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“Why is my child so anxious?”  It is an impossible question to answer.  While parents often want to assign blame to biology, personality of their child, bullies, our increasingly anti-social society or any other number of factors, in reality the question they are asking is based in fear.  “Is it my fault?”  The answers to why this is happening is always complicated and most often irrelevant.  It is likely a combination of many of those things.   Anxiety just is what it is.

I have been asked to present this weekend to the Parent Group at the Head Start Program in Sturgeon County.  These are parents of preschool aged children, some of them struggling with anxious children.  So for the past few weeks I have been thinking about how I should answer such a difficult question and more importantly what I can say to them that will help.

In my experience, supporting every anxious child is an anxious family.  This is because anxiety is contagious.  Anxious parents make anxious kids and anxious kids make for anxious parents.  It is as circular as the old chicken or egg debate.  Who introduced the contagious element to the family matters no more than who first brought in a flu bug.  When it is there you have no choice but to deal with it.

Sadly, parents often feel blamed for their child’s anxiety.  They are given contradictory advice.  Parents are told to be softer on their kids or be more firm.  They are told to ignore their children’s emotions or that they should talk to them about their feelings  more.  No wonder they are anxious.  Let me be perfectly clear.  It is nobody’s fault but every family member has a role in the solution.

As strange as it may seem, anxiety is really not the enemy.  You can’t ever completely rid it from your home.  Nor do you want to.  Anxiety is a good thing.  Like stress, it brings with it a heightened sense of danger, excitement and life.  It warns us of potential trouble but also motivates us to act.  People who embrace anxiety are more successful because they take chances.  They live life to the fullest.  They enjoy the adrenaline and rush of pride and accomplishment that happens when you overcome the anxiety of a situation.  After all, the most stressful and anxiety evoking times are also the ones we value the most in our lives when they go well:  births, weddings, graduations and holidays.

The real enemy is fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of humiliation, fear of the unknown and fear of loss.   When anxiety turns to fear, we avoid it at all costs.  Some people avoid school, public places, social situations, sports, friends, family, people in general, new things and anything else you can imagine. When we are afraid we seek safety and security.  Children look to their parents to protect them and parents oblige for fear of their children’s emotions.  Fear is an ugly beast.

Anxiety is a future oriented emotion.  We worry about things in the present that are not yet here.   So in many ways it is our imagination that we are battling and the fear of “what if?”  So the advice I have for parents is this: if you have children struggling with anxiety make sure your own anxiety is being dealt with first.  You are the greatest role model in your child’s life.  If you need help, get it.  Your child will learn the importance of reaching out.  Second, help your whole family be mindful of the present rather than spending their time in the future.  We only have control of the here and now.

Brandy was the best dog ever.  We got her when I was in diapers.  She was a cross between a German Shepard and a Terrier.  She loved to play fetch and once you started, she would put that slimy ball in front of you for hours.  One of my favourite things about Brandy is that she couldn’t swim.  She always looked like she was swimming but if you had goggles or a mask on you would see she was just walking underwater.  My Dad had to rescue her on more than one occasion because she would “swim” out in lakes to get sticks or whatever else we threw into the water.  Determined to fetch, she would get in over her head and then need rescuing.

She was a smart dog and loyal.  If I was sick, or just being a moody tween, Brandy would sit and listen to all I had to say.  All she asked for was the occasional tummy rub.

When I was 14 years old and home for lunch one day I heard the sound of thumping on the floor above me.  When I went upstairs to investigate, I saw Brandy disoriented and foaming at her mouth.  She couldn’t walk but she tried really hard.  It was heart breaking.  The next few months were pretty torturous for all of us.  Brandy was having seizures. They weren’t entirely sure why.   The vet tried some medication.  Brandy was so doped up that she would get stuck in corners of the house and not know how to get out.  Her personality began to change with each seizure.

After a while she would go through moments that she clearly didn’t recognize us any more and she would start to growl.  I was watching my loyal friend slowly die.  My parents didn’t want to put Brandy down.  They wanted to make sure that we tried everything first.  I think they knew how hard it was going to be on all of us.  But it was time.  If you talk to my parents now they will tell you it was a mistake to keep her around as long as we did.  We all just wanted to hang on to some hope.

I remember clearly the day my parents made their decision.  Brandy hid under my brother’s bed and wouldn’t come out.  I remember calling her to come to me, and in the last hours of her life, she finally responded and came out only to be taken to the vet.  Instead of seeing the joy in that last glimpse of recognition, for years I felt like on some level I killed my dog because I got her out from under that bed.

