By Brian Crouth

My memories 

of boyhood and early teens 

growing up 

in the 1960’s 

and early 70’s 

are happy ones.

Blessed with loving parents, 

I am the eldest of seven.

Though a household 

with so many kids 

was a handful at times, 

my parents loved

having seven children, 

and as siblings 

we cherished the moments 

we shared as one big family.

Saturday nights were 

particularly special: 

a weekly ritual 

kicking off 

with we kids 

elbow deep 

in flour and dough 

for

 “make your own pizza” night 

followed by 

all of us gathering 

around the TV 

for the CBS lineup of 

Mary Tyler Moore, 

Bob Newhart & 

the Carol Burnett show

with paper cups 

filled with root beer 

and Bachman pretzel rods 

for pretend cigars.

II

One of the high points 

as a family 

were our summer vacations with

Aunt Mary Jo and Uncle Phil

and our younger cousins.

In preparation, 

my mom and aunt would 

design a menu of entrees 

they’d cook in advance and freeze.

We’d bring ours in a big cooler 

wedged between suitcases

with the nine of us 

in a station wagon

setting off on a 6-8 hour journey

to Cape Cod our first two summers

and later Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

After long days 

at the beach

marked by 

tummy surfing 

on Boogie Boards, 

picnic lunches, and sunburns,

I couldn’t wait to run back

to our rented cottage 

to relish the meal 

to be unveiled that night.

All the pre-planning and love

that went into the main course -

followed by such 

exotic desserts as 

freshly baked Congo Bars 

and crepe night -

only added to their deliciousness.

The joy and chatter 

around the dinner table

spending time

with our 

favorite relatives 

we didn’t often get

a chance to see

made it extra special.

But the crown jewel for me 

was the night handpicked 

by our parents

when after dinner 

we’d get to stroll along 

the Boardwalk -

taking in 

all of

the colorful sights, 

and music, 

and aromas

with our elders trailing behind.

Every summer 

on Boardwalk night 

I was a teenager on a mission,

perusing the open air storefronts 

in search of that perfect decal 

to be ironed on and create 

my own personalized T-shirt.

II

One summer 

around the age of 16, 

I remember sitting 

on my beach towel 

next to the sandy spot

that Aunt Mary Jo staked out 

with an umbrella and picnic blanket.

As my cousins 

ran joyfully in & out of the surf

my own joy and enthusiasm 

I had felt in summers past 

wasn’t there.

Rather than sadness, 

it was as if I felt nothing.

I could not understand 

what was happening to me, 

or think of any reason why.

This same 

emotional blankness 

followed me 

to the other 

vacation 

highlights

I could always

count on 

for joy and pleasure.

But nothing

could awaken me 

from this 

emotional deadening:

not the laughter and cheer 

around the dinner table,

not the Congo bars,

not even the Boardwalk.

The harder that I -

or my parents 

and aunt and uncle -

tried to shake me 

from this state

without success, 

the more confused 

and discouraged I felt.

The best conclusion 

any of us could come up with

was that I was experiencing 

the fickleness of adolescence.

In actuality, 

there was a name for this 

emotional numbness and 

inability to experience pleasure -

Anhedonia -

a core characteristic 

of depression 

and potent enough 

to dull the delicious taste 

of Congo Bars

and rob me of 

my anticipation and joy

of Boardwalk night.

This would not

 be the last time 

I would experience depression.

With each episode, however, 

I soon discovered that 

a way through and out 

of the darkness 

was by writing Poetry.

III

Though my 

clearest memory 

of experiencing depression 

wasn’t until I was 16 

I began writing Poetry

at a much earlier age.

Even then,

my first Poems

foreshadow 

someone with 

a keen sense of 

sorrow and loss.

One of my very first:

“Where Have All My Children Gone.”

was written at 

the tender age of 12.

The Poem imagines 

what my mother 

might be feeling 

after the seven of us 

had grown, 

leaving her 

with an empty nest.

