To be, or not to be

I originally wrote this in 2019. Today I attended a pro-choice solidarity rally. Fortunately, our abortion laws in Aotearoa have been updated since I wrote this. However, the USA has regressed and the constitutional right to abortion healthcare has been revoked. This leaves individual states to make the choice, and some have immediately outlawed abortion under any circumstances. We marched to the US Consulate to send a message of solidarity to our American friends. And we were reminded to be on guard in this country as nothing is ever guaranteed and right wing politicians are already making unpleasant noises.

I also want to note that whilst I have referred to women in this post, I acknowledge that the right to access to abortion healthcare is relevant to people of all genders. 

At the moment, women in New Zealand are looking on as states in the USA enact the most restrictive laws against terminating a pregnancy we have ever seen.

What we fail to remember is that New Zealand's laws are not that liberal, either. We gasp in horror at the idea that young girls cannot have a pregnancy ended even in the case of it being the result of rape or incest, but we forget that those things by themselves are not ground for a termination in New Zealand.

The 'abortion debate' is one that throws up so many issues for me. I have come from a background of Christian belief that life starts from conception - although I don't know where that's backed up in the Scriptures. I have always had an uneasy relationship with the concept of terminating a pregnancy.

The recent resurgence in interest in the law around termination has come hot on the heels of a dear friend confirming her own pregnancy.

This is a very much wanted, and planned for, first baby. We are already starting to use the language of hope - at 6 weeks gestation we are referring to it as a 'baby' when it is nothing more than a clump of pulsating tissue.

This just emphasises to me that what we feel about something makes it what it is. Language matters, and right now, it matters more than anything.

Sitting alongside my friend's much wanted and already dearly loved first baby are the stories of women for whom this clump of cells was a danger. Danger is a strong word, but I will use it, even if it wasn't a life or death situation. Or maybe it was, just not in the ways we commonly describe it.

I know first hand the long term effect children have on your life. The 'motherhood penalty' isn't some theory that someone dreamed up. Its a real thing effecting the economic outcomes for women the world over. We cannot pretend that having a baby is just a physical manifestation and consequence of a physical act. We must acknowledge the far reaching economic and social impacts it currently has on the people who carry them - women.

I have four children whom I would not change for the world. They are delightful, clever, beautiful individuals. However, in a capitalist world, I cannot discount the economic cost I have borne for taking time out of the paid workforce to raise four children until the youngest was six years old.

As I moved away from my original religious ideology, and started to hear more of women's stories, I started to understand about the origins of life.

Life actually begins with the woman who is growing it. If she is not ready, if she hasn't met her potential yet, it is profoundly unfair to ask her for her life be usurped by someone else's.

I appreciated the meme that stated "what if that baby was going to cure cancer?" and the response that "what if the woman carrying that baby was going to cure cancer, but she didn't finish college because she got pregnant and and couldn't end the pregnancy?"

I feel profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of having a termination. Fortunately, I will not be in a position to have to make that choice, but I can appreciate what a difficult choice it is. 

I am also in a position where I believe that a woman's decision about whether or not she wishes to be pregnant trumps everything.

My dear friend is pregnant with a baby.

The baby is a wish. An idea. A dream. A future.

But they are not all like this.

Some are pregnancies that are wrong. Costly. Deadly.

They are pregnancies. Not babies.

Babies are our ideas, dreams, futures.

And pregnancies must not continue at the expense the lives of women who bear them.

ANZAC Day in the age of COVID

At the time of writing, our pandemic lockdown is in week 5. We are not allowed to leave home except to go shopping for essential supplies, or to go to the doctor or chemist. We are allowed to exercise outside of our homes, by walking and biking in our neighbourhoods. We have bent the rules a tiny bit by driving to the local cemetery three kilometers away, where we can wander freely while still observing the requisite physical distancing mandated by the government.

One of the pandemic initiatives to spring up worldwide was to encourage people to put teddy bears in windows as a nod to the book 'We're going on a bear hunt' by Michael Rosen. While small children cannot even play on their local playground, they could go for a 'bear hunt' around their local neighbourhood.