At 14 I had no skills to deal with this loss.  I had a pretty sheltered life, a good childhood and a stable home.  No one in my life had ever died.  Brandy’s death at that time in my life was devastating.  The idea that my life would always include not just Brandy but everyone I loved was shattered.  Looking back I can tell you that many things started going down hill for me from there.  The next few years were difficult to say the least.  It didn’t all have to do with my dog’s death but like in any grief, it triggered many things for me that I wasn’t prepared to deal with.

Any grief is complicated.  Loss of a pet can be complicated too.  Many people don’t recognize the loss of a pet as a legitimate reason to grieve.  They ignore their feelings or hide them because they are ashamed.  After all “it is just a dog.”  This attitude can have negative consequences to those who are struggling to find support, especially children.  It is never helpful to judge other’s grief.  It only puts up walls in relationships and creates emotional baggage for all.

My first loss helped prepare me for other losses in my life and it taught me how much I love animals.  We convinced my parents years later to get another dog.  Keltie was every bit as important to me.  Even though she wasn’t nearly as smart, she was just as loyal.  She never figured out fetch but she could run and herd us like no one’s business.  She was part Whippet.  This year we got Bailey, a German Shepherd cross.  Our family consists of four people, two cats and a dog.  Because of my relationships with my dogs, I wanted my kids to grow up with that kind of unconditional love.

It is funny how things sometime come full circle.  My first experience of loss was my beloved pet and that started me on a career as a Therapist that specializes in grief.  Recently I was asked to partner with Part of the Family: Pet Memorial Centre to provide some of their clients grief therapy.  They are a funeral home for our furry friends (and those without fur, too).  I know how people love their pets and how difficult it can be when they aren’t there to greet us when we come home.  Sharing their grief may help ease the hurt and remind them of the joyful memories.

Thursday was a good day.  It started with a secret dream of mine.  One that was buried somewhere in my psyche.  When I was little I used to tell people that my Dad was Santa and my Mom Mrs. Claus. If you know my parents then you can understand where this came from.  My Dad is a bit jolly and my Mom is a Christmas decorating, cookie baking machine.  Turns out I was right all those years ago.

On Thursday my Dad reluctantly agreed to play Santa at my son’s Play-school   He was so nervous that he researched and even dug out some sleigh bells to perfect the ensemble.  I must say that he was a perfect Santa.  Although I’m not sure he will indulge me a second time.  I re-experienced the joy of Christmas as I watched him interact with the kids.  One little girl almost pushed him right off his chair when her name was called.  She did a running jump that could put any any other hug to shame.   I watched in awe and exhilaration.  On Thursday, I felt like a kid again watching my Dad be the hero.

That afternoon my Dad offered to watch my son while I went Christmas shopping with my Mom.  With the hustle and bustle of kids around we don’t often get a chance to catch up with each other.  My Mom is a chronic worrier as all mothers are.  It was nice to put that aside and spend time thinking about Christmas and what would bring joy to her grand kids faces.  We have gotten skilled in the art of spending each other’s money.  On Thursday I got to re-experience the unique connection between a mother and daughter.

Thursday evening was another magical moment.  We have lovely neighbours that have adopted our kids as their own.  They requested a new holiday tradition.  That we take time each year to spend with each other and forget the presents cause the memories are more important.  We went to a local art studio to create a clay family portrait.  I can’t even put into words how much fun we had rolling out the clay and moulding it into little versions of us.  There is something special about the family you chose that is different than the family you are born with.   I am lucky enough to have many of these relationships in my life.  On Thursday I got to experience that joy.

Thursday will go down in my memory as one of my best days.  It was all time well spent.  It is why holidays are so important as a way to make memories.  Thursday was a good day.

On Friday a man walked into a school in Connecticut and took the lives of 26 people, 20 of them children my daughter’s age.  Friday was not a good day.  The events in Connecticut made for an ugly reminder that I only have so many days like Thursday with my family.   I have held my children tighter since Friday as I am sure we all did.  Life can be ugly and scary but it can also be filled with pure joy.  I want to hang on to every second of it with my kids, even the temper tantrums my son has perfected recently or the chronic cotton balls that must be stuck in my daughter’s ears when I ask he to clean up after herself.  I can’t imagine ever losing them.  Friday I was forced to think about it and I don’t want to go there again.

While my heart breaks for the family of the victims,  I remind myself that those families also had days like I did on Thursday.  One day I hope those memories will take up more room in their hearts than the violence and grief that fills them now.  Until then I hope they can grieve. I hope that they find some comfort in that we all grieve with them.