To this day, the Poem remains 

beautiful and poignant, and 

an audience favorite 

for my stage readings 

and podcast.

From my earliest Poems 

unto this day,

Poetry has provided a way 

to chronicle my experiences of depression 

as well as serve as a means 

to an eventual breakthrough 

to free me from its

physical and emotional chains.

This breakthrough 

consists of instant insight and clarity

coupled with energy 

and exuberance

and an outpouring 

of creativity 

in the form of 

a Poem or Poems -

sometimes in a single pen stroke.

The Poetry 

that lifted me 

out of the darkness

however,

held its own 

darker dimension.

The span of time 

from the onset of 

a depressive episode 

to a breakthrough 

involved weeks of 

psychic suffering 

and successive nights 

of sleep deprivation

as I pondered 

in search of an answer.

The exhilaration 

and euphoria of 

coming out on the other side 

created its own motive 

and drive

to stay up into 

the early morning hours, 

or not sleep at all,

to pen the perfect poem 

that held 

the holy grail of answers.

Unknown to me -

or to

even my psychotherapists -

this was how my own

unique form of mania 

was expressing

and cloaking itself.

This realization

would not arrive 

until 25 years after

my initial experience 

of depression as a teenager

when at the age of 41

the seriousness of an episode

required hospitalization

and for the first time

I was properly diagnosed 

and treated 

for depression and mania, 

commonly referred to 

as BipolarDisorder.

Until then,

during that 25 year period

between the ages of 16-41

with each depressive episode 

I hung on to a hope

that this breakthrough 

and Poem

that brought me 

out of darkness 

and despair 

would finally 

hold the answer:

putting a halt 

to my recurring episodes

and freeing me 

from my psychic suffering

once and for all.

Eventually, 

I would come

to understand 

that no breakthrough 

or Poem by itself

would ever hold 

a path to Healing.

But before

this could happen

I would first

need to experience

the stressors and triggers 

and depths of illness 

that awakened 

the sleeping giant 

of a major depressive

and manic episode.

And in that time of need

it would have only come

with the blessing

and good fortune 

of being admitted 

to McLean Hospital 

in Boston -

world renown for 

its patient care

and a leader 

in the field 

of mental health.

And even at McLean

it may have

never come

had I not

been placed

in the caring 

and competent hands

of a young psychiatrist 

and Harvard Professor

by the name of

Dr. Claire Carswell

at a monumental time

when I never

felt so scared,

betrayed, and all alone,

 lost in the unknown

of what lie ahead 

as a psychiatric patient,

and fearing that 

this might mark

an end to any hope

for an answer to my depression 

rather than 

a new beginning.

IV

Upon admission

and observation

Dr Carswell 

immediately determined 

that what I was experiencing 

was more than clinical depression.

Based on her assessment,

she placed me on a medication

mix more appropriate 

for a person 

suffering from depression

AND mania.

The fact that I

responded immediately 

and began to stabilize 

only validated 

Dr Carswell’s

hunch 

that Bipolar Disorder

was the correct

diagnosis.

To this day -

almost 20 years later -

the same triad of

a mood stabilizer,

an antidepressant,

and a dopamine and serotonin rebalancer 

that also serves as a sleep aid

continues to be my 

bread and butter 

medication regimen.

After a 10 day period

to fully stabilize

I transitioned to McLean’s

Partial Hospital and 

Intensive Outpatient Care.

While receiving the

benefit of daily 1-2-1s

w/ my mental health coordinator 

I began attending groups

that provided

Self-Care essential skills 

to reduce

my vulnerability 

to depression 

and mania

beginning with a structured

sleep routine.

As a group

we were also taught

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

or DBT:

an array of

Distress Tolerance,

Interpersonal Effectiveness

& Mindfulness skills

more akin to 

going to school 

for Life 101

than group therapy.

Since then,

I have been a lifetime learner 

and practitioner of DBT.

This did not mean 

I would never again

find myself in need of

a psychiatric setting.

When that

need arrived

it would be

Four Winds

Hospital 

an 8 minute drive 

from where I now live.