As Easter approached, the Prime Minister assured children that the Easter Bunny (and the Tooth Fairy) was an essential worker, so was allowed to work over Easter - but added a reminder that he might be a bit busy, so might not make it to their house (and parents who hadn't stocked up on Easter eggs pre lockdown breathed a sigh of relief)

Easter eggs started finding their way into windows or in chalk drawings on footpaths and fences. A favourite in our very Westie neighbourhood was 'Happy Easter Egg" Unintentional, I'm sure, but amusing nonetheless.

Saturday was ANZAC Day, and in a time where gatherings of any sort are not allowed, people went to the end of their street at 6am for their own personal 'dawn service.'  There were reports of a bugle being heard across the whole suburb playing Reveille. People decorated their fences and windows with poppies. The creativity was joy to behold, but do people really know what this all means?

I do not get up for dawn anything, and ANZAC Day is no different. The few years after my Dad died it became a necessary part of my grieving process, but the pain faded and the sense of duty was no longer there.

On ANZAC Day itself, Nyah and I went up to the local cemetery and visited the memorial there. It is always interesting to observe social practices, whether or not we choose to partake in them. I was drawn to an information board which talked about the construction of the memorial, and about some of the adjacent graves. The Browne family lost four of their five sons. It is a loss incomprehensible to us today.

Just over a week prior to lockdown coming into effect, we visted Te Rau Aroha - a museum dedicated to Māori contribution to the armed forces, and the heavy price they have paid. It was a solemn and contemplative place to visit. My eldest son is now eighteen years old - the age he could have been conscripted into the armed forces and sent into the unknown - and possibly to die - like so many young Māori men in the service of their colonisers. Like the Browne brothers were. Parents the world over have experienced this heartbreak. Here we are locked into our 'bubbles'* to fight a war on a pathogen, but we have each other and we have relative comfort and safety.

As ANZAC Day dawned, I felt the grief of humanity. Grief for the boys who never came home a hundred years ago. Grief for my own father's lost youth and what it took from my whole family. Grief for my own son who is safe but who I have not seen for over five weeks. I miss him.

We have no concept of the losses families have experienced through war - especially World War I. Maybe the nationalistic fervor, poppy imagery and silhouettes of soldiers with heads bowed are us trying to make sense of it all.

We cry, we sing, we get up at dawn, and in the middle of a pandemic, we put poppies on our fences instead of in our lapels.




*'Bubble' refers to the small unit of people we can be a part of during the pandemic lockdown - our own 'bubble' is myself, Nyah and my two youngest children who live with us half of the time. Due to their movement between homes, our bubble technically also includes my two eldest children, their father and his partner. Our bubble does not extend beyond this, and we are not able to see any other family or friends. 

Get that woman into therapy now...

This was a jokey line that my husband and I used to use when we watched The X-Files.  Agent Scully was always finding her way into a jam...and you know, stuff like being abducted and probed by aliens would likely cause many psychological problems.

At that time, it never would have occurred to me that one day it would be me in therapy.  But today I graduated from it.

Right after Mum died, I didn't really feel I needed counselling, but later, even before my breakdown, I knew things weren't quite right, and I started a search for a good therapist.  I had recommendations from friends, from family, from someone with insight into which therapists were best trained in cognitive behavioural therapy.  I had numbers, I had names.  But I didn't do anything.

Leaving things in my own hands doesn't always work well, and I found I had to wait until I was pushed to crisis point before I could make that step.  Once I had the breakdown, I went to the GP and told him point blank that I needed to be referred to someone.  I needed to be told what to do, where to go and who to see.  I received six funded psychotherapist sessions and was on my way.

Enter Linda.*  With appointment duly arranged, I turned up at the unassuming offices that made up the substantial practice that Linda was a part of.  Linda met me at reception, and led me up to her office tucked away upstairs.  She was a striking looking woman in her early 40s with big green eyes, who walked like a dancer and always had grey regrowth showing at the roots of her long brown hair.