Grief is a natural and necessary reaction to change in our lives.  It can happen after the loss of a loved one, after a dramatic life event, illness, career changes and innumerable other life events.  It is an emotional reaction that symbolizes our response to the loss of things and people that are important to us.  It is a powerful reminder of our character, our values and how we choose to live our lives.  I believe that the pain of grief is as essential to living a good life as the elation of joy and love.  Love and loss are intimately connected.

Our society is one that continually tries to avoid pain, from the epidurals used to provide comfort to our mothers as we come into the world, to the comfort care we provide dying patients and everything in between.  We drink, do drugs, watch TV, gamble, play video games, eat, and check our Facebook statuses as a way to numb ourselves from what is actually happening in our lives.  We obsess over the lives of celebrities, fictional characters and gossip about our neighbours all as a way of not looking at ourselves. We are a society of avoiders.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these things have a place.  Medication can alleviate suffering.  A good TV show can help deal with the stress of a bad day.  Facebook can be a wonderful way to keep up with friends.  My concern however is the way in which we try to sterilize our lives from discomfort.

This morning I was reading some articles on the new DSM 5 (See them here on Psychology Today and The Huffington Post).  The DSM 5 is a manual that Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals use to diagnose people with mental illness.  The manual is supposed to give professionals a way to talk about and treat people that are suffering because of how their mind functions.  It is used as a way to categorize who qualifies for funding and treatments and who does not.  It can be a useful tool but can be used as a weapon for stigma and shame.

Previously the DSM differentiated between grief and major depression.  The DSM 4 recognized the diagnostic criteria for major depression was similar to the symptoms of those grieving but the manual purposely excluded grievers from the diagnosis of Major Depression.  This was a recognition that while grief can cause serious emotional and physical disturbances in a persons life, it is not a mental illness.  The new version of the DSM removes this distinction thereby making grief pathological.  The new DSM will also create a new diagnosis called Complicated Grief. While I agree that some grievers need extra attention and support through their journey, I’m not convinced that diagnosing them with a mental illness is the answer.

In my experience too many grievers are already on anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety medication.  While these medications can provide short term relief from suffering, grief is not something that can be permanently medicated out of our lives.  Medication often only postpones and lengthens what will come eventually.  This might be helpful to some in extreme situations but for most grievers it is not necessary or helpful.

Grief is a part of life.  Just like death it lurks in a background reminding us that we are vulnerable and our lives are precious.  I believe that acceptance, understanding and compassion for ourselves and those around us is the way to explore, embrace and learn from grief.  By leaning into the pain we learn about ourselves, each other and about the meaning of our lives.

In the bathroom of a diner in Victoria, I found exactly what I needed.  My family was about to start our voyage home after a lovely weekend away.  The kids were excited and a bit rambunctious.   As anyone that has had the pleasure of travelling with small children will know excited children are cute but they can seriously get under a parent’s skin when walking down busy streets and through security at an airport.  The day had just begun and I was already irritated.

On the back of the door in the bathroom was a sign.  It said “Take What You Need”  with little cut outs that a passer-by could rip off and take with them.  One of the tabs said “Patience.”  I ripped it off and put it in my pocket.  The sign was a simple gesture that I found myself thinking back to the rest of the day.  My daughter even asked about it occasionally.  “Mom do you still have your patience?” My answer always was the same.  “Yeah sweetheart.  It is right here in my pocket.”  That simple gift from an anonymous stranger with a bit of wit and some scotch tape made my day.

I was so inspired by this brief moment in my life that I have found myself taping these signs to random bathroom doors.  I took them to my class and shared them with my students.  They are posting them now too.  I even posted a picture of the sign on Facebook and one of my friends put a similar sign up on her office door.  She told me that she marvels at how the tags keep disappearing.  Sometimes they start a conversation.  Sometimes they are just gone.

Now one is on my office door as well.  I have had many stop at my door and ask me which ones people are taking.  I’m going to keep track.  That way I can update my tabs to reflect what people around me are looking for.

It is a simple gesture that has a surprising impact on hope.  Someone took the time out of their day to tape a silly sign on a door that warmed my heart.  I hope that my signs do the same for others.  You never know who needs a smile and a bit of encouragement.  And maybe the sign will empower someone to go ahead and take what they need.

I was disappointed a few weeks ago when TEDx St. Albert was cancelled.  I have always wanted to do a TED talk.  I have been inspired by many TED talks in so many different ways.  I was hoping that perhaps my talk could help inspire someone else the way that TED has inspired me.  Sadly I won’t get that chance yet.   So when I was given the chance to talk at Pecha Kucha St. Albert on November 15th, I jumped at it.  It is a drastically different speaking format and a challenging one for even the best public speakers.