Four Winds 

not only offers 

the same Inpatient,

Partial Hospital, 

and Intensive Outpatient Care

as McLean,

but the same DBT Skill-based treatment program.

Destabilized, in crisis, 

or in need of 

reaching out for

a higher level of care,

the staff at Four Winds

always welcome me 

without judgment

chalking up 

my return visits

as an oppty 

to brush up 

on my DBT skills.

The Monday-Friday 

9am-4pm Day program 

in addition to groups,

included an opportunity 

to have my medications 

fine tuned - often

a contributing factor for

destabilizing 

as well as gentle walks

on their peaceful campus,

and a group cafeteria lunch break 

to ensure healthy eating 

and an opportunity to bond

w/ our patient peers 

& fellow DBT learners.

Thus far, 

it’s  been 5 years

since I sought 

extra help 

beyond the outpatient care 

of a psychiatrist and therapist.

And since Bipolar Disorder 

is an incurable disease, 

someday I may be 

knocking on the door

of Four Winds once again.

And if a need arises:

rather than a feeling 

of failure and shame

I’ll hold my head up 

with hope and gratitude.

IV

Depression and mania never goes away:

it’s always present and something I’ll always struggle with - some days a little more, some days a little less.

During those stretches 

when I’m able 

to strive and thrive 

sometimes I even forget

I have Bipolar Disorder.

But not to worry, 

depression or mania 

soon enough 

will tap me on the shoulder 

to remind me 

they’re not going anywhere.

With each new day

my Healing Journey 

continues to teach me 

that the  rhythmic dance

of my depression and mania

when tempered by medication,

caring and competent professionals,

and

a lifestyle designed 

around Self-Care 

does offer the answer

that I had always hoped to find.

As for my Poetry, 

I no longer need 

to endure 

extended periods 

of psychic pain 

and depriving myself of sleep 

in a creative frenzy to write a Poem.

But there was a time

after I was first 

diagnosed and treated at McLean

that the medications required 

to keep my depression 

and mania in check 

also silenced my Poetic Inspiration.

And it left me with a decision to make:

live w/ untreated Bipolar Disorder

choosing misery for the sake of the Muse 

OR

opt for a healthier 

and happier life -

even if it meant I might 

not ever write Poetry again.

Then and now:

I choose Life!

V

Thankfully over time by

•Staying faithful to my treatment plan, •Building my knowledge and skills to navigate my illness, and 

•Uncovering new touch points 

for Healing and Creativity

new pathways have opened to Inspiration and writing Poetry again.

This shift has shaped

most dramatically

in the last seven years 

when I decided

that the safest bet 

to hedge 

another major episode

and avoid hospitalization

was to retire at the age 53 

with the help of Social Security Disability.

It was time to choose Life once again!

VI

Yes, a history of mental illness 

runs on both sides of my family, 

but so does longevity.

And with more room 

for Self-Care 

and co-managing 

my depression and mania, 

comes

more time, energy 

and opportunities 

to create a way 

to share

both my Poetry 

and Healing Story 

in my podcast: 

Brian’s Poetry Oasis.

Through storytelling, music, 

and Poetry 

I invite listeners 

to accompany me 

on my Healing Journey 

while offering them 

their own Moment 

for Self Care and Healing,

thus enabling me 

to move from 

Hurting to Healing to Helping.

Closing Poem:

Who in this room?

Who in this room

has felt no pain?

Who in this room

has never suffered?

Who in this room

walks through life

with low self esteem

because somehow

you feel you deserve to?

Who in this room

is in such a rush;

conditioned

since childhood

to push, push, push;

to chase away fears

you can’t even name,

that tell you, you’re never enough?

Who in this room

has yet to be blessed

with the ache of a broken heart,

who took a chance to risk it all

to find your One True Love?

Who in this room

this very night

will step on to this stage,

share all of yourself

and hide nothing,

unlocking the door

of your cage,

flying free in a room

full of artists and friends

who support and encourage,

never judge,

where together, all of us,

create so sacred a space

that it feels more like church

than church does.

