in front of others of the same family. Witnesses are silent.

Some people say they gave a lot to others. They wanted, expected, and sought gratitude. And object loudly when they do not get the gratitude they wanted, expected and sought.


Reality check.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

I See Clearly Now

gail louise Real Life; Real Challenges

I see clearly now. I understand clearly now.

Sexual assault is the gift that keeps on giving.

It’s all about power. I have power, you don’t.

And power concedes nothing.

Sexual abuse, assault and harassment are acts of conquest, subjugation and violence.

Sexual abuse, assault and harassment are crimes, regardless of the law and the verdict.

When I reported the crime to my parents, they had a meeting with the criminal.

An apology was rendered to my parents. Never to me. 

When I spoke of the crime to two men, I was greeted with silence. One man was a professional helper. The other man was a loved one. Not even a glance my way.

Yes, they heard me, but they choose not to acknowledge what I said to them. They gave me no sympathy. There was no sharing of the raw hurt, humiliation, and outrage I felt.

My outrage grew.

Maya Angelou said, people will not remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel. 

I give financial support to shelters for abused people and organizations working to end abuse, incest, sex trafficking and other forms of sexual violence.  Please join me.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

Starting Anew, Here and Now

gail louise On Support

Hello!

It is nice to be with you.

It is nice to be back writing and advocating for people with mental illness and mental health challenges!

After a life of major depression and an anxiety disorder I am very well indeed.

I write to lend a hand to those needing a helping hand and to those who are reaching out with a hand.

I also want people to do more than develop empathy. Empathy is passive. It lets people off the hook.

What is necessary is taking action to help others.

After 20 years of teaching families, loved ones and individuals with mental illnesses, these are the 2 nuggets people like you have told me were the most helpful in reaching out to others:

    ~~~ In Greeting, say,  “It is nice to see you!”
            Do Not ask, “How are you!!!”

Asking a question can put people in an uncomfortable position. They may not know what to say, or do not know themselves how they are … Many times, by conventional standards, they may not be successful, accomplished, have relationships that matter, and so on.

Sometimes, and I have experienced this myself, even with relatives, the question “How are you?” may mean, hint, hint: “Have you stopped smoking yet…Have you lost weight yet…Do you have a job yet?”

    ~~~Listen actively.

Your presence and loving concern can mean the world … just by being there. Usually the person you are listening to is not asking you or expecting you to solve their problems. Advice can be off putting. Wait to be asked for advice and do not yourself be put off if advice is not asked.

Follow up is absolutely essential. If you do not follow up in a significant way, your gesture will be just that, a gesture.

Flowers or a casserole or a handwritten note are all good ways to go.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise

Farewell (for a time)

gail louise Beyond Recovery to Healing

Every day I count my blessings.

Writing has been a labor of love for me.  Through this online blog I learned much about mental health and mental illnesses. I have come to love, enjoy and need the writing experience.  Yet it is time to move on: This web site will remain online, but I will no longer be posting new material here.

Thank you to my readers who followed From Shame-To Healing over the years; especially to my immediate and extended families. How I appreciated your interest and encouragement!

I will continue to write, but I’m turning now to another passion:  Cooking and all that cooking, enjoying food, and living on this earth encompasses.  Look for me online again – Perhaps in six months. The working title is Soups and Salads: Flavored with Love. In their varieties they are endless and imaginative, and through them one may address so many timely food issues. Soups and salads are among my favorite foods.

I am excited and invigorated by this new direction.  For me, this is a wonderful challenge and opportunity.
Gail Louise