Talking about grief is difficult at the best of times.  It is hard to balance the darkness of loss and the inspiration and hope hidden in that darkness all at the same time.  As with any good Social Worker, I don’t really feel that I am an expert.  I believe that the people that have privileged me with their stories are the experts.  I am, like everyone else in the school of life, merely a student.   So I have struggled with this talk.  How do I share the lessons I have learned in a way that honours the journey I have taken with my clients and is meaningful to those that will hear me speak?  My conclusion was simple, to ask the experts.

I asked everyone I know, and many I don’t this questio, “What has grief taught you?” Many of the answers have been simple,  others inspirational,  and others very sad.  They are answers filled with desperation, longing, and despair but mostly they are answers filled with compassion, connection and hope.  I will use these to help me build the framework of my talk.

I would love to hear from you as well.   What has grief taught you?

At this time of year many of us spend time with family and friends to give thanks for our many blessings.  I don’t want to bore you with a diatribe of the gifts in my life.  At this point I am well aware of how lucky I am for the life that I have.  The gift of the work that I do is that I am also painfully aware of how fragile that sense of peaceful contentment can be.

Holidays such as Thanksgiving can shake the emotional foundation of anyone who has suffered a loss.  It can cause grievers to re-experience the hole that a loved one left, or cause an addict to come publicly face-to-face with their addiction.   It can highlight the complications a divorce can have on children and it can force people to grit and bare another meal with their toxic family.   So while there are many things to be thankful for in my life, these times of year also remind me that holidays are not always the easiest time for many of us.

I am reminded of a story told to me many years ago from a survivor that lost her daughter to suicide.  Years after her daughter’s death she told me of one of her family’s holiday traditions.  Her family would sit around the table and reminisce about silly things that their children did when they were little.  Most years it was the same stories recycled from year to year.  Everyone knew what Grandpa would say and some would even join in on some of the punch lines which would only escalate the hilarity that ensued.  She told me about how after her daughter died this stopped for a while.  She thinks that it was awkward and painful for all at the table.

So for years she missed the stories and the embarrassed faces of the grown children.  You can imagine her joy when the tradition started up again.  She loved hearing the family fables.  She felt that her family was once again grounded in the present rather than grieving the past.  That is until she felt it was her turn to share a story about one of her daughter’s misadventures.

As she spoke of the silly story, instead of the regular laughter the room fell silent.  Even though she was ready to reintroduce her daughter’s life back into the room, others were still struggling with her daughter’s death.  She was proud of many of the things her daughter accomplished in her short life and didn’t want to lose those things when she lost her daughter’s life.  She described to me how important it was for her to share not just the sadness of her grief but to also share the memories of her daughter’s life.  She wanted to stay connected to her daughter by sharing a bit of her with others that also loved them both.

So this Thanksgiving I hope that you can be thankful for what you have, honour what you may have lost and make room for all of it around your dining room table.  Laugh, love, cry and be gentle with each other.

I was young and what I lacked in experience I made up for  in totally unearned confidence.  I knew I wanted to help people for a living and I was sure I was going to be great at it.  In order to grace the world with my innate mystical ability to heal,  I decided to volunteer on the Distress Line in Edmonton.

I went through their intense training program.  It was 54 hours of role plays and instruction on how to be a crisis volunteer.   To this day it still forms the foundation of my practice with people, more so than any of the courses and degrees I have gotten since.

After all the instruction I was ready to take my first call.  I was surprisingly nervous.  You never know what is going to be happening or who you will be talking to when you pick up the phone.   My trainers said I was ready but in those moments before the phone rang for the first time, my inflated confidence deflated.  I had no idea what I was doing.

When the phone finally rang, I was ready to make a run for it.

Ring-ring!

Someone else that knew what they were doing could take this one.

Ring-ring!

But all the other volunteers were busy.  It dawned on me that the person calling the crisis line might really need to talk to someone and I was the only one here.

Ring-ring!

Well crap! I took a deep breath and decided to fake courage.  I picked up the phone.

“Hello, is this Crosstown motors?”  Wrong number.   I can’t even begin to tell you how relieved I was until the phone rang again.

I picked it up this time immediately.  What I heard on the other end was a gentle sob.  My fears, and my anxiety didn’t matter anymore.  What mattered was this woman that was so sad that she was without words.  The advice of my trainers started coming back to me.

“Take your time,”  I said and I just sat there.  When she finally found her voice she told me a story about how her husband died.  She told me of their fight and her relief when he finally left.  She told me of how she was boiling a pot of water for a cup of tea when she heard the gunshot.  She told me of what it was like standing at the front door of her house knowing in her heart that when she opened the door her life would change. Then she told me about the flashes of people that paraded in and out of her house for the following weeks two weeks.  Police, family, funeral directors, neighbors.