© 2018, 2022 Brian Crouth

Brian Crouth is a poet, performer, and podcast host from Saratoga Springs, NY. Since the onset of depression at the age of 12, his poetry has enabled him to be an active participant in his healing journey. By making his journey visible through poetry, music, and storytelling, Brian offers a healing path for others.

By Effy Redman

After a day of high school in eleventh grade, I stand in front of the stove in the small kitchen of the little house my family is renting in a grimy small town in upstate New York, a fork in my hand, and quickly eat leftover spaghetti with tomato sauce from the saucepan. I can’t get enough. I am starving because I skipped lunch, hiding out in the high school library reading a glossy magazine instead of venturing into the cacophonous cafeteria with tables full of cliques I didn’t fit into. The sensation of hunger became familiar, expected. I eat as much leftover pasta as I can, then I wash my hands and mouth at the kitchen sink. The reason I am self-conscious about eating at school is that I have a disability, a rare condition of facial paralysis called Moebius Syndrome, which makes eating, and other things, difficult for me. I cannot completely close my eyes or blink, and I speak a lot like a ventriloquist, without moving my lips. But I was raised to avoid talking about my disability. My parents taught me that it was preferable to act “normal,” like my four younger siblings. So, when I find myself hungry and alone in the high school library at lunchtime, instead of having compassion for the difficulties my disability causes me, I blame my isolation and deprivation on myself, on my apparent lack of social skills.

After drying my hands and face on a ragged tea towel, I press Play on the boom box my parents keep on a high shelf. I listen to a cassette tape of Belle and Sebastian, which one of my brother’s cool friends recorded for him. I love this music. It makes me feel like there is hope for me, although I can’t articulate where or how. Secretly, I wish I could hang out with my brother’s friends. Many of them are Punks, with hair chopped into spikes and dyed cool colors, piercings, Doc Marten boots, and ironic lunchboxes. I see them sauntering down corridors in small groups, acting aloof and refined. I can’t imagine them wanting to get to know me.

In my final year as an undergraduate student at Bennington College, I write a Senior Reflective Essay. In the essay, I talk for the first time about having a disability, what that means to me, although I don’t really know what it means to be disabled yet. Before this night, I have been silent about my disability, governed by its physical limitations yet too afraid of rejection to speak out. But now, after almost four years living away from home, where I was taught, however unintentionally, to act “normal,” I am ready. Distance gives me power. I remember sitting in my room in Stokes House on campus late at night, trying to write. My urge to procrastinate is so strong that I actually tie myself with a belt from a loop on my pants to my chair. It is late and the house is uncharacteristically quiet. I have a bottle of Dr. Pepper—my go-to when I have to pull an All-nighter—which I periodically drink from, loving the strangely familiar artificial flavor and the burn of carbonation in my mouth and throat. This is what I love about writing, this time alone to savor every sensation, to explore the corners of thought.

I forget that I am tied to a chair, that I am slightly hungry, and bone tired. All there is is the keyboard beneath my fingertips and the bright white page in front of me. I write about immigrating from England to America at age thirteen right after having plastic surgery, I write about loss and grief, disability, looking and feeling different. Even while I write, I am realizing for the first time it is all true, and that is the scariest thing. The past year, I have developed romantic interest in several women and, although it will be three more years before I come out as a lesbian, these early stages of accepting my sexuality highlight with astounding clarity that I also need to come out as having a disability. In order to be myself, I need to know myself. I don’t understand yet that this will be a journey. I probably shed a few tears. I definitely stare up at the white ceiling with its oddly shaped eaves more than once. When I finish the essay, just before dawn, I save my work, then crawl into bed fully clothed and pass out. It is the kind of sleep too deep for dreaming.

I wish now I had known this was only the beginning of perceiving my disability, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. What made me sit down then and begin that journey was that it had finally become impossible for me to pretend I was “normal” any longer. I was beginning to understand desire, and my desire involved not wanting to hide my true self.The memory of taking that first step toward self-acceptance amazes me, because it felt then like a conclusion. However, the opposite could not have been more true. It was, in fact, a point of origin.