Fortunately, I had been pre-warned by a friend that I might wonder what was being achieved in the beginning.  There was a bit of knitted eyebrows, nodding, 'Hmmmm..' and 'tell me about your mother.' 

But over time, we managed to get to the bottom of how deeply my loss had effected me.  Linda helped me understand the gravity of what had happened, and helped me deal with how my body was processing what was going on in my mind.

But not only that, she helped me get to the bottom of other anxieties that had plagued me for years.  Health anxiety was a major one for me.  A headache or pain anywhere on my body would set me off on a spiral of anxiety about having a brain tumor or a heart attack.  Linda helped me understand that this was likely a physical response to what was going on in my head.  Not only this, she taught me about how to stop pushing against my feelings, and start accepting them and working through them, rather than shoving them in the closet and pushing the door shut...even if all my baggage wasn't going to fit in there.  Banging up against a brick wall doesn't get you very far.

Today I started our session by saying that I was thinking of ditching her, but how would I know I was ready? So the hour became a retrospective of the last six months, and what I had achieved.  Linda has the skills to get into my head and to come up with something pithy that perfectly describes what I am thinking but fail to articulate, and many of our breakthroughs will stay with me for life.

In 'Serendipity' my mother talks about the profound effect her psychotherapist had on her life in 1972-73.  She considers him her lifesaver - to the point that she was still contacting him periodically decades later.

Going to therapy is interesting, because you develop a very intimate relationship with someone over time, yet of course that relationship is always one sided.  Mothers often talk about the relationship they have with their midwives.  Perhaps these sorts of professional relationships are unique because those particular practioners are present in our lives at times when we are going through great change.

With Linda's help, I am able to understand that I have been through a life changing experience.  Something in me is different, and something in me is missing.  As Linda said to me today, loss finds a place to settle.  That feeling is never gone, but finds its place in your new life - the new life you have without that person.

After this debrief session, Linda said 'You'll be fine.'  And you know, I think she's right.  There will still be ups and downs.  But yes, I think I'll be fine.



*Not her real name.  And it feels really weird calling her something else.

Finding Solace

I have only ever been to one support group in my life.  Its not unusual for young Mums to attend coffee groups and new mothers' groups, and that may be the full extent of many people's experiences of the support group environment.  For men, nothing may the extent of their's.

Right after Mum died, I was advised about several support services.  Victim Support met us at the retirement village after Mum was found.  We received information about free grief counselling through the funeral director.  And I was told about a group called Solace - a group that existed to support people who had experienced loss through suicide.

Of course, during my year of denial, I decided I didn't need counselling, and I certainly didn't need to go and share with a group.

Of course my mind was changed about many things since Mum's one year anniversary. In February, during a discussion about finding time to do things for myself, my therapist suggested I go along to the Solace support group that coming weekend.  I figured it was worth a try.

Initially, I was nervous.  I got to the venue late, and couldn't see clearly where to go.  I found the right door to the room where they were meeting, and walked in on a surprisingly large group of about ten (which I later found was, apparently, a small turnout..!)

I had been apprehensive about what I would find.  I thought the group would we weighted with parents who had lost children (because, after all, youth suicide is in the media all the time, right?) and that my situation wouldn't be relevant a year on.

How wrong I was.

There was a mix of people - all ages, all walks of life.  The time between their loss and that meeting day varied between months and decades.  But none of that mattered.  What mattered was that we had all, at some stage, experienced a loss we were finding, or had found, difficult to understand.

I immediately felt a connection with this group where I knew I could talk in a non-judgemental space.  And I think with suicide, sometimes you need to talk about things that might be 'controversial' to others, but the people who have been through that loss know what you mean.

If you or anyone you know has experienced loss through suicide, I would highly recommend getting in touch with your local Solace group - there are two (that I am aware of) in New Zealand.

Like anything in life, nobody understands like someone who has been there and done that.



Find your local Solace group here:

Auckland

Hamilton