I listened to her.  What the hell could I say to this woman?  I was in my idyllic twenties with virtually no real life experience with this stuff.  The only thing I could think to do was to listen.

At the end of the call she thanked me.  She thanked me.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  She showed such courage, vulnerability, and trust.  In that one phone call she showed me that I could do this, that I could listen and learn from the people that privileged me with their stories.

She did this by showing me that it wasn’t about me, about my skills, or about my inflated ego.  It was about her.

At the end of the phone call she taught me about hope.  Her gratefulness over the fact that I was willing to listen was inspiring.  She spoke of the faith she had that somehow would get through this. It showed me that hope is infallible.  It hides in the darkest corners.

I wish I could thank her for the gift that she gave me.

 

**Please keep in mind that the spirit of the story is true but the details are not. **

Every year like clockwork on September 11th I get a message.  They started as notes of thanks.  This year it was a simple “thinking of you”.  As the years go by there isn’t much need for anything more.  I know what she means.  I know what she is saying in her simple words.

On that disastrous day, I remember clearly waking up the morning not yet realizing the world had changed.  I was laying in bed and the alarm clock went off and as usual my then boyfriend (now husband) was hitting the snooze button when he sat up straight.  We went downstairs and were glued to CNN for hours.  Watching the towers fall again and again.

For those of us alive and old enough to understand, the stories of September 11th are familiar.  We all remember in great detail where we were and what we were doing when the towers fell.  At that moment somewhere over the North American sky an airplane was being rerouted in my direction.

I was 19 when I first met Jennie.  She was dating my brother and they lived together for years.   Despite our 12 year age difference she always treated me like I was a mature equal, even when my brother didn’t. For a girl that grew up with two older brothers, Jennie was the closest thing to an older sister that I had at that point in my life.  I was with them when they moved in together.  Jennie came to my first wedding.  My brother flew me down to be with them when my young marriage fell apart.  So you see she was a part of our family and a part of my life through some painful transitions. We all loved her.

For reasons better left between my brother and Jennie, it didn’t work out.  They split up and we understandably didn’t hear from Jennie for a while. When couples separate there is always collateral damage.  I already knew this from my own divorce.  It is a painful unfortunate reality.  My relationship with Jennie changed.   I was okay with it.  I assume that they made that choice for good reasons that had nothing to do with me.  I was saddened that I wouldn’t get a chance to say good bye.

Believe it or not I got that chance on September 11th.  Jennie is British.  She was flying back to Los Angeles after a visit with her family in England.  She was one of the unfortunate souls that had their planes grounded when the terrorists forced the closure of American airspace.  By complete serendipity her plane landed in Edmonton.  Thankfully she was bold enough to call my parents and ask for a place to stay.  My parents were happy to oblige.

It was a gift for my parents to see her again.  It was a gift for me to get the opportunity to talk to her, acknowledge her role in my life and for her to see me happy and healthy.  And I think it was a gift for her to have familiar people to share the terrifying, intense and chaotic experinece with.

We have all grown and changed since that time.  My brother is married to a wonderful woman that I am proud to call my sister in law.  They have two kids.  Jennie has a husband and son.  I am married with kids of my own.  I can only hope that we are all happy.  I know I am.   But every September 11th I get a message that reminds me of her, reminds me of a younger version of myself and reminds me that even in the terror of that day, there are stories of wonder and hope.

 

I was in an accident about 6 months ago.  I was rear ended on a pretty snowy morning.  I had no idea that I was injured.  Not for a few days anyway.  Not until a few days later when my stiffness progressed to not being able to move my neck and numbness in my fingers.  I chose to go to a chiropractor.  Mostly because I know of a good one and he was able to get me in much faster than anyone else.  For the first four months I saw him twice a week.  He was kind, but also kicked my butt on a regular basis for not taking care of myself the way I should.  I was afterall “injured”.

As the months progressed, I got much better but in the past few months I am still stiff and we haven’t gotten anywhere.  Our last session, my Chiropractor gave me the “talk”.  He told me that in order to progress any further I was going to have to get back to exercising, do a better job stretching and work out.  I mean who is he kidding.  I don’t have time for that.  I am a busy woman.  I am teaching soon.  I am setting up my own private practice and I work part time.  I also have two small children to watch and a house to clean.

Later in the day when I was talking to a client.  I was having the same talk with them.  “You need to prioritize your health,” I said to my client.  “You are worth it”.

OK Henry, I get it.