On my first day of teaching a Nonfiction Writing Workshop to undergraduate students at Hunter College in New York City, I asked my students to arrange their desks in a circle. It was 2016, winter, my fourth semester as a graduate student. The desks' metal legs scraping across the wooden floor sounded celebratory, like the beginning of something. As I had the previous semester on my first day teaching, looking around at my diverse student body, I felt almost maternal, a kind of responsibility new to me. Large windows at the classroom’s far end looked out over Lexington Avenue, whose festive din of traffic would punctuate our bi-weekly gatherings.

 Once everyone was seated, I stood at my desk halfway round the circle and introduced myself.

"By the way," I said, "I have a disability, a condition of facial paralysis that means I speak a lot like a ventriloquist." My new students were training their eyes on me with benevolent but acute focus. I continued.

"If you have difficulty understanding anything I say, feel free to ask, and I'll repeat myself."

There was a moment of silence. Benign, thoughtful. I asked the students to take turns introducing themselves. In their expressions, I saw compassion, and esteem. I had been nervous in the days leading up to this class, but my new students were completely accepting of my differences. This, in turn, bolstered my confidence. I launched into the semester feeling like I had taken flight. The students’ respect for me as an authority figure, a role model, inspired me to work harder than I ever had before.

The experience of introducing my disability to my new Nonfiction students sticks out in my memory because it deepened my journey into writing my first book—a memoir of growing up with a physical disability. Even while I was trying to teach students how to write nonfiction, I was trying to figure out how to write nonfiction myself, as a graduate student. The layers of learning and teaching, receiving and giving, exposed new truths both in the classroom I walked into and onto the pages I typed. Whereas writing my disability memoir was, at that time, intensely private, casually describing my disability to my new students felt refreshingly public.

I learned that each one of my students had a fierce drive to tell their story, too. I learned that my own story was more vulnerable than I had ever before imagined. For my thesis, I wrote about my body intimately, revealing details of my physical self I wouldn’t even share with my therapist. My graduate school classmates and professors, to their credit, only ever gave feedback and critiques that reinforced the validity of my story’s most vulnerable form. In a manner I never had before, I felt heard.

Sometimes, riding the 6 train packed with commuters on my way to teach two early mornings each week, I felt the pressure of bodies crammed in around me like words crowding my mind before my hands released them onto the page. I had never felt more human.

Some people gawk. They stare at me as though I am an oddity, a curiosity, because I have a facial difference. Occasionally, the gawkers are hostile, but this is very rare. Usually, people are simply wondering why I look different. I typically wait until I am getting to know someone to offer an explanation. I don’t feel that I owe anyone one, not even you. I remember my best friend in middle school telling me that, when I joined the school, there were other students who disliked me due to my difference. I had to prove myself. My friend explained that she had decided to give me a chance. This was in England, where I was born. We were lying on the bright yellow floorboards in my bedroom, near the bay window. My friend was half Black, but we never talked about that. It didn’t occur to me to ask her if she ever felt other, too. Our school was a tiny, private Christian school in inner city Manchester. We were both sheltered at home and exposed to the roughness of inner city living. She was one of many friends along the way who showed me true respect and unconditional love, which I would need in order to navigate becoming an adult. Friendship has always been my sanctuary from any hostility I might encounter in the world.

People talk to me. What I mean is, people make themselves vulnerable to me. I think this is because I radiate vulnerability and receptivity. Regardless of what I think of the people exposing their stories to me, I am repeatedly moved by their vulnerability, by their trust that I won’t judge them, even that I may help them. I have not always been nonjudgmental, though. During my first year of undergraduate college, I met a young woman who had cerebral palsy and used a walker. Though I wouldn’t admit to it, I was repelled by her disability, by her looking different, and refused her offer of friendship. In her, I saw too much of myself for comfort. I lied to her when she invited me to see a play on campus with her, saying I would be busy. I will always regret this missed opportunity for connection.

