Showing Up

In my previous posts, I have touched on what it means for me for the people in my life to Show Up when I’m sick.  From the Caring Letters approach to suicide prevention I refer to in Is “Suicide Survivors’” Grief a Lie?, to listing the simple things people do that actually help at the end of The Happy Mask, to the article I shared on Validation in my What Resonates post.       

Here’s the thing.  I HATE telling people HOW to Show Up.  As I said in my Vocabulary of Depression post, if they actually understood how I felt, to me, how to be supportive would be obvious.  When I tell people HOW to Show Up, when they do, it doesn’t feel genuine.  It just feels like I’m helping myself.  Usually, I’m already doing everything humanly possible to supposedly help myself, begging you to Show Up feels like that same kind of work.  And when I’m really down in the dumps, I do not want to exert any effort to help myself, I want to fucking die.  

And when I tell you HOW to Show Up, you’ll do it, you usually don’t ignore me, but literally five minutes later, you get busy and any concern about me falls to the bottom of your incredibly long priority list.  From my point of view, I’ve quickly fallen into oblivion and just given myself a false expectation I could rely on you.  And disappointment is brutal for depression, I wish I had never asked to begin with.  You tell us to be hopeful, to have faith things get better, but if we have any hopes or expectations that are dashed, we are told we are too negative, fixating only on the bad.  Consistent, continuous caring always seems like too much to ask.   I don’t want to ask anymore. 

I’ll remind myself and follow up with everyone who does offer me any kindness, thank them a million times, express my appreciation, buy gifts even, hoping that instead of this serving as reassurance that I’m better that it encourages them to keep caring.  But it’s not as effective as I’d like, and it just reinforces this notion that I’m a burden and that anyone who feeds me a crumb of kindness, deserves a medal.  And I’ve incurred a debt, and I must be mindful in the future to match their act of kindness.  Usually that comes naturally to me, if someone is suffering, my illness has given me an enormous capacity to empathize and doing something feels obvious. I’m not perfect, I too get busy and consumed in my own shit, but I always try.  But the need to repay others for seemingly endlessly taking care of me still looms large over me. 

This article really spoke to me, on so many levels, below is a particularly poignant excerpt for me:

Beyond Self-Care Bubble Baths:
A Vision for Community Care

If I and other people with certain disabilities are going to survive, we need care — and not from ourselves. Because when it gets really bad for me, self-care is literally impossible. In those moments, I need community care.

I need a support network of loving comrades who are willing to do the work it takes to make sure I don’t die. I need people who will check in on me and see what I really need when I make a cryptic Facebook post, not just comment with hearts and “sending positive thoughts!” messages. I need dinners made, laundry done and my apartment cleaned, rides to (and motivational support to attend) therapy.

Because of the pervasive stigma in our culture, bolstered by self-care rhetoric, around being a burden on others, people with disabilities are often left fending for themselves in whatever ways they can and suffering as a result. The stigma around asking for too much help is an ableist stigma that we have to break down. The societally acceptable form of the burden usually falls on “significant others” like our spouses or family members. But it can be too much for such a small group, and many of us don’t have access to significant others or family anyway. If I’m going to survive, I need a team on my side. I offer a lot to the community in other ways when I’m healthy, but even if I didn’t, I still deserve to live.

Show Up.  Don’t Show Up.  It’s up to you.  Figure it fucking out yourself.  And If you don’t Show Up, then let me die in peace.  I’m telling you right now, you do not have my permission to mourn my suicide.