Several years ago, I spoke on the phone with a dear friend who had just broken up with her long-term boyfriend. She seemed most upset about all the time invested into the relationship. She was in Kentucky and I was in upstate New York, yet the conversation felt close. I told her I was sorry about what she was going through. I couldn’t think of much else to say. My own romantic relationships so far had all been short-lived. I didn’t have much basis for comparison. But I did understand personal loss. The loss of physical ability, the loss of childhood friends due to immigration, the loss of self. On some level, my friend knew this. And by inhabiting the moment centered in her loss, paradoxically, my own loss diminished, because of the comfort of the bond we shared.    

In the small city in upstate New York where I live, on a warm  day this November, I walk down my street. I pass a large brick house with an old walker abandoned on the front lawn. This place is a community residence for adults with mental health diagnoses. And, for a couple weeks in 2017, I lived there. What I haven’t told you yet is that, at age twenty-five, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. There is scientific research proving that Moebius Syndrome, and the inability to smile, is linked to depression. Thus, I believe my mental health diagnosis is essentially a component of my physical disability. Living with it, including several nervous breakdowns, has at times disrupted my life and relationships. That’s how I wound up in the community residence five years ago, just half a block from the beautiful apartment where, quite by coincidence, I now live independently. I pause for a moment on the sidewalk near the community residence and study the walker. It is perched on a slight hillock in the lawn so it tilts precariously to the side, as though pushed. The sun warms my face. In the abandoned walker, I see neglect, carelessness, fragility.

At forty, having lost everything then rebuilt my life a couple times, I can say that I am happy. This happiness is more of a baseline quiet satisfaction than anything ecstatic. My bipolar symptoms have been in remission for almost five years, my career is flourishing, and I have cultivated a diverse, supportive community. That said, there are still days when I feel emotionally or physically awful. But even then, I am conscious of being in a good place, a place where I can both work and rest. I cannot take the luxury of peace for granted. A large part of settling where I live has been discovering the local LGBTQ+ community and connecting with fellow queer people. Identity, I think, cannot be limited to a single title. It is essentially intersectional, because humanity is endlessly multi-faceted. For example, I am a lesbian neurodivergent immigrant with a physical disability. But maybe even that example is overly simplified. Doesn’t true identity shrink when we attempt to simply label it?

Although there are some knowns in my future—a book contract, a job contract, community events—I think of it as a blank page I am trying to write onto. Some days, I see the page clearly, it all makes sense. Other days, I need to sit back and stare out my windows holding a cup of coffee, waiting for insight, or at least the motivation to get up off the sofa and start something. Although control is essentially an illusion, I do feel more control over my life than I ever before have, because I have autonomy, which, for me, manifests as the freedom to make my own choices within the fabric woven from a diverse, supportive community. I have access to both the space to breathe and the human connections that help bring my journey to life. As each day unfolds, I remember that reality can be a gift.

Effy Redman is an author and disability advocate based in upstate New York. Her first book, a memoir of living with disability titled Saving Face, will be published by Vine Leaves Press in March 2024. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and Vice, among other places. This story she is sharing deals with self-acceptance in the face of adversity.

By Steve Buechler

Health Story Collaborative · On Surviving a Lethal Diagnosis and Giving Back

For most of my adult life, my identity was rooted in my role as a professional sociologist. In that capacity, I taught graduate and undergraduate courses on social theory, social inequality, social movements, and sex and gender. I also published seven books on women’s movements, social movement theory, and critical sociology.

All that came to an abrupt halt at age 64 when a routine physical exam led to a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia, widely considered the deadliest of the blood cancers. Without immediate treatment for AML, life expectancy is measured in days or weeks, months if you’re lucky. So within 48 hours, I went from feeling perfectly fine to intensive chemotherapy and a five week hospital stay.

This initial treatment achieved a temporary remission that bought me time to decide upon further treatment for a disease that always comes back. Three months later I received a double umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant, followed by six months of gradual and uneven recovery.

Nothing about it was easy, but I hit the treatment trifecta: early remission, full donor engraftment, and no graft-versus-host disease. This led my oncologist to call me a “statistical outlier,” but it was her sweet words that stuck with me as she pronounced “this is as good as it gets.” I’m now more than six years out from my transplant, cancer-free, and considered cured.

I was too busy with cancer to develop a retirement plan. But I have found a calling as a peer volunteer, patient advocate, and writing workshop instructor in the cancer community. This work is meant to honor those who saved me.

For most of my life, doctors didn’t take me seriously because I didn’t have anything serious to treat. Sprained ankles and sore throats were pretty mundane. Leukemia was different, and the medical care I received was simply superb. My doctors and nurses combined skill and expertise with compassion and empathy in ways I will never forget or could ever repay.

I would never call cancer a “gift” or an “opportunity.” But if surviving cancer doesn’t change you in some foundational way, then you really weren’t paying attention. The coping skills I developed throughout treatment continue to serve me well in many aspects of my life, and my odyssey has left me with profound gratitude, deep empathy, renewed resilience, and a rich appreciation for the simple pleasures of life.

A fuller version of my story may be found in my memoir How Steve Became Ralph: A Cancer/Stem Cell Odyssey (with Jokes)” and at www.stevebuechlerauthor.com.

Audio production by Alexandra Salmon

Music credits:

10 minutes Past by Blue Dot Sessions

Edoy by Praire

Amadines by Sergey Cheremisinov 

Garden Tiger by Pictures of the Floating World 

By Michael Robin

The narrative arc of my story is characterized by three acts but they are in reverse order – the ending, the transitional or healing stage, and new beginnings. My story begins with an abrupt ending to what had been the first sixty-three years of my life. 

On November 27, 2013, I made an attempt to end my life.  For five intense months prior, the thought of suicide held me captive. A series of traumatic life events were what drove me to suicide.  I had lost my job, income, and health insurance; I feared losing my professional therapy license and home; and my marriage was imploding. Isolated and cut off from the world, uncertain about who I was and why my life mattered, my ability to resist the temptation for oblivion faded rapidly.  I couldn’t, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, “hold in balance the sense of futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle.” 

Living through a suicide attempt is a unique kind of bereavement.  It was after my suicide attempt that I learned that the feeling of suicidal despair is impermanent.  The thought that my suffering would never end is what drove my suicidal behavior.  Suspended in time and social space, my death was spiritual, not corporeal. As my old self was dying, my new self was struggling to be born.  I identified with the writer Matthew Arnold who wrote, “I was wandering between two worlds, one dead/the other powerless to be born.” I had been in “limbo”, crossing an extended threshold, where I entered as one person and came out another.  My suicide attempt marked the turning point in my life. 

Recovering from a suicide attempt has not been simple or easy.  I’ve had no self-help formula to rely on, nor have I been offered “cheap grace.”  I write about the past to re-present my disparate emotions from a more enlightened present.  With the passage of time, my perspective has changed and evolved many times over. Remembering and revising my story gives significance to my life.   I no longer regret the past.  What happened, happened.  A life story can be revised, but not relived.

In my writing, I seek transcendence, a sense of insight and awareness about what is of ultimate significance.  As I do so, I encounter the sacred realm which is the transition point between endings and new beginnings.  It is as if my words are pulling me into new realms of existence.  I am writing myself out of the deep hole I once found myself in.  This is the spiritual power of transformative writing.  I found light by peering into the darkness. 

As a survivor of a suicide attempt, I feel responsible to share my story as a lived experience.  I write to offer a singular perspective on what it feels like to be suicidal, attempt suicide, survive, and be radically transformed by the experience.  While I am hardly the first person to attempt suicide, I have felt the uniqueness of my story.   I am one of the few writers on suicide who has been a seasoned therapist, teacher, author, and patient.  I write to comprehend the paradoxical richness of my story, the wisdom it has bequeathed to me, and the insights I might share with others. 

I write to describe my inner experience; what I feel now, what I felt then, and their interconnection.  In my writing, I seek transformation and transcendence, a sense of insight and awareness about what is of ultimate significance.  One of the striking things about writing is how it has changed me as a person.  Who I was is not who I am now, but I could not be who I am without writing about what I’ve been going through. 

Nine years ago, I was suffering from the ancient sin of acedia which the thirteenth century philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas defined as a “loss of energy to begin new things.”  I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.  In the depths of despair, I lacked perspective, unable to see the sacredness of life itself.  To move forward, I had to face my suicide attempt for what it was. 

At the time, I didn’t recognize my survival as the opportunity it was.  It felt inauspicious, unlikely to ever be seen as a blessing.  But as I leaned into the pain, I came to appreciate being a member of what Albert Schweitzer called the “brotherhood of those who bear the mark of pain.”  The more I befriended my pain, the less it burdened me.  My pain lessens when I am less afraid of it.  The more I accept it, the less it overwhelms me.

It has been my responsibility to play an active role in finding meaning to my suffering; to learn and grow from the experience.  This viewpoint has allowed me to grow into the person I am becoming.  I am grateful that God graced me with the wisdom and courage to persevere.  From Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, I learned “to begin something new is a wonderous thing.  But to lose everything and be able to begin over again is nothing less than a miracle.”  For the first time in my life, I now fully appreciate the blessing of being alive.

It is only in hindsight, that I can see how transformational these losses have been.  I’ve looked to the spiritual traditions, not just social psychology, to guide me on my journey.  If I was to thrive and not merely survive, I had to walk down what Native Americans call the Red Road, a metaphoric symbol of healing and transformation.  It took many months for me to see my losses as harbingers of new beginnings. Converting memories of loss to memories of meaning has been my ongoing existential task.  While I’m a fairly stationary person, I’ve traveled many miles in my imagination.

My healing imagination resists the idea that I should not feel the pain of the past.  From the beginning, others wanted me to “be over” the pain without understanding that grieving is an ongoing and life-affirming process.  Grief is not a pathological process to be cured.  My quest has been to experience grief, not classify it.  In the process, I have a profound sense of gratitude for my continued life.  I don’t need to bring the nebulous concept of “closure” to my old life to feel fully alive today.

Imposing a semblance of meaning to what had once been so traumatizing, allows me to feel better, think more clearly, and function with more confidence.  Reducing the chatter in my brain has allowed me to be more discerning.  I have created a calming distance between my thoughts now, and what happened then.  Being mindful in the present does not mean I’m not affected by the past.  I still have anxiety but I no longer have the agitation that once overwhelmed me.  I no longer fear dying alone and unloved, because I am no longer alone and unloved.

Of this, I am sure.  If it was up to me, I would plead for eternal life in this world.  I don’t want to die but when I do, I want my life to be well-lived.  I need to feel that my life has mattered, that in my small way, I have contributed something of value to the human experience.  I want my writing to be an important part of my spiritual legacy.

Much of the value of writing about trauma is in how words are received.  I have found power, a sense of personal efficacy when my words influence and inspire others.  The most common response to my writing has been, “Wow Michael, this is going to help a lot of people when it is published.” Writing has helped me understand my experience by using transformative language that helps reshape my sense of self and relationships with others.

As I pass through the seasons of my life, I appreciate the wisdom of singer Joni Mitchell who wrote, “Something’s lost, but something’s gained, in living every day.”  It’s been said that you cannot have a testimony without a test.  I had to go through a cleansing fire to rise from the ashes.  For the first time in my life, I am truly happy to be alive.  Living a life of meaning has been the guiding light that illuminates my path forward, allowing me to see beyond myself.  My highest aspiration is when I die, my friends and loved one’s will say a hearty and eternal “Amen.”

Read part two: On Living with Parkinson’s Disease

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  Michael Robin is a clinical social worker with more than forty years of experience.